Pamela Mtanga refuses to be average and her latest award is testament to this.

Mtanga was named top personality and influencer at the Top 16 Youth-Owned Brands Awards hosted by Pat on Brands. The 26-year-old public relations graduate is one of SA's hottest beauty and fashion influencers. SMag caught up with Mtanga after her big win.  

Who is Pamela Mtanga?

Pamela Mtanga is a multimedia entrepreneur and, as of last week, I am an award-winning multimedia entrepreneur. I was born in Port Elizabeth, now known as Gqebera.

How did you become a social media influencer and what kind of work goes into being as successful as you?

During my university years I discovered my love for broadcasting and interacting with people, I then became an ambassador for brands due to my influence on the campus space. However, I had to grow my following to extend my influence to digital.

Subsequent to graduating I worked for a youth marketing agency and I continued doing work within the campus space. My following continued to grow without me realising it. When lockdown hit, I could not do what I was passionate about, which is broadcasting and interacting with people in real time. I knew I had the social media numbers, so I branched into content creation.

What is the Pamela Mtanga brand and what do you want people to take from you?

My life’s purpose is to make people happy. Not to please, but to make people happy. Whether it be through fashion, broadcasting, philanthropy or an encounter outside of my work. What drives me is believing that my success is inevitable, and that takes an immense amount of faith and hard work.

What challenges do you face as an influencer?

Constantly finding new ways to create a social media experience for my social media community is both daunting and exciting. With an influencer budget, how creative can you get for one post? The challenge is that you have to have limits but I still try my best to execute at optimum level.

The second most challenging thing is brands paying anything from 30 to 90 days post campaign; this is usually big corporate clients. I work with a team of talented black creatives and I pay them immediately, meaning that I always have to have a working budget. At any given point in time, I have to have enough funds to execute at least six content pieces because whether the previous client paid or not, the next client needs you to deliver in a timely fashion. Therefore, as a small business you find yourself dipping into savings to sustain the business.

What did it mean to you to win the award?

The award for me speaks to credibility and recognition. To be nominated among tech, beauty, and education start-ups within the marketing field simply means that influencers are recognised as a part of the marketing chain.

We influence buying decisions and we have human interaction with consumers which can assist with generating insights in real time to create better marketing solutions, I believe that brands should invest more and collaborate with influencers to achieve that. Allocate adequate marketing budget for influencers and let’s continue to create. We are here to stay, after all, influencer marketing is word of mouth that lives digitally, it will not die but it will evolve.