HOW INFLUENCERS MAKE 6 TO 7 FIGURES AND BEYOND

So your dream is to become a full-time content creator (if you’re unsure, check out the 6 Keys to Succeeding as an Influencer), but you keep hearing “How are you actually gonna make money from that?” from friends, family, or maybe just the little voice in your head. You’re in luck, because we’re talking about the wide variety of income streams that are available to influencers and content creators, ranging from brand deals to personal coaching. 

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Financial success as an influencer varies depending on niche, currency, and country, among other factors. The information discussed here is from a United States perspective, using US dollars. 

As a disclaimer before we get started, if you’re in this just for the money, you won’t make it far. You do need a passion for content creation and showing up for your audience before you’ll be able to monetize your influence, and there is a LOT of hard work and time involved in building your brand. 

1. BRAND DEALS

The influencer marketing industry is currently a $13.8 billion industry, growing larger every year. It sounds almost too good to be true, but you really can get paid to post things you love! Brands get an authentic, curated perspective on their product, you get paid to share info about brands and experiences you love, and your audience gets exposure to products and services they’re likely to be interested in. I personally make multiple 6 figures off of brand deals alone every year. If you have an authentic, curated audience, and know how to market and network yourself, it is definitely a viable career!

How do you calculate your rates? I hate to say it, but it really does vary from influencer to influencer and campaign to campaign. The starting rate was initially 1% of your following, but I don’t believe this theory is even accurate anymore, as there are so many factors (quality of content, audience fit, reach) that go into calculating rates. Deliverables (stories, posts, videos, swipe ups, etc) also affect rates! As a quick case study for those interested in learning more about how calculating rates works, let’s say you’re an influencer with 100,000 followers and you charge 1-2% for your brand deals. If you do 1 paid campaign per week and charge 2%, that would be 4 x $2,000 = $8,000 per month, or $96,000 per year. And this number doesn’t even include additional charges for usage rights, whitelisting, content type, cross promotion, etc. I have seen successful, full-time creators making multiple 4 figures per post with only 40 or 50K followers. 

2. AFFILIATE INCOME

Another way influencers make money is through affiliate income, where influencers share trackable links to products, and if someone makes a purchase based on the influencer’s recommendation, the influencer will make a small percentage of that sale. Typically this revenue share percentage is between 5 to 20%, depending on the product and the platform. RewardStyle, ShopStyle Collective, and Amazon Affiliates are all popular affiliate linking platforms. There are also many other individual brands that have their own separate affiliate programs, particularly in the travel space. Some affiliate programs require that you share a link to a specific website, but others will just give you a link you can place anywhere you like (swipe up, link in bio, etc.). There are influencers and bloggers who make the majority of their income through affiliate links, but if you don’t have a large following, you can still make a significant amount of money if you have a very engaged, niche audience. One downside to making money from affiliate links is that you’ll need to be recommending products a lot, and you’ll often also need to spend money purchasing the products you’re recommending. 

Disclaimer: I am in no way an expert in affiliate income- if you’d like more detailed information, I recommend checking out the Making Sense of Cents blog!

3. AD REVENUE

If you post IGTVs, have a Tiktok or a YouTube channel, or if you post on a blog, these are all potential sources of ad revenue. The amount you get paid for each of these varies on the CPM (cost per thousand impressions), with Youtube being the highest, depending on niche and audience. For example, if a Youtuber in the finance niche (the niche with the highest CPM, paying between $30 to $60 per 1K views) got a million views on one of their videos, that video alone could make them 5 figures. Tiktok, on the other hand, as a short-form video platform with a younger audience base, is a very different story. Their Creator Fund pays creators based on the number of views their videos get, but the CPM for Tiktok videos is very low: a fraction of a dollar. Blogs can make ad revenue by signing up to platforms like Google AdSense or Mediavine to add banner ads to your website. If you have hundreds of thousands of unique monthly visitors, you can make a healthy income just from these ads. Instagram has also started paying out ad revenue, but currently only for creators who post IGTV videos. 

4. CONTENT CREATION AND LICENSING

Social media is a huge part of marketing these days, and brands need content to post on their pages. Who better to create this content than professional content creators? This content is not required to be posted on the creator’s feed, and is specifically for the brand to use on their social media. Licensing for this content is another potential source of revenue, for brands looking for perpetual rights to use the content however they wish. 

5. PHYSICAL PRODUCTS

Influencers have the opportunity to create stand alone products with a separate, independent brand from their personal pages. One amazing example of this is Lindsay Silberman and her brand Hotel Lobby Candle, which was created during the pandemic and is doing so well, currently sold in big department stores like Neiman Marcus. In Lindsay’s eyes, she knew HLC had truly succeeded when her customer base shifted from followers to complete strangers. Other products include clothing lines in partnership with big brands, branded merchandise supporting your cause, and even necessity based products like Lindsay Albanese’s TopTote hat holder. 

6. DIGITAL PRODUCTS

Digital products are super easy to create and distribute because start-up costs are relatively low- all you need is a website! These products can include apps, presets, stickers, templates, courses, ebooks, and more. I currently have two digital products which are my online courses, the Full-Time Influencer course where we provide aspiring creators with a complete framework for developing their personal brand online to become successful full-time influencers, and the Reels Rocket Ship, which teaches people how to explode their growth on Instagram through Reels. Apps are easy to create and charge a one time fee or monthly use fee, and one successful example of this is the Tezza app, which has 24,000 ratings and allows users to edit their photos for a monthly subscription fee with different tiers based on how much access you’re looking for. 

7. COACHING / MEMBERSHIP SERVICES

Influencers who are experts in a particular area can offer one-on-one or group coaching to help share their knowledge with others. Coaches can be experts in any field, from personal finance to life coaches, and finding someone who is a good fit for you can really help you achieve your goals. Prices for personal coaching are quite high (I’ve seen prices close to a full year’s salary before!) but the information and guidance you receive is invaluable: I myself have invested in a few coaching programs to learn marketing, course creation, and other things that help me run my business better! Memberships are typically hosted on platforms like Patreon, where creators provide additional exclusive content to their supporters, which can help supplement your income when you don’t make enough from creating the content alone. I will say that memberships typically only make sense if you have a large following to begin with: I previously had a Patreon, but I felt that the time and effort it took to create the additional content, as well as the pressure from people subscribing/unsubscribing wasn’t worth it for me, and I chose to instead focus on creating high quality content for my Instagram page, as well as developing the Full-Time Influencer program to be able to provide the best support for my students. 

8. HOST / SPEAKER

Influencers can be invited to host a variety of different things: trips, podcasts, TV shows, etc. For example, Sarah Funk (listen to her guest episode here) is the host for Go Daddy’s entrepreneurship podcast, and she gets paid a fee to record and edit these podcast episodes, and Oneika Raymond (listen to her guest episode here) is a TV host! Influencers could also be booked for one-off event hosting, to help promote a product or brand launch. The influencer’s fans will come to the event, but are likely to purchase the product as well. Another common type of hosting for travel bloggers is group trips, where an influencer’s followers join them on a trip, and they get paid a certain amount per person who attends. Some companies who facilitate these trips are Acanela Expeditions and Trovatrip.

9. WRITER / CONTRIBUTOR / AUTHOR

Influencers can also be paid to share their thoughts and opinions! Being a writer for an online publication doesn’t always have the highest pay, but it helps support your credibility, and can also be a point of leverage when negotiating brand deals. Publishing your own book is another way to establish credibility and strengthen connections with your followers. Some examples of influencer books are Capture Your Style by Aimee Song, or InstaTravel by Aggie. 

Once you have built a following, you have both a trusting audience and the skills to market yourself, and you can take this knowledge and build any type of business you’d like from it. Even if you have a smaller following, as long as you have a strong relationship with your followers, you’ll be able to successfully monetize your social media. Still trying to figure out your best strategy for growing your social media presence? Join our free training to learn how the algorithm works, the best content strategies for growth, and more!

THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE

and coming along on this journey with me.

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