Let me start off by clarifying. We are HUGE fans of Instagram and genuine believers of all social platforms alike. Without them, we wouldn't have had the opportunity to reach giants like Audi, BMW, Nike, Adidas, etc. So trust us, when we say we are HUGE fans, we really are.
Notoriety five years ago, meant creating an exceptional body of work, critique and refine; critique and refine; to finally post a web portfolio. A good artist received five to 10 views a day, a great artist 10 to 20 - and this took an overwhelming amount of physical effort.
Today, engagement is granular. Those five to ten viewers have become thousands to millions. Unlike Madison Square Garden, Instagram can not sell out and Twitter has no seating restraints. The internet has become our venue, and the couch, our stage. This is where the problem lies.
One's success is often gauged by the number of followers he/she has and this is the major misconception.
If not all, most of the time, you find people's tongues rolled out and jaws on the floor when they meet a person with 100k+ followers. We've been approached by people with 200-300k followers, who have never handled a single legal document, written a proposal or touched a contract. We've also worked with people who have less than a hundred followers who have changed the world in major ways.
At the end of the day, avoid verifying ones experience or worthiness against followers. Don't let crowd building derail you. Stay focused, keep learning, keep doing, keep killing! Real world experience, over everything.