Today millions of people work remotely, a luxury that affords them the freedom to manage their time without the constraints of the traditional 9 to 5, travel at will and oftentimes live wherever they want in the world. Even with the many that have managed to break away from a life of going into the office, there are millions more who are still desperately trying to figure out how to create a remote career for themselves.

A few years ago Russian blogger Polina Pushkareva, who’s known internationally by her instagram handle @nioly where she has over one million followers, figured out how to create a successful remote career for herself through blogging and social media.

She says, “Dedication, and a deep understanding of how social media functions and analytics,” are among the most important qualities to be successful in her field.

Gaining an astonishing level of success, Pushkareva’s expertise as a fashion blogger has led her to be featured in the Russian editions of Vogue, GQ, Grazia, Cosmo, Kommersant and more. She is also a columnist for OK Russia, where she regularly gives advice on blogging, with articles that include “Thinking Strategy that will Lead to High Income,” “Organizing work with Clients in the Freelance Market,” “What Character Traits Will Help You Succeed?” and many more.

“It all started in an ordinary cafe. I sat at a table and took pictures of cheesecakes for my Instagram profile, which at that time consisted of 300 subscribers,” recalls Pushkareva. “I was noticed by the owner of the establishment and offered the job as a social media management specialist. This is how I got my first job in the online field. After a short period of work with commercial accounts, I was recommended as a good specialist to a blogger.”

What makes Pushkareva so unique though is the way that she took her career beyond simply blogging. Using the knowledge she’s gathered over the years, she created an online program to help other people establish successful remote careers of their own.

Last year she launched her first online course, “Managers,” which was an instant hit in Russia. The course taught subscribers how to manage other people’s blogs, essentially helping them to learn how to become a universal specialist capable of doing everything from writing posts and purchasing advertising for promotion to targeting audiences and creating the blog’s visual vibe.

“When I realized that I couldn’t cope with my many responsibilities anymore, and 24 hours a day wasn’t enough, I began to think about training assistants for myself…. that’s when I unconsciously identified the urgent need all bloggers have for a qualified ‘helper’,” explains Pushkareva.

“That’s how I created my first course, ‘Managers.’ It was an absolutely spontaneous project. But it sold out completely on my first day of sales, even though my blog only had 30 to 50 thousand subscribers at the time. The first round was immediately followed by the second, third, and fourth editions.”

With a million followers herself, and also managing blogs for brands and celebrities with millions of followers, Pushkareva was constantly overseeing the output of creative content to meet the demands of her various audiences.

She quickly realized that an opportunity to create a new career field in the social media industry existed– one that would help the bloggers, as well as those who wanted to create a remote career for themselves. This was a few years ago, and at the time the idea of someone being specifically trained to manage other people’s blogs and instagram profiles hadn’t fully taken off yet– Polina was on the forefront of a new industry.

“The popularity of my course grew instantly. After all, this info product had a specific goal to help both sides at the same time. All the talented people got an opportunity to learn a remote profession, and bloggers freed up their time for more important and interesting things,” explains Pushkareva.

One of the key reasons Polina’s course was such an instant success, and something that speaks to her keen insight as a business developer, is the mutual benefit she saw in creating the role of a social media manager.

She says, “Bloggers are people who live a normal life, but also have a great responsibility to their readers. They have lists of things to do on a daily basis besides blogging. And all these bloggers have long been in need of such a helper to free them from the routine stuff on Instagram, such as buying ads, creating content, and writing posts.”

Since 2019 Pushkareva has trained hundreds of thousands of people through her “Managers” course, which pulls from her years of experience as a blogger and her knowledge of what it takes to successfully manage all aspects of a blog and instagram account from the front and back end in a way that makes everything run smoothly and increases traffic.

Though she’s still in her early 20s, Pushkareva has accomplished more than most, and it seems everything she does, she does well. Not only was she named Fashion TV Russia’s Best Extraordinary Blogger in 2019, but she also recently took on her first ever acting role, and it was no small feat. She recently wrapped production on the upcoming feature film “WarHunt” where she acts alongside none other than iconic star and Oscar Award nominee Mickey Rourke from “Sin City,” “The Wrestler” and “Iron Man 2. ”

“We invited Polina to act in the role of a radio operator. As a blogger with one million followers, she will help us to attract a younger audience to watch this film. The shooting was in Latvia, in Riga. I was impressed by her self discipline,” says Julia Kim-von Den Driesch, one of the producers of the film.

“She is not afraid to try new things, she is not afraid to fail. All of her ups and downs are part of transformations and developments. She has a sixth sense in visual content. I think she is doing the right thing so that her generation can become independent from their circumstances.”

As a blogger, Pushkareva is a leading figure in her field, and as such, she’s been invited to give talks at the well-known international business forum, Synergy, which has featured other powerful speakers such as Tony Robbins, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger and many more.

Polina Pushkareva’s story of how she got to where she is today is one that reaffirms the power of self-determination, and it’s inspiring. Originally from Kovrov, a small town in eastern Moscow, Russia, Pushkareva worked as a waitress to put herself through school while studying sociology at Saint Petersburg State University. The owner of the restaurant she worked at approached her with a curiosity about social media so Pushkareva took it upon herself to learn everything she could about the business.

“I did not have any clue about this field, but I needed to earn extra money as a student. I told him yes and I started to learn and try something new with social media management everyday. This moment changed my life,” recalls Pushkareva.

“A couple of years ago the huge number of Instagram promotion training courses out there now weren’t available, so I had to learn all the skills necessary for the work by myself, watching videos, looking for and collecting all the information on the internet or from friends who were already well versed in this field. In addition to working as a manager on my blog, I also tested all the existing ways of promotion.”

She quickly took note of the rise of social media and the potential it offered to create a lucrative business, and she knew she could make more money. While in college Pushkareva made a trip to the U.S., which proved to be a major turning point for her.

She explains, “I flew to America on an exchange program and that’s where I realized that I urgently had to do something with my life… I realised that US bloggers needed a manager… At the time, the profession didn’t even exist, nobody knew what the job of a ‘blogger manager’ was… I knew exactly what I wanted to do in the future and I started to independently develop schemes and mechanisms of net promotion.”

Pushkareva’s newest course is called “Millionaires,” which is targeted towards training people to use social media to increase their personal income and become millionaires. Since releasing the new 11-day intensive training course in January, she has trained 4,000 people. The course, which is currently geared towards Russian speakers will be available in an English version at the end of the year.

She says, “Million follower bloggers is a new trend in our reality. To handle everything related to the blog professionally you have to be surrounded by a professional team… on the new course I teach people how to become a millionaire, how to deal with blogs of a million subscribers and how to manage everyday life.”

For Pushkareva, who began her own instagram by blogging about ‘student life, coffee, guys, and dreams,’ the platform has been hugely lucrative. Today, with one million followers herself, Pushkareva’s instagram account @nioly, takes audiences on a journey across the world with every picture telling a story.

Producer Julia Kim-den Driesch says, “Polina motivates people to do things and to move towards their goals. She built a strong and recognizable brand called @Nioly. Millions of followers watch her and she is a role model for young and dynamic girls around the globe, and she has a mission to provide affordable online education as a blog manager.”

Seeing how instagram and blogging could be a powerful tool for brands to gain attention and for people around the world to tell their stories, and the growing number of people in search of the digital nomad lifestyle, Pushkareva has become a sought after leader in the digital generation. With all of the opportunities she’s made available online, Pushkareva is one of the people who have helped make the days of being tied to a desk, one country and a predictable lifestyle something that is optional, not mandatory.