I’ve Studied Alix Earle for 18 Months: Here’s Why Her Content Is So Successful
This week, Alix Earle graced the first ever digital cover for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit—and it’s far from the first groundbreaking move she’s made in the digital landscape. I starting studying her in January 2023, when she’d just hit 2M followers on TikTok (she’s current at 6.8M) and I’ve been a fan ever since. In this article I’ll deep dive what every person creating video on social media can learn from her strategies for success.
Contents
January 2023: Her CONTENT STRATEGY FOR EXPONTENTIAL GROWTH
May 2023: $100M Earned Media Value for airbnb
June 2023: Her U Miami Scholarship
Fall 2023 : Launching Her Podcast & Joining Forces with Alex Cooper
December 2023 :Her Party Girl Brand
January 2024: Content Surprise
May 2024: Poppi Investor
Jun 2024: Unretouched SI Photos
January 2023: Her Initial Exponential Rise
Alix Earl is the reason for why the GRWM (“Get Ready With Me”) video format (a.k.a., people talking to you while putting on makeup at their vanity) became one of the most dominant formats for short-form video in 2023. But what no one may’ve told you is the two key things that differentiated her GRWM videos from anyone else’s. A TikToker named Katie Xu did an excellent video that inspired me to double down and build out specific strategies based on some trends Katie pinpointed
Alix Earle used what I have termed a “before, during, after” content strategy. This approach ensures continuous engagement by keeping her audience coming back for more.
What is a “Before, During, After” Content Strategy?
It works like this:
Alix Earl would begin her videos by referencing previous content (BEFORE). Essentially: "If you were watching last time, then you know the backstory, so I want to tell you what happened."
This immediately triggers viewers who missed the previous video to go back and watch it, thereby driving traffic to her page and followers/subscribers. And for those who have seen the previous video? They feel an instant connection. They want to stay in the know-and they want to know what happens next, prompting them to keep watching, and training the algorithm that they’ll watch her videos when they show in feed.
Then comes the “during” content. This is either an update to the video you saw or the video you will go back to watch later. This your reward. She told you she’d report back, and she does, building trust.
Finally, Alix previews what’s coming up next (AFTER): where she’s going, what she’s doing, or future content plans. This method subconsciously urges viewers to return later to see what happens next.
Imagine “I told you in my last video that I was going to this event and why I was feeling nervous (past). I went and this happened (present). Now I need to go to bed because tomorrow I’m going to the next place (future).” Yes, she was applying makeup—but that’s way more strategic then ‘here’s a life lesson-full stop.’
She shocked people with her authenticity
GRWM as a format became exhausting not only because it was oversaturated, but because it felt staged. It felt advised by a team strictly for views. Alix’s GRWM didn’t feel that way. They harkened to the intimacy of watching an older relative put makeup on at her vanity, or getting together with your besties for girls night. Because the content she shared at her vanity felt like intimate-bestie-vanity gossip, it reads as authentic.
Here was your friend Alix, who would tell you the truth about her boob job and her hangovers and her acne. The content fit the genre so it felt sincere—not like square peg-round hole content where female executives were told to excerpt their TED talks while applying mascara so Gen Z would care.
Finally, GRWM was HER thing. Now, let me be clear that there were certainly other beauty influencers before her and concurrent to her who were doing the GRWM, but it became synonymous with her and she stayed true to that style of content the way Reesa Teesa would to the style she architected in early 2024.
Content creators who lean into format repetition correctly create a space of predictability that feels grounding and comforting for their audience who wants to return to that security in an uncertain world.
(For all those who say “she was only more successful because she’s skinny, white, conventionally attractive and rich; I would say 1. I’ll concede that TikTok advantages some or all of these attributes—in a chicken-or-egg conundrum—we cannot be sure if it’s how the algorithm is built or what content users have greater engagement with and 2. Other creators didn’t marry the GRWM with every other strategy I’ll lay out in this article from the storytelling and authenticity to all that follows).
If you want your content to see similar traction, use these techniques. Discuss what you did, what you’re doing, and what you plan to do next. By continuously engaging your audience with updates and previews (like we’ve seen work across so many other storytelling formats), you’ll see increased traffic to your page and videos.
January 2023 was a major month for Earle because she went on her first major brand trip: The Tarte Dubai trip. This trip came before the viral backlash of the F1 trip and solidified that brands had taken notice of “The Alix Earle effect” - when Alix Earle recommended a product, it sold out. Lia Haberman’s ICMY Substack (my favorite social media weekly newsletter) covered the trip (and quoted me, as did Glossy and WSJ, if you want to read more on it.)
January 2023: Solidifying Her Position as the Girl Next Door (In Comparison to…)
Another thing you have to know about TikTok on January 2023 is that as beloved as Alix Earle was, that’s how hated Hailey Bieber was. The video cuts of Justin and Selena were nonstop, and that’s in part because there was a theory that Hailey was obsessed with, and bullying, Selena Gomez. And a narrative emerged on the FYP: Hailey Bieber was everyone’s villain—and in an unrelated corner of the app, a kind influencer named Alix Earle was making her mark. I did a video because in two successive videos on my feed, these influencers came across my FYP specifically for their impact on two different women-owned small businesses.
My takeaway was: It's a great time to talk about your personality in your personal brand and what we're seeing as the rise of the kind, beautiful, popular girl and the demise of the mean girl influencer.
Hailey Bieber's Brand Controversy
People were saying that Hailey Bieber really isn't as nice —and the clothing brand Rhode certainly would’ve agreed. They sued her for copyright infringement when she launched her skincare brand Rhode. The co-minority woman-owned business had asked Bieber four years prior not to use their name when she tried to buy it from them. But she did anyhow.
Because the first brand is in clothing and she is in skincare, she won the copyright infringement lawsuit.
But Rhode maintains that it's detrimental to their brand. And when we think about search engine optimization and people entering in the term 'Rhode,' obviously Hailey Bieber is going to have a lot more resources and she did supersede them and take the top spot on Google.
When you type in "Rhode" her brand comes up over their clothing line; which coupled with the “nepo baby” tee-shirt makes it look like doesn't care about the fact that she's eclipsing this small business.
What is this anecdote doing in an Alix Earle deep dive?
Despite also coming from money and connections, Alix secured her brand as a nice girl, from small businesses to fans. As Alix Earle’s star rose, the videos that came up were of her drunk hugging a girl going through a break up; of someone saying they bumped into her at CVS and her chatting with them, with her commenting on fans videos recreating her videos and tagging her—laughing along, crying along, being in community. She sent her clothes (and still does) when followers asked if they could wear a certain outfit.
And the video I saw on this particular day, right after a Rhode-Rhode breakdown was one from a small business owner with the onscreen title: "Alix Earle blew up our small business." A business owner shared that Alix Earle wore her necklaces and by featuring them, she sold them out.
So not only was Alix Earle selling out lights, and preworkout in her Amazon shop, she was supporting small businesses.
Post-pandemic influencer marketing
The spirit of your brand is your reputation, and “you can sit with us” over perfection was a post-pandemic shift for influencers.
Pre-pandemic, aspirational influencer marketing meant everything was gorgeous and polished and everyone had presets on their photos; it was really aesthetic first. But especially post-pandemic, especially when everyone’s craving connection, Alix Earle rose to superstardom because she's getting ready with you and she feels like a friend and because the net impact of what she's doing is uplifting businesses and helping other people.
She's not just a pretty cool girl; she's a nice, pretty cool girl, and that's why people are so eager to support her right now. Whereas even if you're a hot celebrity married to a hot pop star, if there's TikTok after TikTok or post after post of things that you're doing that are hurting other people, it's going to adversely affect your brand and your brand value. Lesson: Lean into kind content —and engage beyond your page.
May 2023: Partnership with Airbnb
For graduation, Alix Earle and several friends went to Italy—and their accommodations fell through. And Airbnb immediately swooped in and put her in a house where she and her friends screamed “THANK YOU AIRBNB” and proceeded to make content for the next several days.
Social Media & Influencer Marketing Expert Lia Haberman posted on LinkedIn that it was estimated that the earned media value was $100,000 for Airbnb.
And they couldn’t have picked a better partner on a better platform. “Nightmare Airbnb experiences” is a whole content lane on TikTok and it was incredibly beneficial for them to have a top influencer singing their praises.
June 2023: Her University of Miami Scholarship
Upon graduating from the University of Miami, Alix announced a scholarship there. Since this is a strategy piece, this was not only so aligned with her brand but a brilliant move in crisis communications. Her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend was saying that he’d cheated and she was a homewrecker (and while she’s addressed the rumors since), at the time, she chose a “no-statement-statement.” She put all her press behind the scholarship she was launching at The U. Her work, her philanthropy. Not her love life.
August 2023 : Joining Alex Cooper’s Unwell Network
In August of 2023, Alex Cooper of Call Her Daddy launched The UnWell Network and one of the first people she signed was Alix Earle.
This move was widely covered for both Alix & Alex. Alex C was finding a new hot, young, blonde girl to take her established content lane and allow her to progress to celebrity interviews and content that aged with her. Alix E was progressing from a TikToker to a podcaster, migrating her audience, trying longer form storytelling, creating additional access, and showing she could “do more than TikTok.”
Candidly, the TikTok I did on their collab in November was around the conspiracy theories that had taken over my FYP that Alex Cooper may've been looking to eclipse Alix Earle. As I clarified in that video—and a follow up— I was super curious about the conspiracy and it’s prevalence and what that meant for women rising in media (and whether audiences were buying it, or picking favorites, or cheering them both on) and interested in the conversation overall.
December 2023 : Her Party Girl Brand
Negative Press: Or Was It?
In December 2023, “Alix Earle smells” was a trending search term on TikTok, because two major stories of hygiene became public at the same time. In an episode of her podcast, she talked about something she did in a Halloween body suit and she concurrently made a TikTok cleaning out her closet where she found a designer dress hung up that she hadn’t cleaned since she puked in it.
And my two cents was two-fold. First, every human on TikTok who thought she didn’t deserve her fame and only got it because of looks gleefully created what I would characterize as mean content—and I thought it reflected more on them than her, because nothing needed to be said.
Second, it strengthened her brand. Was it gross? Sure. Was it something I would do? Nope. Did it fit in the universe of your oversharing, partying bestie? Yes. She remained consistent.
That bodysuit she peed (and more) through? She wore that perfectly styled as Madonna to Heidi Klum’s Halloween party. And what happens to so many people know for “real” stories when they become famous—to paraphrase Jamie Foxx on an episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee is that ‘they become too rich for the jokes to be funny.’
But Alix was able to stay the relatable, drunk party girl. And anyone who thought it was over-the-top probably agreed with the fan who commented:
“You're the Paris Hilton of our generation. ”
And so I predicted that partying so hard was perfectly on brand—which is why she shocked even me with what she did next.
January 2024: Content Surprise
So, the vitriol moved beyond “She looks stinky.” It progressed to “She’s an alcoholic.” There was a clip of her on her podcast saying "Should I do an episode where I go get a drug test? Because everyone says that I'm an alcoholic and everyone says that I'm doing drugs and I'm not."
For maybe the first time, her brand is kind of seeing some negative from: "Oh my God, she's the ultimate party girl" (good) to: "Is her partying getting out of hand?"
The media seemed ready to cast her in the Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Richie, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears light. We know how to take young famous women partying and absolutely tear them to pieces.
Alix Earl’s Genius Content Move
So what did Alix Earl do? Did she do a whole get ready with me about the bullies on the internet and how everyone should just leave her alone and let her go out and drink and party? No, she did not.
She's too smart for that.
What she did was a GRWM where she declared that for January she's going to do 30 days of no drinking and she wrapped it into a whole wellness bundle. It's going to be 30 days where she's going to be doing some of the aspects of 75 hard. She's going to be working out twice a day. She's going to be following healthier eating. She won't be ordering out as much, and she's not going to be drinking.
Now my favorite comment on this video was:
“Sober. In January. Groundbreaking.”
But it was. What I love about this video so much is that it's the perfect way to address a party girl image without addressing it. Because Alix did not start the video by saying, "Because everyone thinks I'm an alcoholic, I'm going to go 30 days without drinking." She didn't do any of that.
I always say, “make content for your fans, not your trolls. ”
She hears all the noise over there, and so she's just gonna make some content over here that, hey guys, I'm not gonna drink for 30 days. Come along with me. Come join me. F--king brilliant.
June 2024: Unretouched SI Photos
Early 2024 was consistent. She partied, she loved her boyfriend, she continued her podcast, she went to fashion week, she traveled, she saw family —she took us everywhere. Get Ready With Her. Get Dressed With Her. Live Life with her. Her business initiatives grew: She announced being an investor in Poppi post-Coachella. I’m not fast-tracking this list to demean her accomplishment but to underscore when people talk about her consistency—it’s not just in “making videos” a certain number of times per day. A lot of people do that and don’t have her success. She has maintained her content lanes, her story formats, her access, her brand. She’s intentional and even her growth feels predictable and she become a friend you can count on.
That brings us today, where after she showcased for all intents and purposes a perfect body for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit, she did a video telling her audience she asked for the photos to be unretouched. Those armpit wrinkles? She asked for them. And she said it’s because she’s always been honest with her audience.
Even at the pinnacle of unreachable hotness—the cover of a new format of Sports Illustrated—she chose to “be real” with us. And we love her for it.
Conclusion
Alix Earle is who her audience expects— she parties, she shares her life, she’s growing up— and she’s always inviting them along with her.
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