​

Has anyone else noticed the income claims resurfacing on IG lately?

​

Not the wild “I made $100K in 10 days” bullshit… but the opposite. Vulnerability posts where people with over 50k followers admit they made $1–4k in a month. 😅

​

And listen, any money is good money. I’m pro-honesty, always. But these posts fire me up because they’re the wake-up call people actually need...

​

What we see online rarely matches what’s happening in the business.

​

Take a few service providers I admire. They’re insanely talented, with tens of thousands of followers and regular viral videos. From the outside, they look wildly successful.

​

But recently, two of them shared their revenue hanging anywhere between $1–3k months. And this isn't to shame "low-income months" by any means (what they make could totally be sufficient for their lives/needs, and that's none of our business,) but it does prove the point I’ve been screaming for years:

​

Follower counts and post views are not a measure of profitability (!!)

​

So many people make the mistake of thinking that just because someone's talented, has thousands of followers, and is getting tons of love on their content...they're rolling in the dough. NOT TRUE.

​

I’ve even watched people in real life point to someone’s 100k followers as “credibility” that they could market a business successfully. Also NOT TRUE. Because the account in question was a personal account equivalent to a photo diary - there was no business in sight - just a whole lot of "felt cute, might delete later" pics.

​

All that is to say:

• Our brains love to focus on what’s visible. (Follows, likes, views, and other social metrics feel like proof that what someone is doing is 'working')
• Meanwhile, real business health metrics are often invisible from the outside looking in. (Think pipeline, retention, pricing, margins, capacity)
• So people copy what they can see… which turns into the blind leading the blind.

​

You start modeling your business after creators whose goal is eyeballs while your goal is booked, paid, and retained. You’re playing an entirely different game, on an entirely different scoreboard.

​

And then when you “get results” — the followers, the views, the saves — you can’t figure out why you’re still struggling to pay your mortgage.

​

I’ve seen this with my own clients, too. They would beg for 'viral posts' and until they get them and realize firsthand, 'whoops, guess you were right, that wasn't actually the goal.' (which is always my fave moment btw 😆)

​

Virality feels validating, but it doesn’t always pay the bills.

​

So let me be blunt: Stop confusing content popularity with business performance.

​

You don’t need mass appeal. You need the right people to find you, trust you, and pay you if you're a service provider.

​

As I've said a million times (and I'll say it a million more) content can grow your business. But not via popularity.

​

Content grows your business by building your brand, clarifying your message, and showing the right people why you’re worth hiring.

​

We’re not here to look cool online. We’re here to run successful businesses that last.

​

Kapeesh?

​

Catch ya next week,

Marissa