Marta Sierra is an international fashion influencer from Barcelona, Spain. Known for her dynamic and colorful videos, she built an engaged community of over one million people who follow her style, life, and travels worldwide and was awarded by WIBA as the Fashion Influencer in 2022.

Do you remember the day when you decided to start your social media account? Was it aimed at your private usage, or have you planned to blog?

Yes, I remember about six years ago that I proposed to Tom, my boyfriend, to take some pictures of my outfits to post on Instagram. It started out as a profile for just my friends, but as I saw some bloggers doing this full-time and very consistently, I wanted to give this a shot myself. I’ve always been into fashion and photography since I was little, so it seemed something really fun to do. Slowly we started improving our content and began to post daily, growing to a point where we decided three years ago to do this full time.

How do you manage to be sincere with your audience, and are there any spheres of your life that you prefer not to show?

I’ve always found it important to be myself on Instagram and not overthink or look at what others are doing too much. From the beginning, it was important for me to create the type of content I really enjoy and in the style that makes me happy. Besides, I can be quite clumsy from time to time, and while creating our videos and pictures, we end up with lots and lots of failures and bloopers that I’m not afraid to share. I think these exact things are so appreciated by my community. When you’re focused on doing your thing, with your true personality and in your own unique way, people can truly feel this, whether it is in real life or on the internet. To answer the second part, I really enjoy making people feel happy and energetic with my content. I understand people have so much going on and so many distractions that when they choose to interact with my content, I want them to enjoy it. On the other hand, this may result in me not sharing enough of my own hardships and struggles, as I don’t like to bother people with this. It might be something I’d want to share more, as I also understand this can be a source of inspiration and relatability for people in the same situation. Also, many of my followers are genuinely interested in how things progress. So that makes it feel worth it to share a lot of things from my life. Of course, we also have times when we feel sick or when something sad happens in our family, and that does feel like a line where I don’t think I should post too much about that. 

How to deal with hate, and is it worth it?

From time to time, I get negative comments about the way I look, behave, dress, or my body. I am lucky to have a personality that does not get affected too much by the opinions of others. Besides, I receive so many amazing comments from my followers that make up for the few negative people out there. Talking about this, I even turned some of those comments into a video to show that we should just keep doing what we love doing. There will always be people who don’t like what you do or say, but that shouldn’t stop us.

How much time does your Influencer activity take you? And how long does it take to create content?

Tom and I work every day, and even though we travel a lot, we never take any vacations. Some content ideas come very fast, others take more time to execute. It’s an everyday job, from creating to editing to working out campaigns, coming up with new ideas, and interacting with my community. 

Do you feel your Internet popularity in real life? Do people recognize you on the streets?

Absolutely. The last year has changed a lot for me. Most days, many people come up in the street to say hi, whether it is in Barcelona or abroad. It’s something I had to get used to a bit in the beginning, as it’s not easy to understand the numbers and magnitude behind ‘views’ and ‘likes’, and I’m actually quite an introverted person, but it’s definitely one of the aspects of my job I enjoy the most! Meeting my followers and hearing the super sweet things they have to say always makes my day!!

Could you please comment on the following statement: the bloggers’ credibility has dramatically dropped in recent times since 80% of them have fake followers, and all quality-defining programs are very easily cheatable. And it is why many big brands are back to old advertising methods, which reach is countable.

This is something I have not heard about within the industry. What I know is that social media campaigns and influencer marketing continue to grow compared to traditional advertising methods. Besides, I also believe brands and agencies are getting better and better at selecting the right influencers and creators, with genuine followings and high engagement, resulting in more organic and targeted exposure than before.

What kind of offers do you usually reject?

Working with brands or products that fit my personality and that I’d wear or use myself is important. As a creator working on a collaboration, you don’t have control or say over everything of a campaign, of course, but we only select partnerships that align with me, and that could be interesting for my community. This said I think we refuse 90 percent of the brand request we receive these days.  

What inspires you for your posts?

Tom and I brainstorm together to come up with ideas, and we get inspired by many different things, from a song that is trending to some fashion pieces or trends to a funny or iconic scene of a movie.

Do you style your blogger looks by yourself, or do you have a professional stylist?

I style all my outfits myself. It might even be the most fun part of the whole process. I have always loved fashion and the way it just endlessly evolves. There is so much room for creativity and trying out different colors, patterns, shapes, and textiles. Being a fashion influencer gave me the opportunity to create a style that I feel comfortable with, and I can see that many of my followers enjoy the colorful choices I make!

What programs do you use while working on your blog? Can you recommend some tips for bloggers who are beginners?

I think my first tip would be to just start. Most people postpone until they come up with the right style or the perfect idea, etc. The thing is, nobody that is now great at something started like this. It takes time, experience, and improvement, so you have to start somewhere.

Secondly, I’d advise developing your own style. Try not to focus too much on what others are doing, even though that might seem comfortable. I once read this quote: if you try to do what everyone else is doing, you’re destined to become average at best.

At last, be consistent, create every day, be critical of yourself and try to improve your skillset.

And our tools and programs mostly use our phones to shoot the content and edit on our computers. I’m so happy that these days, we don’t need crazy cameras, big teams, and expensive editing programs to do what we love, giving many people the possibility to take a chance at this.

What is your biggest, most proud online and/or offline accomplishment in the past year?

This is difficult to say. I reached one million followers a few months ago, which is quite a symbolic number to reach. I was also honored to receive an award for Fashion Influencer of the Year or to work as the first influencer ever on a campaign with Zara. Also, walking my first runway was an amazing experience. But besides these moments, I also really remember well the first girl that ever came up to me in the street telling me she loved what I did! Or recently, when a mom came up with her little daughter, telling me, they watch my videos each night before nighttime. I really treasure that!

Two years into the global pandemic, how has your content creation adapted, evolved, and changed in response to the New Normal?

Before the pandemic, I used to travel a lot, as going to different places inspires me a lot to create content and has always given me lots of energy. When the pandemic started, all content creators had to adapt and work with what we had. In general, we have required a lot more creativity to continue creating eye-catching and engaging content, as we have become more limited in places, meetings with other people, etc. Considering everything, it has been very exciting to see that social media creators have adapted very fast, creating funny challenges, trends, and different ways to create from home. In my case, I have started creating a lot more video content, which has become my focus. Also, considering that we all need to laugh more than ever, I thought it was a great idea to share funny behind-the-scenes moments, fails, and clumsy moments with my followers, which they really appreciate. 

What is the ratio of tech know-how, business savvy, creative spark, and luck in maintaining and growing a digital audience?

The tech know-how is, luckily, not the most important part anymore. A lot of industries adapted so well to the growth of Instagram and digital content that everything has become very user-friendly. I remember years back that we had to save a lot of money in order to invest in a good photo camera. When the quality went down, we had to invest in an even better one later on. It was a lot of work to first learn how to correctly use the cameras, and shooting pictures took quite some time. With the evolution of smartphones, we could completely switch to using our iPhones for all our content, which is much more user-friendly and way less time-consuming. I think creativity is what matters the most. Trying different things, trying things in your own way, thinking outside of the box, and making things relatable can all help to get creativity going. I’m very lucky to be able to have all the brainstorming sessions with Tom. We make a pretty good team!

What do you consider the blogger’s peak of success?

I think this is personal for every blogger or creator. It was always my dream to create an engaged community of people who enjoy my style and content. I didn’t have any numbers, campaigns, or awards in mind. I’m really thankful and happy that I was able to reach this and can’t wait for what’s to come.