What is it Like to be Social Media "Famous"? - Part I
July 27, 2015
Social media fame. It's becoming more and more apparent and a real job
that people earn money off of. So how do they do it? It's something we
all aspire to be; inspiring others by our words or style or looks. I
contacted eight different instagram/bloggers with over 15,000 followers
and heard back from four. Three said they would participate. This is
part 1, with one of the bloggers/instagrammers and in a few weeks I'll
be posting part two with another one!
My name is Courtney Dickerson, I'm 20 years old and live in Arizona. The
one thing I'm passionate in life about it animals, so I'm going to
school to be a vet technician to start off and see where I want to go
from there. I got started with social media a few years ago just to keep
up with friends and family.
2. When did you start your tumblr and instagram, and how long did it take to get a large following?
The first social media account I got big on was tumblr about 4 years
ago. I then made my Instagram about 3 years ago. Since I already had a
large following on tumblr, it didn't take too long to start getting
followers on Instagram. I also have a pretty large follower count on
Twitter as well which came within the past year.
3. Did
you try to advertise yourself, if so how? If not, was there one post or
theme of posts that you found drew a lot of followers?
I don't really try to advertise myself, I just post pictures of what's
going on in my life at the moment. I'd say the posts that draw people in
are my selfies and pictures of my animals.
4. Since
you've become "social media famous" what are some of the perks and
downsides? Do people in your school/community treat you differently?
It's so weird because I don't really consider myself "social media
famous" but a lot of other people do. If I meet someone and they don't
know about my follower count on social media, they don't really treat me
any differently. But it's funny to see how they react once they do see
my social media accounts. I still get caught off guard when people
recognize me out in public from Instagram or Twitter.
5. Do
you think that this could be a job for you, where you could make enough
to sustain yourself?
At the time, I can't see social media as a job, it's just something fun I
like to do in my spare time. I currently work 3 jobs, two are
restaurants and the other is dogsitting, and I also go to school full
time, so I don't really have an excessive amount of time to devote to
social media. Like I mentioned previously, it's just something I do for
fun.
6. What
advice would you give to someone who looks at these pretty girls with
thousands upon thousands of followers and is trying to get their tumblrs
or instagrams well known?
The advice I would give someone is to honestly not look up to us too
much, because at the end of the day we're regular people just like you. I
didn't do anything special to get a lot of followers, it just happened.
Be yourself and let your personality shine through.
7. Anything else you care to share about yourself/social media world/anything?
I would like to close off with saying thank you to all those who follow
me and give me support everyday from around the world. It's honestly so
crazy and I appreciate each and every one of you.
Such a nice girl! I seriously had such a good experience contacting her and hearing what she had to say. It'll be really interesting to contrast this with the girl I will be posting about in Part II, Courtney gained her followers more by chance, but this next interview it is certainly her lifestyle.
To my few but amazing followers, I hope you found this helpful and interesting, perhaps good advice as well. I really found it interesting to get an insight to someone with so many followers on Instagram and how it can be a job and lifestyle, but it can also be just a social media account.
0 comments