Jesse Ewell argues you can make money with few followers if they're the right audience. He contrasts view-driven content with content that converts, and shares examples of people earning $10–15k in their first 30 days with 26–150 followers.
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Can I make money even though I don't have a lot of followers? Yes, you can. Here's the thing that you need to understand is even people that have a couple hundred thousand followers, a lot of them didn't build their account based off of business. They built it based off views. And a lot of times what that means is maybe they're showing skin or maybe they're, you know, reading a Bible verse or whatever it is, and that's how they're getting their followers. But none of that's relevant to making money. I've seen people with as low as 26 friends to 150, 50 friends make 10 to $15,000 in their first 30 days working with us because the followers they had were their ideal clients. So it's really about, are your followers your ideal prospects or are they just following you because of hype or because of motivation? Those two things are going to dictate whether or not somebody becomes a client or not, and the type of content you're actually posting. So if you have a low follower account, as long as you have a good strategy, you can make money.