This Charlotte woman has 39K Instagram followers. Here’s how she became Insta-famous

Welcome to the CharlotteFive Podcast, a weekly podcast presented by The Charlotte Observer and powered by OrthoCarolina that aims to get you Charlotte Smart, Fast with fun, interesting and useful news about the city. It’s hosted by Corey Inscoe and Sarah Crosland, and produced by Richard Brooke and 2Waves Media.

You can find The CharlotteFive Podcast on Soundcloud, iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and TuneIn. You can follow us on Twitter @Charlotte_Five, on Instagram @cltfive, and on Facebook, and you can shoot us an email to charlottefive@charlottefive.com.

Who: Vanessa Krombeen — better known as @thecheekybeen — is a Charlotte-based style blogger and social media influencer (yes, that’s a thing) who has amassed more than 39,000 followers on Instagram.

On this week’s podcast, we talked to her about how she got into style blogging, how she gained her following and how she balances The Cheeky Been with her full-time job.

What: This might surprise you if you don’t follow people like @thecheekybeen, but being an Instagram influencer can be a lucrative business. Krombeen still has her full-time job, but she said others who have grown large social media followings make surprisingly good money — enough for it to be a full-time job, and then some. Brands, like clothing lines and resorts, reach out to her and others to promote their products. And Krombeen isn’t just snapping selfies on her iPhone and posting them — she said she spends up to 20 hours a week on @thecheekybeen, including weekly photo shoots.

Krombeen explained how it all works — and how she makes money — on the podcast.

Anything else? We also talked about:

– Cam Newton’s romper (which wasn’t actually a romper).– TuckFest.– Hands on Charlotte Day, and how you can volunteer with the C5 team at Second Harvest Food Bank on the morning of April 29. (Sign up here — limited spots available.)– And, of course, this:

Yes, scroll through and you’ll see me trying to reenact some @thecheekybeen posts. It’s harder than it looks. Who wore it better? (Actually, don’t answer that.)

This story was originally published April 19, 2017 at 12:00 AM.