CLICK! Another blog posted. CLICK CLICK! Now a new Instagram post. BOOM! Gaining 100 more followers a minute. When English teacher, Amy Gramlich, isn’t grading papers, she’s posting on social media. When and how did this begin, though?
“I’ve done it for a while but probably more seriously around 2016, it’s been about five years.” Gramlich says
“Well, I actually started my blog a long time ago, before I really knew what blogging was and at that point it was just for my family and friends. After I had that going for a while, I realized as I was looking on Pinterest, I was like oh everything I’m going to on Pinterest is a blog. I should kinda change the direction with mine and make it more like that. So then I joined some blogging groups and it kinda got going from there.”
Mrs. Gramlich is an ESOL teacher (Teaches English to students who don’t speak English) at Bryant Junior High and Bryant Middle School. Teaching and a social media career sounds difficult to balance. How does she do it?
“I have to be careful not to do any of my blogging/social media during the school day, so anything I need to do I either schedule it out or save it for doing it at night time. I have to be mindful. I have two different jobs, when I’m here I’m trying to be present about here, and when I’m at home, I’m trying to be focused on that. It’s kinda like a balancing act.” The influencer says.
This can also affect life with her family too, “I find myself feeling sometimes like I can’t be present in the moment. Like if I go with my family somewhere, oh I need to take a picture of this, I need to put this on Instagram, or I need to get some pictures for a future blog post. So it is difficult sometimes to just be present and not worry about the social media part of things.” Gramlich explained.
Balancing teaching life, home life and social media life seems hard but she manages it. Not only does she post about her life but she works with companies, too!
“Yes, I’ve worked with a lot of companies. My biggest thing is probably my blog. But because I have my blog, I have my social media channels that go with it. I have worked with Nestle, Walmart, National Geographic Kids, lots of clothing companies, home decor companies and travel places.” The teacher says.
Some very big companies to work with, but what’s her favorite business to work with?
“I like to work with home decor businesses and travel bureaus, I love traveling so I find that really fun when I can work with a travel group within a particular city like whether its Nashville or Oklahoma City.”
The Media influencer shares that she enjoys travel businesses because she likes to travel, promoting what you like to do is smart and makes sense. She has a favorite business but does any of the corporations benefit her?
“Yes, let’s say I’m doing a post for Press Waffle Company, a new Waffle company we have in downtown Little Rock, So recently they asked me to come and influence them. Then two weeks later they shared my photo on their account, which got me some more followers.”
Even more followers from just a photo! That’s definitely a big benefit from working with companies. Mrs. Gramlich makes this second career of hers successful.
Mrs. Gramlich is a teacher, a mom and an influencer. She has a blog, which gets around forty-thousand views a month, and Instagram that has around ten-thousand followers. “On instagram ten-thousand [followers] but really my blog is my bigger thing. I get about forty-thousand views a month. That’s how I make most of the money is views on the blog more so than the Instagram.”