As an old maxim goes, love what you do, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life. True to that, Filipino-Chinese blogger from British Columbia Danica Tan wakes up every day doing what she wholly enjoys – from being a Fashion and Beauty Digital Influencer plus content creator to Social Media Marketing Strategist. With competing into beauty pageants and modeling in the bag of experience, she has now turned into an emerging ambassador for various marketing brands in Canada today.
After switching careers maybe 12 times before arriving on what she appreciates now, Danica is finally settled with burning the midnight oil in the fashion and beauty industry. The ‘style’ industry has always been a vast part of her life. From dressing and buying all of her clothes by her own at the age of 10, it is clear the she will love this field over the years. The industry has helped Danica reached brands and helped her in building her own – not only the brand in the marketing but her brand as a woman of style.
Lucky that her parents are not tunnel-visioned about the belief of forcing their kids in going to a stable, conventional, and nine-to-five career like being a doctor or a lawyer. She dived into the fashion and beauty and marketing industries through the influences of her mom, who is a beauty junkie herself, and the social skills from her dad which had benefited her when it comes to networking. But above and beyond these household stimulus, her drive, independence, and ambition to become her own boss has catapulted her to where she is at present.
“They (parents) allow me and my siblings explore a variety of options. They know that forcing your kids into doing something they resent isn’t the most effective. I think what also influenced my choice in your non-traditional career is my drive, independence and ambition of being able to be my own boss,” Danica said.
When she got into social media and started putting herself out there, she realized that it’s technically marketing. At that point, she was in fashion marketing so she was getting 65% of her education in general marketing. Therefore, she decided to start social media marketing for both her own brand and contractual basis for others.
Danica as a Social Media Marketing Strategist
As a Fashion Marketing diploma holder from the Wilson School of Design, Danica started as a Social Media + Content Coordinator Intern for SmartSweets- a Vancouver start-up company that has really helped her grow her profession. Thanks to her colleagues and mentor, whom she is so grateful for, she decided to pursue a side job as an independent Social Media Marketing Strategist contractor.
As what she deemed as a fantastic, nerve-wracking, and exciting job at the same time, Danica’s favourite part is helping clients in making the vision of their businesses materialize and come to life. Furthermore, she added that meeting such “awesome, intelligent, passionate, and like-minded individuals” is always fantastic.
“Although I’m just starting this little trial side business, I typically prefer to work with clients in the fashion and beauty industry as I learned in the past that working for a company that is really aligned with your industry is so important in being able to exercise your skills and knowledge to its full potential,” she emphasized.
“I think closing my first ever client was my biggest achievement on this side of my career and realizing hey, I think I can do this! If I fail then I fail and look for another 9-5. There’s no shame in ever failing because everything is a learning process. And you typically get your next idea from that failure,” Danica added.
Danica as a Fashion and Beauty Digital Influencer + Content Creator
On the other side, Danica is also building her own brand as a Fashion and Beauty Digital Influence and content creator. It is her “favorite” job in the world where she works with her trusted brands and products who believe in her as a marketer. “I’m so grateful to be able to wake up to something I enjoy; which is working with brands who believe in me! With these brands I carefully select products I truly like and share them with my followers,” she underlined.
Fortunately, Danica has work with well-established companies like Sephora, Shiseido, Revlon, Alpha Industries, Triangl Bikini, David’s Tea, Topshop, Victoria’s Secret, Briogeo and many more. She said that she is blessed to work with these companies because they made her feel worthy to represent the brands or the products. “Every time a company reaches out to me, and tells me they love my Instagram or Youtube I cry a little inside,” Danica said.
Moreover, being a digital influencer has also become an outlet to share with her followers her daily life routines, habits, and shenanigans. As Danica puts it, “I guess they also like to know that I’m human too. I eat junk, I sleep in, I spend a lot of time with my family and dogs and they love to see those parts of my life too.”
On Facebook, she posts news and push content she shared through Instagram and Youtube. With Instagram, she shares her habitual schedules, promotes brands that she loved, and interacts with her audience via Stories, direct messages, and comments. After some time of getting comfortable in front of a camera, she is now addicted in using her new platform Youtube.
“I love it because I really get to speak with my audience in a more intimate level. I create videos sharing my reviews on the latest trends, share my latest hauls, do fun challenges with my friends and family and more! It’s become so addicting and one of my favorite platforms to reach out to my audience,” she said.
“I’d love to continue growing my audience, work with more brands and really just get more content out there for people to enjoy! I think my growth is what I’m proud of the most. I didn’t ever think I’d be able to make this a part-time gig! Instagram was originally a place where I just posted random things I did with my friends and family, I never actually thought I’d grow a following out of it and eventually work with other companies. I am so eternally grateful for that,” Danica added.
While working for her and other people’s brand, Danica is also investing in furthering her education by attending part-time at the Sauder School of Business at UBC. “I love school and am so grateful to be able to have access to education… So diving right back into furthering my education was a great choice in nurturing my all aspects of my career,” she mentioned.
Danica as a Beauty Queen and Model
With a crown in history, Danica shared that she enjoyed the experience of being a beauty queen and said that winning the provincial title is a bonus. However, she doesn’t have plans of getting back into beauty pageants because as what he claimed, it is not fitting for her.
“Miss Teen Canada World was my first and last and I don’t mean that in a negative way. I just feel like the pageant industry isn’t exactly something I want to continue doing or suit me. I mean, you’ll probably never see me on the Miss Universe stage,” she said.
She added that she is not after modeling for magazines, billboards, fashion shows, and others. The only ‘modeling’ she does is to produce content for her Instagram posts using the shots taken by her 12-year-old sister or by her partner. Occasionally, she is tying up with local photographers who ask for her collaboration for content.
“But of course who would say no to occasional photo shoots for other brands and local magazines, am I right? But I don’t typically do that often. All the shots I take in partnership with brands are taken by my friends, family or with my tripod,” Danica said.
Danica’s words for the aspiring
As fashion and beauty industry is widely trivialized by the world, people who will enter the business will be likely to be trivialized too, thus, she advises them to be courageous because those who act ignorant towards it are uneducated about the fact that it is globally a trillion dollar industry and it takes a huge role in human psychology as it is “making things pretty.”
“It requires a lot of blood, sweat and tears. You’re going to break down thousands of times, but each time you need to pick yourself back up. No one is here to baby you. Self-pity does not work in this industry. Have a thick skin because you’re going to run into a lot of people who think you’re only in it because you’re not good enough to do anything else. Know why you’re doing what you’re doing, and know that this is a very, very competitive industry,” she expressed.
It is also an advantage to have supporting family members and friends, but for most instances, you have no one but yourself in this industry, she says. “Most of their family and friends don’t agree with what they’re doing so it’s sad to say that they’re alone in this journey- but that doesn’t stop them from being excellent.”
Danica also pressed that those who will dive and try to enter the intense yet rewarding business should love, train, and trust themselves. Lastly, she insisted to break the stereotypes by being nice to people because it is always important to treat people with respect and “not mirror those stereotypical mean girls you see in fashion movies.”
Success for Danica is trying, saying it is okay to fail but don’t fail to try. “Take the jump and take the failure and learn from it. Nobody succeeds all the time, so don’t be embarrassed and don’t beat yourself up for it.” Likewise, Danica is happy with just the simplest things – being surrounded by the people she loved and those who believe in her capabilities.
Consequently, from the support and encouragement she is getting, it is palpable that Danica is a true Filipina. Filipinos are known to be supportive regardless of how small the country is. “I’ll never forget how much support and love I got when I won a provincial title at Miss Teen Canada World four years ago. It was so touching and overwhelming to see everyone so happy and supportive of me. Even now, if you combine all my social media platforms you’ll see that a huge chunk of my following is from the Philippines.”