Ever wondered what influencers do all day? Every week we're going to be chatting to famous social media influencers to find out exactly what they do on an average day.
This week we spoke to influencer Anastasia Kingsnorth. The YouTuber known for her hilarious 24 hour challenges has opened up about life before becoming a full time content creator, the summer her YouTube videos went viral and her private Instagram account.
Name: Anastasia Kingsnorth
Age: 21 years old
Platforms: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter
Anastasia Kingsnorth on life before YouTube
It's been 10 years since Ana first started her YouTube channel and as well as having 1.3million subscribers on her main channel and over 500k on her vlogging channel, it's now her full time job.
And what you might not know is that Ana first started on YouTube when she was just 11 years old and actually used her laptop camera and then her iPad to film and edit her earlier videos.
"I started opening toys and I loved it. I don't know why I started doing it, I guess I just really fancied filming videos," she exclusively told heat.
"I did that for three or four years - I knew from such a young age that YouTube was what I wanted to do, I instantly fell in love with it - but I didn't want to do a toy opening forever.
"So when I was 14/15 I moved into the make-up, beauty industry and I just started doing that and made a new channel, did make-up on it and here I am today".
However life hasn't always been this way and in fact, when we spoke to Ana she admitted her life now and her life before are "two complete different worlds".
"Before I did YouTube we didn't have a lot of money at all."
"Before I did YouTube we didn't have a lot of money at all. We didn't live a very fortunate life even though my mum always did the absolute best and we didn't have a lot at all.
"I remember because I was filming on my laptop, I was begging my mum because I needed something else to film on and she worked so hard to get me that iPad.
"She got it in a paid monthly contract because we just couldn't afford to buy it outright."
She continued, "But now it's amazing because all I ever wanted to do was be able to give back to my mum. So for me to be able to do this and then bring her and be like 'I can take you on holiday and we can go'.
"My mum even does Instagram now full time because she loves doing it, she loves fashion so the whole thing has changed our life completely."
"I didn't have that one video that blew me up overnight"
Ana's life may have changed completely but it didn't happen overnight in fact, the social media content creator admitted that her platform growing "felt very much like a slow burner".
"I've been doing it for such a long time, I didn't have that one video that blew me up overnight and that was it I had loads of subscribers.
"It was very steady until August 2018 when I started doing a lot of 24 hour challenges and at the time they were the trending video on YouTube, everyone was doing them and mine every single week would just hit the algorithm.
"The first one that blew up was 24 hours in my car. And at the time it got 1.5 or 1.6 million within a couple of days. It was crazy. I didn't think it was gonna get that many views at all.
"Because I kept hitting the YouTube trending page, I was getting a whole new audience of people who had never seen me.
"So through the whole summer I was getting a million views on every single video that I uploaded and I feel like that was when I really realised I can actually do something with this now, I've got a solid audience that I can grow off.
"I think within that summer period from August, September and October I gained about 250,000 subscribers."
And funnily enough it was during that successful summer on Ana's YouTube channel where she actually took a break from sixth form.
She was going to study photography, English literature and either biology or physics but at the time she had 250,000 subscribers so decided to drop out. Luckily her headteacher said she could return to sixth form the following year but "luckily in that year my YouTube channel took off," Ana told us.
Last year during lockdown Ana was "shocked" when her food content blew up on YouTube.
"I thought it'd be fun to create all the fast food meals at home so I was doing McDonald, KFC and they blew up. They got picked up by so many media outlets it was everywhere. I didn't expect that response from that type of video."
A day in the life of Anastasia Kingsnorth
During our chat we had to ask Ana what she gets up to on a typical day and it turns out she kind of has a 9-5 job where she actually goes into the office.
"Ever since I’ve come out of lockdown and moved out, that’s when I’ve got an actual structure to my day now and I know I start at 9am every day as opposed to waking up and just rolling out a bed at 11 and starting at 12.
"So now I wake up at about eight o'clock in the morning and then I'll get ready.
"Then I have two people that come into the office every single day and work with me and they come in at nine, we'll have a little meeting, discuss what we're going to do that day and then all go off do our own bits of film, edit, take pictures, meetings, podcast and then they leave at five.
"I would like to say I log off at five but we don't. We have a group chat and you're constantly thinking of something new you can do. So even at like 10 o'clock at night I'm still subconsciously working because I'm on Instagram, looking for something I can do like an Instagram picture or something. I don't think you ever log off."
Ana went on to admit that she "finds it hard to switch off" because her social media platforms are full of other influencers and YouTubers.
However it turns out that she does actually have a private Instagram account, "I have got one which has got my friends on it so we can just post silly stuff on it. I go on that every night which is nice because it's my time to like properly log off."
Now for Ana, who is on multiple different social media platforms, the way she schedules content differs across the different websites.
With YouTube?
"It differs from week to week but I’ll film at least two videos every single week. If it’s a sit down video, I could honestly film it within an hour because you just sit there and talk to the camera.
"When I surprised my mum and my little brother with a trip to Disney World. That took three days of filming and three or four days of thinking about it, the logistics of it, how are we going to do it."
With TikTok?
"I’ve dropped off a little bit recently I need to get back on that it’s just because of YouTube we’ve been so busy that to try and do it all, it’s just physically impossible, you just can’t do it."
With Instagram?
"I feel like a lot of influencers do this. They have a day, they’ll go and take pictures for like two weeks [worth of content]. I do that so three days ago we went out and you go up and down the stairs, change your outfit, go back out, change your hair... So it looks like you’re doing it all on different days but you're doing it on one day."
And Ana admitted that her Instagram content days are actually her favourite because it allows her to put all her photos on an app where she can plan her Instagram feed.
Ana is so organised that even though it's now autumn, when she went abroad, she made sure all her holiday outfits go with her current theme. Not only that but she's already preparing for Christmas content too.
"We've planned every single day because it’s got to be pre filmed because I’m doing vlogmas, so I'm uploading a vlog every single day on top of the two main channel videos I'm already doing - so it's 35 videos to get out in December."
"People think that just a normal day vlog will go up in December but I’ve pre planned it in September," she added.
As well being so organised one thing Ana loves about her job is how much creative freedom she has.
"You can literally wake up and film whatever you want to film and do whatever you want to do.
"So knowing that I can wake up every day and not only make myself happy but also make so many other people happy, I still love it just as much as I did back when I first started."
However nowadays Ana is her own boss and she's admitted, "It's crazy".
"I never thought I’d be in this like position ever but it takes a lot of motivation because even though I have people I work with and I’ve got an amazing management team, it's solely on me.
So you have to be very motivated to do it, you have to push yourself a lot. So even though it’s the best thing in the world, it can also be quite hard because you’ve not got people necessarily telling you what to do."
When it comes to the difficult part of being an influencer, Ana admitted "you have to be very thick skinned".
"No matter what you do, you're never going to be able to please everyone. So you have to be very open to the fact that you're going to be judged. A lot of people aren't going to like you, everything you do is going to be nitpicked.
"As I've gotten older I've been a bit more aware - because I now know what the social media world is like - but growing up it was such a new world and it definitely wasn't as intense as it probably is now.
"So I shared a lot more without thinking about it. So I definitely do look back and think 'Oh my God I probably shouldn't have said that' but I've learned my boundaries as I've gotten older, so now I'm just a little bit more like guarded than I probably was like four years ago."
However on the positive side of influencing she admitted, "You have so much creative freedom, you really can do whatever you want, you get to work with amazing brands, you can meet amazing people.
"The things I've done and the people I've worked with is something I only could have dreamed off when I was 13."
And one of the perks of being your own boss is being able to work with friends.
"I've got my editor Callum who edits all my videos for me now, my friend Freya who works with me as an assistant and my other best friend Byron he always shoots all of the pictures so it's literally like a little family.
"It's the best thing ever and it doesn't feel like work at all. Obviously working with your friends it can be a risky thing but it has been the best thing ever because I know that they want the best for me.
"I literally couldn't ask for like better people to work with we have so much fun."
WATCH: 'She will propose first!' Love Island's Chloe and Toby play Mr & Mrs 💍
READ MORE
Madison Sarah on her faith, boyfriend and her first viral video | The Influencer Series
Flossie Clegg on how she gained 250k subscribers in ONE month | The Influencer Series
Ana Kingsnorth's future plans
When we asked Ana what we can expect from her in the upcoming months she teased, "There's so much stuff that like I'm working on that I've always wanted to do which is amazing."
And when we asked Ana if she's ever want to go on TV (because she made a cameo on Britain's Got Talent) she said, "Potentially. That is my end goal from the whole of YouTube to go into presenting."
However she added, "My dream show to go on is I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here or Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway".