What do a goofball, a teacher and an NC Congressman have in common? Millions of things.

If you’re going to build a substantial following on social-media, it’s pretty difficult — usually impossible — to do so slowly and gradually over a long period of time. It really, really helps to catch a big break in the form of a single post that manages to blow up.

After that, so long as your content is actually good, things can (sometimes) start to get easier.

We spoke with a variety of people based in and around Charlotte who have found success on social media and asked them to talk about the post that went viral for them; how they’ve continued to build their audiences; and what advice they have for people who aspire to find some stardom online of their own.

And while you’re here, we’ll offer shameless plug for our accounts — we’d love to connect!

• For restaurant and food news and the best things to do: @cltfive on Instagram and TikTok.

• For daily news about Charlotte and its surrounding areas: @charlotteobserver on Instagram and @thecharlotteobserver on TikTok.

The Juicy Body Goddess: Summer Lucille

Summer Lucille owns the plus-size boutique Juicy Body Goddess at Charlotte’s Northlake Mall, which sells sizes 12-30, or XL-6XL. She has been in the fashion industry since 2011 and opened Juicy Body Goddess in 2016.

Where to find her: TikTok: @JuicyBodyGoddess (1.4 million followers); Instagram: @juicybodygoddess2.0 (262,000 followers); YouTube: @juicybodygoddess (114,000 followers); Facebook: @JuicyBodyGoddess (65,000 followers).

The post that started it all: A simple video on March 31, 2021 showing two customers entering her Charlotte boutique, Juicy Body Goddess, as Lucille sings out her trademark greeting, “Welcome to Juicy Body Goddess where you gotta be two-somethin’ to do somethin’!” It was the third video Lucille had ever posted to TikTok.

Why it went viral: “I think the one thing about TikTok is the algorithm knows if you’re sincere or not. Let’s just say that, right? So I was just being myself and I’ve always been this, my whole life. Getting on TikTok was just able to give me that opportunity to show myself, if that makes sense. And people just gravitated to what I’ve been doing for years: ‘Hey, welcome to Juicy Body Goddess where you gotta be two-somethin’ to do somethin’.’ People loved it. And I think I woke up with 100,000 followers the next day.

“I was in complete shock. This is somebody who’s been in business for over 13 years who never had a news article, who’d never been on TV, who never had any kind of viral moment. I just knew that I had to work hard and be consistent and the time will come.”

What she learned: “It may just be my generation, but we were always told if you’re over 200 pounds, you’re done. You’re not beautiful, that is just way too far. You’re overweight once you hit that 200 mark. And so I wanted people to understand that this place is for plus-size only, and if you are over 200 (pounds), that’s OK. That’s why I said that message — if you’re 200 pounds, if you’re ‘two -somethin’,’ we can do something. We can have fun, you are welcome here with open arms.

“Growing up as overweight most of my life, I understand how traumatizing shopping is for women who are overweight. Just imagine going into stores, never being able to really find the fashion that fits you, and people looking at you and the salesmen not really helping you because they’re discriminating against you because you’re plus size. Just imagine doing that all your life — and then walking into a space where you are welcomed.

“I think that’s why that had that impact. And that’s why that video went viral. Women who are 60 years old, 50 years old, 40 years old tell me all the time, ‘I have never felt welcome in a shopping space.’ And I think that just that’s why it took off like it did.”

Did you feel pressure to keep producing viral posts? “I’m a little older, so I just appreciated that moment. I’ve talked to a lot of creators and they do want to chase that high of getting more followers and getting that viral moment again. I was just like, be myself and it will come. I’ve had this big personality all my life, so I never really worried about people loving me. I just give love and people return it.”

Advice for growing your following: “My advice is to be in the know and really keep trying new things. Make sure that you know what’s trending and what’s going on around us right now.

“It may not happen like me, the third TikTok you post, it may be the 100th TikTok you post. But just keep promoting and putting information and being different and being innovative. People love people that give and have a big heart, especially on TikTok. They love that. They love and they see that authenticity in you when you want to give.

— Jodie Valade

The ‘Quarantine Olympics’ guy: Alex Presley

Alex Presley, a 29-year-old graduate of SouthLake Christian Academy in Huntersville and UNC Wilmington, flew Learjets as a pilot for Atlanta-based Phoenix Air until the pandemic grounded many of their flights. During the pause, he returned home to hunker down with his family at his parents’ house on Lake Norman. It was there, with them — in the interest of combating stir-craziness — that he launched the “Quarantine Olympics,” an ongoing series of often-ridiculous and always-ingenious games played using items found around their home.

Where to find him: TikTok: @alexpresley_ (3.1 million followers); Facebook: Alex Presley Official (149,000 followers); Instagram: @alexpresley (133,000 followers); YouTube: @AlexPresleyVideos (25,000 followers).

The post that started it all: Presley, his then-girlfriend, his twin brother Zach, his father Lee, and his mom Wendy starred in a video that saw them locked in a competition to see who could drink water through a straw out of a glass being filled by their fridge’s filtered-water dispenser the longest (without the cup overflowing). Alex says that TikTok post garnered 10 million views overnight.

Why it went viral: “At the time everyone was just bored and had nothing to do, and I created this game that people were like, ‘Oh, this is pretty funny! I want to do this with my family and friends.’ That was kind of the whole idea of the ‘Quarantine Olympics’: creating games and challenges where everybody could do these at their house during the lockdown. And the other thing was it was such a negative thing, a global pandemic, and this was a positive video where we’re laughing and having fun. I think people liked that positivity and the good energy.”

Did he feel pressure to continue producing viral posts? “At the beginning, not really. Then as it went on, there was a little more pressure for every video. Especially once the brands started to get involved. Obviously, they’re paying you a good amount of money for a video. You want it to do well. So there’s a lot of pressure to make that video good and organic, and to perform well for them.

“But yeah, my brain just started thinking every night before I’d go to bed, like, ‘What kind of game can we play tomorrow? What can I use? How are we gonna film it?’ And it just kept growing.”

Advice for growing your following: “For one, figure out your niche. Know what niche category you’re going into, and focus on that. I think that’s especially important when you’re starting out, because TikTok will recognize what you are posting, and they’ll send it to those people (interested in that niche). I have that problem: If I post something outside of a game or the challenge category, it won’t do as well because it’s not my brand, or in my niche.

“Two is to do research on that niche. Find out what other people are posting. I think your first five or 10 videos are gonna be your most important. So I wouldn’t start throwing out any content until you research it and see what videos are performing well in that niche.

“Overall? Just keep it simple. It doesn’t need to be hard, complicated. Easier sometimes is better.”

— Théoden Janes

The Sani Sisters: Ritika and Niki Shamdasani

Sisters Rikita and Niki Shamdasani are born and raised in Fayetteville and the founders of Sani, a South Asian-inspired clothing and accessories line. They started Sani when they said they felt disconnected from their culture, and had difficulty finding clothing to wear to Indian weddings. In February 2020 they launched on Rent the Runway, and their clothing line now is sold in Nordstrom.

Where to find them: TikTok: @sanisisters (162,400 followers); Instagram: @sani (56,400 followers).

The post that started it all: The seventh video they posted in March 2020 used audio that was trending at the time that said, “And it went like …” to show how a lehenga they designed was inspired by Disney’s Princess Jasmine. That video got 3 million views.

Why it went viral: “I think what was different was us actually creating a video native to the platform and spending the time to understand what was already doing well on there and then taking our own twist on it,” Rikita says. “It was a video that a lot of people could enjoy in the sense of people like seeing the final pretty image, but they don’t get to see the behind-the-scenes of that. So I think the (audio) trend helped us bring it together in a cool way.”

Did they feel pressure to continue producing viral posts? “Yeah,” Niki says, “suddenly it was, ‘We gotta take TikTok seriously.’ And I think, honestly, TikTok then ended up saving our business. Nobody knew how long the pandemic was going to last. For us at first, it was, ‘OK, this might be a couple of months. Let’s just keep up brand awareness.’ In our mind, it was, ‘We’re going to start using this thing so people don’t forget us once weddings start again.’

“So, for us, it was like, ‘OK, how do we keep entertaining, providing value and figuring out our place on the platform?’”

What they’ve learned: “People were giving us feedback on product development,” Niki says. “They were saying, ‘How can I participate in this brand? Can you make something that I can buy now?’ Which led to us expanding into loungewear — which completely changed our company and was not on our roadmap for that quickly. It led to new partnerships, including our expansion to Nordstrom in 2023. That was a direct result of TikTok.”

“Ever since we released loungewear,” Rikita adds, “our demographic has opened up like crazy. And in fact, now about 60% of our customers are actually non-South Asian. And we’ve only really ever had loungewear to cater to them. But in 2024, we have a lot more product expansion down — like casual dresses, matching sets, handbags and other accessories.

Advice for growing your following: “We want to make sure people know us as humans too,” Rikita says, “so that there’s that level of trust from like who you’re buying from. And the way we do that is by bringing them in behind the scenes — like, take them on a product knowledge session with us to Nordstrom, take them on our trips to India, and be vulnerable about running a business as two women, and how that also has a lot of ups and downs, too.

“A stat I like to share about this,” Niki adds, “is starting in 2020 when our TikTok took off, our third-best performing search term on Google for the business is ‘Sani Sisters,’ which is our handle on TikTok. And that was never otherwise something someone associated with the business. I’m not even sure if people knew it was sister-run or anything. So I think showing our personalities has been an important part of our growth.”

Sani will have an in-person Holi pop-up March 21 at Capitol, 4010 Sharon Road in Charlotte.

— Jodie Valade

The Congressman: Jeff Jackson

Jeff Jackson, 41, is the Democratic U.S. representative for North Carolina’s 14th congressional district (which includes includes most of Charlotte, as well as Belmont, Gastonia and Mount Holly) and has more TikTok followers than any other member of Congress. On Tuesday night, he won the Democratic primary for attorney general, setting up a November showdown with Republican Dan Bishop to be North Carolina’s top law enforcement official.

Where to find him: TikTok: @jeffjacksonnc (2.5 million followers); Instagram: @jeffjacksonnc (660,000 followers); Facebook: Jeff Jackson (152,000 followers); YouTube: @jeffjacksonnc (10,000 followers).

A little background about his socials: He’s been active as a politician since becoming the second-youngest senator in the N.C. Senate in 2014, when — he says — “I was young and broke, and the only way I could afford to communicate with my constituents was social media, which back then was really just Facebook and Twitter. Whenever we were in session, I would do a post, and what I learned was my constituents really appreciated that. After a while I decided to just sort of treat that as part of my job, as an extension of what my public service would be.”

The post that started it all: After winning the congressional seat in November 2022, he decided to post a short-form video in which he would explain the onboarding process he was going through as someone freshly elected to Congress. He says he had fewer than 10,000 followers at that point, and the video helped him to grow by several hundred thousand — and to develop a simple formula: to tell his constituents once a week, “Here’s the most interesting thing that happened to me as a new member of Congress this week.”

Why he thinks it, and almost all of his videos since, have done so well: “I haven’t had to say anything partisan. I haven’t had to raise my voice. All I’ve done is just give people a window into what it’s actually like to serve in Congress these days. And as it turns out, there’s a lot of demand for that.”

Did he feel pressure to continue producing viral posts? “No. None. If I were on a schedule and had to produce every week, that would be pressure. But I just do this organically, and if I don’t have something interesting to say, I just don’t speak. That’s a wonderful luxury to have. I know that if I’m asking for someone’s attention, it’s because I have something worth saying.”

Advice for growing your following: “Using a real camera was a big step forward, honestly. (Jackson shoots with a a Sony Alpha 7 III.) When other members of Congress ask for my advice about social media, that’s what I tell them. ‘It’s easy. Just stop using your phone and start using a real camera.’ Huge difference. All of our standards are much higher than they were five years ago when it comes to video quality.”

Also, “think about this as part of your job. Your constituents want to hear from you. And these social-media platforms are the places where they want to hear from you. Tell them the stuff that is so interesting that you would stop and pay attention to it if you were in their shoes.”

And finally, “it helps to enjoy it. … I like communicating with people. And I like reading the feedback, and I like incorporating it, and trying to do it better next time.”

— Théoden Janes

The ‘perfect angel’ with the bob: Hailey Polk

Hailey Polk was born and raised in Belmont and graduated in 2019 from Stuart W. Cramer High School. She married her longtime boyfriend Devan (who she started dating when she was 14) on Dec. 7, 2020, the week before she turned 20 years old. She had been working as a hair stylist at a local salon, but quit at the end of last year after deciding she could earn enough money to support herself via brand deals as a beauty and fashion influencer and work she gets as a model who is signed with Directions USA of Greensboro. Devan Polk also models for Directions and is a freelance wedding videographer.

Where to find her: Instagram: @haileypolk (191,000 followers); TikTok: @haileydrewpolk (183,000 followers).

The post that started it all: Polk had sported longer hair for years but in January 2023 finally decided to get the bob cut she’d been considering — and she did it without telling her husband her plan. The video of his reaction upon walking through their door featured a wide-eyed Devan telling her: “I am shook to my deepest core, you perfect angel.” Hailey says her following on TikTok grew from about a hundred to more than 10,000 overnight.

Why it went viral: “I think, one, people stayed to watch because they love reaction videos. I’ve watched a lot of reaction videos myself. Two, you feel like you’re not supposed to be included in that conversation. People love that. And then I also think the lack of real relationships in my generation is a lot more uncommon than we think. And when they saw something that looked so genuine — I mean, you can just tell how close me and Devan are, and I think that resonated with a lot of people. People were happy for us. ... Of course, some felt like it was fake, too. But it made people feel something, regardless.”

Did she feel pressure to continue producing viral posts? “Oh my gosh. Yeah! I wasn’t an influencer before, so I didn’t know what to do. And once I amassed that following overnight, it went from zero to a hundred. It was instantly a little community. They were asking questions about our life, so I did a Q&A the next day. Then I started to do ‘get ready with me’s and I was just posting because people were watching. I will say, it’s a lot more fun when you have an audience. It’s exhausting to create so much content — it’s not always fun — but when you have people that want to see it and ask questions about it, it does make it so much easier to want to post.”

Advice for growing your following: “Try to create content that’s a good reflection of you. A good reflection of interests that you like. A good reflection of your actual real life. Not a facade. Not anything that’s fake or forced. Literally every other person is taken. There’s no need to pretend that you’re somebody else. There’s no need to try to be like her — this influencer that you want to act like. Act like you. Try to be you. Because she’s already her. People already follow her.

“Also: You cannot try to go viral. You just have to be consistent about posting, and taking advantage of Reels and TikTok, which are the things that will propel you and put you in front of more people.

“Opportunities are genuinely endless. They are out there. You just have to put yourself in a position to get them.”

— Théoden Janes

The elementary schoolteacher: Nancy Bullard

Nancy Bullard is a science lab teacher for kindergarten through fifth grades in Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools. She started a TikTok account at the beginning of the pandemic to connect with students and show them simple science experiments that could be done with basic items they might have at home — things like conditioner, baking soda, vinegar and food coloring. Bullard also began to post about her IVF journey when she was pregnant, and explained the science that went into the procedure that helped provide her now-2-year-old son.

Where to find her: TikTok: @mrs.b.tv (3.3 million followers); Facebook: @mrs.b.tv (417,000 followers); Instagram: @mrs.b.tv (396,000 followers); YouTube: @NancyBullard (175,000 followers).

The post that started it all: Bullard cites her first video to get over a million views, which came on July 17, 2020. That video was taken in her upstairs guest room and shows her putting a paper towel in a plastic cup, submerging the whole thing underwater — and then removing it to show that the paper towel is completely dry. Bullard explains how properties of gas and air prevent water from soaking the paper towel. The post now has 3.7 million views.

Why it went viral: “I think the fact that I am just a teacher, just doing my job and just showing people what I’m doing with my students is a pretty organic way to deliver content. I’m clearly not on here just to make money. I don’t even do this full time.

“I do this with my students. It works with my kids. It keeps my kids engaged. Maybe you can try this with the kids in your life if you’re a teacher or a parent or a homeschool or a church youth group leader or a grandparent who keeps the kids on the weekend or a camp counselor. I’ve heard from so many people who have kids in their lives in some capacity and said, ‘Oh, I’m going to try this with my niece and nephew this weekend when I see them!’ Or, ‘I’m definitely trying this with my camp group over the summer.’

Why she integrated her IVF journey into her content: “I was in the midst of my super-accelerated growth on TikTok and I had no plan to stop making videos, but I also knew that if you’re going to be in front of the camera every single day, people are going to start to notice that your body is changing. So I knew that eventually my pregnancy would be out there.

“When you go through infertility, pregnancy announcements can be super devastating and heartbreaking. I just remember so many times opening up a social media platform, finding out that somebody I knew was pregnant, and becoming super emotional because I could not have that and I was not able to get there. And so when I found out I was pregnant, I knew that I would announce it in a way that was very transparent about how difficult this was to accomplish this goal, how happy and overjoyed we were, but also how scared we were because of how hard it was to finally conceive.

“And there is so much science that goes into IVF, it blew my mind. So I thought, well what a perfect way to announce this — explain some of the science that went into making this baby.

“I’m so glad I shared it because I received hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of messages in my DMs from other people who had experienced infertility, had no idea that I had gone through all of this, were so grateful for me sharing that part of my life — and those have remained some of my most dedicated followers to this day.

Did you feel pressure to keep producing viral posts? “I don’t know how other creators feel, but I think from the ones that I’ve spoken to, there’s definitely this … don’t know if pressure is the right word, but it’s almost like a drug. You want that feeling again. Like, oh my gosh, look at all this virality! Look at all these likes! Look at all these comments! And you strive to get that same sort of engagement again.

“And it just didn’t happen (again) for so long. But that’s just the nature of social media — it ebbs and flows. You’ll have a huge, massive video and then you go 20, 30 videos where you just kind of do OK. It’s really tricky for every single video to just be great.

“I kind of chased that feeling and it did eventually happen again — and happen again on even bigger scales. I hit that 1 million mark and then suddenly I had a 5 million-view video, 30 million-view videos.

“At this point, the notifications are constant, the comments are constant. It’s something that I just kind of let happen now. I don’t pay too much attention to it. All of my notifications are off. I don’t really look at social media that often. I have a full-time job as a teacher, so I’m doing this all day.

“It’s wonderful, and I’m so appreciative. I think it’s just something that I’ve never gotten used to — having millions and millions of people from all over the world watching me do silly science experiments in this classroom that I come to every day for my job.”

Advice for growing your following: “Before I ever went viral, I thought that the job ‘influencer’ was laughable. I did not think that this was a real job. So one thing is, I would caution you it is not just posting little videos and documenting your life every day. There is so much work that goes into this content creation — especially if you want to grow to the level of working with these brands that I’ve had the chance to work with. When you start getting these brand deals, there’s so much that goes on behind the scenes. I had no clue all the negotiating, all the back-and-forth, how much time it would take me to edit a 30 second video. I just had no clue. It’s a huge learning curve.

“That’s one piece of advice: It is so much more work than I expected.

“I guess my final piece of advice when dealing with comments, I’ve had to really practice this because you want to just type something back and just go back and forth — I do not respond to negative comments. I only respond to positive comments. I will respond to the negative comments in my head, or I might say it out loud to my husband, and then I will move on with my life. You just can’t let those get to you, because they can mean; they can be brutal.”

— Jodie Valade