Last fall, Bumble swarmed senior Grace O’Reilly’s apartment.

Once a month from August to November, the dating app sent O’Reilly, who is majoring in creative writing and English, a large box brimming with Bumble-branded merchandise, including trucker hats, frisbees and T-shirts. With most items designated to give away to other GW students and some to keep for herself, O’Reilly’s endless supply of merchandise was just another part of her job description as a Bumble College Ambassador — one of the four brand ambassador positions she’s held throughout her time at GW.

“It’s definitely a fun experience, and I definitely recommend it to anyone, especially college students,” O’Reilly said.

O’Reilly is among the ranks of dozens of GW students who are giving away branded merchandise, hosting events on campus and posting sponsored content on their personal social media accounts for companies looking to increase engagement with college students, from Bumble to UberEats.

O’Reilly currently has more than 1,600 followers on Instagram.

Before her Bumble ambassadorship, O’Reilly said her first experience as a brand ambassador was for the food delivery service DoorDash during the spring semester of her sophomore year. She said she made about $200 a month and was required to post DoorDash content on her Instagram three times a month, which she had to keep visible on her account for at least six months after the program. 

O’Reilly posted an Instagram reel ordering from the taco spot Surfside on DoorDash and a graphic of a Surfside shopping bag riding a DoorDash-branded surfboard for the ambassadorship, according to her Instagram.

O’Reilly said Bumble paid their ambassadors about $20 to $50 for each task they completed, like promoting Bumble in an Instagram post, rather than paying on a regular, monthly basis. She said the payments totaled to about $250 a month, which she said was “definitely not enough” for working on a new Bumble project every week while also managing her coursework, her Federal Work Study position and an editorial internship at Hotels Above Par — a publication that covers luxury hotels and travel.

“It should be someone who has maybe 12 to 15 credits a semester and maybe doesn’t have a federal work study job or maybe doesn’t have a job, and they wanted to look for something fun,” O’Reilly said. “Or I don’t know, honestly, still have a job because the Bumble bank cannot help for anything to live off of but definitely for something fun, I’d have to say.”

O’Reilly said posting an Instagram reel for DoorDash when she first started the program felt a “little awkward” and repping a Bumble-branded T-shirt and cowboy hat in an Instagram post was “interesting but fun.” She said ultimately the program was a “great experience” that allowed her to connect with other GW students through promotional events, like nonalcoholic social events and Bumble-themed cupcake giveaways and ambassadors from other universities in the DMV area, like American and Howard universities. 

“You just gotta get over that little awkward hump,” O’Reilly said. “And of course, you know, doing it a little bit for the money, but it definitely was fun.”

During her Bumble ambassadorship, O’Reilly said she was also working as a student ambassador for UniversityHaus — a rental agency that provides off-campus housing for students. She said while living in a UniversityHaus-managed unit at the Yours Truly hotel for a month as she looked for an off-campus apartment, she made flyers to hand out at student organization meetings she attended, posted Instagram stories and wrote a HerCampus article promoting UniversityHaus. 

She said the experience was “chaotic” because her boss, who was also her landlord, was poor at communicating, and eventually, she had to have her parents get involved to make sure she wasn’t “scammed” out of her deposit.

“The Bumble one was a little chaotic, a little stressful, but I still loved it,” O’Reilly said. “But yeah, the UniversityHaus one was just chaotic.”

As she pursues a career in publishing, O’Reilly said the experience she has from her brand ambassadorships has helped her earn internships with companies looking for interns with knowledge of social media marketing. 

“Those places are going to be looking for students,” O’Reilly said. “They’re going to be seeking people who not only want to get that editorial experience, but they can help them with their outreach on social media and understand all that.”

Katelyn Power, a senior majoring in data science and a dance influencer, said she has been working as an ambassador for Bloch, a dancewear company, for five years and is required to post about the companies’ products, like leggings and ballet flats, a “couple times” a month. She said she was also an ambassador for Discount Dance, a wholesale dancewear website, throughout 2021 and a model for Body Wrappers, another dancewear company, while in high school.

Power currently has more than 478,000 followers on TikTok and more than 28,000 followers on Instagram.

Power said she decided to apply for the ambassadorships while in high school as she had already been using the companies’ products and promoting them on her social media accounts. 

“If I posted something, I would say what I wore in the caption of it, for example. And usually it would be Bloch or Discount Dance products that I would be wearing,” Power said. “So because of that, it was kind of only beneficial for me to work with these companies. So a lot of times I would get the products for free and also just maintain and build relationships with the companies to help with that.”

With separate social media profiles for her dance content and her personal life, Power said she doesn’t feel uncomfortable promoting Bloch products on her accounts that are dedicated to dance. 

“Because the products with Bloch that I promote are already things that I use in my day to day life, and they’re already things that I would have been like posting about otherwise, it’s not really super unnatural for me to be posting about them more,” Power said.

Jaden Jennings, a senior majoring in women’s, gender and sexuality studies, said they are currently working as a brand ambassador for Hollister and previously worked as an ambassador for Bumble during summer 2023, an opportunity the company direct messaged them about via Instagram. They said working in social media and communications for the Division for Student Affairs from 2021 to 2023 gave them relevant experience to apply for brand ambassador opportunities. 

Jennings currently has more than 3,100 followers on Instagram and more than 8,700 on TikTok.

“I think what they are really looking for and emphasize is someone on campus with a connection and a lot of reach, whether that’s student orgs, like cultural events, or, in my case, Student Life,” Jennings said. “So I think that’s sort of what led to that qualifications of being scouted and sort of kept on building from there.”

Jennings said they also just finished up working on a four month back-to-school campaign for Aeropostale, making about $100 to $150 a month for about six to seven hours work of filming and editing videos a month. They said the company would send them an additional $150 a month to purchase Aeropostale clothes to curate looks that felt “natural” to their own style, film and edit promotional videos and submit the videos for approval from the brand.

“I really like doing the brand ambassador thing, especially for the college setting because they sort of encourage creative autonomy,” Jennings said.

Jennings said they prefer brand ambassadorships that involve creating digital content, like the Aeropostale campaign, rather than organizing in-person events and handing out merchandise because they require less time while also managing school work and internships. When merchandise from brands piles up in their apartment, they said they often give away extra items to their friends.

“Giving them to my friends and figuring all that stuff out is definitely helpful because I don’t like having a million different hats in my house,” Jennings said.