Ever wonder how social media stars launched their empires? Below, we tapped a wide range of folks — from pop culture mavens to smartphone gurus — …
Ever wonder how social media stars launched their empires? Below, we tapped a wide range of folks — from pop culture mavens to smartphone gurus — to find out what the daily grind of #influencing is really like. A full-time YouTube creator, Shallon Lester,34, recently relocated to Montana after a decade in New York City. The published author has over 500,000 followers and 70 million video views. A few years ago, after making a viral video series, she began to realize that this might be a lucrative career, but she wasn’t quite ready to quit her job as a magazine editor at “Star.” “So I created my own channel focusing on dating advice videos for teen girls and uploaded maybe twice a month,” she said. In 2019, she filmed a video titled “How To Spot A Liar” about Jordyn Woods, Khloé Kardashian and Tristan Thompson’s love triangle. “The video blew up, and I realized my niche was taking pop culture news — everyone’s guilty pleasure — and turning it into something from which we can learn,” she said. “While other gossip/reaction channels just rant about Kim and Kanye’s divorce, I give you advice you can use along with it, like how to know if you can fix a broken man, and signs you’re dating a narcissist.”Two months later, Lester became a full-time YouTuber and hasn’t looked back. Money matters: “Everyone thinks the only thing that matters when you’re a YouTuber is a subscriber count, but it’s actually about watch time. The longer you can keep a viewer on the platform, the more ads that can be shown, the more money you will make, and the more YouTube will value you. The YouTube average is 3 and a half minutes — mine is 15,” she said. Now, she makes five times her editor’s salary on YouTube alone. Within videos, you can also add sponsorships, promoting a product or service. “Ditto with Instagram. On average, you make 10 percent of your audience,15 percent if you’re verified, which I am. So if you have 100k followers on a verified account, you can ask for $1,500 per promoted post.”Diversification is the name of the game, though. “I have to make sure I have other products and platforms like TikTok, Flaze, Instagram, etc.,” she said. “I have what I call a ‘business octopus’ with ‘tentacles’ that include books, a podcast, consulting service, trips and retreats, a clothing line, jewelry collaborations, on and on.” Lester cautions that social media in and of itself isn’t really monetizable. “They don’t run ads the way YouTube does. So unless you’re having a brand pay for you to promote a product, you could have 10 million followers on those platforms, and you’re not going to make a dime,” she said. Secret sauce: Follow the authenticity, not the trend. “Trends change, but if you are really excited about the content that you make, and it’s authentic, the audience will find you. This is an extremely demanding career, consistency is key, and if you don’t really like what you’re uploading or the content you’re making, you’re going to fizzle out,” she said. “This job is not for the faint of heart. People on the Internet feel entitled to comment on everything from your hair color to your weight to your dog’s collar. You have to have a code of ethics for how you’re going to deal with these people, and a very comprehensive self-care routine to insulate yourself from that kind of toxicity,” said Lester. “Haters and trolls are very real, and very hurtful. I have never worked harder in my life — but I’ve also never been happier!” Hailing from Clifton Park, NY, David Payette,36, is one-half of David & David from the Payette Forward YouTube channel, which has collected roughly 675,000 subscribers since launching in 2015. He described his journey from an Apple Store technician to a full-time YouTuber as “circuitous and challenging,” and notes that he couldn’t have done it without his YouTube co-host, David Lynch. Payette had been working at the Apple Store in Albany before he quit his job in 2013, with the intention of starting a local web design business. He wrote a blog post called “Why Does My iPhone Battery Die So Fast? Here’s The Fix!” Within six months,5 million people had read the post — the only one he had ever written.
