Let’s Talk Money

For today’s post I’ll be sharing a highly requested topic – how to make money as an influencer. I’ve put off writing about this topic for a while for a few reasons. First of all, money is kind of a taboo thing to talk about. Although we live in a modern world where almost anything is normal – I still had some hesitations due to this old taboo. I’ve also avoided this topic because I feel like it’s a daunting topic to cover. I could probably write an entire book on this so I’ll do my best to sum it up in a reasonable amount of words. Anyways, let’s get into the good stuff.

Baby Steps

First and foremost it’s important to understand that this industry works in a unique and interesting way. It’s one of the only jobs I can think of that you will start out making no money in and still working very hard. This is obviously one of the toughest parts of this industry. But you can think of this time as your ‘internship’ or ‘apprenticeship.’ It’s your time to put in the work to learn the ropes, gain some skills, and pay your respects to the industry. This is also why most bloggers/influencers work a day job for months or years while building up there social media presence.

I went into full time blogging very quickly simply because I wanted to give it a try at full speed. This was an extremely challenging time for me for many months. Although I was growing, improving my content, and making connections and relationships I was hardly making any money. There was literally days I didn’t want to go get a burrito for lunch because I was like “well I didn’t make $7 today so I shouldn’t go spend $7 today.” Please understand that this phase is normal and necessary to this journey, and eventually it will end. You can get through it!

Of course this journey is also different for every influencer. The amount of income you make at different points in the journey will depend on your skill sets, your market, and your entrepreneurial spirit. When starting out I made most of my income through content creation and modeling jobs. As I grew my own personal brand and presence on social media I was able to shift my earnings into a different direction. I still do some modeling and content creation on the side.  But now that I’ve grown my personal brand my business lies more in the advertising realm.

Sources of Income

One thing that I absolutely love about this industry is that there is so many sources of income to pull from within it. I’ve always read that the most successful people never have just one source of income. If and whenever you can, you should definitely have multiple streams of income so that you don’t fully depend on one. Plus it’s SO fun to have side hustles if you’ve got that entrepreneurial spirit. Below I’ll outline my main sources of income and a little bit about how they work.

Advertisements/Partnerships

My main source of income is through brand partnerships and advertisements. The simplest way for me to explain this is that my social platforms are basically billboards right? X amount of people view my images/articles/content each day. Because of this traffic on my pages, brands pay me to display their products, services, etc. Of course I only ever partner with brands that I believe in, support, and would happily wear/use. It’s extremely important to be authentic and genuine when sharing my personal experience, review, and impression of whatever I’m displaying so that my audience values and trusts my opinion. Although this is technically an “advertisement”it never really feels like it to me because I’m genuinely sharing things I love + how I use/wear them with all of my internet friends. 🙂

Securing brand partnerships and advertising opportunities obviously depends on your social presence. This is why there is no short cuts to this particular source of income. That’s why you’ve got to slowly grow your following, your voice, and the trust of your audience in the beginning. Once you’ve done so the rate of these advertisements and partnerships will depend on a few things. These factors are things such as following number, engagement, conversion rate, content quality etc.

Content Creation

Content creation is still one of my main sources of income. This basically means I create imagery for a brand without having to post any of the images on my personal channels. Like I said before this was one of my main sources of income at the beginning. Brands weren’t always willing to pay me for advertising because at one point the number of people seeing my content wasn’t worth spending marketing dollars on. However, creating a relationship with a brand at a lower rate for content creation is a great alternative to this. It’s also a very fun and enjoyable part of my job as it’s creative and it’s not for my brand. Therefore I get to think a little differently than I normally do and create a different kind of content which I love!

Re-Sale

Another life saver during my slower months of growth was re-selling things. In my slower months of growth when I was just starting out I was still able to secure some brand partnerships based on a gifting basis. Meaning I would be given the items for free in exchange for social posts/content. Although this was extremely exciting for me, it didn’t help pay the bills. As much as I love clothes I can’t eat them or use them to put a roof over my head. Services like Poshmark, Depop, and even closet sales is a great was to supplement your income, especially when taking on gifting campaigns. It’s a way to make some amount of money for the time and work you put into that collaboration.

Keep in mind I do still donate and gift a ton of my clothes to family, friends and the less fortunate. Re-selling here and there is just a helpful tool I use each month.

Affiliate Links

Another way to make earnings is through affiliate links. This means you belong to a platform such as RewardStyle that allows you to create links that will give you a commission on sales. For some influencers this is a huge source of income and a huge platform for publishing content. I don’t spend a ton of time or effort on this source of income but it can be a major way to make money.

For me personally these are the main sources of income. I’ve learned so much about these things over the past couple of years and I continue to learn more about them and how to grow my business. If you’re trying to start making income from influencing, blogging, and creating content remember to stay patient, work hard, and educate yourself on the available tools. Hope you guys enjoyed this article and found it helpful! Always feel free to DM me or write a comment below if you’ve got more questions etc. Xx

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Photography by Clayton Wenner @clayhendrx