By Natalie Benoit

Lauryn Hock is a Salt Lake City blogger and social media influencer who’s all about female empowerment, kindness, and self-love. Even though she’s primarily a fashion and beauty blogger, this writer also talks about mental health, education, and fitness. Hock is the creator of the blog, Lauryncakes, which has been in existence for more than five years.

On Instagram, the Utah native has amassed over 37,000 followers and attained paid brand deals, the most recent being with Snuggle Bear. Find Your ID NYC invited the well-known blogger as the featured guest for the first July PYNKTALKS episode on Wednesday, July 1.

Hock earned two bachelor’s degrees in education but started blogging throughout her college career. She previously taught special education at a low-income high school before she transitioned into blogging full-time in 2019. Hock says her knowledge in behavior studies and human development continues to help her as a blogger and influencer. Her experience as a teacher provides a better understanding of how to connect and approach people with different backgrounds.

“I just reevaluated and I was like blogging is pulling in the same amount or more income. I just felt like I could make more change through blogging. I felt like with teaching, there was just a lot of red tape, so it was hard to do things. I felt like blogging was the best route to make a change in the way that I wanted to.”

Most Lauryncakes followers will notice a common theme on Hock’s Instagram page and blog—she advocates for empowerment and positivity.

Screen Shot 2020-08-11 at 11.06.30 AM.png

Screen Shot 2020-08-11 at 11.06.59 AM.png

“I've always been a huge advocate for women empowerment. I think that it just comes from feeling like I wouldn't say an outcast, but I felt like I didn't feel included as I was growing up. So I wanted to make a space for women that felt like they had a voice, that they could be confident, and didn't have to fit into those specific boxes that the media has told them to.”

When discussing the more technical side of blogging, Hock explained how she started her website with Blogger. Blogger is owned by Google, meaning that at any time, the tech company could remove or change parts of Lauryncakes. For this reason, the Salt Lake City influencer knew she had to switch platforms.

“I had heard that WordPress was better for SEO. So SEO is search engine optimization, which is when you Google or type into any search engine, the order that things pop up on that search engine is search engine optimization. It's just how you rank for credibility or reliability. Eventually, I think it was just last year, I decided to go on to WordPress because I needed to do self-hosted. And it was a huge learning process. My husband actually does SEO for a living… So he helped me integrate the website.”

Hock manages her schedule with other tools like alerts, iPhone notes, and calendar reminders, especially when it comes to sponsorships. She says the process for brand deals typically begins with a company or business contacting an influencer who reaches their ideal target audience. In return for promoting the brand on social media or their website/blog, the influencer is paid.

“The great thing about influencers is that their audience is very niche and targeted because they have built this following based on what they stand for and their ideals. And typically when a brand reaches out to them, it's because they really resonate with whatever they talk about. So for instance, when brands reach out to me it's because they like women empowerment or body positivity, or maybe they like that I was a teacher in the past.”

One of the most valuable lessons Hock has learned while working with brands for paid sponsorships is her worth. In the beginning, the blogger constantly said yes to different brand deals, which she says was all part of the learning process.

“There was just one year that I was like, ‘why am I spending all this time doing things for people that don't resonate with me?’ They're not paying me what I felt like I needed and it was a hard decision that I made. I drew a line in the sand and I was like, ‘I am no longer saying yes to brands that do not fit within what I want to say or aren’t paying me well enough to make my time worth it.’”

Hock further explained how some bloggers may lose sight of their own worth if brands don’t offer paid partnerships. On the contrary, companies realize the value of an influencer once they say no to unpaid deals Hock added.

“I honestly think that a lot of brands have the same marketing reps. So they might know that you don't charge. They might talk to people on their team, or maybe they've worked with you on something else and they're like, ‘well, she didn't charge for this so she won't charge for this.’”

Securing some sponsorships are also not as common as you think. “Depends on a lot of factors. Blogging, like any business, fluctuates,” Hock responded when asked how often she says yes to a brand.

“I find that around the holiday season, like November and December, there's a lot of partnerships because people want to sell more things. But also right now is kind of a busy season for me every year, because it’s summer…From what I understand it's summer and the beginning of winter when most of the [marketing] budgets are allocated.”

During the PYNKTALKS broadcast, one viewer submitted a question on Facebook asking Hock how the coronavirus pandemic affects her and her work as a blogger. “I had a couple of months where I didn’t have any sponsorships. I thought ‘is blogging over? Did I make the wrong decision to go full time?’”

The former school teacher opened up with viewers on how she went into a bit of depression when COVID-19 first hit. “I had a lot of sponsorship deals that pulled out just because they didn't feel like it was a good time to talk about advertising. Or sometimes they were reallocating their money to people that they didn't want to lay off, but they needed to pay still.”

“In the beginning, I didn’t do this for the money. I did this because I liked it [blogging].”

One way Hock copes with the virus and the quarantine is through fitness. She was a huge fan of workout studios but learned to shift her routine to exercise at home and by going on hikes. “I started working out at home, and we got a spin bike...I absolutely use working out as a way to help my mental health.”

She even joined a travel blogging group full of diverse women in the U.S. called Babes That Wander. It’s a group of seven female bloggers who intend to meet up and work on content together once circumstances with the coronavirus improve.