A Day in the Life Spotlight: Areli Mancillas, RN
An Interview with an Atypical Influencer
When I started my podcast, I wanted to learn from as many people as I could — discovering their life strategies, about their careers and their stories. For months I was searching for a registered nurse to learn from and finally had the opportunity to interview Areli Mancillas on the show.
During our interview I was blown away by her incredible story of turning adversity into opportunity. We had a great conversation about how she became a single mother early on in life with seemingly ‘no way out’, but decided to beat the odds and become a resident RN at the nation’s second largest unit.
After she interview, it quickly exploded (by my standards, anyway). Her episode quickly gained 1,000 downloads in less than 24 hours. Today, the episode has received over 7,300 downloads, and continues to grow.
As a marketing professional, this obviously intrigued me. I know she had a great following of almost 15K on Instagram, but this dwarfed guests with 250K or more.
After further research, I discovered that she consistently receives significantly more engagement than 90% of the ‘influencers’ I see with a similar following. More importantly, she has a niche audience that she consistently interacts with — without plans to monetize.
I thought her story was incredible, but I also found the community she seemingly effortlessly built to be incredible as well.
She was nice enough to take part in this written interview to talk to us about her ‘strategies’ for Instagram. I put strategies in quotations because she builds her community effortlessly with a seemingly endless heart as opposed to the intent to monetize.
So, before further ado, here’s the interview.
For the reader who doesn’t know you yet, please tell us a little bit about yourself.
I’m a girl who followed her goals of getting out of a dreamless environment. I grew up in an environment where college and careers weren’t the ultimate goals in life. We didn’t have access to social connections, universities, or let’s face it — money.
Everyone was really just trying to make it day by day. I’ll be honest — I didn’t think about having a career because I was aimless. I just wanted to see where life took me. I was careless and didn’t think about the future but rather just thought about the present.
All of that changed when I had my daughter at the end of my Junior year in high school — I was only 16. I didn’t have a single dollar to my name and there I was… a new mother in high school.
I always liked school but didn’t really apply myself until I got pregnant. I started doing research over what it really takes to raise a child in a stable environment because I wanted my child to have more than I did — to have the opportunities that I didn’t get to have.
I was raised by hardworking immigrant parents but it took them a while to build themselves up and we got by with what we could. They taught me how to work extremely hard for what I wanted and I knew that I had to do something to provide for my newborn daughter and myself. I didn’t come from money, so paying out of pocket for college was out of the question. I decided to apply myself more in school and ended up graduating in the top 15% of my class and getting two scholarships.
Five years later, I became a licensed registered nurse and now have a career to fully support my child and I. The reason why I became a nurse is a whole other story… I definitely share that to anyone who asks!
Let’s talk about your Instagram. What’s your theme?
My Instagram theme was developed from what pushed me to succeed — to keep going and have hope even when it seems impossible. The statistics for a young, single mother were always against me and yet I made it. I’d really like to share that with people.
When did you start your page?
I started my page in 2013 to show my journey into fitness and it just developed from there :)
When did you decide that you wanted to use Instagram as a resource for your community?
I decided to use my Instagram as a resource for my community whenever I graduated nursing school and could actually do more for people.
You have a great following of almost 15K followers. Was there a moment that created a big spike, or did it gradually grow over time?
There actually was! I got a huge spike when I uploaded my first photo in my work scrubs and it got shared on a page. It grew from there with the facts and resources that I would share.
Is growing your follower base something that you’re actively thinking about?
I’d like for it to grow as organically as possible. I won’t lie when I say that I’ve had people message me about joining clubs and buying in to increase the follower number, but I don’t want empty accounts who don’t share the same views of light to follow me so that I can have “fame”. I care deeply about reaching people and impacting them.
I’ve noticed that you seem to respond to every single comment on your page, is that something you’ve learned or you just started doing inherently and why?
It’s something that I’ve learned to do. I like for the people that follow me to know that I acknowledge their compliments or questions. It’s like a “thank you” to them for taking the time to say something positive or sharing their personal thoughts/feelings. It’s honestly the best way to engage!
I’ve noticed that you do a regular Instagram Live broadcast — what inspired you start that?
I like being able to interact with my followers. If I made a YouTube channel, I wouldn’t be able to answer questions directly and my followers wouldn’t be able to really know that I’m responding to them with real answers. Also, if I’m on Live broadcast, they really get to see my personality.
What would you say is your main motivation for staying so active on Instagram?
I would say that my main motivation is that I can use my social media to inspire and impact in ways that I can’t in person (Probably because I’m always catching up on sleep!) .
What are you strategies to balancing your family, career and online community so well?
Time management. I’m online whenever I’m not with my family or handling personal business. I do try and chisel out an hour or so a day to answer questions/reply to comments or plan out a posts/Live sessions and that’s the maximum. With my family, we bond whenever we’re all at home together so that they have my full attention.
When we spoke before, you mentioned that you had no intention of monetizing your page or acting as an ‘influencer’ is that still the case? Why or why not?
Yes, it’s still the case! I’ve shared some things on my page but out of helping and not being paid to do so. I support those who are working to build themselves up like I have. For example, I recently shared a small site’s merchandise on my page because I loved the message that they shared. For every piece of merchandise that they sold, they donated to a scholarship fund to help women reaching medical degrees.
Do you have any strategies you can mention to help grow an Instagram page?
I’m honestly just myself. I use hashtags that aren’t really known to kind of help me stand out and I’m as “real” as I can possibly be. I also allow people to share my page if they ask for permission as well as by word of mouth. Everyone wants to be able to have someone as a resource for questions and that’s what I hope to be able to be.
Do you have plans to produce content on other platforms like Medium, Twitter or Facebook?
I have Twitter and Facebook, but keep those personal and small for family and such. I’ve recently been thinking about YouTube to film routines, recipes and things like that, but that’s still something that’s being roughly planned. We shall see! For now, Instagram is enough for me to manage.
Do you actively pay attention to what type of posts perform better than others, best times to post, or what type of captions perform best?
I put a lot of thought into my captions because I want people to understand the message that I’m trying to share. I’m honestly a little clueless with “best times to post” and figuring out what posts perform better than others. I just post and share whatever I feel pertains best to my page and just see how they do. I’m very silly, so my hashtags are pretty out there sometimes.
Do you find it crazy that people get so obsessed with Instagram strategies that they would even do an interview about it? (irony!)
Lol. This is kind of ironic! But yes… I think that people really want to try and win others over, but sometimes it can get super overwhelming with comparing and the competition.
I promised myself that I wouldn’t obsess over social media all of the time. Don’t get me wrong, I love posting, but I’m not going to lose sleep over what pictures aren’t being liked more than the others. Sometimes I’ll throw in “a day in my life” posts to really show people that I’m just like them behind the camera.
When I see what people really do to gain more followers I’m like… “holy cow, that’s a full time job”. lol. I don’t have time for that — but I do have time for interacting and trying to help and make a difference.
Who should follow you on Instagram?
People who feel like life is constantly knocking them down and they need a laugh and some positive vibes. There are many things that I haven’t shared publicly that have made me feel doubtful, but despite all of them I kept a positive outlook on life.
I kept saying to myself “there’s a reason why I’m here”. If you’re questioning yourself, follow me. Everyone is needed somewhere. :) Whether you’re a single parent, nursing student, a kid stuck in that statistical loop — I hope that my page can help you out.
Thanks for reading! If you’d like to connect with Areli, click here. If you’d like to connect with me, you can find me on Instagram. If you’d like to check out the podcast listen here.
