18 Confessions From Top Social Media Influencer Drea Chong

She’s a social media star, one of a handful of influencers in Singapore who make enough moolah to actually do it full-time and start her own company, and hire full-time staff to help her with content and engagements. With 309K followers on Instagram, Andrea Chong, aka @dreachong, is at the top of her game, with paid campaigns with prestigious brands coming out of her ears, and clients throwing so many beauty products, clothes, gadgets and trips at her, she probably has to dodge every five seconds. Basically, this 27-year-old is living a life so Insta-amazing, it’ll make you green with envy. But is social media wonderland really so… wonderful? What does it take to be like Drea? Sacrifice, hard work, missed birthdays, and way too many lipsticks?

8days.sg sits the social media queen down and extracts 18 confessions.

#1: She didn’t finish school.
“A quick Google search and you’ll know that I didn’t finish university [she dropped out of her Literature course at NTU], but to the uninitiated, this is Confession No. 1. I don’t think people will judge me based on my degree, though. Ultimately, it’s the work we produce that shows more.”

#2: She has days when she doesn’t want to put on make-up, get dressed up and go out there and, you know, influence.
“Honestly, that’s 99 per cent of the time!” (Laughs) “But it’s not just me anymore — it’s my team and my company. I’m struggling ’cos I don’t have time to do creative and organic content, ’cos we are so busy with commercial work and doing pitches and proposals. There’s no time for me to do something for fun. People need to realise that if my company doesn’t take on the projects, we cannot feed our staff, pay our rent and utilities and our production crew for shoots. I have three full-timers and interns as well. It’s not just me earning the money! There’s a misconception that I keep it all for myself, but I’m an employee of my company too.”

#3: Yes, she digitally edits her pictures.
Who doesn’t? Says Drea, “Five per cent of the editing will be to remove blemishes like scars or things like editing the skirt to make it look more flowy, or pushing in buttons on a shirt to make it look straight. The other type of editing is adding filters and colours, and that’s about 20 to 30 per cent of the picture. I don’t do anything to my face. We use DI [digital imaging] for client work, like if we’re promoting a skirt, we have to make the skirt look good. I’m not gonna make myself look thinner, I’m gonna make the skirt look better. If we’re promoting something in a bottle, we make the bottle brighter or sharper.”

#4: She doesn’t really unfollow people, but she has muted a few IG Stories.
“Have I unfollowed people for being annoying on IG? Not so much lah, but sometimes I hide or mute their IG Stories.” (Laughs)

#5: She’s abandoned her friends, family and fiancé more than a few times in the name of work.
“I’ve missed birthdays, anniversaries, Hari Raya this year [her fiancé is lawyer Imran Rahim], but everyone’s very understanding of my work. They know I have to travel, and I’ve got to be at events. I expect that of my team as well. I’ve had people who worked for me who’ve said they cannot work on certain dates ’cos it’s their anniversary, and I’m like, ‘If you go out to the corporate world, I don’t think this will be acceptable.’ But I am understanding of my team’s needs as well. For me, personal commitments, while important, shouldn’t be the cause of your work being halted or paused. It’s your responsibility to make time outside of work. Yes, Imran and I missed our anniversary, but we make up for it later. My priority is always work. Anniversaries or birthdays can be rescheduled. My family has never gotten pissed off with me, ’cos it’s not like I forgot. My family is important, and I will make time when I have time.”

#6: She doesn’t love everything she endorses all of the time.
“I’m very careful about using the word ‘love’ — it’s a very absolute term. When I write my captions or create content, unless I absolutely believe in a product, I wouldn’t say ‘I love this product.’ I can’t love every single thing in this world! I will state the efficacy of product, how it reacted with my skin, and so on. But just because I don’t use the word ‘love’ doesn’t mean it’s not a good product. ‘Love’ is a very strong word and it loses its efficacy if used too much. Sometimes, we say something is suited for people with oily or sensitive skin, instead of it just being about me, me, me all the time.”

#7: There are a few things she’d probably never promote.
“I wouldn’t do slimming products. First of all, I don’t need it, and with slimming products, I don’t know… for me, it’s like, if you wanna lose the weight, then go exercise lah.” (Laughs) “Right now, I wouldn’t endorse alcohol also, and no invasive aesthetics treatments, either. I go for laser treatments and facials, but I personally wouldn’t endorse invasive treatments. I have close friends who’ve gone through plastic surgery and they look amazing and good for them. If it makes you happy, then go for it,”

#8: She’s only cried two or three times in her influencer career.
“I definitely haven’t cried or gotten that upset this year. I think I keep it in quite well. I’ve only broken down twice or thrice in my six to seven year career. When I feel stifled or upset, and I talk to my fiancé or my business manager, who helps me out part-time, and handles all my business clients, campaigns, proposals and negotiations.”

#9: She’s a bit sad that some people can’t see who she is beyond the fame and the followers.
“People see you differently once you become an influencer or a public figure. It’s very hard for people to see you beyond the fame, likes or followers. I’ve met so many people who’ve said to me, ‘You’re not what I thought you were.’ It’s like, ‘What did you think I was?!’ (Laughs) Even for friends from school, it’s hard for them to reconcile who I was in school to who I am now. I’m the same person, but it’s their perception which changes. It’s quite sad lah. This is my line of work, but it’s very different from my personal life.”

#10: Not every ad campaign is as pretty behind the scenes as it looks on Instagram.
“There are some campaigns that once we take on, we realise maybe they’re not in line with our branding. At the end of the day, that’s where we learn, and know we won’t take on these kinds of jobs next time. Yes, I’ve been tempted to fire clients, but it’s not very professional, right? Sometimes, it’s down to miscommunication and differing expectations, or mismatched approaches to marketing. As content creators, we’re limited to the client brief. Some clients want you to take photos this way, write captions that way, but some influencers know their audiences and what will work better. And if that’s not in line with what the client wants, or if there’s a clash of communication, or if there are no results, then people will get upset. But we try to not to burn bridges and walk away — we’d be like, ‘Let’s reevaluate for next time.’”

#11: She gets way too many freebies.
“Yes, we get so much stuff, and as a team, we are trying to devise ways to be more creative about what to do with these [beauty, fashion and lifestyle] products. SHE by DC [a segment on her website, The DC Edit] is where we get our followers to review some of the products we get. They come down to our office, and we may shoot them reviewing the products. This way, there’s no huge stash of lipsticks in my office all the time, ’cos only one pair of lips, right, and we can create new and innovative content while building a community of women who are interested in beauty. The brands get some coverage and we can disburse our products at the same time.”

#12: She still buys beauty products, despite all the freebies.
“I still buy stuff! I’m not the kind who always asks for sponsorship or products. If I finish using I like, I’ll go and buy it. I try about 50 per cent of what I get, and my team will try the rest or give some to our followers to try, to get their reviews.”

#13: Because of the freebies and all the perks, she knows people are jealous.
“I think it’s human nature to be jealous, and I don’t fault anyone for being jealous. If you think it’s easy to do this, or to build a social media brand or platform, or be a media site, then try it yourself. I invite anybody to try. Everyone in the industry knows it’s not easy. But I invite you to try — bring it on!”

#14: Freebies are nice, but admin work? Not so nice.
“What’s unglam about being an influencer? All the proposals, and finance and admin stuff. It’s why people hire finance or admin staff, and eventually, I need to do that. A lot of business goes on behind social media. It’s evolved to being much more than just posting pretty pics. Honestly, being on Instagram and posting takes up maybe 5 per cent of my work life. The other 95 per cent is what you don’t see — content creation, production, business proposals, pitches, PR and meetings. A lot of people think it’s very easy to be an influencer, so again, I invite you to try it, ’cos if you’re trying to establish yourself as someone reputable or worth a client’s time, it’s not that easy. Building that reputation and foundation is so important, and as with everything in life, building something good takes time.”

#15: She doesn’t have a solution to the practice of brands sending out elaborate press kits with too much packaging.
“I am aware of what some people are saying about how wasteful influencing is, with all the fancy press gifts we get. These press kits are wasteful and not environmentally-friendly, and take up so much space, not to mention the amount of money agencies spend on deliveries and how that also isn’t eco-friendly. Should we effect change and tell the brands to stop sending us stuff in giant boxes with so much packaging? But when you think about how this only affects a small community of maybe 100 to 200 people, it’s like, do we channel this energy to something that affects a bigger community? If you wanna get the top influencers to talk about your product, sending it in a paper bag doesn’t look good, especially if you’re fighting with all the noise and other brands. It’s a tough one. I don’t have a solution at the moment, but it’s a conversation to be had, as a community of influencers and media.”

#16: She didn’t really have a concerted plan to build a brand beyond her own name, but it happened.
From simply endorsing beauty, fashion and lifestyle brands on Instagram to now putting her name on products by collaborating with brands like Superga and 100PLUS, Drea has levelled up as an influencer. She’s also extending her brand beyond herself by building The DC Edit, a website which will soon take over her personal blog. She tells us, “Obviously, it’s really important to build your personal brand, but I still feel like I’m living my life day by day. I just going into the office and execute things. I never thought like, oh, I’m trying to set myself apart. It’s more about trying to create content that sets us apart. The DC Edit is still an extension of me, but it’s also a platform of writers and contributors, so it's not just my opinions. Right now, there’s a lot of info from Chinese influencers, but I want to know what the Malay girl and Indian girl’s perception of beauty is. The idea is to build content for this platform, so it can live outside of me, and I can offer differing opinions and diversity. I’m very happy for other influencers who go out and do their own thing. If you are able to break the mould, that’s great.”

#17: You’d have to pay her to go on a trip.
Most people would kill to go on an all-expenses-paid trip. But not Drea. Unless you pay her. “Last time, maybe a year ago, I’d go on a free unpaid trip, but my head is in a different space now,” she tells us. “It’s like, if you’re sending me on a trip, that means you’re taking me away for one week from my team, which is five to seven days in the office we could be working on new campaigns and proposals. So the opportunity cost now is quite big. When I travel, it needs to be for a purpose, and it needs to cover the cost of my time away from the office.”

#18: If she wasn’t an influencer, she’d be a teacher.
“I was doing a lot of private tutoring, and I really enjoyed teaching. I was still doing that when I became a blogger and influencer, but then my influencer life got out of hand.” (Laughs) “I love teaching, and I love seeing the results of my students.”


Photos: Alvin Teo
Shot on location at Apartment Coffee, 161 Lavender Street, #01-12
https://apartmentcoffee.co/