This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Side hustle school listeners, thanks for tuning in today. My name's Chris Guillebeau, excited to bring you another episode of the podcast. And today is Friday, at least the day the episode's going out. So this is our segment known as Failure Friday, which I want to call failure that leads into success Friday, but that's not as catchy, okay? But I just had to clarify a couple of months ago because I got this question from listeners that were like, "Hey, Failure Friday sometimes can be discouraging." And that's the last thing I want to do is discourage you.
I want to encourage you, but I also want to be realistic. I want to talk about what doesn't work because that's life, right? And the way you're going to ultimately be successful is to learn to recover from all the things that don't go so well, okay? So Failure Friday and its intent is a collection of stories about mistakes, missteps, disasters, and of course, failure. Okay, but it's positive.
It is positive, just like I try to be, all right? And you get to hear directly from a side hustler who has struggled in some way, something has gone wrong. And they tell this story in some detail, often with a lesson, right? A lesson like what did they learn from the process? What can we learn?
So with that in mind, without further ado, today's short story features Jessica. Jessica is a budding lifestyle blogger, at least that's what she was. I think she's still lifestyle blogging, but she learned a lesson here. So she's going to share it. Her lesson specifically is about in search of growth on Instagram, she buys a set of fake followers.
And guess what happens? Well, she'll tell you, but it's not great. And just in case you didn't know, there are places you can go and buy lots of followers on pretty much any social network. So sometimes if you see an account that has like a huge amount of followers, but very little engagement, or it's somebody you've never heard of, and you're like, how is this possible? Like this person came from nowhere.
It seems like nobody knows them, but they have all these followers. Well, it may be legit, or maybe they just actually went and bought those followers. And does that actually work? Well, it works in terms of giving you a number, like next to your handle, but it doesn't actually work for much else and it can be detrimental. So let's hear a little bit about this from Jessica.
I'll have a couple of comments at the end. [Music]
As a budding lifestyle blogger, I always saw Instagram as the gateway to my dreams. The more followers, the better the opportunities. That was the mantra I had believed and followed. So when I stumbled upon a service offering 10,000 followers for less than $400, it felt like a golden ticket I had been waiting for.
At that time, my Instagram account was dedicated to sustainable living and had a modest following. I was putting in the work, daily posts, engaging with my audience, but growth was slow. The moment I opted for the paid followers, I watched in amazement as my followers count soared overnight. However, my initial excitement quickly turned to dismay. The followers were clearly bots, not real profiles, just a string of empty faceless accounts.
Most of them had zero posts and very few other followers. My engagement, which used to be lively and authentic, totally tanked. Instead of hundreds of likes and meaningful comments, my posts barely received any attention. I quickly realized the gravity of my mistake. Instagram's algorithm noticed that all these new followers clearly didn't care about my content, so they stopped showing my new posts to the original, real followers.
It was a stark lesson in the true value of authenticity on social media. I attempted to reach out to Instagram for help, hoping they could remove these inauthentic followers, but it was a dead end. Customer support was virtually unreachable, and I felt helpless watching my once thriving account turn into a ghost town of bots. It became clear that the only way out was to start over. Ugh, the thought of beginning from scratch was daunting, but it was also freeing.
I deactivated my inflated account and created a new one, this time committed to growing it the right way. Starting anew was tough. I had to rebuild my audience, reconnect with brands, and most importantly, regain trust. But this time, I was doing it with a newfound respect for authenticity and organic growth. I focused on what I loved, sharing tips on sustainable living, engaging genuinely with my community, and collaborating with like-minded influencers and brands.
Gradually, my new account began to grow, slowly, but every new follower was real. Every comment was genuine. It wasn't just about the numbers anymore. It was about building a community, a platform where engagement was meaningful. This experience taught me a valuable lesson.
In the world of social media, authenticity cannot be bought. The allure of quick success is tempting, but nothing beats the value of genuine connections. I learned that the number of followers is just a vanity metric if it doesn't translate into real engagement and trust. Today, my Instagram presence might not boast tens of thousands of followers, but it represents something much more powerful, integrity, authenticity, and a true connection with my audience. This journey of starting over was not just about rebuilding an Instagram account.
It was about rediscovering my values and the real essence of social influence. [Music]
Jessica, I so appreciate you sharing this story. I know lots of people who have bought social media followers and it doesn't go well, right? Like the best case scenario is nothing bad happens, but nothing really great happens either because they're fake followers. And pretty much anybody who knows how social media works can usually figure that out.
The platform's usually figure it out so you get penalized in some way. And sometimes it can actually be really bad. Sometimes your account can be canceled. Sometimes you just have to start all over. So anyway, I appreciate Jessica being transparent and sharing this vulnerable story that is hopefully gonna save somebody else some time and hassle and just like not a lot of fun, okay?
So basically don't do what Jessica did. Focus on organic social media growth or maybe even some hacks, but not the hack of buying Instagram bots because it doesn't end well. Thankfully, our lesson of failure Friday is never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat. So as mentioned positivity, I really appreciate Jessica turning it around and listeners, I'm cheering you on as always. If you have a question, if you have an update for us about your hustle, sidehustleschool.com/questions.
My Instagram is 193 countries. There are no bots or there may be some bots, but I haven't paid for them. There are no bots of my own making, let's say that. Today's notes, sidehustleschool.com/2547. New episode coming out tomorrow every single day this week.
Tomorrow, we're gonna talk about audio books. We're gonna talk about cell phone reselling after that. Much more coming up. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
from The Onward Project.
