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Social media star Brittany Broski says she has always leaned into building her community over worrying about her follower count.
"What do numbers really determine when you can buy followers, when you can buy a check mark now?" Broski told Business Insider.
"I think the real power comes from community, the people that you can bring together."
Broski, whose real name is Brittany Tomlinson, rose to fame in 2019 following a mega-viral moment in which she tasted kombucha for the first time.
She now has 7.5 million TikTok followers and over 2 million subscribers on YouTube.
Broski, 27, now also has two podcasts: Royal Court, where she interviews celebrities in a free-flowing format, and The Broski Report, where she muses on whatever she is thinking about that week.
She thinks that influencers who are authentic and build loyal communities online will have more staying power, even if that means those communities are niche.
There's some debate over whether brands still prefer to work with micro-influencers after engagement became the pinnacle in the past few years.
Some surveys and experts think things are going backward, and superstars are being favored once more, leading smaller creators to feel pushed out.
Others, however, see creators with small but mighty audiences thriving again in the near future.
Ultimately, algorithms change, and what is popular today may not be tomorrow.
Broski's advice for creators is to lean into what makes them different.
Broski felt she had been "pigeonholed as a meme" at the start of her internet career as the "kombucha girl," and she wanted to distance herself from this as soon as possible.
Instead, she strived to "build out an identifiable brand."
Community, both on and offline, has always been important to Broski. She told BI that's one reason she partnered with White Claw this holiday season in a campaign that focuses on making quality time with friends and family.
On Broski's shows, she also strives to "share a human moment with people" rather than repeat the same questions celebs receive at press junkets.
"More than anything, people just want to be heard and seen and felt like they're known," she said.
In Royal Court, Broski often asks her guests, including Saoirse Ronan and Daisy Edgar-Jones, to "prove their worth to earn a spot on Lady Broski's coveted small council" and has them dress up in medieval costumes.
"I really like leaning into this sort of silly nature of, I'm going to make you wear a cape and a hat, and you're going to like it," she said. "You get to see that person's personality more than just, let's talk about your work."
Todd Westphal / White Claw
Broski thinks what is going to last is "authenticity and reliability."
"Those two words are so overused and so bastardized, but it doesn't take away from the core meaning," she said.
Her advice to creators is that people want to watch someone they relate to, Broski said — someone who makes them think, "She's just like me."
"That's all people want," she said. "So don't overthink it."
The audience also just wants the people they watch to be themselves.
"That seems so cliché, but what else can you do?" Broski said. "If you try to be anyone else, you're doomed to fail."
