How I Make Money as a Full-Time Content Creator
One of my favorite things about this industry is that you can be creative in every aspect of what you do, from the content you produce to the ways that you choose to make money as a creator.
Today I'm going to talk to you about seven different ways that you can earn money as a content creator, aka my seven revenue streams, and I'll be sharing them in order of which ones make me the most money.
When I first started out, I truly thought the only way that you could make money was by working with brands. But as it turns out, there are tons of different ways that you can make money online as a creator.
Actually, it’s fun to look back and see how my income has diversified over time!
In this post, I’ll be highlighting my seven income streams as a full-time content creator in 2021, broken down by percentage.
1. Brand deals
54% of total revenue
Brand deals really are the bread and butter of the influencer industry—that’s how it all got started, after all. Brands would approach people with a following on social media and pay them to promote their products or services to their audience.
For me in 2021 brand deals made up more than half of total revenue as a creator. I think it’s also worth mentioning that most of my brand partnerships occured in the back half of the year, specifically during Q4 and the holidays.
I’m a micro influencer as in I have 12,000 Instagram followers, 20,000 Tik Tok followers, 23,000 Pinterest followers and just over 7,000 subscribers on YouTube. For me when I’m negotiating, it really comes down to knowing what to ask for and understanding the many factors that can contribute to pricing a brand deal.
I was able to ask for higher rates because many brands wanted usage rights, exclusivity and whitelisting access to my content. (If those are terms you don’t recognize, check out this YouTube video for a longer explanation.)
If I had just been monetizing through brand deals, I would have only made just over half of what I actually made this year, which is why I’m grateful to have created additional revenue streams.
2. Consulting
10% of total revenue
If you like my teaching style on my YouTube channel but you want more personalized advice and strategies to apply to your business, that’s where my consulting sessions come into play!
I just find it so cool to get to know creatives and small business owners on a one-on-one level, learn about their pain points and brainstorm some very specific solutions for that individual.
Consulting wasn't something that I took a lot of time to market to my audience last year—it honestly just came up as people were asking me if I offered it. I have limited slots each month and as there’s also only one of me, I only have so much time in a given day, week or month.
I have also raised my rates in 2022 for consulting as I’ve learned so much more about content creation in the last year.
But doing consulting has also inspired me to think a little bit more about how I can continue to help people on a one to many scale versus just a one to one scale and if you read through the whole post I’ll chat more about this at the end.
And if you’re interested in learning more about booking a session, you can fill out this interest form and I’ll review it and see if we would be a good fit to work together. I also have some testimonials over on my professional website in case you're curious about what other people have thought of those sessions so you can take a look at those as well.
3. Workshops
8% of total revenue
In 2021 I taught workshops for a friend’s mastermind, in partnership with an educational platform and even did one for the CUNY Journalism School.
I did my first SEO (search engine optimization) workshop last spring in partnership with a platform called Speakeasy. Speakeasy is great for hosting workshops if you're not very tech-savvy, or you don't have a website or an easy way to collect payments from people since they take care of all the logistical stuff for you.
But as a result, they also do take a 30% cut which ultimately felt like too much for me to continue hosting workshops through their platform. I know how to set up and record a Zoom workshop and I already collect payments for my digital products through my Squarespace commerce site and I was on my own in terms of marketing for the most part.
I am planning to turn my SEO workshop into a master class that I host on my own, so stay tuned for updates on that. And if you’re wondering how we sold over $1,000 worth of ticket sales for the SEO workshop and how I publicized the workshop to my audience, I did create a whole YouTube video about that process.
4. Platform incentives
6.8% of total revenue
This was a brand new income stream for me in 2021 and I call platform incentives new methods that social media platforms are implementing to help creators get paid (fi-na-lly!!!!!!!).
So in 2021 for me this was a combination of Instagram live badge bonuses, Pinterest’s new creator rewards program, Clubhouse tips and any other direct monetization methods on-platform.
We’re seeing more and more platforms adopt these methods like YouTube creating a shorts fund and Instagram awarding creators reels bonuses.
So I really think that if these platforms are competing for the attention of creators, there will have to be some kind of incentive to have creators posting their content on those particular platforms.
I've really been enjoying the Pinterest one so far. That one is still in beta so you may not have access yet, but it basically gives you different prompts for idea pins, and you can create content following that prompt. I think the prompts also help the platform if they're looking for a particular type of content.
If you don't yet have access to some of these features just yet, I would just focus on making sure your social media platforms are in great shape and that you’re actively creating on them so that if a platform is looking for new people to add to these programs you’ll be considered.
(Pssst! Need help getting your social media platforms in tip-top shape? Download my free guide The Influencer Launchpad for tips about creating content consistently and which platforms you should focus on as a creator.)
5. Digital products
6.5% of total revenue
I launched my first digital product, Right on Pitch, in 2019. Right on Pitch is an ebook with all of my best tips for pitching brands, including an editor's approved pitch, checklists, tips for negotiating your rates, what makes a good pitch and what makes a pitch stand out. And that product has been really successful for me over time.
Last year, I launched two more digital products, my editable invoice template and my content backing planner. All of those products are available on my website.
Digital products were great because they only cost me time to make. I have a Canva pro account and I was able to create them over there and then I sell them on my website. I'm definitely hoping to do more digital products this year and also start to think about some more premium digital products.
One of my goals for 2021 was to increase my digital product revenue and 2021 was my highest year of sales yet for my digital products, which I was really happy with.
I decided there were two ways to increase my revenue: I could raise my prices or I could expand my product offerings. I did both.
If you’re interested, I actually do have a blog post where I talk about my process for creating and selling an ebook that you’re welcome to check out.
6. Ads
6.3% of total revenue
There are two ways I run ads on my content: one is through Google AdSense on my YouTube channel and the second is through the SheMedia Collective on my blog.
I’ve been a part of YouTube’s partner program for a few years now and really enjoy it and I joined SheMedia at the end of 2021.
Running ads on your content is great because it’s a passive income stream and they get placed on content you’ve already created and continue to serve you time and time again so you can benefit from that content way after you create it.
I am hoping to increase my ad revenue on both my blog and YouTube channel in 2022.
7. Affiliates
4% of total revenue
Affiliate revenue was my smallest income stream in 2021 bringing in just 4% of my total earnings. However, I feel like I learned the most about affiliates this year and was actually able to outsource some help on the affiliate front as well.
My friend Caitlin has a social media agency called Curio Five where she does affiliate management, so she's been a huge help to me this past year with growing my affiliates earning money on the LTK app.
I’ve been trying to better incorporate affiliates into my YouTube video descriptions, my blog posts, sharing them on my Instagram stories, and even launching a shopping newsletter where my community members who are most interested in fashion, beauty and lifestyle product recommendations can get an email directly to them each month with some of my favorites.
This was my highest earning year with affiliates so far and I'm excited to see where it goes in 2022.
Other
4.5% of total revenue
I did also want to mention that 4.5% of my revenue this year came from random things. So I finally had some very late paid out invoices for my freelance writing days, and there were just a few other truly random things like paid surveys that I didn’t know how to categorize in the rest of my income so “other” it is.
And finally I just launched a new income stream in January of 2022 that I am so excited about— a membership community!
I offer three different membership tiers to my community that are paid on a monthly basis. I have $1, $3, and $5/month plans with different resources for content creators.
From monthly desktop calendars to fresh content ideas to community challenges, I created this community to help content creators get consistent support from me at a fraction of the cost of my consulting price.
You can check out and join my Patreon here.
That was a lot! Do you have any questions about how I make money as a creator? Let me know in the comments.
yours,
Austen
Photograph above by Jessie Alcheh