Fametta Zubah outside Coffman Memorial Union on April 14. (Antonette Kamara)
Being an influencer can take up a good portion of a student’s free time. This is the case with Fametta Zubah, a University of Minnesota sophomore.
Zubah’s path to becoming an influencer began in 2019 when she started uploading videos to TikTok. Most of her videos have at least a few thousand views, with some reaching hundreds of thousands. Zubah owes her success on the platform to her collaboration with her best friend, Mitchell. Her most popular video, at over 300,000 views, is a “best friend check,” a slideshow with pictures of Fametta and Mitchell.
“I feel like a lot of people were interested in the idea that a guy and girl were best friends without anything beyond that,” said Zubah.
Zubah received her first offer in 2021, as she began her first year of college. Coldest, a water bottle brand, reached out to have her make videos featuring their products. She responded with vlog-style videos that included the bottles in view of the camera. She’s promoted over a dozen brands on Instagram and TikTok accounts since then. Many of these are fashion brands that cater to young adults. One of her current partnerships is as a brand ambassador for Pink, a Victoria’s Secret line. Other brands she has partnered with include Static Nails, PrettyLittleThing and Express.
Outside of school and work, Zubah doesn’t have a whole lot of free time. She occasionally allows time for community work and hobbies such as braiding hair, but she isn’t a part of any campus organizations. This is because her clients find other ways for her to stay active on campus.
Being a student ambassador involves organizing events on campus to promote products. The purpose is to spread awareness specifically to other students. Zubah is an ambassador for a few brands, such as the aforementioned Pink and Amazon Prime. This past month, Amazon reached out to her to represent their program at Spring Jam, an annual festival held at the Minneapolis campus.
At this festival, student groups can set up tents to host activities and promote their organizations. This year’s jam was scheduled for Saturday, April 22. Zubah and another campus representative planned to set up a tent for Amazon to promote Prime Student, which gives college students discounts on various Amazon Prime perks. Additionally, the two representatives planned to host free giveaways and allow students to sign up for a free trial for the service.
Ultimately, her plans for Spring Jam didn’t pan out. Neither of the two campus representatives could make it to Spring Jam, so there was no Amazon tent. Zubah cites miscommunication with scheduling as the reason for this.
Instead of going to Spring Jam, Zubah spent her Saturday at her family’s house. As a student, influencer marketing can control your already tight schedule. However, the popular image of an influencer’s life as extravagant and packed doesn’t match how younger influencers live.
“I sometimes feel like, when you hear the term social media influencer, you think of someone who is rich and basically make their whole life about social media,” said Zubah. “I feel like social media influencers are a lot different than that.”