How My Dog Became a Micro Influencer on Instagram
I started my Instagram account as an outlet to both have some relief during long hours waiting on the medical status of a family member, and to connect with other French Bulldogs owners. At the time, French bulldogs were not even a top twenty most popular breed, whereas now they are top five on the American Kennel Club list in the US and number one in the UK, where I currently reside.
The account changed from being a private to a public account when a curated channel wanted to feature my dog. I had made it private for a time to escape the people who follow me across platforms that had complained I posted too many photos of my dog on Facebook. It made me formulate my own policy not to judge others by how the represent, or don’t, their stress/grief/emotions online. Misery loves company, but Facebook loves positive posts. I digress.
Instagram gave me the outlet I needed, it wasn’t an automatic follow back and it connected me from the first post (yes, it started public), to other Frenchie lovers. The breed has very specific issues so it was valuable to connect with about others online about those, as well as have a new dog community that knew nothing about the rest of my life.

(*The above is how we ended up in a Lulu Guiness Contest in partnership with Lady Di’s favorite South Ken restaurant going dog-friendly.)
A month before we moved to England, the dream goal of every New York dog parent came true when The Dogist, aka Elias Weiss Freidman, took my dog, Elle’s photo. Six months later his book was released with Elle smack in the center of the SASSY section (p. 127 utters the proud dog mom.)
When I arrived in the U.K. there weren’t a lot of modern dog companies or events. I began connecting with other dogs and their humans from Instagram, forming a little group of low-riders (that’s low to the ground for non-dog humans), which consisted of my Frenchie, a Corgi and a daschund, which led to all of us being asked to represent the respective breeds for The Kennel Club.
The press for appearing on the charity stand for The Kennel Club at a meet-the-breed event called Discover Dogs and Crufts, the world’s largest dog show, drove offers and features, but what made Elle a favorite with local British brands was a featured I curated the clothing and models for on mrssizzle.com.

Teetering at the brink of 13K followers, there are larger accounts that are stagnant due to false purchased inflations, who cannot regain traction following the bot killing Instagram did or the algorithm changes which disrupted the platform last year, only serving 30% of the content it used to and non-chronologically. Thanks engineers. You know better then everyone.
There are also newer accounts flying by us, who are clueless when it comes to monetizing, asking for advice, as are there large ones with over 90K. I’m fine with that, it’s part of being in the community, the secret is avoiding the thirsty climbers, which is increasingly difficult with the known success of influencers on the platform.
Brands we have done posts for include Diesel and The Body Shop (neither sell dog products), Barbour Dogs, American Eagle EU, Mercure Hotels, and Malin + Goetz. They know the value of micro influencers with high engagement from respected members of a community. There is a definite balance with ads and the approach. While Fashion Grammers get away with every item being tagged, too many ads in a short span of time can come off as badly as the I mix in Elle being a dog and if I think there are too many endorsements in a small amount of time I back off of them, get her grid (the top 9–12 most recent posts), back on course by showing her being the happy little dog she is in real life.
Being named after supermodel Elle “The Body” MacPherson, my Elle turned out to be a natural poser. Two weeks ago, we were invited to enjoy a dog friendly weekend at The Mercure Hotel in Warwickshire, along with other influencers. We turned out to be the only dog influencers, others included press who have and dogs, and human influencers who have dogs. They were all shocked to see that Elle truly poses for the camera. If she didn’t, I wouldn’t be doing this. As it is, it serves to help me connect with influencers, understand the data, experiement with strategies and go on the greatest unexpected adventures with my dog.
