All right, you guys. I'm really excited for this video because I'm going to be sharing with you four of my worst experiences as a pet content creator. And I have been a pet influencer for 7 years now and I've been able to see so much good and so much bad.
Like so many bad things happen to other content creators, to you know, things that I've experienced. And I would just want to be raw and real and showcase to you what it's like doing this as a job so that you are aware of these potential issues as well. Well, we're going to go straight into it.
The number one thing that I have experienced multiple times over the years are scams. And for example, there's a really popular scam that happened this past year. And I just called the podcast scam.
And that is where someone says, "Oh my gosh, we love your pet. " They make it super personalized and they email you and they're like, "We really want your pet on this famous podcast. " It's a very It's a real podcast that they impersonate.
And they say, "We want you on this podcast. " You get all excited. They send you the Zoom links.
Everything looks professional and correct and legitimate. And again, like I've experienced this. And then what they do is they're like, "Okay, we're going to practice going live on Facebook.
We want you to go into your settings, blah. Okay, we want you to share your screen. " And what they have you do is they actually have you go into the back end of your Meta Business Suite and they essentially have you grant them access into your Meta Business Suite, which would then grant them access to all of your social platforms on Meta, your Facebook, your Instagram, your pages.
Oh my gosh. So, this is a huge problem. In fact, if you're interested in listening to my entire story of this scam that happened to me, it's on my channel here on Petfluencer Secrets.
So, please go check that out. It was a huge deal a few months ago. But even from there, I literally get scams every single day in my DMs and in my emails.
Thankfully, I have seen enough of these over literally 7 years that I know what to look for. But even I almost get tripped up by some of these, which makes me very nervous that a lot of you, if you are an influencer at all, like that you will get caught up in some of these, too. Because what happens, they will literally get your personal information.
They ask for forms where you literally input your name, your address, your social information. They ask for your phone number, all this information claiming they're going to send you shipping or, you know, free products, and then they ghost you cuz they just get all of your personal information. That's a huge one.
And then, with this in mind, I'm going to take you into another, part two, of one of my least favorite things, and worst things that happen. And that's doing a brand deal and not getting paid for it. So, this is a problem that continues to happen, and this is exactly why I say for any brand deal that you do, you request a contract.
And so, with contracts, that makes it so, whether it's gifted or paid, that makes it so brand knows what they're doing, you know what you're doing. And that is just the professionalism, especially if you're going to be be getting paid anything, you need to have a contract. Few years ago, it wasn't as common, but thankfully now it is very common to have contracts.
But, back when I was a new content creator, I did a litter box video, and what happened was the brand had, you know, they reached out to me, they said, "We'll pay you. " I think back then it was like $200, nothing crazy compared to what I charge now. But, it was they gave me a litter box, and they said, "Okay, go ahead and, you know, send us the video.
" Great. And then, you know what happened? I didn't hear anything from them.
I sent them a draft, and then I didn't hear anything from them. And they never paid, and then eventually, what happened was they said, "Hey, you know," later on they said, "Hey, we want you to post the video, and then we'll pay you. " And I was like, "Okay, you ghosted me.
I already feel uncomfortable, but we did not have a contract. " So, I was naive back then, as well. I mean, this was like 5 years ago, back when I was a lot newer.
And I was like, "Okay. " So, I think I remember I posted the video and then it took somewhere around three or four months for me to finally get a hold of them and I was like, are you going to pay me? How does payment work?
Do you need my PayPal? Do you need my ACH bank details? Like, how on earth does this work?
Nothing. And then, eventually they did get back to me, but they never paid me. I never got paid for that brand deal.
Now, did I eventually decide to take down the video and everything and have I worked with them ever again? Correct, I have not. But, it's just one of those situations where it's like they took my video and they potentially could use it for ads, they could potentially, you know, put it on their own social platforms.
There's no contract saying what they can do with my content. So, all that to say, it is highly recommended that you put you have a contract in place anytime that you work with a brand. You guys, okay, number three, the worst experiences I've had as a pet content creator is stolen content.
So, I my content is stolen all the time. In fact, a few years ago when the social platforms had a harder time detecting original content, my content was stolen thousands of times, literally daily. It was insane.
I all the time got friends and family or other creators sending me DMs of videos they saw of my videos posted by other people. Nowadays, it is a bit more strategic where the social platforms can detect original content, but people can still steal your content. But, one of the worst ones, my gosh, was on Facebook.
Someone was every single time, and this has happened two times, but only one time where they were actually making legitimate money from this, but two times this has happened to me over the past few years where someone would every time I uploaded a video, they would take it and they would upload it as their original content onto a Facebook page, make it so that over time with Facebook, especially this was around the genesis of when people really could make big money on Facebook, and what was happening is they started making money off of every piece of content that I was posting. My content on their page was performing better than my content on my page. Like it was ridiculous.
It was so insane. And so I was just like, what on earth? It took me forever to get that channel taken down, to prove that the content that they were taking was actually mine, because their videos were doing better than mine.
It looked like my content was stealing from theirs. And it was just it was a mess. But truly, the concept of stolen content, copyrighted content is a huge problem with influencers.
I mean, it's something that almost is inevitable. In fact, so many content creators in our group goodness, in our group coaching program they say, "Oh my gosh, I saw my video on, you know, someone else posted it or we shared it. " I'm like, "Welcome to the club.
You're initiated. " But again, there were lots of ways around it. I teach you guys how to deal with infringement and copyright reports and everything.
So like, don't worry if you're in our group coaching programs, I will help you out with this. And then lastly, if I were to talk about the four things that are just the worst when it comes to being a pet influencer, this one is most like affecting your heart and your emotions. And that's when people insult you and insult your pets.
So two things. A lot of people don't like my voice, apparently. I've learned over the years.
I have had innumerable, truly countless comments of on my voiceovers and on my videos of people saying that they don't like my voice. And it's one of those things where it's like, wow, sorry. And so I've had people comment about my face and my body and my hair and every single aspect of me, cuz I've been here for a long time, right?
I've been around. And some of those were really hard, especially when I was pregnant. And I was already dealing with a lot of emotional you know, just that that that issue of your body changing.
I gained 70 lbs. And I still had to do brand deals and sponsored videos and making content every day. And so that was extremely hard, because people commented on me and my voice and my body and everything.
And it was something that I physically could not change, and that was really hard. So, from there, something else that is kind of related is with my cat, my famous cat Chips, he has no tail, and that is literally a distinctive thing about his breed. He was born that way.
But, I have had multiple videos go viral where people are like, "Oh my gosh, you cut off your cat's tail. Like, you did something to your cat like that is bad. " And they reported my videos, and they reported my channel, and there was a period of time I think it was about in 2023 when I had enough videos get reported that my channel definitely experienced being blacklisted.
And that was where I kept posting, but all my videos were just performing horrifically where I would get 50 to 80,000 views per video at the time, and then it was down to like 200 to 800 views per video. I mean, it was such a drastic shift. This happened in a way two different times throughout the history of my channel, but one time where it took probably 6 to 9 months of me consistently posting good content to make it so that I was not blacklisted.
So, all this to say, is it just glory and daisies and prancing through the field when it comes to being a pet creator? No matter what side hustle, no matter what business, no matter what you do, what you create, there's going to be negatives or cons to it, but this is at least my experience of some of the really hard challenges that I've gone through as a pet content creator that I want you to be aware of. Go to my channel, listen, go to the description below.
I'm always adding free resources, free PDFs, free books, free things, and other things that you can do for free as a new content creator. And then, if you're ever interested in joining our group coaching program, I'm always here, and I will be the one guiding you and helping you and holding your hand throughout your pet influencer journey. Those links are down the description, but with all that said, I'll see y'all in the next video.
