How hard is it to become an influencer? Three people with zero followers find out

Three people with zero followers began a three-month experiment to test how hard it is to become an influencer, a journey that exposes the volatility of social media visibility, the pressure of engagement and the emotional toll of chasing online fame. The project was documented as part of Radio 4’s The Great Influencer Experiment. The study notes the creator economy is accelerating, with industry analysts predicting the creator economy could be worth almost $500 billion by 2027, driven by platforms that reward personal brands and niche audiences.

Emily, Alun and Danyah entered the experiment with very different backgrounds but a common aim: to see if talent can translate into online traction without prior followers. Emily is a potter and stroke survivor who began posting on TikTok to reach others who have faced similar challenges. Alun is a senior history lecturer who researches early modern medicine and the cultural history of beards, and Danyah is a theatre performer who has long worked in live performance but wanted to explore how social media might broaden her reach. Their three-month timeline was documented for Radio 4’s The Great Influencer Experiment.

Emily’s journal is a study in contrasts. Her first TikTok posts about pottery and life after a stroke drew minimal attention, with only a couple of views. A later video about how pottery saved her life resonated with thousands and drew messages from other stroke survivors who felt seen. The spike was welcome, but the attention came with a heavy responsibility: she found engaging with comments overwhelming and worried about saying something that could be misunderstood on a sensitive topic. Authenticity also weighed on her; she worried that speaking to the camera felt performative and that she could not always capture the person she is. Personal life pressures crept in toward the end of the experiment, and she decided to pause the project with a potential return in the future.

Alun’s path was the flip side of the coin. As a historian, he pursued a niche angle on public history and medicine, uploading videos on topics like beards and historical methods. His early videos drew several hundred views; none topped a thousand until a mid-experiment post finally surpassed that mark, though he found the thrill tempered by reflection on accuracy and simplicity. The process took an emotional toll: when views lagged, his sense of self-worth waned; he worried about whether he was performing academically or simply chasing attention. A breakthrough video reached more than 10,000 views, but the rush faded when he found himself oversimplifying material and feeling uneasy about it. A further challenge arrived in the form of hostile comments about his appearance due to alopecia, which pushed him to address the issue directly in a subsequent video. At the two-month point, his total views rose to hundreds of thousands after his university began sharing his clips to prospective students, a move that broadened his reach while reinforcing the reality that online presence does not replace his day job. He says the experience has amplified his profile but will not replace his academic career, and he plans to continue posting.

Danyah, the theatre performer, entered the experiment with a different mindset: she aimed to use the medium to bring people together and counter what she sees as a drift away from face-to-face connection. Her approach leaned toward longer-form content on YouTube, starting with eight-minute clips and building to a cadence of frequent posting, including meditations, poems left around London and other creative formats. Initially, the views were sparse, but she remained committed, posting roughly 50 videos in a month. The grind was mentally draining and she admitted the process began to feel like an addiction, consuming time and energy and invading sleep. Yet she kept going because of the joy of creating and the sense that even modest engagement could help her events sell more tickets. By the third month, responses turned kinder and more supportive, and she found that a growing audience began to attend her shows and workshops. The experience reinforced her belief that social media can complement live work, even if immediate fame remains elusive.

Across the three profiles, a common thread emerged: success on social media does not always align with traditional measures of achievement. The creator economy, now a $500 billion-a-year industry, rewards persistence, experimentation and the willingness to adapt. For Emily, the viral moment created a lifeline and a new sense of purpose, even as it introduced stress around moderation and authenticity. For Alun, the data provided validation that his research has a public audience, while also highlighting the cost to his sense of scholarly integrity when he felt compelled to simplify complex topics. For Danyah, the numbers remained stubbornly incremental, but the effort translated into tangible gains in her live work and community reach.

The BBC project underscores a broader dynamic: social platforms are built to surface content based on algorithms that prioritize engagement, sometimes at odds with careful scholarship or studio-level craft. While the three stories show bursts of visibility, they also reveal the emotional cost of the pursuit, including anxiety about comments, fatigue from constant content creation and the difficulty of maintaining authenticity under public scrutiny. Still, the experiment stops short of declaring influencer life a guaranteed career path; instead, it presents a nuanced portrait of a hopeful, challenging landscape where the next like, share or comment can dramatically change a creator’s trajectory.

The participants emphasize that their online efforts are not intended to replace their primary occupations; rather, they see social media as an amplifier for their crafts, a way to reach new audiences, and a tool for sustaining work that might otherwise be geographic or audience-limited. Emily’s situation demonstrates the potential for online communities to offer support and solidarity, while Alun’s experience highlights how institutional networks can boost reach. Danyah’s case shows how online presence can partner with live events to broaden an audience base. Taken together, the three-month experiment offers a window into how a new generation navigates the line between public visibility and private well-being in the creator economy.