Transcript of How I Make Money as a FULL-TIME Content Creator 🤍📷 Brand Deals & My Income Streams

I've gotten paid Partnerships from Big Brands like uber Shopify Sony Staples the list goes on earning $122,000 minimum per month from Brand deals alone I'm telling you this not to brag but to show you my credibility in making this video I must be doing something right to have gotten a $22,000 brand deal my highest paid partnership yet since there's no degree in how to be a full-time content creator think of this as your step-by-step guide starting from the bottom all the way to going full-time and I did it while working a 9 to5 here's how you can too grab a beverage open your notes up and let's get started also see me in the back there this lighting is working for me it's going to have to be okay with that if you clicked on this video you're probably really interested in making money from content creation but also like making it a career your job and enough to quit that toxic 9o5 that you hate ever so much and I was there and I literally am recent living proof of working a 9 to5 thinking that was going to be my entire life knowing how much I didn't want to be there actually quitting and actually leaving that because I built a sustainable income from content creation and a few other things that stemmed from content creation which we're going to get into all in this video but first if you don't know me if you're new to my channel I am sonal I am a small business owner and full-time content creator and my biggest platform is Instagram from people in my everyday life I get this question a lot like how did you start like where did it all begin honestly as a viewer as a consumer humor like we all are that's really where it started I got so inspired by seeing some of my favorite creators making content that I wanted to be making I was asking the internal questions and not just viewing it as entertainment I was really just so invested on how this video came about and I had my interest and I was like I want to share my life I want to share what I eat in a day I have all these ideas and this whole aesthetic behind it too and I was like I want to film I want to learn about cameras do they use cameras do they use their phone lighting editing like oh my God that's so cool all of those internal questions started popping in my head and that's really how it started and the more I consumed on not just Tik Tok not just Instagram Pinterest everyday life all of the platforms Society in general Trends everything honestly inspired me and inspired my content similar to you I looked up videos on how to edit how to film and I eventually also learned my own skills and my own edit style after doing it almost every single day but I've learned the fundamentals first cool I'm going to use cap cut cool cool cool cool cool it's free but I got the pro version eventually but I was like this seems easy let me do that and I learned how to use it I picked it up pretty quickly though cuz I was using Final Cut Pro I've used Final Cut Pro before and so I picked up cap cut pretty easy because there was a lot of like transferable scills from Final Cut Pro to cap cut I learned at the editing app I had a good quality phone already so I was like cool and I practiced I literally scripted all of my videos in the beginning I had my notepad every I would write down like exactly the structure of the video that I want to film so if it was like a what I ate in a day I would pre-plan my meals write down the clips be like okay I'm going to film me eating that's going to be the first5 seconds of the video then it's going to move to stacking all of the ingredients first and each clip is going to be .5 seconds I would literally write that down step by step and I would pre-plan it and I did that honestly probably for like the first month or two I really don't remember how long until I got the hang of it pretty much and I would do that for all my content and I would get inspired from social media and then turn it into my own ideas and then it eventually turned into like my own organic ideas but I also loved just to follow Trends I was like cool I want to do food videos I want to do vlogs and I'm going to make it around my life and then I kind of rinsed and repeated the videos but it would be different cuz I ate different things every day I did different things every day blah blah blah blah blah I stuck to a posting schedule at the time I was only posting on Instagram at the time everything was so new so I started with one platform to now posting on all the platforms I highly recommend if you're just starting out to prevent from getting overwhelmed burnt out and to see if content creation is for you it probably took me though like six months to hit 10,000 followers and I would post like the same kind of content you know 5 days a week at 12:00 p.m. P.M every single day stuck to it and then after that it probably took me another I would say a year almost pretty much to hit 100,000 followers on Instagram and this was posting 5 days a week at 12:00 p.m. every single day and yeah it just kind of grew I used hashtags I used sdo strategies you know but I think the biggest thing was the fact that all of my content kind of was similar to each other like I wasn't doing like all kinds of videos I was pretty much doing Vlogs lifestyle content and Instagram appreciated the fact that it was like a niche quote unquote and I was also being very consistent like and I had a 9 to-5 job I would literally like pause at work and post luckily I actually worked in marketing I worked with social media and so like everyone knew I was an influencer I hate that word I I don't like that word I prefer content creator everyone knew I was a content creator I guess like balancing it came pretty easy because because I would film like around my 9 to 5 and then I would edit on my subway ride to work I would take the subway to work I know a lot of people drive and stuff so like you don't really have that option but I would also edit at night you kind of just have to be okay with working two jobs and if you're passionate enough about it you're going to do it when I was in like the 30,000 follower range I started to actually get a lot of emails from Brands and that were actually willing to pay me um a lot of you probably already know this especially if you started your your content creator Journey that a lot of Brands will reach out to you for affiliate marketing programs or for commission programs so essentially you would have to create content they would give you a discount code to share with your followers and then a custom link you would get commission based on each sale so you would get a certain percentage of each sale that you make and I didn't really like it I honestly don't recommend doing that unless like that's your whole strategy and you want to grow as an affiliate but if you're really trying to make get brand deals I actually don't recommend wasting your time on affiliate programs I would advise you to focus your time more on creating content cuz once you get 100,000 followers that is really when you get brand deals that are going to pay your bills think it was like 30 or 50,000 followers something like that where I would actually get brand deals and um that would actually pay me around like $500 or so for one video I did like a few of those maybe like a month some of them wouldn't even pay that much and then also or they would just be like the most random Brands I would only accept brand deals that make sense for the content that I make and my followers then once I hit 100,000 followers that's when it kind of went up but before then I was really only making like $500 a month and Instagram the platform itself wasn't even paying me either like I didn't get invited to their bonus program which is what they call it right now where the platform pays their creators I didn't I was not part of that yet I did not get invited to that so I was really only making a small amount of money from the brand deals I was getting and I would handle negotiations myself question that I get asked a lot is the agency that I work with how I got signed with an agency how does all of that work working with an agency like how do you get brand deals and like how do you even get your name out there and that kind of thing but I already knew about agencies and that was like a thing like if you don't know what I'm talking about then let's say you go to my Instagram page and then the email that I have is @ alist me.com if you go to a Creator's profile in their bio if their email Isn't at gmail or something it's at like a company that's usually an agency that they are signed with and that agency connects them with Brands every agency has a whole roster of Brands connections emails that they work with and don't ask me how they got that I really don't know that information and that's how they get you brand deals cuz they have all of these connections with all of these Brands the reason why agencies only work with creators that have a certain amount of followers is because they also want to make sure that you're getting attention like I am getting getting emails almost every single day from different brands that want to work with me but honestly more of my brand deals come from just Brands reaching out to me and so my agent helps negotiate she gets the best deals for me and honestly I hate to say it but brands do know that if this Creator is is repped by an agency you'll likely get more money because you're being represented by an agent and they feel like they can't just manipulate you like I feel like a lot of companies they they can manipulate these small creators and they try they really try but when you're represented by an agent then there's less of that because you're actually backed by this professional company that knows what they're doing yeah I get better brand deals honestly than I would have if I was doing it myself they handle all of that for me they negotiate the deals for me um respond to all those emails I literally just have to make the content I have to make revisions too it's not just like one video and then it's done it's like I have to send them a concept A script of my video the actual video Instagram stories if that's part of the deal and then there's revisions that's a very common thing I usually always have to make at least one round of revisions but as far as like how you actually get signed with an agency I mean everyone's different there are so many creators that have less than 100,000 followers that are signed agencies will actually kind of reach out to you I had like five that reached out to me literally I hit 100K and then within that next month or so I had five different interviews set up with different agencies I will say though if you just want to start that process yourself I would go to all of these creators go to me for example that company that is at the end of my email A-list me that is the agency name Google the agency name and they'll have an application on their website cuz it's very very normal to apply yourself don't feel like you have to get reached out to oh my cat came in hello mans you know go to a bunch of influencers profiles find those companies you can also look it up yourself online apply to as many as you can they need you honestly more than you need them so like like they're going to sell themselves you are like the company essentially and they are working for you think of it that way when you are at the phase of interviewing with agencies it is normal for agencies to take 20% of your earnings of that brand deal that is the industry standard if a company is taking more they can it's nowhere written that they can't but um yeah red flag for me personally though I interviewed with about five of them there was one that was taking more than 20% I was already just like put off by that I know a lot of people question the fact that they do take a chunk of your earnings which makes sense cuz they're doing the work for you you know so they deserve to obviously get paid so it makes sense but if I think it's worth it or not 100% yes cuz not only do they do so much work for you like I don't have to negotiate I don't have to reach out to Brands anymore all that good stuff and like that's a whole bunch of time that freed up for me not only do they literally do all of the work for you except for obviously making the content that is up to you as a Creator which that's the fun part my agency gets me more brand deals than ever before because their job is to go through all of my emails there's not an email that gets missed and they have all these connections that I do not have and so that's why I think it's a million per worth it and so I wouldn't be getting as many brand deals and I also really strongly believe I wouldn't be getting the rate that I do as high as it is without an agency I kind of just went with which team and which company made the most sense for the content that I create so I make a lot of Lifestyle videos what kind of brands are going to want to work with me Beauty Brands home Brands Tech Brands probably which company represents those kind of Brands the most cuz every agency kind of has their like their own aesthetic almost their own Vibe like for example there is this agency hermana agency they actually have a more gaming community of influencers like that's kind of their thing because that's more of their connection not saying they don't have others they definitely have other connections but each agency has like a thing and and you can also find this out by usually agencies have a creators tab like creators they work with what Niche are these creators in do I fit in here and I don't want to even sound like we're in high school where it's like you can only go where you fit in like I'm literally talking about this in a more strategic standpoint and the reason why that applies here is because they are going to have the better Suited companies for you also take that with the great of all like most agencies have a lot more than you know just one niches connections you know there's a lot that they are connected with but I think that helps when it comes to picking which agency you want to work with also Vibe I also paid attention to which agents I connected with more like if there was a bad Vibe I paid attention to that or if there was a Vibe where it's like oh my God like this person gets me as a Creator and that's the vibe I felt with aist me the agency that I work with that was I have only I've only worked with the one agency before CU I love them so much their Vibe I connected with the most I felt the most understood by them and they also work with brands that are align perfectly with the content that I create and so I was already just sold engagement is a lot more important than the actual follower number and I think it's because my engagement for my reals is pretty high and brand see that brand see that like oh wow okay well she's not getting just 10,000 views on her videos she is getting like 100,000 views on our videos that is a lot we want to work with her and they pay me more because of that so the money is going to be different for everybody because it doesn't just depend on your follower count it also depends on your engagement rate and then it also depends on your Niche and time of year plays into account like a lot a lot goes into that so I'm not going to get too nitty-gritty it's also a personal decision as well when did I decide to go full-time why did I decide to go fulltime time also just like how I was able to go full-time so I was making money from brands for about a year before I went full-time influencer and every single month within that year I made either equal to or more than my full-time job and I was like looking at this and I had all of these ideas and plans in mind for myself like I was like I want to take this a step further I want to start growing a YouTube channel that takes up a lot of time I want to start a business starting my own handmaid good business has always been a dream of mine I kind of gept that dream for myself cuz I was like well how I don't know how to do that I can't do that but then this whole world of making money from content creation opened up my dream again because I realized wow there's all of these people that I can share my products with and share my journey as like a business owner and if I have my 9 to-5 job and I have content creation there is no time to even start a YouTube channel there was no extra time to start a business I had no time to give to these things and realizing that I was making essentially more than my 9 to-5 job consistently from these paid brand deals it was a no-brainer for me so that's when I put the puzzle pieces together like I was fine working that nin to5 marketing job and doing content on the side it was kind of cool I was like cool I'm basically making double the salary if I quit I basically am only making my single salary for the time being at least and that was an option too I played around with that I was like I could totally just stick to content creation and not expand that into my own business I can just stick with making videos making money from that go to my 9 to5 cool and that is a great option honestly for a lot of people but for me personally there was just more to it I hated my nin of five it wasn't like oh I liked it and then I also like this other cool side hobby like no n of five was not for me and it wasn't the company or anything I just knew it wasn't what I wanted to do with my life it didn't make sense to stay in a career and a job that I did not want to be yet I KN I didn't I never wanted to be there and I've had several jobs to I really gave it a shot for years I've given it a shot and it was just like very telling that there's this New Path and this new huge mansion of a door that has opened for me the comfort of knowing I have this college degree years of experience in the field if this didn't work out like if I was like well I don't want to do this business anymore it's not working out for me something happens with content creation I have that to fall back to and that's not nothing like having a degree and your of experience have factual evidence and analytics that I grew a social media page my resume is pretty stacked there if I did want to go back to 9 to5 there is a plan B everything was just pointing into the direction of it is time to make this move if anything it's going to flourish even more because now I'm dedicating all of my full-time energy into this so it can be bigger and better I needed to see the consistency for a year before actually making that decision I think that is important cuz you can also save in that time you know like having a team like having an agency is also another very like cushion that I had like it wasn't just me doing all of this like I literally have a whole team that works and helps me with brand deals and making consistent money every single month lots of cushion that I had built throughout my 9 to5 that allowed me to quit my 9 to5 what helps a lot with being a content creator is having multiple streams of income so at this point I get paid through brand deals which is my biggest bucket most of my Revenue comes from the brand deals that I have going on and I probably work with every month is different especially during the holidays but I work with around like I guess like four to six brand deals a month and they each get there it varies so much especially now um but each probably gets paid at least the minimum is like $3,000 and then some of them I have long-term Partnerships that are like I have one that's like $22,000 for four videos and another one that was like $155,000 for one video I also got invited to join Instagram's bonuses program which is basically Instagram pays me based on how many views you get every two weeks so it's honestly not that much this also varies a lot per Creator per Niche but for me I get paid $150 every two weeks so what is that like $300 a month so not nothing but really not nearly enough what you need for just to rely on Instagram you know that that is a good chunk of change so brand deals Instagram I actually don't get paid from Tik Tok cuz my following is super small there YouTube I just got monetized which I made a whole video on how much YouTube pays me and then my shop my Shopify store it has not even been a year since I've been been running my small business very new very very new still that is definitely one of my highest income streams running my small business you wear a lot of hats and I really recommend at least starting out with the social medias brand deals post on YouTube also you can get monetized earn that way and there's so many other ways so many other ways you can start an online course if you want a lot of creators that fall under that educational content they start courses now that I've kind of covered pretty much the how to and like how I did everything I kind of wanted to share any like tips or advice that I have for like aspiring full-time creators how to grow on social media I'm not even going to tell you that myself because there are way better videos out there for you than this video on how to actually grow I would look up I would use YouTube and chat GPT for my sources for how to grow on YouTube if that's your platform you know SEO tips keywords are hashtags important are they relevant now so many creators that that is literally their content that they make is analytics and how to grow and how to become a social media Creator I would look up those videos and see what they're saying make sure it's recent and relevant too um and yeah follow those tips cuz I that's literally what I did too at the time especially I was watching those videos all the time I watched so many of those videos and I applied a lot of the tips but as far as like the biggest things is staying consistent is like the number one thing I also if you can try to categorize your videos is like um if you can try to like make videos around a certain topic like for example for my YouTube channel all of my content is related to my small business being a small business owner and then my short form content like on Instagram it's all pretty much Vlogs and lifestyle aesthetic videos in ASMR so I would try to have some sort of topic whether it's food Fitness being a college student you know something like that that helps a lot a lot a lot especially with growing faster if you can answer the question what are you known for you know you got a topic there until you hit like 50,000 100,000 like whatever that big number is to you focus all of your energy on just growing your page and your content itself don't think too much about brand deals and Brands you want to work with and like I'm going to put all this time into reaching out to all these Brands cuz that is a lot of time like it's going to serve you better if you're focused more of your energy and your time on your actual content cuz essentially that is what is going to get you to grow building up your page building up your image and that and then everything else will kind of fall into place I promise you cuz that's literally what happened to me when it becomes your full-time job I would not change this for the world I love my job but there is so much more pressure now like it's now not just a hobby it literally has to be it's just like this whole big thing now and it's still a lot of fun but yeah pressure and at the when it's a hobby it's like you don't have that like added anxiety added pressure and also I mentioned this a little bit before but engagement is better than follower count Brands see that brands are not just oh wow she has this many followers no what kind of videos is she posting and also who is engaging with it how many views is it getting how many comments is it getting are people genuinely like following her content for her or is it Bots you know so it's kind of just like all engagement is so important I respond to those comments especially when you're a lot smaller and you don't have as many comments like respond to all of them even if it's just emojis Instagram don't really know that like the algorithm is going to see a comment as a comment and building those habits early on it'll actually follow you throughout too and yeah it's going to flourish especially when you're bigger and you gain more followers and you gain more traction building those like consistent habits is going to be so so good for you it is okay to Pivot your content I know I mentioned like it does help a lot to have like a niche or like a certain category or topic that you make content around but if that changes it is okay I'm like living proof of that I started my content around working a corporate job like all of my Vlogs are all of my videos were me going to my 9 to5 pack my lunch with me for my 9to 5 I literally use the word 9 to5 in my video all the time and when I became a small business owner that whole 9 to5 vanished it didn't it wasn't there anymore so then it was I literally pivoted and I'm really grateful that I have built all of these strategies throughout the years of like okay I know how to make videos now I know how to use keywords SEO hashtags you know all of these Strat editing you know that it was like I'm confident that I can make these other videos while it's still a little similar to my 9 to5 content like I'm still making Vlogs I am confident enough to know that there's a whole audience for of people that would love to watch this content that I make now um yeah there's audiences out there for everybody so it's like if you want to Pivot one day it is fine because you can just find this whole new set of people that would love this new content that you're trying to make and yeah to connect with having multiple streams of income I cannot emphasize how important that is but don't feel like you have to start with like five different ways of earning money like for me this gradually happened like I started with very small brand deals and that's all I was doing I was only posting on Instagram slowly became okay I'm reposting my content on Tik Tok now okay now I'm making long form YouTube videos it was all like baby steps it didn't happen all at once so keep in mind keep in mind this is like years in the making it's all going to like come together slow slowly take it slowly put in all of your effort though in each thing that you do so that's another reason why you should take it slow but yeah so multiple streams of income like that is a later thought once you're you know at a place where you're consistently posting you got that down you're consistently getting brand deals cool what's next type of thing oh my gosh I don't think I forgot everything I think I revealed literally all of the tips that I have all of everything leave comments below if you have questions on something that I didn't answer in this video please leave it below because I will be answering your guys' comments and questions I want to create more videos too I'm going to create videos on how I started my small business as well like a very similar one to this but small business focus cuz I get that question all the time I'm just not ready to make that yet my business is still super new even though I've made like a solid amount of sales from it I'm not ready to make that video yet but that video will come when I feel confident enough like I am with this one and I'm at a place where I've been doing it for a little bit I will be making that video on how to make full-time income money from a small business and how to start and all that good stuff eventually but yeah I also want to make a video on how I make content how I actually film and edit my videos so that will be coming for sure but um yeah I hope you guys enjoyed this video I hope you got something from this video and I will see you guys in a new one bye