When Erin Moody lost her father on the same day her daughter was born, she couldn’t pretend it hadn’t happened. She couldn’t show up online as a polished, curated version of herself. She couldn’t keep sharing outfits and recipes as if life were ticking along normally. That moment of unavoidable authenticity, as painful as it was, became the foundation of everything she’s built since.
“I couldn’t help but be authentic,” she says. “I couldn’t pretend. I couldn’t show up as anything other than how I was and who I am.”
Erin started dabbling in content creation around 2017 and 2018, but 2019 was the year she got serious. She’d just gotten married, her last name was Moody, and the name Moody Wife took on a life of its own. In the beginning, she was sharing fashion and gluten-free recipes, navigating a crowded industry and trying to find her footing. “I kind of felt like I was just following trends,” she recalls, “and just trying to find my way.” It wasn’t until she became a mother that the path came into focus.
Finding Her Focus
Motherhood has given Erin a clear lens for everything she creates. Her content now operates under what she describes as an “umbrella of motherhood,” meaning that even a fashion post or a dinner recipe gets filtered through the lens of what’s actually useful for a mom. An outfit is something you can chase a toddler in. A recipe is a breakfast your toddler will actually eat. A vlog is rooted in the real, sometimes chaotic rhythm of family life.
Her primary goal is simple, but it’s also deeply personal: she wants the people who find her page to feel less alone. “Motherhood can feel so lonely,” she says. “You can kind of feel like you’re on your own. I love the idea of someone coming across my page and just feeling seen and feeling like they’re not alone in this journey.” She’s built that connection through the opposite of aspirational content. She shares the laundry on the couch. She hops on stories to tell a funny, ridiculous thing that happened. She lets people in on the mundane, because that’s where real connection lives. “People feel connected when they see a life that kind of looks like theirs,” she says.
The Content That Resonated
Some of Erin’s most successful moments have come from shopping content, particularly her Walmart style posts. She started sharing Walmart finds because of the combination of cute, practical, and affordable, and her audience responded with enthusiasm. “It’s almost like people have been sleeping on Walmart,” she laughs. The accessible price point has resonated deeply with the mom audience she’s built, and the sales numbers have followed.
Her most recent viral moment came from a video that had nothing to do with products at all. Her best friend had just had a baby, and instead of sending a generic “let me know if you need anything” message, Erin put together a basket of specific, thoughtful items and shared the idea with her audience. The messaging landed. “It went viral because of that kind of messaging of how to show up for people around you,” she says.
That video connects directly to one of Erin’s most deeply held beliefs: that to have a village, you have to be a village. It’s a thread that runs through everything she creates, and it traces back to the loss of her father. She started sharing about grief in the context of motherhood because she had no other choice. “Something happened with my content where I couldn’t really keep going without talking about it,” she says. “It was kind of the elephant in the room.” In sharing it, she found that people connected with her in a way that went far beyond product recommendations.
Building a Business With Heart
Erin is clear-eyed about the financial opportunity of content creation, and she’s proud of what she’s built. She left her office job to do this full time, and last year was a particularly strong year for brand partnerships. “The paychecks, I’m like, I can’t believe that brands pay this kind of money,” she says. For anyone who feels like a sustainable income from content creation seems out of reach, she wants them to know it’s not. “You can make a lot of money in this industry. It’s life-changing, and it has changed so much for our family.”
That said, she’s also honest that brand partnerships are just one piece of the picture. A major goal for her right now is to grow her affiliate income to match what she earns through partnerships, and she’s already seeing real momentum on that front.
How Mavely Fits In
Erin started using Mavely relatively recently, and the growth she’s seen in her affiliate income since joining has reinforced just how much the platform can move the needle. “Even just in the past couple of months that I’ve been using Mavely, I’ve seen such an increase,” she says.
A few features have become part of her regular workflow. She loves our deep-linking functionality for sending her audience directly to a specific product rather than a general landing page. “I think the user likes that,” she says. “The shopping experience is better.” But her favorite feature is the push notifications. When a retailer she likes is running a sale, Mavely alerts her, and she can move quickly to create content around it. “It’s almost like having an assistant, a virtual assistant,” she explains. “Mavely is like, ‘Hey, you need to share Belk today because they’re 30% off.’ I use that all the time.”
She’s also quick to mention that Mavely’s accessibility has been meaningful for other creators in her circle. Her best friend, a brand-new creator who only just started her account, joined Mavely as her first platform precisely because of how low-friction it is. “I love the way you guys take a chance on smaller creators,” Erin says. “You’re more accessible to people starting out.”
Erin’s Advice for First-Time Creators
For Erin, the business case for content creation is real, but the heart of it is something else entirely. “You can absolutely make a real income from this,” she says. “It’s something I love to do. It’s so rare that you can combine your passion and career. It makes your work more meaningful.” Her advice is essentially the same as her content strategy: show up as yourself, share the things you actually care about, and treat your audience the way you’d treat a friend. “When I am sharing products, it is something that I actually love and I actually use,” she says. “I consider you a friend, and I’m sharing this product with you the same way I would send it in my group text of my real life friends.”
That approach has built Erin something she’s genuinely proud of: a business that doesn’t feel like a compromise, a community that shows up for her the way she shows up for them, and a platform for the kind of connection that most people are quietly looking for.
Follow Erin on Instagram at @moody.wife and on TikTok at @moodywife. You can also catch her on her podcast, More with Erin Moody, and at moodywife.com.
For more creator stories, visit the Mavely blog. Not on Mavely yet? Join now at joinmavely.com.
