Influencer Myth: You Need a Huge Following to Make Money
Welcome to our new Influencer Mythbusting series—where we call out the biggest misconceptions holding creators back from making real money online. If you’ve ever thought, I can’t pitch brands until I have 50K followers or I need a viral moment before I can start monetizing, this series is for you. And we’re kicking things off with one of the biggest lies in the industry: the idea that you need a huge following to make money. Spoiler alert—you don’t.
The Truth: Brands Care About Engagement, Not Just Numbers
If I had a dollar for every time someone told me, “I’ll start pitching brands when I hit [insert some completely arbitrary follower number],” I’d be writing this from a private island. But let’s bust this myth once and for all: you do NOT need a massive following to make money as an influencer.
Sure, having a big audience sounds great. But if they aren’t engaged, clicking your links, buying products, and trusting your recommendations? Those numbers are just vanity metrics. Brands don’t just care about how many followers you have—they care about the level of trust you’ve built with them.
Brands are finally catching up to what we’ve known all along: micro-influencers (even nano-influencers!) typically have the highest engagement. Why? Because they have trust. Their audience isn’t just scrolling past their content; they’re stopping, engaging, and most importantly—buying. Brands are no longer looking for the big shiny accounts that have hundreds of thousands of followers or even millions if the engagement is non-existent because that tells them either your audience was bought, is bots, or isn’t dialed in with what you're doing and that just doesn’t provide them with value.
How CLJ Landed a Brand Deal With Rejuvenation (With Way Fewer Followers Than You’d Think!)
When we got our first brand collaboration, the blog had been around about three years. Instagram had just rolled out, and guess what? We weren’t some massive account with millions of followers. But we did have an engaged audience who cared about what we shared.
Rejuvenation reached out to us for a giveaway partnership featuring sconces. It was a product-only sponsorship, but it was a foot in the door. And that foot in the door led to bigger collaborations, paid partnerships, and eventually a full-blown career. All without waiting to hit some magical follower number.
So, if you’re sitting there thinking, “I’ll start pitching brands when I hit 10K, 50K, 100K followers”—stop. Start now. You don’t need permission. You need a plan.
How to Engage Your Audience and Grow Faster as a Smaller Creator
So, what actually matters? Engagement. Not just getting likes, but real conversations, DMs, people trusting you enough to buy what you recommend. That’s where the money is.
1. Focus on Conversations, Not Just Content
You could have 100,000 followers and still hear crickets in your comment section if you’re not actively engaging (that’s also major red flags). Ask questions in your captions. Use polls and stickers in your stories. DM people who interact with your content. Make them feel like they’re part of something.
Inside Good Influence(r), we have creators who went from a few hundred followers to hundreds of thousands in less than two years, all because they focused on building community first.
2. The Race to 10K
Want to grow smarter, faster? This is exactly why we created Race to 10K inside Good Influence(r)—a four-week program designed to help you hit that milestone the right way (not with shady hacks that don’t actually convert). We give you daily challenges, workbooks, and strategies that our members have used to explode their followings while keeping engagement high.
Here’s a secret: It’s coming soon. And if you’re serious about growing your audience, you’re going to want in.
3. Stop Posting and Ghosting
If you’re only showing up to post and then disappearing, you’re doing it wrong. Instagram, TikTok, YouTube—they all reward creators who are active on their platforms. Spend time commenting on other creators' posts. Reply to every comment you get. Show up in your stories every day.
If you want people to engage with you, you have to engage first.
4. Give Your Audience a Reason to Stick Around
Why should someone follow you? What’s in it for them? If you’re just posting to post, without a clear reason for your audience to stick around, they won’t.
Find your niche, lean into it, and serve your audience. Maybe that’s home decor tips, budget-friendly fashion finds, or brutally honest parenting truths. Whatever it is—own it. Be the go-to person in your space, be unapolgetically yourself.
5. Consistency > Virality
Stop chasing viral moments and start playing the long game. Going viral is fun, but it’s not a business strategy. What is a business strategy? Showing up consistently, even when your posts aren’t blowing up. The influencers who win are the ones who keep going.
P.S. when a reel or post does go viral:
Stay calm- don't start over posting or stop posting
Share supporting content in stories
If you're getting a lot of new followers, take to stories or create a reel to introduce yourself
Stick to your niche, no buts about it.
Put it on your content calendar to repost in 6 months, if applicable.
Try to respond to as many comments as possible
Ready to Grow the Right Way?
Listen, if you take one thing away from this, let it be this: Stop waiting for permission. Stop thinking, “I’ll make money when I hit X number of followers.” That’s not how this works.
You make money when you decide to. When you stop treating content creation like a hobby and start treating it like a business.
And if you need help growing your audience the right way? That’s literally why Good Influence(r) exists. We built this program to give creators the exact blueprint, strategies, and resources we wish we had when we were starting out.
So the real question is: Are you ready to stop waiting and start growing? Because if so, we’re ready to help. Join Good Influencer today.
