After Hours With Amanda
Social media more often than not can be perceived as a negative space full of judgement and loads of misinformation. It can be draining to those who consume all of the different information provided to us. What ends up becoming refreshing to us is when we see people who are unapologetically normal and not living through a highlight reel like most ‘influencers’ are. There are quite a few influencers who are making strides to exhibit this, but one that stands out to me in specific is Amanda Bouldin. As many of you might know her by her username, @afterhourswithamanda. Amanda is a thirty-five year old wife and a Mother of three girls. Her three daughters are London (7), Paige, (4), and Corie (2). Amanda started posting family content and photos on her instagram around early 2019. She posted updates on her life and children at first. Upon gaining lots of interaction on the internet, she continued on to make many social media accounts on quite a few different platforms. These different outlets include; Instagram, TikTok, an internet blog, a podcast, a Youtube, and a Pinterest board.
Amanda is known most for sharing raw and true stories about her family life and her journey through parenting. She often goes into detail through ‘storytimes’ about interactions she has had with her kids, and how they work through them. She is very honest and open about her parenting style in hopes to help people relate or learn through her. Amanda also goes into detail about her own experiences as a young adult with her life and parents too. Although these things are what she is known for the most, Amanda can also be seen sharing fashion advice or even posting comedic content. She shares many ‘outfit of the day’s’ and information about her clothing. According to an article by Hers Magazine, “Bouldin never went on TikTok with the goal of going viral or being TikTok famous; she actually joined to escape Instagram.” (King). The article goes on in depth to talk about how Amanda started out with funny and relatable content that was seemingly random, but soon became aware of the need for learning how to deal with parenting issues. She told the magazine that issues were normalized in parenting, but how they were handled was usually ignored. As she figured this out, she decided to share her two cents on how things are resolved in her family. An example of a story Amanda has discussed is how her oldest daughter’s teacher mentioned ‘donuts are bad’ in class, and how she talked with her seven year old in hopes to have her think in a healthy way about food and fueling themselves. She explains it through saying your body needs fuel for different activities. Sometimes you need donuts and sometimes you need vegetables. She mentions how everything is bad in excess, but that donuts are not a bad thing. She talks about how she had a conversation with her to help her form her own opinions on the matter, but in order to not let her develop an unhealthy relationship with food down the road. Amanda has been open about her unhealthy relationship with food, and it is evident that she parents this way in hopes to strengthen her daughters opinions and mindsets. This is one small example of how she explains her parenting methods and choices.
On top of the advice from influencers, they have to make money too. I only see Amanda doing minimal paid advertisements on her social media pages, as her family photos and updates consume most of her platform. However, she does also have a link in her biography that reads“shop with me.” This is the link to an app called Like to Know It (LTK). According to a website, it is explained that Like To Know is an app where influencers are able to post photos with tags of where they got their outfits & accessories. Anywhere from shirts to home decor. This app allows their followers to click on what they want and purchase it. Ultimately, giving the influencer some profit in return, since it is being purchased under their name and links. This is a very common way for bloggers, like Amanda, to bring in a good amount of cash. As for how much it could be, it was said by CNBC, “ The amounts range widely, of course, depending on how much business is being generated, but the company says there are some influencers making more than $20,000.” As I am not sure how much, I will assume Amanda does well off of her LTK, blog, and TikTok creator fund. Social media is great for people who have influence to make good money as there are so many opportunities to do so.
Since going viral on TikTok, Amanda has had very important achievements. On top of her 1.4 million TikTok followers, 69.7 Million TikTok likes, and almost 100,000 Instagram followers- Amanda has also had an interview feature in Hers Magazine and her parenting advice made it into BuzzFeed. Amanda has blown up in the social media world for keeping it real and raw. Her target audience is mostly made up of parents- both looking for advice or just for entertainment purposes. Blowing up on TikTok has helped Amanda create a huge name for herself. Thanks to this app, she gets a much bigger audience on Instagram, her blog, and her podcast.
I am so glad that social media has influencers who do their best to positively impact their followers. Amanda does a great job at this through spreading kindness, and helpful information to those who may be in need of it. Like Amanda, many other social media names are trying to do the same. Little by little influencers are starting to understand the severity of the work they do, and how they can contribute in a positive way to make social media a kinder and impactful kind of place.
