The influencer revealed how much she earns on social networks: “I was amazed”

The social media influencer has openly revealed how much she earns from each platform she uses to publish her content.

Erica Kohlberg, a lawyer who uses TikTok to share investment, savings and travel tips, has amassed more than 9 million followers on the platform. In addition to followers on TikTok, he has 4.1 million followers on Instagram, 3.3 million on Facebook, and 755 thousand followers on the YouTube channel.

In a video she posted to her TikTok account on Wednesday, the content creator and founder of legal tech startup Plug and Law talks about the revenue she gets for her followers and content, and Kohlberg revealed that she earns a few dollars a day from the video-sharing platform itself.

“In case you’re curious, here’s how much each social media platform of my 17 million followers has paid me,” Kohlberg began the video.

According to Kohlberg, who said she started making videos on TikTok a year ago, she has since amassed a “total” of 452 million views on the platform. “You can see I make a few dollars every day,” she added, showing a screencast of her phone showing the daily payments she makes, which range between $2.23 and $24.88 (£2.5 and £27.8). “That brings my total earnings on (TikTok) to $3,255 (£3,646),” before adding: “But wait, you compare that to what (YouTube) has made.”

TikTok pays creators through the Creator Fund, which the platform pitched as a way to give creators “an opportunity to make money doing what they love and turning their passion into a lifestyle.” According to the platform, the money a content creator can earn “is the result of a combination of factors including the number of views, the reliability of the source, the level of engagement with the content, as well as ensuring that the content complies with community guidelines and terms of service.”

And “Tik Tok” means that to be eligible for the Content Creator Fund, a content creator must be based in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, or Italy, be at least 18 years old, and have ten thousand Facebook followers. . At least 100,000 video views in the last 30 days.

The influencer then took to her Facebook account, where she said she started posting videos a few months ago. According to Kohlberg, since she started using the platform to share her content, she has received three payouts of $447 (£500) and $895 (£1,002).

Then Kohlberg revealed that she got her biggest payout from Facebook in September, when she earned $1,729 (£1,936) from the platform.

Speaking about her content on Facebook, Kohlberg noted that the “great thing” is that the videos she posts on the platform are the same ones she “made for TikTok,” and said, “There’s no extra work once you hit the download button.”

Also in the video, Kohlberg turned her attention to Instagram, where she said her videos had 263 million views.

Interestingly, Kohlberg said that Instagram “pays some creators, but not if you have more than a million followers,” meaning, according to her, that she has not earned anything from the social media platform. Although influencers can make a lot of money from their Instagram posts, the revenue does not come directly from the platform, but from brands and advertisers.

According to the influencer, when it comes to how YouTube pays creators, she explained that it differs depending on whether it’s a short or long video.

Kohlberg then used her content as a parable, showing viewers a screenshot of a short 29-second video she posted on the platform about credit card tipping, which has been viewed 1.8 million times since it was posted and “and on that earned $3,” said Kohlberg.

However, as a result of a 12-minute video she posted on the platform that was viewed 2.3 million times, YouTube paid Kohlberg $35,000 (£39.2,000), according to her TikTok account.

“In terms of my total (YouTube) earnings, before tax, it’s $196,000 (£219,000),” Kohlberg said. According to Kohlberg’s YouTube channel, she posted her first video on October 29, 2019.

Similar to TikTok, YouTube has created a Partner Program that “gives creators better access to YouTube’s resources and monetization benefits.” Among the eligibility requirements for receiving monetary compensation for posting videos on YouTube is that the influencer has more than 4,000 valid public viewing hours in the last 12 months and more than 1,000 subscribers to the channel.

As of Thursday, Kohlberg’s video has garnered 1.8 million views, with viewers praising its transparency in the comments.

One person commented: “What transparency!”, while another said: “Not many people reveal this, it’s cool and transparent, kudos.”

One viewer commented: “I’ve always wondered how much content creators make. Thanks for sharing that info!”

Others said what I did inspired them to start creating content on YouTube, with one person joking, “Well, I need to develop my own YouTube channel,” while another wrote, “I need to create a YouTube channel.”

Published in “The Independent” on October 7, 2022.