From craft beers to campsites, clothing lines, and canoe rides…
who’s influencing Maine?

October 2019

By Molly Sposato

It’s 6:30 a.m. A woman in her twenties, let’s call her “Mikela,” starts her day with a cup of delicious, earthy Veranda Coffee—$6.95 finely ground from, let’s call it “Downeast Coffee Blenders”–and a lie. Okay, that’s harsh. It’s more of a gentle deception that her followers have come to expect. In fact they are her co-conspirators. In “Mikela’s” case, she does not share that she is being compensated for her endorsements. “I think being an influencer is validating unconscious choices that my followers have already made.”

Here are some of the best-known Influencers among us:

Cait Bourgault Fitzerald

What’s your Instagram handle?
@photocait

How many followers?
17,600

Who do you endorse?
Oxbow Brewing Co., The Maine Pack, and L.L Bean.

What is your age and education?
I’m 29 and attended the Salt Institute of Documentary Studies for photography. Salt is now a class at MECA, I believe, but when I attended it was a certificate program that taught documentary photography, radio, and writing.

How do you get paid?
Each influencer can set her own rates. For myself, some campaigns have a flat fee per story, $75-$200, or per post, $100-$500. Others will pay a larger fee, $1,500 and up, for a set of stories or posts and then license the photos afterward. While I don’t make a living this way, it still brings income and helps get my own brand out there.

Do you tell your followers when you’re paid to praise products?
I make sure the company is one that aligns with my values. I want to support local business owners through powerful imagery. Some companies, L.L. Bean, Eureka!, and Backcountry to name a few, include in their contract that within the first three lines of the post the influencer must write “#ad” or “sponsored by—.”

How many of your Instagram posts are sponsored?
I would say about 1 out of every 15-20 are sponsored posts. Some months I don’t have any, but others I may have more.

What do you do when you’re not sharing your love for Maine brands?
I’m a co-founder of the women’s hiking company Alpine Women Collective, and I work as a commercial photographer.

Please describe where you live (as though you were endorsing it!).
I grew up in Brewer before moving to Portland, where I lived for 6 years. Now I live in Norway, Maine. Growing up, I thought I wanted to leave, but now I can’t picture myself anywhere else. This state is pure magic.

Abigail Johnson-Ruscansky

What’s your Instagram handle?
@aabbyylou

How many followers?
27,200

Who are some companies you endorse?
Brook There and Sandy Pines

How did you get your start as an influencer?
I always wanted to be a photographer. Around 2013 I gained thousands of followers for my photos on Tumblr. I was suggested to go on Instagram the following year. In 2016, I was nominated as Maine’s Top Instagrammer by Time Magazine’s “50 Instagrammers to Follow in Every State.” It was really big for my social media, and that’s when I started to realize I might be able to make this into a career.

Where did you grow up? What’s your education?
I was raised in Wells. I went to college for photography at the Maine College of Art (MECA) and then the University of Southern Maine.

What does a typical day of work look like for you?
I fill a part-time art director role three days a week for a local yarn and accessories company. When I work freelance, it’s wake up, then coffee. I work in virtually every coffee shop in Portland—it’s a tie between Bard Coffee and Little Woodfords. Sometimes I work out of the library or someone else’s house unless it’s a day that I have a photo-shoot. I spend a lot of time prepping the shoot and making the schedule.

How do you think living in Maine affects what you do as an influencer?
Growing up, I always thought I’d have to move away in order to make it as a successful photographer, but that was incredibly wrong. I think it’s important for Maine marketing companies to hire Maine creators, influencers, and writers who live and work here to support the local economy. A lot of people have moved to bigger cities to be more successful in this field, but if you do that, you may lose sight of why the work you’re doing is so important.

Ashlee McLaughlin

What’s your Instagram handle?
@thebeermama

How many followers?
20,400

Who are some companies you endorse?
Baxter Brewing Co., Mason’s Brewing Co., and Orono Brewing Co.

When did you realize your Instagram popularity could turn into a career?
I started posting because my family and friends got so annoyed with me talking about craft beer all the time. I decided to just start telling the internet. When I hit 10,000 followers, my account started to take off. I thought, “Wow, I could really make some money off this.” What I currently pull in would probably amount to a part-time job. I also work for a cannabis lab in Brunswick. The end goal is to make the Beer Mama into a full-time income.

Where did you grow up?
I’m not a native Mainer. I spent the first eight years of my life on a reservation in Washington State, Suquamish. I thought regular powwows were a typical thing everywhere until we left when my father was stationed in La Maddalena, Italy—he was in the Navy. My father was later stationed in Brunswick around 2000. I went to school for fine arts at the University of Maine in Orono and the Art Institute of Boston. After I had my daughter in 2010, I moved back to Brunswick permanently. I’m 32 now.

Do you tell your followers when you’re being paid to praise products?
I try to be really clear about sponsorships, but it’s up to each influencer to decide what they post. While I don’t care to be called ‘influencer,’ I do think it’s accurate. We’re influencing what people are drinking, eating. It isn’t that different from celebrities being paid to wear clothes from high-end brands. It’s the same practice applied to a different platform and scale.

What is the worst part of working as an influencer?
Probably dealing with sexism in the industry. I knew craft beer was a male-dominated industry going in. When I worked for the Maine brew bus, men on the bus would be shocked to get a female tour guide and ask questions I had previously answered to male brewery employees. I also heard a lot of comments about how rarely men saw “girls” working with, and consuming, beer.