Entrepreneur: Morgan Cline

Biz: Morgan Cline

Tilt: Lifestyle Instagram and travel

Primary Channel: Instagram (19.5K)

Time to First Dollar: 5 years 

Rev Streams: Affiliate links, brand partnerships, content creation for brands

Our Favorite Actionable Advice

  • Include hashtags and geotags: Morgan attracted a bigger following by using hashtags and geotags, so people searching for that content found her content and followed her.
  • Know what you’re agreeing to: Creators should understand all the terms and implications of every contract they sign, including the general agreements with social media platforms.
  • Don’t saturate your feed with brands: Morgan mixes in her day-to-day life, so her lifestyle Instagram feed isn’t sponsored content post after sponsored content post.

The Story

Morgan is your quintessential New Yorker with the beautiful lifestyle shots to prove it. From fashion and food to beauty and books, she shares her interests and top Manhattan picks with her 19.5K Instagram followers. 

When she’s not in NYC, she’s trotting around the globe. That’s how she started her lifestyle Instagram account – traveling and posting photos of the destinations. In 2015, she gained a following after sharing photos from Greece, Iceland, China, and Italy. 

She expanded her focus in 2018 when she started posting lifestyle photos around NYC. By 2019, followers began to see more of the woman behind the camera, and her follower base grew more quickly. In 2020, she began monetizing her Instagram. 

When Instagrammer Morgan Cline went from behind to in front of the camera, her follower base grew more quickly. #ContentEntrepreneur #CreatorEconomy Click To Tweet

Growing a following

For years, Instagram was just something Morgan, a lawyer who specializes in fashion law, did for fun to connect with friends. As she included hashtags and geotags in Stories, many who searched for those places or locations discovered Morgan’s channel. She grew her lifestyle Instagram account to 10K followers. 

Using geotags and hashtags helped Morgan Cline reach audiences searching for the places and locations she mentioned. #Instagram #CreatorEconomy Click To Tweet

How her law degree helped her content business

As a lawyer, Morgan is familiar with contracts and negotiations. She advises content creators to recognize the importance of reading through and understanding the terms of any contract they sign. That includes the agreement detailing the rights and protections on social media platforms from which you operate. 

From disclosure requirements with branded content to tax requirements for doing business on Instagram to receiving gifts and being asked for exclusivity, there’s a lot of legal information that people don’t know about. 

Lawyer and influencer Morgan Cline says all creators should know the disclosure and tax requirements for doing business on Instagram. #ContentBusiness #CreatorEconomy Click To Tweet

While a business manager or lawyer is best for reviewing contracts, creators who can’t afford professional counsel should do their best to read over the terms to know what they’re getting into.

Partnering with brands

Before brands reached out to Morgan, she would create content and tag brands that she used. “They started reaching out to me, and I realized I could do the reverse. Why not reach out (to them) or join (creator) platforms?” 

She contacted brands directly and joined creator platforms from which she could apply for brand partnerships. Brands and those creative platforms often want to see proof of how your content business is operating. For example, you might need to upload screenshots of your account’s analytics or a link to a page to see your content.

Morgan prices her partnerships based on how much time it’ll take for her to complete a project and the number of followers she has.

Lifestyle content creator Morgan Cline prices her brand partnerships based on the time to complete the project and her follower count. #ContentBusiness #CreatorEconomy Click To Tweet

Morgan makes sure her whole feed isn’t filled with sponsored content post after sponsored content post. She also sprinkles in static posts of her day-to-day life as she still treats it as a fun and creative outlet. 

About the author

Bonnie owns Word of Mouth, a content agency specializing in social media, content marketing, and editorial writing. She's written for Marie Claire, Harper’s Bazaar, Coveteur, Man Repeller, Health.com, and more. She loves wearing fanny packs and laying in the fetal position.