Gabby Lerche is like a lot of parents in Bloomington-Normal. She and her husband have to figure out how to feed their family every night, while juggling a hectic schedule of activities, at a time when both groceries and restaurants are extra expensive.
What makes Lerche unique is how she solves this problem. She pre-cooks dinner in her crockpot at home, plugs in the crockpot in her car to warm the food, and feeds her kids in her van before, during, or after evening activities.
And, she records the process and posts it on social media to more than 10,000 followers.
"The kids had a lot of football games this year that were over an hour away, and I'm like, we need to find a way that we're not going to eat fast food every single time that we're going somewhere," Lerche said. "There are 10 of us total. We're a blended family: eight kids, and me and dad. That's a big family. So we're looking to save money."
And, she encourages other families to follow her lead. Lerche runs profiles on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube under the handle @thatfamousfamily. Her crockpot-in-the-car idea has been a big hit.
Lerche is one of four McLean County content creators WGLT spoke with to get a sense of the job. She and others opened up about their expenses, their revenue, and their challenges with the work.
In addition to running her social media accounts, Lerche owns a cleaning company. At first, her content was focused on sharing her everyday life as a mom. Her eight children range from ages 2 to 18. But her content gained a following quickly.
"I realized people were, you know, sending me messages saying, 'Hey, this really helped,' or 'How'd you find that?' or you know, just asking questions about it. And I've always liked to help people, and so this is just another way to do that, and I enjoy that."
Ashley Williams of Normal got into content creation for similar reasons. Williams runs three accounts on Instagram and Facebook - @ohheysamsclub, @ohheywalmart and @ohheyfinds. These all combine into a single account on TikTok. Her content is focused on finding good deals at grocery stores. She posts a lot of tips about "ways to feed your family economically," she said. "Especially in these times, everyone is very concerned about how to stay within their grocery budget and feed their families wholesome, filling meals."
Williams is also a mom herself, and got started on content creation in 2017. "I am my target audience," Williams said. "When I started, I was a stay-at-home mom. We had one income, and we were trying to raise four kids. And so I knew what people were struggling with."
Since then she has grown her following to the point where she is able to work full time on content creation.
José Manuel Pérez, on the other hand, works full time at an insurance company while running his account, @tasteofblono, which appears on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Pérez is hyper-focused on sharing local food content. He is passionate about both the restaurant scene and local businesses, and aims to showcase the intersection of the two.
"Generally as you visit anywhere, including here, can you really say you have experienced what makes that place unique if you pretty much just went to Olive Garden?" Pérez asked. "I don't think you can. And yes, locals probably work at that place, but the story of the place that you just went to isn't being spoken on that plate."
Another Bloomington creator, Blake, only shares his first name on his accounts @blakeputsyouon, which can be found on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. He covers a broad area: all of Central Illinois including Bloomington-Normal, Peoria, Champaign-Urbana and even farther. Blake's content spans more than restaurants.
"I tell people about local places that are unique and interesting to go to that I find interesting, and I think that they should go to sometime," Blake said. "I try and show places that people drive by every day, and maybe had never stopped inside before, and give them a look inside."
So what else do the people behind these social media presences have in common, and what sets them apart from one another?
Time commitment
All of the content creators WGLT spoke to stressed the same thing: The time commitment is much more intense than viewers may realize. Hours and hours can go into editing one short video.
"Editing definitely takes forever," Lerche said. "A two-minute video, even a 30-second video, can take hours."
Williams estimates she publishes about 15 minutes of content every week total, which takes her at least 40 hours to plan, record, and produce.
Pérez said his content gig keeps him busy in his free time, which is his goal with it. "It's something that I do instead of like doom scrolling or something," he said. He did add, though, he sometimes dreads the tedium of the video editing.
Blake said he works full-time as a data analyst, 40 hours a week, and spends at least an additional 30 hours a week editing and filming social media content. "Last week, matter of fact, I had 70 hours total of screen time, which is ridiculous," he said, "on top of a 40-hour job, and on top of traveling to places, so I was getting like four or five hours of sleep."
Sourcing and planning content
Lerche said when it comes to planning her content, she doesn't think about it much in advance.
"It's just kind of what we're doing as a family," she said. "We do a lot of stuff and we eat a lot of food, so let's just talk about it. So I don't really have any particular way I decide."
Williams has formal creator sponsorships with both Sam's Club and Walmart. This is part of how she is able to support her family with an income doing this work. It also changes her process for planning content. The companies send her advance notice of big sales and promotions coming up, so she can plan ahead. Other times, she decides what will be interesting to her audience.
"I know what my audience wants to see because it's what I would want to see, so that's pretty helpful," Williams said. "I can just pick and choose that way."
With his tight focus on independent Bloomington-Normal restaurants, Pérez's niche defines his content. The restaurants he visits come from a mix of places he likes and wants to feature, and requests from restaurants.
Blake takes a scrappy approach to planning his content. He surfs the internet for ideas of things to do, especially parks and nature reserves which are free to visit. He watches other creators to see what they're featuring and tries to give a unique take on some of them. He also asks people directly on the street for recommendations.
"I will sometimes walk downtown or uptown, and I'll just ask somebody like, 'Hey, what's your favorite restaurant?'" he said. "And usually people will just say what their favorite restaurant is, and if it's not somewhere I've been yet, then I just look it up and go to it. It's pretty spontaneous."
Expenses and revenue
The expenses for each creator vary by their type of account. An iPhone is a must-have, but most of them feel they'd have one anyway. Many of them pay for some professional level subscriptions such as Canva, a graphic design tool, or CapCut, a video editing tool. Meals being reviewed need to be paid for, unless the meal has been comped by the restaurant for promotional purposes. Williams makes a point to expense her regular manicures, because her hands are in her videos so often. If Blake attends an Illini football game, he shares how much he spent on the experience.
Revenue wise, there is also a broad span, both in type of income and amount. Lerche said she is able to make a modest profit off of her videos, once she subtracts any expenses. She said she can't quit her day job anytime soon though.
Williams seems to have the most revenue flowing in, due to her partnerships with Sam's Club and Walmart. They will contract with her to promote specific products, which brings in revenue. She also uses affiliate marketing links, where she shares specific products with followers and earns a commission when people buy through her link.
Pérez and Blake aim to break even. They usually pay out of pocket for meals and experiences, and hope to earn enough revenue to recoup those expenses. Blake said he is "monetized" on TikTok, which means he earns $2-4 per 1,000 views. If TikTok deems his content high quality, there is even higher earning potential.
Pérez is not monetized and said he isn't particularly motivated to become monetized.
"It's not something that I am ever going to look for and be like: 'that's going to pay my mortgage,'" he said. "It's more just hey, that makes this hobby a little bit easier to do budget wise."
Safety measures
It's not all fun and games when it comes to social media. All of the content creators WGLT spoke with take precautions for their safety, or their family's.
Lerche said her accounts started off prominently featuring her children, but she has backed off on that. She said it's still a "family" account, but "as time went on, I was like, you know, it's not that great for them to be in there so much," she said. "So as of now, you know, you might see them on there every now and then." Lerche also said she's careful not to post about a specific location until her family has left that place, so they can't be found out in public.
Williams also shows her children from time to time on her account, but she struggles with the balance. She said it builds trust to show her audience of moms, she is also a mom. But she always gets consent from her children before she posts any images or video of them. And, if they are in the video, she shares a cut of her profit with them.
"That's also a way for them to earn some money for themselves too. So they know that it is a job, and they can choose to participate or not in it," Williams said.
Pérez has a daughter who is 5 years old. He makes sure she stays completely offscreen.
"I think it's important to respect young people's privacy, and they have a right to that privacy. And she's too young for me to just make that decision, that I'm going to just blast her face all over," he said.
Blake has no children but also goes to lengths to keep his identity a secret. In addition to not sharing his last name, he usually does not share his face on camera. He also does not post any content about a location until he's left the place. Sometimes he even posts a video filmed in a completely different part of the state from where he will be filming that day, to throw people off.
Keys to success
None of the four creators have formal training or education in social media or video editing. They have learned their way through the job by trial and error.
All four told WGLT consistent posting is key to success. Lerche said it's better to post mediocre content every day than to post high quality content every couple of weeks. She said when she misses a day or two of posting, it feels like she's missed a week of work.
"I think that's where most social media people fall off," Blake said, adding that people sometimes post content for a couple of days and then get distracted and lose momentum. Blake said the social media algorithms reward consistency.
All four creators agreed, they would not promote a product or a service they did not actually believe in or use. They said it's important for them to be authentic and to build trust with their subscribers.
"I don't promote something that I would not purchase myself," Williams said. "I want my audience to trust what I have to say, but at the same time, the brand has hired me to do a job, and I want them to get what they want out of it as well."
Creating a positive sense of community also helps drive engagement. Both Pérez and Blake said they have completely scrapped plans for a video because they showed up to a restaurant and had a bad experience.
"There's no point of me posting my negative opinion on a restaurant to a public," Blake said. "At the end of the day, these restaurants are a lot of people's passions and livelihoods." If he has a negative experience, he said he shares details with the owner, and "then I just delete all the footage and move on." Blake feels putting negativity out on the internet breeds more negativity, and he doesn't want to be part of it.
Pérez said "I'm not gonna make a whole video that's about something being bad." He doesn't feel anyone involved wins when he shares bad publicity.
