Ever wondered how much money people make from their social media platforms, by making videos that millions of people watch?
With the internet creating more ‘stars’ than ever before, there is a new breed of celebrity that has emerged in the 21st century. And all you need is a social media account, a camera and some unique ideas to pull in the punters.
But does it pay? How much do these performers make from the various platforms and can live a life of luxury just by making a few videos and clicking ‘upload’, reports the Mirror.
Well, one such ‘star’ has revealed the sorts of money she generates from YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. And the revelations may come as something of a surprise to you.
Erika Kullberg is a lawyer with more than 17 million followers, who shares her money-saving hacks and investment advice and is known for ‘reading the fine print so you don’t have to’. Better known as Money Lawyer Erika, the influencer has more than nine million TikTok followers, 4.1m on Instagram, 3.3m on Facebook and 762,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel.
In a video posted to her TikTok page last week, Erika, who is also the founder of legal tech startup Plug and Law, shared exactly how much income she gets from the various social media platforms. She said: “In case you’re curious, here is how much every social media platform has paid me with 17m followers.”
And here is a look at how she broke down the figures...
TikTok
Erika explains that she started creating content on TikTok one year ago – and now has a “lifetime total” of 452m views on the platform. “And you can see that I’m making a few dollars each day,” she continued, while showing that she was being paid in small increments ranging from just $2.23 to a much larger $24.88.
“That brings my total earnings on TikTok to $3,255. BUT, wait until you compare that to YouTube.”
Facebook
Next up it’s Facebook, which Erika first starting posting on three months ago. According to the influencer, she has received three payouts from Facebook, with the first for $447 and the second for $895.
She then revealed that her biggest payout from Facebook came in September, when she earned $1,729 from the social networking platform. Erika explained: “The cool thing is the videos I post on Facebook are the same ones I already made for TikTok, so there’s no extra work besides hitting upload.”
YouTube
There are some differences with YouTube, as Erika claimed how much she is paid varies depending on whether it is a short or a long video. She has posted 188 videos to date, shared on screen a short 29-second video on a credit card trick which she had uploaded.
Despite being viewed 1.8m times, she only made $3 from the video, but it was a very different story for a longer 12-minute video she posted. The longer video on quitting her job, which was viewed 2.3m times, got a payout from YouTube of a whopping $35,000.
“For my grand total earnings from YouTube, and remember this is all BEFORE taxes, $196,000,” Kullberg revealed.
To make money from YouTube videos, they need to have more than 4,000 valid public watch hours in the last 12 months and you need more than 1,000 subscribers.
Instagram
Finally it’s Instagram, where Erika has received a whopping 262m views. She said: “Instagram pays some creators, but not if you have over 1m followers.”
This means that the influencer is actually too big to make money from Instagram so hasn’t received a penny from them. The way to generate cash on the Gram is to do deals, sponsored content and partnerships with brands and advertisers, so the money doesn’t actually come from the site itself.
While influencers can make a significant amount from Instagram posts, the revenue does not come from the platform directly, but rather from brands and advertisers.
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