What It's About
A college graduate gets paid to post on Instagram about his beloved city — Wichita, Kansas!
Words of Wisdom
Although Landon loves the extra money from his side hustle, one downfall is that running a social media platform means that his screen time increased exponentially. However, one hack Landon has found to avoid spending too much time on social media is a Social Media Scheduler. “I can spend a little more time once a week and plan a week's worth of posts and not have to think about it.”
Fun Fact
One of Wichita’s strangest laws is that people are not allowed to sell cherry pie a la mode on Sundays. Another odd rule is that anyone can be jailed for up to a year if they make lewd remarks over the phone.
Notes from Chris
Episode 1305
Landon Husling and his wife Candace were high school sweethearts who grew up in Andover, a suburb of Wichita, Kansas. When it came time to go to college, the two decided to stay in town and attend Wichita State University. After graduation, the couple moved away for nine months—and when they returned, they found that most of their college friends were gone. The friends were in search of a new place to start their lives, because according to them, Wichita just wasn’t cool enough. As a native, Landon knew that the city had much more to offer than people knew. So, he started an Instagram account called Wichita Life ICT to highlight all the fun attractions and cool places he enjoyed in the city. At first, Landon didn’t tell anyone—not even Candace—about his new project. He wanted to wait until the account got bigger to share what he was doing. But she knew that he hardly ever used his personal account, so when she saw him on his phone working on a post, she asked him about it. His secret was out! This was May of 2017 and Landon had somewhere around 3,000 followers. By November of the same year, that number grew to be just under 5,000. At that point, local businesses wanted to pay Landon to advertise on the account. Then all of a sudden, Landon was holding a check for $75 in exchange for a few posts from a local salon. Over the next year, Landon continued to post on Wichita Life ICT. He also began to repost other people’s photos of Wichita, which was welcomed by many Instagram users now that he had a large following. By June of 2018, Landon had close to 7,000 followers. He also had another idea for how to expand his platform. He loved listening to podcasts, and wanted to create his own. So, he downloaded the free editing app Audacity and got to work. After doing this for two and a half years, Landon began to run other people’s Instagram accounts at the end of 2019. What was once a fun passion project to highlight the wonderful parts of his hometown, is now a side hustle with three different income streams. Currently, about 50% of his earnings come from running other social media accounts, 35% is from advertising on the podcast, and the last 15% is from Instagram posts. Landon can’t wait to grow the Wichita Life brand even more. He just started an online talk show and is building a weekly newsletter, all while continuing to grow his Instagram account and his podcast subscribers. Eventually, he’d love to start hosting some events. He says that even if he wasn’t making money from Wichita Life, he would still be investing his time and energy into the platform.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- Check out Landon's website and podcast dedicated to Wichita, WichitaLifeICT.com.
- Audacity: the open-source software Landon used to start editing his podcast.
SEE ALSO:
- New Jersey Blog Becomes Local Legend: A school counselor turns a blog into one of New Jersey’s leading lifestyle websites.
- Bartender Brews Up Brewpub Tour Biz: After being asked for brewery recommendations over and over, this bartender turns an old school bus into a Maine attraction for beer drinkers.
- The Travel Blog That Pays for a House: A “Digital Nomad Wannabe” goes from aspiration to vindication, earning up to $50,000/month and eventually buying a home with the proceeds from her blog.
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Resources
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Quote of the Day
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