Meet Ellie, the London blogger/Instagrammer/YouTuber who's colourful feed will make you want to hop on the next train to the Capital.
Elle started her blog, Elle Next Door, 7 years ago as a hobby and has now grown a platform of over 110 thousand followers on Instagram and nearly 40,000 subscribers on YouTube.
Elle began her blog to take her mind off her 'stressful' career in TV production, where she worked on shows such as The X-Factor, Britain's Got Talent and TOWIE. While Elle enjoyed this job, her passion was what she was wearing, the food she was eating (Elle has coeliac disease and loves to share her favourite gluten free finds from all over the world), and pretty much whatever she was thinking.
We asked Elle, 'what is your favourite thing about blogging?'
"Ooh, this is a toughie. There are so many things I love. I love being able to travel, and being my own boss. But mostly I love the friends for life that I've made."
Elle got into blogging by reading blogs such as Zoella, Corrie from Dizzy brunette and Pixiwoo. "I always wanted to do it, but I never really had the balls. I decided to start writing on my one day off a week. I genuinely never thought anybody would read it and I did it purely for myself, but over the next few months the views really started to pick up!"
Since starting her blog, Elle has released her own line of slogan t-shirts and fronting an advertisement campaign that was shown on bus stops and billboards across the UK, pretty goals right!?
For any creator, balancing 'blogger' life with 'normal' life must be pretty overwhelming. We asked Elle how she deals with this:
"Well, my blog has been neglected for a while now. It was my baby, my first ever platform and still is to this day, my favourite platform. But with the rise of Instagram - my own and as a whole - I find it so hard to produce content over there every day, and reply to emails, film youtube videos AND blog.
"I'll give you an example. The average Instagram post for me will involve planning an outfit to specifically match the background, researching a location that I haven't shot at before which also matches my theme, a 2 hour round trip to get to said location, 1 hour to edit...you get the gist. Then add in 4/5 hours of emails per day, negotiating projects, responding to invites, creating content briefs etc. Plus 4 hour to film and edit an entire video.
"I am by no means moaning, or asking for a pity party, I'm just explaining that it is hard to manage. And if I don't feel inspired to create content...I simply won't do it. I have got better at managing my 'normal life' because I tend to delete Instagram whenever I need a break, and just call out. I got to a point where I'd seen so many beautiful countries, but I'd seen them through my phone and not my eyes, and I wasn't prepared to do that anymore!"
Over the past 7 years Elle has made some super cool content, visited some amazing countries and brought out the cutest march. We asked what we can expect to see over the next 7 years?
"It's so difficult for me to guess where I'll be in 7 years simply because social media is changing so much! I don't think Instagram will be the biggest platform at all in 7 years so I hope I continue branching out into other platforms and avenues. I am also doing more presenting this year so I'm hoping something will come from that!"
You can check out all of Elle's social media by following the links here:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ellenextdoor
Instagram: https://twitter.com/ellenextdoor
Thanks so much for reading this post, we hope you enjoyed! Don't forget to leave any suggestions for creators you want to see on The Influencer!
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