Meet London-Based Influencer Alexia Woods
Although she began growing her social media presence as a side hustle, Woods is now living the influencer life full-time.
Presented by Sara Smith
Life is good for Alexia Woods, a popular influencer and model who’s built an impressive social media career over the past few years. From humble, hard-working beginnings—Woods began serving at restaurant when she was just 14—the London city girl now lives life on her terms, thanks to her ever-growing social presence.
In a recent interview, Woods expresses her fascination for London. “I’ve always lived in London,” she says. “I’ve been here my whole life. I love the diversity of its inhabitants and the high-paced lifestyle. I couldn’t see myself living anywhere else at the moment”.
According to the 21-year-old, she was never very interested in the typical 9-to-5 grind or office work. She looked hard to find something that afforded her fun, flexibility, and crucially, income.
“I didn’t want to work under anyone,” she says. “And it put me off the idea of having to work in an office for the rest of my life. I’m looking around at the people I’ve been working with; they’ve been there for ten years and haven’t moved at all, and it makes me think I don’t want to be stuck in that situation.”
Today, Woods is one of the leading influencers and young entrepreneurs making a decent living by uploading personal content on the internet. By simply sharing her unique content with thousands of followers across her social media platforms and monetizing them, Woods makes over $12,500 a month.
With that income, she can pay her rent and take care of herself without needing any help from her family. Although her social media lifestyle began as a side hustle, and Woods didn’t fathom how quickly her social channels would grow. As soon as she started making decent money, she new she was on the right path.
Eventually, she had to resign from her day job as a server and focus full-time on her social media career. And when the pandemic came, it allowed her to work on her accounts and content. After the restaurant shut down, Woods saw it as an opportunity to focus on social media.
She currently has accounts on four separate sites, including OnlyFans. She began with Twitter, Reddit, TikTok, then Instagram and more recently Youtube, growing her fan base to what it is today. “Even if it is an extra couple hundred a month from the other sites, it can help pay an unexpected bill,” she explains.
If she didn’t discover social media, Woods admits that she would likely still live at home with her mother. Working on social media and building her modeling career has been her opportunity to live the life she once dreamed of.
Woods points out that contrary to perceptions, finding social media success requires hard work. Building a solid network of people in the industry and connecting with your fans is essential, as well as spreading your content across several platforms increase the chance of reaching a wider audience.
According to her, “People underestimate how much work this is. People always come in thinking it’s easy money, that all you have to do is post a couple of pictures, and people will just find you. But you’ve got to network with people, you’ve got to create those good relationships, meet up with people and collaborate,” she says.
Although Woods recently started posting on TikTok, her follower count is exploding. “If I had been doing (TikTok) since the beginning, I probably could have grown my account a lot more. But I’ve only been using Tiktok for the last nine months.”
Moving forward, Woods explained that finding her way around social media was quite a challenge in the beginning. She had no idea what she was doing at the time, and most of what she knew were things she learned from other girls who already had a social media presence.
“I decided to see what the other girls were doing,” she explains, “just do a bit of market research; see how they advertise and see what other sites they were using. I have found that Instagram is the hardest to monetize and to grow,” she says.
As for her Twitter account with almost 250,000 followers, it took her at least two years to build up, a process that wasn’t helped by a recent invalid suspension. And then there’s a new platform she learned about by networking with other influencers in the industry.
“I found out theChive’s iChive, which is just posting an array of censored photos,” she explains. “People can find you that way. And you can get verified there, which I already am. And then there are networking events, such as a Snap Christmas party, which was based in London, where I ended up meeting a representative of a company, myslink, which I now use actively.”
Today, Woods is doing well for herself, and her life can serve to inspire many women and aspiring influencers. Although success may not come overnight, the reward is worth it.