Pro Tips: How to Become a Successful Influencer in 2025 with Tess Barclay and Kenzie Elizabeth

The creator economy isn’t just booming—it’s practically nuclear. A recent report from Deloitte estimates that there are about 50 million creators generating content for five billion social media users worldwide. The industry is expected to be worth $2 trillion by 2026. So yes—being an influencer or content creator is a real job. But how do you make it actually work for you? Social media and content expert Tess Barclay, founder of “social media’s favorite office,” Busy Blooming, joined House Guest with Kenzie Elizabeth to share her top influencer tips for 2025.

How did Tess Barclay become a social media pro?

Barclay started posting social media content when she was in high school, but her strategic mindset didn’t click until she started working in tech. “I always remember I was in this one meeting with my old boss,” she says. He was talking about how you can take an AI tech product and you can position it in the market. And I just remember thinking, ‘This is how influencers should work. Like this is how creators should think about their strategy.’”

If a tech company is marketing an AI product, for example, there’s a “whole team of people thinking, ‘Okay, how can we make this like different and unique than the other ones?’” Barclay explains. “I started taking those corporate strategies and bringing them into TikTok and talking about social media and content in a fun way.”

The strategic principals are the same in social media, adds Barclay—the only difference is that the product is you. “Your full-time job is just to think of this product and how you can make it different and stand out.”

Don’t let social media oversaturation scare you 

The idea of standing out on social media is a little daunting when people are always talking about how “oversaturated” the content space is. 

“It’s really hard to try to think, ‘How am I different?’” says Barclay. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do it. In fact, she suspects the fear of not standing out enough is what’s holding a lot of people back.

“The whole oversaturation conversation is kind of boring,” she admits. “I think that people just use that as an excuse to not go after what they want to do. It’s kind of a cop out.”

Often, when people blame oversaturation for why they’re not creating, it’s because they fear failure. But Barclay says everyone’s ideas are worth sharing.

“There are so many things that are different about us,” she exclaims. “Our sense of humor, our experiences. That should be at the front of your brand as a creator.”

So how do you get started as a content creator?

It can be hard to see what makes you unique and special—after all, you’ve been you your whole life! 

When figuring out your content strategy, Barclay suggests taking a step back to examine your own expertise. “Forget social media for a second and imagine: If you were to be invited as a guest on your favorite podcast, what would you want someone to ask you?”

Imagine the most successful version of your content creation journey. Five or even ten years down the line, what do you want to have given to your audience? Whatever the answer is, that’s where you should start.

Personify your audience

Whatever your strategy is, it’s not going to appeal to the entire internet—so don’t try. Instead, identify your perfect target audience and make them feel real to you. 

“Make up a fake person in your head,” says Barclay. This person is your ideal viewer. “They’re obsessed with you. They think you’re hilarious, and they have the same sense of humor as you. That is who you’re going to talk to in every single video, Instagram carousel, or podcast.”

Once you know your ideal listener, “Think of a few problems that they have and goals that they have,” suggests Barclay. “Then what you’re doing really is building all your content around helping that person with something.”

“Some people might be listening like, ‘I have no idea,’” says Barclay, but don’t wait for the perfect concept. “Just pick something and go with it. It will probably change as you evolve and change as a person too.”

Focus on your mission over metrics

Whoever your audience is, your goal should be to help them, explains Barclay. Focusing on gaining followers instead of creating genuinely useful content will make your work less organic. “Instead of saying to yourself all the time, ‘I want 10,000 followers,’ try to think, ‘I want 10,000 people to feel something from my content.’” Barclay suggests. Putting your audience first not only creates a better experience for them, it also helps you as a creator. 

“Try to view social media as a ‘how,’ not a ‘what.’ So stop saying, ‘I want to be a content creator, I want to be an influencer,’ and start thinking about a deeper, bigger mission.” Social media is a tool for executing that mission.

For example, if the mission is “I want to help young women in post-grad feel confident at the office,” says Barclay, “You can talk about meeting anxiety, how to dress, how to make friends, all those things.” 

To achieve more growth and more impact, focus on building something that’s good instead of something that’s popular. “Try to imagine you’re building a community, a corner of social media that’s just yours,” Barclay says. “It’s so much more fun.”

You don’t have to constantly pump out content

Contrary to popular belief, posting a million times a day is not necessarily the key to internet success, says Barclay. In fact, that can lead to burnout.

“You don’t have to burn out and like crash out to be a content creator,” Barclay firmly insists. “You just don’t. I feel like that’s the advice you hear all the time, like ‘post at least three times a day on every platform.’” Barclay quotes Mel Robbins, adding, “Mental health is the best business strategy. I feel like it’s the best content strategy too.”

Barclay emphasizes that creators are essentially building businesses, and “if you are happy and grounded and rested, your content is just gonna be better.”

Start small, says Barclay, with just one or two social media platforms. In 2025, she recommends starting with YouTube and Instagram.

Organizing your content every week around a theme gives you structure, which can help you avoid burnout.

“Take content week by week,” she says, “What I think is actually the best way to approach it, if you’re really busy, is to do a weekly theme. Pick a question for the week that you want to answer.”

Sticking with the example of content aimed at helping post-grad women feel confident, Barclay offers this example: “Your weekly theme could be meeting anxiety. Then your whole week of content on all your social media platforms could be about meeting anxiety, whether it’s a ‘day in your life’ vlog where the voiceover is about meeting anxiety or a sit-down YouTube video.”

Instagram: the 2025 growth hack

“Instagram is so peaceful. It’s the easiest place to grow,” says Barclay.

Instagram Carousels are the easiest way to get your content to a wide audience. “If you add music to a carousel, it goes to the Reels feed. And the Reels feed is literally designed to reach people who don’t follow you.”

Using Carousels may be quicker and easier than creating a new video every day, which means you can make more of them. They’re also the only type of content on Instagram that appears to people multiple times. “So if I see your Carousel come up and I rudely scroll past,” says Barclay, “it will come back up to me again. Other content doesn’t do that on Instagram.”

If you’re a YouTube podcaster or creator, Barclay suggests using AI to step up your IG Carousel game. “You could take your podcast episode, get an .RTF file of the text, put it in ChatGPT and say, ‘Make me 20 carousels from this episode I just made.’ Then you could literally turn that into a week of content.”

The main takeaways from Tess Barclay’s influencer tips

In an era where everyone and every company is competing for the same eyeballs, Barclay’s approach offers a better alternative to the typical “post more, hustle harder” rhetoric that dominated influencer culture’s early days. Perhaps the secret to standing out in 2025’s creator economy isn’t about shouting louder than everyone else. It’s about knowing exactly who you’re whispering to. 

If you treat content creation like product development—with intentionality, audience awareness, and sustainable output—you’ll have a blueprint for longevity in a space prone to burnout from chasing virality. Here are the top three tips from Barclay’s new influencer playbook to follow: 

1. Know yourself. There is absolutely something special and unique about you. Finding that is the key to creating your influencer strategy. 
2. Know your mission. Decide what you want to give to your followers and focus on providing a genuinely helpful service, rather than obsessing over your number of followers. When you make mission-centric content, the followers will come. Especially if you follow step three:
3. Understand Instagram, and stay up to date on how the algorithm is changing. Carousels are the new big thing, but who knows what it might be next?

For more of Tess Barclay’s social media and influencer wisdom, listen to the full episode of House Guest with Kenzie Elizabeth.