MY JBC Journey…

This is a follow up from my recent post: My Blogging History.

In the beginning, I made around 50 pretty awful Justin Bieber pages which have now been left to rot on the “world-wide web”. But at this point, I was around 12 or 13 and I was slowly starting to grow my techniques and knowledge of WordPress. I still wasn’t perfect. But I was learning. I started getting inspiration from other pages on how to make a successful page, and I found out that you could get hosted for free. Completely free. Which meant that you were offered a custom domain name for your fan-site of your choice. So, in around 2011 I went onto flaunt.nu to try and apply for the website ‘justinbiebercrew.com’ – but had no luck. But that didn’t stop me, oh no. I kept trying and trying until I eventually received a reply back saying that I was accepted; they must have gave into my compelling interest and dedication. This was incredible! My very first domain name…maybe it could be successful?

I had been posting for a couple of months, and I was tweeting all of the site posts onto my Twitter-page at the time, @BieberJiebers. This was my only way of promoting my account since I had a fairly moderate number of followers, but I occasionally got helped by some of the influential accounts on Twitter. The page views were sinking, with a merely average 10,000 views in total and no real recognition for the site I had put so much work into. I got to the point where I stopped posting; JBC became MIA. This resulted in Flaunt deactivating my page. I was well and truly gutted, after having tried so long to get the domain in the first place. But at the same time, I just couldn’t do it all by myself – it was so much work for such a young person to cope with on-top of school and other commitments. Every time I would go on Twitter or see successful Justin Bieber websites, I would just think “how do they do that?” and “Why can’t that be me?” My mind was well and truly boggled.

Around one year later, in 2012. I went back onto Flaunt and noticed my domain (justinbiebercrew.com) was up for adoption. So I launched myself straight into their inbox as soon as I could, trying one more time to try and make this work. This was basically my last shot. A few days later, I checked my inbox and was welcomed with the wonderful news that I was once again owner of JBC. I started off by getting in-touch with some accounts, asking if they would want to help post news, updates and articles onto the website. I got tons of replies back, which got me in the spirit to really make this work. I started to add editors and authors to the page, and sent them the guidelines to writing for JBC – some got straight to work. However, some did not. I then tried jotting down ideas on how to expand the website. I used a popular feature named “Twitter Feed”, which automatically posts all of the site posts to my Twitter, which meant that it was less hassle for me. I then used Twitter Feed as a way for other accounts to help promote my page, as I kindly asked them if they would like to use the feed to help us. I want to say another huge thank you to all of the accounts who helped out, and who still have the Twitter Feed going. You guys are incredible.

The Believe Tour began, and so did my attempts to become more successful. When I attended Justin Bieber’s meet and greet in Manchester on the 21^st of February 2013, I gave the security a little piece of paper with my Twitter (@BieberJiebers) and website (justinbiebercrew.com) on, for them to give to Justin. Although he didn’t receive it, I was glad to say that I tried.

Just days after I met him, on the 3^rd of March 2013, I decided to set up a Twitter account to help promote the website. This was called @JBCrewdotcom. I vaguely posted on it in the first few months, but when I did, it was mostly just a bunch of site links – nothing special. Months had gone by without posting, but then I began to see successful accounts on Twitter, at this time it was @BelieveTUpdates – and I was so inspired. I wanted to be an account that fans loved and looked up to. So I decided to get co-owners on the page to help me out – thankfully none of them hacked us (probably because we had less than 1,000 followers), but I only really noticed one person who was ‘wow’ing’ me with her updates. That was Francesca Rubini, from Italy. So in around July 2013, I ended up removing all of the other co-owners, so it was just me and ‘Fran’. This is when it started to go wild. I had made an icon for Justin Bieber Crew, which I thought was very unique, and at the time, quite stylish. Looking back, it looks absolutely hideous. See logo below:

So, in around July, we had a competition set for a fan to win Justin Bieber’s ‘Girlfriend’ fragrance from us (courtesy of The Perfume Shop) – this required them to follow us, retweet/tweet a certain tweet and to also use the icon we made. It was crazy seeing my icon on so many people’s profile – aaah! At this point we had just over 1,000 followers – we were starting to grow a bit.

But then August came. Wow, this was a big month for us. Francesca and I spent day and night posting news, headers, icons, games, quizzes and tour updates onto the Twitter – making sure that we were never gone for more than a couple of hours. We worked our asses off, but did not expect what was coming.

On August  16^th 2013, we were welcomed by a Justin Bieber follow on Twitter! Yes, you heard me correctly. We were ecstatic – such a surreal moment for us. Our hard work finally started to pay off. It was all worth it. 4 days later, we were welcomed by a follow from Justin Bieber’s manager, Scooter Braun – which also took us by surprise. We ended August with just over 16,000 followers, from a previous 1,000 followers at the start of that month. That’s when I realised that this might actually turn into something worthwhile.

Unfortunately, Francesca came to the decision to leave JBC as she did not have enough time to post on the Twitter or Instagram page. This is understandable, because it’s hard to keep social media updated – it’s a lot of work. So this left me all alone on JBC, until I reached out to my friend, Julieta Cabrera, who makes the incredible drawings/illustrations of Justin Bieber and a variety of other celebrities. I asked her if she would like to help out on the Twitter account with me, and she couldn’t have been more thrilled, nor could I. I had actually been thinking about getting her on the page for a while, prior to Francesca leaving. So, me and Julieta continued updating the Twitter account for you guys, bringing you Bieber news and updates straight to your timeline.

I was then looking through the JBC Facebook page, at all of the posts. I had added these admins to the Facebook page a few months beforehand, so I knew they were trustworthy. I remembered Christine often sending me a variety of different Justin Bieber articles through direct messages on my @BieberJiebers account, which really impressed me. It was great to see that she was doing her own research for the Facebook page, and then coming to ask me if they were fit to post or not. This was incredible to see, and it made me understand how precise and “on-point” she’d be with updates on Twitter. So I decided to get in-touch with Christine and ask her if she would be up for the “job”. She couldn’t say “yes” fast enough…damn. Talk about Usain Bolt 2.0!

As the Twitter account evolved, so did the members. Some of the members joined and then left; some of them stayed. I won’t bore you by going through each member individually; but we have a great team on each social media platform to bring fast and efficient updates to your timeline. Thanks to everyone. You know who you are.

I would never have thought that JBC could have became something that people come to for daily updates, and I didn’t think I’d ever be given the opportunities I have been.

But I just hope that this inspires you to do whatever you want to achieve, and to keep working until you get there. Although it may be a complicated journey, you’ll get there someday. It’s always easy to just walk away from something which may seem too far to reach, but it’s always best to give it a go and try your hardest no matter what. With passion and determination, you can reach your goals; you’ve just got to be in the correct mindset. Think “I WILL”, not “I can’t”.

Thank you for reading.