Social media content creator with over 200,000 followers shares her journey

By Sophia Cardona

Katie Reuter, better known as Miss Katie, is a hard-working freshman at the University of Colorado Boulder majoring in Strategic Communications. However, while managing her work and school life, she is also managing 200,000 subscribers on YouTube, over 66,300 followers on Instagram and over 69,700 followers on TikTok.

For so many college students being able to make money off their followers as an influencer is a dream. Reuter has plenty of valuable advice on how to accomplish what seems like an unreachable goal.

Reuter created her YouTube channel at a young age for fun, and did not expect to get a career out of it.

“I was interested in it for a while, but I have been really committed to growing my audience for five years now,” she said.

Reuter makes vlog-style videos that focus on her day-to-day life. She posts on multiple platforms, but focuses mainly on YouTube, where she uploads long-form videos one to two times a week.

“I would explain it as lifestyle-focused content that is also relatable and entertaining for students and young adults,” she said.

Reuter currently has 530 videos on her YouTube channel. Because she is a college student, most of her content is surrounded by college activities and productivity. As she grows and matures her interests change as well as her content. 

“My content has simplified a little bit because I used to do a little bit more intense editing,” Reuter said. “I try to emulate the content that I like watching.”

Not only does Reuter have to keep up with the fast-paced life of a college student, but also the changes to the platforms that have happened throughout the years. With the constant changing of algorithms, mainly because of the addition of apps and the change in preferences from the audience, Reuter is forced to modify her content to be most likely to succeed.

“My experience over the years has been kind of unique because I have gone through my formative years with this job,” Reuter said. “It has definitely changed a lot platform-wise specifically with the rise of TikTok, because before it was really just Instagram and YouTube.”

With new platforms come new challenges and audiences. For Reuter, TikTok is a platform she is still trying to understand and get better at.

“The algorithm is so different and hard to understand. One day a video can get 200,000 views whereas another it could be 200,” she said.

Reuter’s major is Strategic Communications. Because of her area of study, she is able to use her college education to actively aid her current work she does as a content creator.

“I have one class specifically, it is all about strategic thinking and advertising and that has been so interesting to learn from because I see so much on my end from working with brands and now I am learning more about the backend,” she said.

For Reuter, content creation was never about making money or becoming famous, she simply enjoyed watching other creator’s videos and took inspiration from them.

“I love that it is a creative outlet, I love that it is something that can grow and that I have the memories to look back on and I love how much I have learned from it from a business standpoint, like working with brands,” she said.

Because of her busy lifestyle and aptitude for organization, Reuter likes to plan her content creation out in advance and make lists of ideas she can use for the future.

“I have everything planned out content-wise until the end of the school year because I would totally fall behind if I did not,” Reuter said. “Being super organized with my to-do list is really helpful as well.”

For Reuter, ideas are always flowing. Since most of her content is about what is going on in her life, she can use an event that is coming up as content for one of her videos, but whenever there is nothing major happening she has to get a little more creative. 

“I have a list of fun creative ideas that I want to use like, one of my videos in April is going to be ‘Countdown to Summer is On,’ I thought that would be a fun title,” she said.

Content creation is a great job for Reuter because, not only does she love it, but it also comes with a lot of opportunities and flexibility.

“You get to pick your own hours and it is fun and creative,” she said.

She also loves the ability to be around her loved ones with her work rather than her work taking her away from them.

“Luckily a lot is built in for me, when I am with my friends hanging out, I can film those moments, and at my sorority, things like that,” she said.

Reuter does not have a specific end goal with her social media career, but she would like to keep pursuing it in the future as a part-time position.

“Ideally, I would like to have some kind of really fun part-time job while also doing social media,” she said.

As more and more people begin to use social media platforms and create content, it becomes harder for creators to “blow up” than it used to be when less people were making content.

“I always say I am so glad that I started back then because I now have so much of a perception of what people think of me,” Reuter said. “Starting it now would feel like ‘Oh this is not going to grow’ or scared of what people would think of me.”

When creating new content, it is important to make someone want to subscribe to your channel, but also to keep the audience that you already have interested.

“Make content that is both searchable and relevant to a new audience but also serves your current audience and people who have been following you for years,” she said.

Many people nowadays are interested in pursuing social media as a career because of the opportunities that can come from it. Reuter loves that she gets to do this as her job and wants other people to try it and learn from it.

“Invest in learning and in equipment to make your content high quality because now that social media has been around for so long, people can see right through the low-quality content and it is just generally not going to do well,” Reuter said.