How much money do influencers really make?

0:00Kia ora, I'm Nadine Higgins and welcome to the Prosperity Project. More than half of kids and teens these days say they'd like to be influencers when they grow up and look why wouldn't they? Influences' lives look like a dream, travel, fancy clothes, access to the coolest VIP parties and then there's the constant stream of free stuff. But are most influencers making bank or just making ends meet? And if you're serious about making your living that way, what is actually involved? Seem your talent manager Molly Little John is with us to explain. Hey Molly, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us, particularly from the other side of the world. Give us an idea if you can. Are there lots of people making really good money out of social media or is it lots of people making little bits of money? Yeah, it really depends on the content creators themselves, it depends on their numbers,

1:02it depends on their niches and there is really good money in it and we are finding that the influencer market is just booming like five years ago. I don't know what talent management was and five years later I've been doing it for five years and we're just seeing that product placement is just so different now it used to be in movies and billboards and out of home but because everyone is just glued to their phones these days that's where you're getting your advertisements and you're not, you're seeing more ads now on your phone than you would in like TV broadcasts so it's just booming and it's expected to rise as well. Yeah, it's overwhelming as a consumer too, isn't it? Do you need huge numbers in order to make a living rather than just some cash on the side but a living or is can you make it with you know a small number of very dedicated followers? We're seeing like a huge uprising on UGC creators which are those who make content for brands

2:03but for content creators themselves it is usually someone who has started gaining all of these followings and then I just figuring out am I getting enough money with the brand deals I'm doing to you know make a full time job out of this and it's yeah it just depends on the consistency because you can have something go viral or a great few months and then be like yeah I'm going to quit my job this is going fabulous and then all the deals could dry up and then it's like well what do I do now? So I've had instances where people have quit their jobs and they're doing amazing but then we've also had instances where people have had to go back to work because there's new flavours of the month the algorithm is trying to push new faces and brands are wanting new faces as well so it's kind of it is you know a gamble but if you work hard at it there is definitely money there and there is a job around it as well. And is it really hard work because when you look at the feeds it looks all glossy and they're enjoying the best of everything but is there a lot of

3:08legwork behind creating this thing that other people are fascinated enough to look at every day? I mean I couldn't do it the amount of time they spend getting ready scripting, concepting and that's just for the paid stuff so if they're thinking about all the organic content which they're giving out to followers each day it is a lot of work and it really depends on the creator some of them just pick up their phone and chat in their car and then you know the views just come spilling in others are so curated lifestyle content creators in their footchecks doing these incredible like stop motion clothes appearing on them and the editing as well a lot of them are doing all of their own editing which just sounds an a feat in itself because they're doing it on their tiny little phones whereas I'd still be using iMovie and trying to figure out how to do it all but yeah it's a lot of work and it's figuring out which parts they're able to do best and that's when management obviously comes in as well because when you think of negotiating contracts and

4:11figuring out usage rights and things like that it's just a lot to think about. Is it often that companies just go directly via the DMs to ask someone hey do you want to do a collab with my product or is it become much more sort of professionalised and companies go to their agency and then the agents go to the influencers and take their cut. It's such a mix bag because a lot of these days the bigger brands are using marketing agencies and when talent agencies already have a relationship with the marketing agencies then you kind of get that direct contact from agent to agent whereas people are always going to try their luck and see if they can sneak into a DM and get get a fruity or see if they can just do it for a mate sort of thing but we are finding that if there's an email in the bio and people know that management will get the influences a lot quicker rather than the influences who have got so many DMs from brands

5:14their audience or their fans that it's too hard to keep up with. The ones who manage to grow and monetize what they're doing. Are they focusing on some niche, you know they're fitness influencer or they're really good at cooking or they're a mum and they're doing activities for their kids or do you kind of need to provide a little bit of something for everyone? Yeah it really depends on what your aim is with your platform. I think once people get a taste of the money that they can make whether they're for example a fashion influencer and then they see oh I can do a bit of makeup and beauty but then you hear oh old mate over there is working for countdown and getting a whole heap of cash maybe I should do cooking so it's just figuring out your niche and your lifestyle but also you don't want to be flooding your feed and your audience to be like wait she's cooking now I thought she was into fit check they're getting a bit confused on what this person is about so building up that kind of niche and your kind of key

6:16content pillars which your audience can expect from you makes the most sense and then you can slowly dabble and see if it you know relates to your audience but if you suddenly start doing cooking videos out of the blue when you've only been doing eyeliner tutorials it can throw a spanner in the mix. Can you give us a bit of an idea about what sort of money there is to be made you know do you have an idea about what some influencers are making in a year or what they're making or can make for a single post? Yeah it really again depends on that that influences engagement they're following some influencers they are definitely making full-time salaries you know up to 70 80k a year which is amazing just from their content but it's also how long is a piece of string because things can happen like COVID or suddenly if you know they're really into makeup and then suddenly the makeup industry collapses or the brand they're working with is boy-cotted you have to kind of

7:17figure out where to go from then and where to pivot to and with the money it's also really dependent on like the deliverables is it an ambassador contract which you're you know doing a post every two months for a certain brand or does the brand want to use your content and blast it out to their their team as well paid media where they're putting so much money behind it which once we realize how much money they are putting behind it then we can say well creators need a percentage of this because they can't just do a post for one k and then it turns out you're putting $20,000 behind it. Okay so is there a range though like can you get five grand for a deal or is it if you're they've got money to put behind it is it more than that can you give us a range? I wish I really wish I could give you a range but it would depend like how many followers you have what the deliverables I mean most of the deals they often want a tech talk in a bit Instagram Reels so you're posting

8:19that they'll want the collab tool and then if they do want to boost it by you know 500 bucks yeah then maybe it's definitely in the thousands so it would be between that you know two to five k but it also again depends because they might be like hey we want to license this down the track you know extra money there and it can build up or they might just say hey we've only got a thousand dollars for this will the influencer do it and then that's when we go out to the talent and say it's a quick buck what do you think but you know you might be selling your soul for the six months where they're allowed it on their website or their page the whole time and it's up to the influencer to decide. When you say you can get several thousand for one deal some of the big influencers that I follow um they're doing them like it seems about every second today so there's potential for them to be earning really big money isn't there? A hundred percent yeah it's definitely an industry where there is money there and there's you know uh certain brands like banks are willing to spend

9:25a huge amount of money because people that well they're always competing with one another and they've got a lot of money and they've also got lots of money yeah and another one I find really fascinating is you know food supermarket fast food fast food has so much budget and they've also got so many new products coming out all the time so maybe become a foodie influencer if you want if you want to get some cash but then it also is hard because of the exclusivity if you're working with Mac is you're not going to be able to work for burger him for a while. Aha and do you need to be on all of the platforms you know if you're on Instagram do you also need to be on tech talk you to Facebook do people still use Facebook or can you just do the one? I we have been saying to diversify because you never know when one platform can suddenly shut down and it's yeah you can repurpose content for all of the apps you know you could have one video

10:25put it out on YouTube sure let's put it out on tech talk put it out on Instagram and then can see how the views go but you can also experiment people are always a little bit afraid to post on Instagram because they're like oh all my friends and family follow me so they tend to do more of their experimental stuff on tech talk and YouTube is obviously longer form content but they've bought out short so they're wanting to get more into that short term content and Meta is actually on Facebook that is where we've seen monetizing now available so if you're putting rails on Facebook you can actually get some money in it without having to you know do a paid deal. Well it's funny you mentioned that because paid partnerships the hashtag sponsor or ad is only one way that you can monetize your social media following we need to take a quick break but after that we'll delve into some of those other ways with Molly back soon.

11:26I'll come back to the prosperity project we are talking about monetizing your social media following and just before the break Molly we talked about a lot about the sponsorship deals the hashtag ad paid partnership or whatever but there are other ways to make money out of social media and I guess with maybe if we start with YouTube do you need scale like huge numbers of followers in order to make money out of YouTube? Yeah it is YouTube is one of those that have it kind of set the history of what influences were because it's that longer form content and you can kind of integrate you have those ad breaks in between which is where you're getting your monetization from but it has kind of fallen behind a little bit so a lot of talent aren't really looking into monetization just because it's so tricky in New Zealand whereas elsewhere there's like the TikTok fund and creator fund where it can in America where you can earn so much money whereas here we just still

12:29don't have that access so we're finding a lot of creators are looking towards other ways of making money through their platforms rather than just monetization itself. So just to clarify the monetization is basically that YouTube pays you a certain amount based on how many views you get. 100% so you do need a bit of engagement there and you need people watching all the time and going through those ads. Right and when you talk about the creative funds does that kind of put New Zealand influences out a bit of a disadvantage because I mean what is the creator fund is it is it literally like a New Zealand on air saying here's some cash to make something that people will watch? No it's it's similar to YouTube monetization in that when creators are on the app and viewing your content it's kind of like likes or views per cent of the amount of money you're getting through so yeah we don't have that in New Zealand I don't think Australia still has it either and it's just

13:30yeah it's it is a barrier especially if you are getting all of these views and you're not monetizing whereas over in the States people are generating cash from it and then don't feel the need to always have to do hashtag ads, spawn no deals? Yeah okay what about the old affiliate code I say old because I feel like I see them everywhere you know someone's wearing whatever leggings and they go go and use my code Nadine 25 or whatever and you get 25% off the leggings and then and then is there kind of a back channel back to you if people go and do it? That's how it works I mean for us we would as agents we wouldn't really touch affiliate codes just because that isn't a lot of money in it and then so if a lot of our talent have done them before or want to keep doing them that's AOK but it's really you really need to get that conversion through and it's a lot of plugin it's giving that kind of my food is it my food bag era where everybody was just plugging the codes constantly

14:33and you have to have like a certain amount to actually make something back. Yeah I suppose it makes sense for the business if you're out there saying use this code you'll and they go buy it but for the influencer you'd have to have real scale if there are any kind of giving you sense per conversion. Yeah and that and your followers would have to be clicking through and buying it as well and if you are constantly plugging that they may get bored of it you know so unless it's a really strong affiliation to the brand then is it worth it? What about spinoffs using the audience that you've built and then marketing your own stuff to them? Do you see that often because it makes me think of Kylie Jenner and obviously that's an extreme example you know she came out with the lip kits and the whatever but is that something that you know Kiwi influences have managed to do? Yeah we've definitely seen it with businesses whether they've come up with an app or type of community or they're it kind of with New Zealand it feels like it's a little bit

15:39more grassroots where it kind of goes from someone who's online and then is presenting something or is at an event as an MC or writing a cookbook it doesn't feel as kind of commission or business monetary as you would think it would be but I guess that's just how it is at the moment where everybody's trying to sell something so it's just trying to figure out where is your place into that and also making sure your audience relates to it as well because as we know new businesses can flop quite easily and you can't just depend on your audience to buy something just because they follow you there has to be a real connection there as well. What does that raise the issue of authenticity that yeah sure whatever companies willing to give you some cash to plug whatever it is they're selling but do you actually like it you know would you buy it just or you just telling us to buy it because you are being paid too. That's the number one thing when it comes to a lot of content creation with brands is making sure that it actually fits with your audience and I think

16:44newcomers get a bit excited because they're like oh my goodness I can do this ad amazing but then when the brand is like put my brand in the first three seconds or a certain product that's when it starts losing the charm and people are going to be watching that and scrolling off immediately so being clever about it and making sure that your authentic is possible and if you generally love the brand as well but also it is understandable if you do want to make a quick bite but just making sure that it still relates to your audience and what content you usually put out otherwise they're going to be a little confused. What about pimping out the kids I mean some people on social media they put little hearts over their kids faces or only shoot them from the back of their heads but other people are like you know my kids are wearing this brand and they eating these snacks and playing with this toy. Do you see a lot of that? Yeah it is it is one that we are trying to figure out the best way to go about it because the thing is brands do ask can we show kids faces can we show

17:49this or that and we often find that influences are like we can't show faces but backs of heads or little hands are okay to be applied but it's just so scary with AI and everything that's going on with the web it's a scary scary place so I think it's one where being very cautious about but also on the other hand I have heard influences say if you know specific nappy brand or a child is involved you know it's a toy brand or something like that that they've set money aside from whatever they've got paid into the child's account so it's like their own couping account in some way so you do hear good stories like that but you also yeah it's just it's a dangerous game I think when involving children and the internet because of course there are some famous examples of kids becoming extremely wealthy through influencing you know Ryan's world on YouTube unboxing all the toys and then his own toy brand there's money to be made but like you say there's there's some

18:50risks involved and the kids aren't necessarily aware of those risks no 100% they just seem unworthy the phone which you know can be lovely but not when it's you know I posted out to thousands and thousands of people the other thing you say with influences sometimes like a steady stream I can only imagine what the couriers are like turning up at their homes posting freebies you know like I just got sent this thing how amazing is it he's the other thing he's the other thing and obviously harder for an agent to monetize that if it's just a freebie going to the influencer but there can be some hugely valuable things that get sent their way right 100% and it really just depends on what the brand is asking for it a lot of the time when PR goes out there's no obligation to post or we say to them you can send this to them but there's no obligation for them to post it because the RRP isn't worth you know what they would usually charge for an infeed post or Instagram story but then when you get something like a bed that's worth $4,000 or electronics or a new kitchen that's

19:54when it does become a little bit murky when they are wanting contracted work for it or they're saying can you at least post about this xyz times can you actually just get a free kitchen if you've got a big enough following of course of course you can get anything to do and do people actually chase that do they go okay I want to put in a new kitchen let me ring up samsung and get some appliances or hire or fish and pike or whatever are they actively going hey I'm a really big deal on Instagram want to give me some free stuff yeah you can do reach outs but obviously it just depends on what is going on in the brand's world where they are often you again using marketing agencies but there are times where I've seen people get flooring because they've approached people or there's like flat-packed kitchens that have been going up I've seen a lot about where just yet people they're excited and it's a way for brands to you know actually have a product in hand and

20:54people to view it is there though because I read a couple of years ago the IRD came out with some warnings being like hold on a second if this is effectively income it actually doesn't escape taxation so could some influences be caught out by that they definitely could and that's why I always say to that we don't have a hand on their accounting we obviously uh tax them if they are going through an app like Henry and stuff like that but that's when we say you know talk to your accountant about everything that you're doing and everything you receive and that also is the same of tax right us when they're like well I use my phone all the time and that's yeah that's them to you know make sure that they are recording everything that they're doing there are they how many well okay so the rule as I understand it is basically if you get a freebie that you could on cell so it's not like a facial because it's something that you specifically are using um but if

21:55it is say the the flooring that you're talking about you could technically on cell that that you actually have to estimate what you'd get for it and put that on your income tax return as income so therefore pay tax on something that you haven't potentially sold how many influences do you think are actually doing that I mean it's very hard to say but I can't imagine that there would be too many especially if you're counting the amount of perfumes or something that you have received but maybe that's just something that needs to be you know told more especially to those accountants and to influences out there too well I would assume it's a bit of a risk right because you're posting the stuff online so if the IID wanted to go looking all the evidences there 100% yeah they definitely could although some and most times when um people are posting their freebies it seems to be on Instagram stories then those go off in 24 hours so unless someone's screenshot it

22:57yeah it really just depends such an interesting area and it kind of brings me to some of the risks to your income we need to take a quick break but we will dive into those after the break welcome back to the prosperity project we are talking about making money out of social media and Molly I think from what you've said there is serious money to be made but I'm also wondering about some of the risks to that money one of them being the algorithm that you often see influences being like oh if you even see this please like and subscribe and blah blah blah how much are you at the mercy of metter or tiktok changing it up and people not seeing your stuff anymore yeah it's one thing that we come across all the time it's like why am I tiktok flopping what's not working but I guess that's up to the content creator to figure out what works for them and how they can keep the consistency going and you never want to be you know that's why we say to diversify and

24:01not only be on one earth and to be trialling an era everything that you can otherwise it can try up and it's just one of those things and you kind of are mercy to it because who knows if the internet shut down tomorrow what would happen you know are they are they sandwich boards and that's how we'll advertise from now onwards but yeah it is it is a risk and it it always will be but it's kind of like in America when they said they were going to cancel tiktok and it happened full of like 10 hours or something like that and then you know everything was back on again so and because it's such a billion dollar industry I think it's not going away anytime soon but you have to be clever about it is there also a risk that maybe you know something you do guys viral and you get you know thousands of followers but then it was sort of a flash in the pan and people lose interest in you 100 percent and I've always said that when someone does get a viral video and you can see then getting brand deals and things like that and then they just want

25:04them to recreate that same viral movement over and over again it's it's going to become style real quick and also those followers who came for you for that viral video but haven't been there the whole time when you start posting your usual content they're going to be like oh well I'm going to move on from this find my next trend or me so yeah you can't count on those viral moments like yeah it's great they can give you followers but unless you're consistently putting out viral hits it's hard to depend on I guess it sounds like going viral is the gold standard but can that also be a double edged sword if you go viral for the wrong reasons and kind of get cancelled is that also a risk oh yeah it's the internet is the cruelest place to be and you can say one word wrong or you can be seen doing one thing like it it's so hard out there and the comments that these influences get can be just so atrocious so that's the one thing that it's probably one of the most

26:05mentally draining to be constantly on your phone all the time but it's also up to the influencer they are sharing their whole life so you would think the standard of you know no gambling no alcohol no drugs on the screen would be kind of the standard but it can always creep in one way or another and I guess it's also do you want your mum to see this and also do you want the brand who could be paying your next deal to see this so it's always something to think about and I suppose is also the risk that you partner up with somebody who does something that gets them cancelled and you buy association are tainted yeah exactly and that's we always tell influences to research brands before they they want to work with them and make sure there's nothing that they don't stand for all the values that they don't stand for if there's boycott lists etc you know I'm making sure that they have all the information there before they accept a deal because once it's a contract it can be

27:07hard to get out of it's just like anything like buying a house you know it's just making sure that you have all the information beforehand and knowing that you are going to be representing this brand and the brand is also kind of representing you as well well would you say to someone who was starting out and and fancies the idea of being a social media influencer maybe being able to check out of the nine to five what would your advice be to them it's a hard one because I mean it is it is the dream that I also think it's just making sure you still have all the skills like I think editing is really really important especially with all the app changes everything is changing so quickly so being on top of that and being smart about what is posting what what to post and making sure that you aren't just trying to be viral all the time there's a lot of people out there that are just trying to constantly get that virability but most successful content creators it's about building that community and building you know an audience and there's that kind of love and

28:10respect because the people who are going to be building you up are your audience so you need to be making sure that they're front of mind but also making sure it's something you want to do as well you've got to really enjoy creating content or else it's just going to be such a drag to influencers have insane screen time stats do you have to be on your phone all the time replying and liking it yeah mine is insane and I'm just viewing all of the influences content so yeah I can imagine that there there's our bananas because if they're editing on their phones they're filming on their phones and then they're probably you know posting and commenting and engaging it would just be so much so I advise everyone to take a little break have cup of tea read a book you we don't have to be on the phones 24 seven it's just one of those things yeah and maintain some other skills if you ever decide that you would like to unplug from the online influencing world hey thank you so much Molly you have an enjoyed a talk to thanks for your time thank you

29:17thanks for joining us on the prosperity project for more personal finance coverage visit nzherald.co.nz and just a reminder this podcast is for informational purposes only and doesn't constitute personal financial advice always do your research or talk to a qualified advisor before making decisions about your finances