Sophie Chung: The social media space has developed exponentially over the past few years since its birth. It’s incredibly accessible and embedded in our daily lives. However, with the tendency to highlight one’s life at its peak which makes for a smidge of these people’s lives, social media is proving to affect the self-esteem of viewers. When it comes to creating content with integrity, that are viewed by a lot of young Gen Ys and Gen Zs, how do you ensure that your content is authentic with a positive, constructive message?

Hannah Duder: We are always authentic with our posting, it either comes directly from Bonnie and I, and is our voice. We avoid any negativity and try to only focus on positive things. We have a real emphasis on choice - choosing that you are beautiful, choosing what you want to do, how you want to look etc. We mix up our models and the style of makeup we portray. We try to be as inclusive as possible. We also throw in a positive quote every 3-4 photos. We also ensure our Instagram feed isn't perfectly curated weeks in advance, I think it is so obvious when a person or business has done this and it seems really fake.

SC: Personally, I'm very grateful to have experienced a pure childhood without the habit of continuously comparing my life with others who 'appear' to be in 'better' situations than myself... I can't even imagine growing up with this much existential dread! What are your thoughts on the responsibility that we hold as people who influence communities?

HD: I think anyone out there with a large following has a responsibility to make it clear to their followers what their purpose of putting this content out there is. Are they trying to sell you something, or are they putting on a show and see their content as entertainment or are they being real and authentic by letting people into their lives?

There is also some responsibility on the audience to realise that Instagram is basically reality TV and they only show the good parts. It isn't hard to click unfollow and more information and education needs to go out to the younger generations about this.

SC: As people who market and monetize their social accounts, how do you balance the aspects of aesthetics and meaning? What has worked and what hasn’t? And in this current oversaturated market, how do you get ahead in this rat race while retaining your moral compass and not selling out?

SC: I guess this comes to the discussion of ‘meaningless pretty picture vs. authentic, real, raw content,’ - I’m an advocate of the latter - I think combining meaning into a picture, albeit difficult, can be done. At the moment in New Zealand, I’m noticing that large global brands are still aligning with Instagrammers who have large numbers and create the ‘pretty pictures’ rather than those who are showing reality and its lowlights. The world is definitely changing towards promoting authenticity. However, it seems to be a slow burn due to our human nature of being drawn to beautiful people and objects - since the dawn of time, humans have been adorning themselves to be beautiful. What are your thoughts on this?

HD: I think at the moment, being raw and authentic in the beauty industry does make us stand out. We are just being ourselves and not trying to be like anyone else. We want quality, not quantity, when it comes to followers on social media. This does mean a slower organic growth but we are okay with that. We have found that giveaways get us more followers for the duration of the giveaway but we then lose most of them after it ends. We have found that having an influencer with 100k followers posting about levitate, does not lead to actual sales, especially if they are just another "unboxing" influencer who is constantly sent stuff by companies. However, smaller micro-influencers with 1-10k followers work better. We have found mainstream media, television and interviews with online newsagents and magazines lead to actual sales and authentic following.