How To Hire A Team & Kickstart Your Influencer Era

These days, the Venn diagram of reality star and influencer looks like an eclipse. For personalities who make a career out of being themselves on camera, the transition to a life of brand deals and sponcon is a natural next step. But crushing it on social media isn’t always as easy as turning heads on television, and if your star power shines especially bright, the opportunities that come a-knocking may be too numerous to answer alone. “Maybe there’s a million and one job offers coming in — how do you even get through all of that?” Love Island USA host Ariana Madix says of the challenges contestants face after leaving the Villa. “So many of them didn’t go into the show with representation and somebody to help them navigate all of that. Trying to figure that out must be really tough.”

Especially when the job descriptions in this arena can seem hard to parse from the outside: Do you need a manager and an agent? Does a social media agency help you with posting content or connecting you to brands? (Or both?) We asked experts across a variety of roles how reality-star-turned-influencers should approach building a team.

Where do I start?

By identifying your own ambitions and career goals. If you’re planning to keep your day job and just want to earn some sponcon checks on the side, you may not need to build out a team. A small-scale reality star with tens of thousands of followers is “able to make $30,000 to $50,000 a year being a micro-influencer,” says Paul DeSisto, the founder of PD Talent, which has managed and represented reality stars for more than a decade. “You wouldn’t have a team involved with that business.”

“It depends on (a) how far you want to go, and (b) what level your show or your career is at at that point where you start popping off,” says Next Gen NYC star Emira D’Spain, who was already a model and beauty influencer prior to going on reality television. (She’s signed to management firm Underscore Talent and United Talent Agency.) “For people who are just coming into the reality TV world and trying to build an influencing specific career, I think you definitely need a manager and a publicist. If you are wanting to go even beyond that and be in modeling and acting and all those things, then you layer in an agent. And from there you can add in strategists and creative directors.”

“A mistake some contestants make is thinking that just hiring the publicist is just going to do the work of keeping you in the conversation.”

How do I know it’s time for a manager?

If you consistently receive inbound interest from brands but don’t know what to do with those queries — or you need help finding the right partnerships that aren’t already in your inbox — a manager is a great place to start, says Bella McDaniel, senior influencer manager at Day 1 Talent Agency. “You just need somebody with the contacts to be able to pitch you and get you in front of brands and place you correctly,” says McDaniel (who’s also a content creator in her own right, making videos about the life of a talent manager). In her role, she brokers deals from inception to execution: feeling out potential partners, negotiating rates and handling contracts, ensuring on-time deliverables, and basically making sure a brand gets everything it asked for (and that talent gets paid).

Managers can also be helpful first hires because they do a little bit of everything. “I’m a talent manager, but I’m also a brand manager and a talent agent,” DeSisto says. “At the end of the day, you’re representing talent — what do they need at that current time?”

Wait, don’t I need a lawyer?

Eventually! “At a certain follower range and the complexity of their life, they would need a lawyer,” McDaniel says of a hypothetical client. And while it never hurts to have one ready, a lawyer doesn’t necessarily have to be your first hire. If you have an agent for acting or modeling, or a talent manager handling brand deals, you might have your most immediate needs covered already. “I would say it is safe to assume that your agents in their respective fields are able to handle any legal documents pertaining to that kind of work,” McDaniel adds.

That’s more or less how Amaya “Papaya” Espinal, winner of Love Island USA Season 7, approached assembling her own team (which includes talent management company Untitled Entertainment and the Gersh agency). “I really think if you’re coming fresh out that island and this is your first time in this new world,” she says, “it’s manager, agency, then lawyer.

Do I need a publicist?

Getting specialized PR help may not be a priority if you’re just focused on growing your influencer business. But it’s worth considering if you’ll be doing a lot of interviews to promote your work, or need help achieving a certain image and establishing yourself in certain spaces. “It’s a lot of outward pitching for events, awards shows, and opportunities that feel like a fit for your career — and being selective about what you do go to, what you don’t go to,” D’Spain says of a publicist’s work. (She’s repped by Brandsway Creative.) It’s been particularly helpful when navigating the fashion world: “We’ve done at least 10 fashion weeks together.”

Witchhouse PR founder Robbie Manulani — who’s worked with RuPaul’s Drag Race alumni including Jinkx Monsoon, Sasha Velour, and Monét X Change — cautions that publicity is not as easy as just pushing a button. “Every queen is different, and each has their own talents, skills, projects, and shows,” Manulani says. “And I think a mistake that some contestants make on Drag Race specifically is thinking that the show is going to make your career, or just hiring the publicist is just going to do the work of keeping you in the conversation.”

“When you’re filming all day, you don’t have as much time to stay on top of your social media.”

And whether you’re a drag queen or a Love Islander, your mileage with a publicist will depend on your own vision for yourself. A publicist, in turn, can help you make sense of which opportunities fit into the bigger picture (and how). Before Monsoon became a renowned Broadway (and now West End) star, Manulani helped put her theater talents front and center by establishing her relationships with legacy theater media, pushing her commercial appeal in the trades and beyond, and using interviews and TV appearances to connect with theater fans around the world.

“I hone in on people who know what they want, because if you get too caught up in the results, then you’re missing out on the great opportunities right in front of you,” Manulani says. “Every opportunity that you take, whether that’s press or social media, is a building block, and it just becomes part of the regimen.”

And it’s important that the rest of your team is aligned on that regimen, D’Spain adds. “If everyone’s on the same page, then you’re all pitching the same things, and everyone has a clear goal. You have these moments that we all want to achieve, like, OK, we want Sports Illustrated — this is how we’re going to work backward from there to get that,” she says. “That is truly the way to have success in this industry.”

Do you need help with social media?

While being a reality star and a content creator increasingly go hand in hand, they aren’t always one and the same. “When someone comes off a TV show, 90 to 95% of people don’t make it long [online] because you have to understand that social media is a lot different than how it was 10 years ago,” DeSisto says. “A lot of them aren’t able to keep up because they’re not used to their competition being content creators. It’s so unnatural for someone who comes off TV and has no idea what they’re doing to post five to 10 TikToks a week.”

“If you’re coming fresh out Love Island and this is your first time in this new world, it’s manager, agency, then lawyer.”

When the work of posting and managing brand deals doesn’t leave time in the day to get everything done, that’s when it’s time to consider outsourcing. “Say you’re filming a second season of a reality TV show,” says Cassie Petri, cofounder and CEO of Crowd Surf, a digital marketing agency. (The company primarily works with musicians but has helped reality stars with social media management and strategy in the past.) “When you’re filming all day, you don't have as much time to stay on top of your social media, so you may need somebody like us to help you organize that or make your shot list tighter, or take all the content you shot and edit it for you.”

One of Petri’s earliest roles was as a digital producer on TheX Factor, where she taught the contestants how to capitalize on the momentum they built on the show and leverage their reach on social media. A core piece of her advice: Whatever your goals are, you have to be present — the most important member of your team, after all, is yourself. “You can hire people to do labor and give you great advice,” Petri says, “but you are going to have to be the expert in your voice, what you have to say, and what aligns with you.”