The Mall at Green Hills hosted its second annual Nashville Creator Awards on May 20, gathering creatives to recognize Music City's top social media influencers across multiple categories. The categories included Fashion, Family, Lifestyle, Home, and Local Entertainment. The evening stunned with impeccable style, Instagrammable photo ops, cocktails and sweets, comradery, cheer, and so much more. We chatted with the winners of each category to learn more about the people behind the screens.
Shelby Vert
Category: Fashion
Navigation: On social media, fashion is pretty tough because there’s so many different bodies. When you find your community in the fashion space, you can really flourish and grow. You can focus on your community rather than trying to reach a wider audience. Instead of making everybody happy, you can focus on your niche and help them.
Advice to New Creators: Do not copy someone else’s content. Be yourself. Share what you’re already sharing in real life. Don’t go buy stuff that wouldn’t fit your vibe to copy someone else. Do what you already wear, what you already love, and what stay true to yourself.
Katie Gomes, Nicole Renard Warren, Sydney Rae Bass, Brian Barry
Category: Family
Getting Started: It just kind of happened whenever I was on my sister’s show [Eric & Jessie: Game On] back in the day, and I just started posting and sharing my everyday life. It slowly evolved when I got married and had kids as I continued to share my life.
Favorite Part: I love being able to post and ask for advice because they always come through. If I have a question, I know my followers are going to write me back and they’re going to have answers and it truly helps me out. I love the relationship that you can create with the people following you.
Kristi Howard
Category: Lifestyle
Favorite Part: Not feeling so alone in real life. Sometimes your friends in person aren’t going through the same things as you and then online, you find people who have similar interests and experiences.
Advice for New Creators: Don’t stop creating. It took me like ten years. I was posting even when I’d hide it from my coworkers because I was embarrassed to show that I was posting videos, you know? Then, I had a separate account and stuff like that. But really, you have nothing to lose and its going to be embarrassing until its not. So, who cares what anyone says? There’s nothing embarrassing about it. Just keep going. Don’t stop because you have no views or any other reason like that. Just keep going.
Jessica Garvin and family
Category: Home
Getting Started: I started sharing chalk boards when my girls were in my belly so I was doing those every single week and as they were growing and got older, I was like I love being creative. I’ve always been an artist; I paint, I do graphic design, and I didn’t just want to share my kids anymore so we moved on to home content, home entertaining, and its my happy place.
Facing Burnout: People think the cure to burnout is rest, but the real cure is enthusiasm. That means pivoting to something that makes you excited and helps you bring your spark back even if its not your direct path or your job. Find what makes you really excited and your head will be flooded with creative ideas again.
Christine Susi
Category: Local Entertainment
Favorite Part: The relationships with people that I've been able to cultivate and just the stories I get to hear and share with other people. A lot of times I think that people don't know how much work and effort, and time goes into a dream and how that dream comes to fruition. So, I think that it's the biggest joy that I get to showcase people's products and businesses.
Advice for New Creators: Consistency. If you just consistently post and you’re giving resourceful information that people are going to be looking for, you will see some type of success in one way or another. It may take three months, it may take three years, but you will see success if you stay consistent and don’t look at the numbers.