Social Media Marketing in 2022 becoming a full time content creator
A deeper dive into the growth of brand collaborations with social media influencers and content creators, along with the revenue that they’re able to generate.
In this day and age, there are a variety of different ways that creators can leverage their social media accounts depending on what they’re hoping to achieve. Once upon a time, social media platforms were primarily used as a means to keep in touch with friends and family, along with current events around the world. Today, social media influencers and content creators are able to generate a full-time income through brand collaborations and sponsorships once they’ve built up the necessary following and engagement for their platforms. We’ll be taking a closer look at the booming social media marketing industry and how certain creators can generate a 6 – 7 figure income for themselves annually, and in some cases monthly, through different social media platforms and methods.
The amount of social media users and influencer accounts has risen significantly over the last decade or so. Around 70% of the US population has an active social media account and more than half the world population (around 58% of people worldwide) now utilizes social media as well. What’s even more astounding is that between the years 2020 and 2021, the growth rate of social media usage in the US was 4.3%, which is around 10 million people that have contributed to the increase of social media users by creating one or more social media accounts. The social media platform that saw the largest increase in users during that time frame was TikTok, which grew by over 18.3% year over year.
Regardless of which platform these individuals primarily use, it’s safe to say that the rise in the number of social media users has given influencers and content creators a larger audience to market products and services to from various brands. Since people tend to spend an average of 2 – 3 hours a day on social media, there is an ample amount of opportunities for brands to connect with their given demographics. Influencers are the literal gateway for brands to reach their desired audience. As of 2021, the influencer marketing industry has become a 13.8 billion dollar industry and is projected to rise to 16.4 billion dollars by the end of 2022, indicating that it is steadily growing. This has given brands from a variety of industries an increasing desire to collaborate with content creators and influencers. The impact is the exponential growth of the revenue being generated by influencers.
Content creators are providing huge ROI’s due to their intimate relationship with their followers, subscribers, and supporters. Influencer followers are very likely to invest in a product promoted by the influencer whom they trust. Today, brands are more than willing to take the initiative to reach out to social media influencers and content creators for brand collaborations given that the influencer has developed a brand identity and reputation that complements the given brand.
Content creators and influencers can make their money in a variety of different ways including affiliate marketing, monetization tools on various platforms, pay per view/click, promoting their own products such as courses or merchandise, and of course brand collaborations. Some influencers have even been known to make upwards of $5000 a month off of their affiliate marketing campaigns alone, which makes social media influencing a very lucrative industry.
As social media expands the importance of influencers expands along with it, because influencers are the driving force of the expansion. Social media platforms have begun to recognize the value of content creators, introducing new programs and incentives. For example, TikTok has implemented a 50/50 ad revenue split with its creators, and Instagram allows its creators to keep at least 55% of the revenue that they’ve made from ads. This ensures that profits can be shared fairly between content creators and the social media platforms.
Some people may think that you need to have millions of followers to generate a full-time income from being a social media influencer, but that’s not necessarily the case. Nowadays brands are even willing to collaborate with influencers with under 100,000 followers, known as micro-influencers, making it more feasible than ever for people to make a full-time income off of social media. These “micro” or “nano” influencers typically have a specific niche that has some relation to the product or services that brands are trying to sell, making it more appealing for them to want to collaborate. Content creators that are still in the process of building up their following could stand to benefit greatly from this kind of partnership because it gives them a chance to gain exposure to brand collaborations. Like anything else, the more experience you have, the better you become. There is much to learn about brand collaborations, things such as, how to negotiate, who to contact, how to ensure you fulfill each deliverable and much more.
On the other end of the spectrum, you also have your “mega” influencers that have hundreds of thousands (and in some cases millions) of followers that they have been successful in gathering over time. Because they have a larger audience, they’re often able to command a higher pay for brand collaborations. Although this is completely dependent on negotiations and how they structure their partnership with those brands, influencer rates are dependent on a variety of factors such as following, engagement, quality, exclusivity, and several other factors. Either way, it’s clear that the influencer marketing industry will continue to grow steadily over the years to come as more and more creators start to take advantage of it.
