how i earn as a content creator & how you can too

追加: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]Hi guys, welcome back to my YouTube channel.

[00:00:04]Okay, so this one is a video which is very very requested not as a video video but a lot of people keep asking me in my DMs on Instagram and in my comments about brand collabs, content creation, how to earn money, how I earn money, how much money I earn and just so many doubts and confusion and I get it. This is a very unconventional field and it's relatively new and not many people have a lot of information about it. Not many people talk about it. Not many people are transparent about it and I will try my best to share as much as I can for anybody who wants to get into this and start something of their own on social media. So let's just start with the most basic thing how I got into content creation. So I started my page in 20 20 July. Yeah, 18th July 2020. And I started it as a travel page. I wanted to be a travel or tourism or itinerary seller. And that's how I started the page. I had a logo. Everything was very professional on my page as if it's a company. And then reals came in around the same time. Uh and a lot of people started posting reals on Instagram which I never got into until much later like November, December. And until now all my content was just informative educational content about traveling, where you can go and things like that. And then till 2022 end, I would only post very like you know salesy, not even completely salesy, not even completely personal uh content. And I still had the logo. It it had been like two two and a half years of me having the logo, trying to promote my page as a travel company. And I was also doing my undergrad side by side. So there would be a lot of months in the middle when I would not be consistent and it was just very chaotic and messy.

[00:01:51]But on whatever I would be posting I would get good enough reach. It was a lot about Mumbai things you can do in Mumbai and stuff like that. So a lot of people would follow me for that. And around 2022 end I decided to just remove the logo make it a personal page because I clearly sucked at sales marketing. And eventually I realized that I could probably be a content creator rather than trying to earn money as a travel company and then go and travel because that was my entire goal. I always loved traveling. I wanted to be able to travel as much as I can. And back then I thought the easiest way to do that would be to become a travel company myself, earn money through uh sending people on trips and then go on trips with that money. But after 2 and 1/2 years of res being around the whole game on Instagram completely changed. Earlier on Instagram only people who were very famous on YouTube were famous on Instagram also.

[00:02:43]But now because of real you could become a public figure. You could become a content creator. You could become an influencer as the term became so popular. And now a lot of people were earning through brand collabs on Instagram. Even though brand collaborations on Instagram had just started in around 2021 end and 2022 to start, but I barely had like 5,000 followers. So, I wasn't getting any brand collabs, which is not the case now. Right now, even if you have 2,000 followers, you can earn money, proper money. But yeah, so 2022 December, I decided to remove the logo, make my make my picture, my display, and just rebrand my page as a personal page. Although it did not come naturally for me to share anything about my life which I have literally just started doing very recently. It's been 6 years since I started the page but the first 3 to 4 years I would not post anything personal personal like I would not show my friends. I would not talk about my relationship my family nothing. It would be very transactional. It would be very um just giving information valuable content that you can gain something out of and that would be it. I will come to the tips that I have about this particular topic later. But yeah, so this was how it began in 2022. The moment I changed my display and everything became a little more personal compared to earlier, a lot of brands started reaching out for Bart and I eventually did end up locking my first paid collab in January 2023 which is like 1 month and a half month after I became a personal page and that time I had like 10,000 followers and uh my first brand collab I locked was for 5,000 rupees and yeah that's when I started getting the hang of it and I still had my masters to complete.

[00:04:25]And this was my gap uh gap year period.

[00:04:29]So I was like good enough like I will learn more about content creation in this particular timeline and by the time my masters is done I will know if I want to continue in this field or if I want to do psychology which is what I did my masters in. And even though I was studying I prioritized this a lot because I saw a lot of potential in this direction. And I saw myself earning money, getting a lot of good experiences even if they were barter. I was getting to travel so much through my content even with less followers back then. So I completed my masters and by the time my masters got over content creation had become a proper proper full-time job for me. I would be working all day all night on content creation and beach then I would do my assignments and study for exams. And now it's been one exact year of me just doing content creation and no studies, no job, nothing happening side by side. Now coming to how you can start creating content based on my experience, I would suggest to do it while you are doing if you are already doing a job or studying then I would really push you to start doing content creations along with the job or the degree that you are pursuing side by side. So by the time you are done with your degree or by the time there has been enough experience in this field, you know if this is working or not and only then you quit. Drop out I would not suggest at all. You need to have a degree. You never know Instagram account suspend like do not compromise on your education because I have done it for 5 years. You can create content along with studies. Of course, you can't prioritize it completely, but you can give your 80% while studying also. So, do not drop out or do any of those things to pursue content creation. And when it comes to your job, genuinely create content along with your job whenever you get time.

[00:06:20]Even if it's only on weekends or in the morning or in the night after coming back from office, but only when you see actual money coming in. And only when you see money coming in consistently every single month and you feel like if you give it all of your time and you will be able to earn at least double the amount that your job is paying you only then quit. Otherwise this is a very good side income. Also if your job is paying you well if it is giving you security if you're also getting time to create content uh content side by side and you do not need to really quit. You can manage with the time that you have in hand. Do not quit. Do not quit. I know a lot of people on Instagram are always like, "Oh, I earned three lakh money with 10,000 followers in one month. Quit your job." No, do not do any of that.

[00:07:02]You need to be very practical. You need to take calculated decisions. And I would not recommend doing any of those things which are very, you know, spontaneous and just for the kicks and the vibes. Like if you have that kind of a financial security, then by all means, go for it. Follow your passion, do whatever you want to. But if you are somebody who has financial responsibilities, you should know that content creation is a very uncertain field when it comes to money and income.

[00:07:27]And if you're getting paid well somewhere and you can create content side by side, then only quit your job if you feel like you're you are and you will earn more than the job and you are getting satisfied uh creatively, intellectually more through content creation. And when it comes to starting content creation right now, I feel like right now there is a lot more competition than there used to be. Right now, every other person with a public account, if they go viral, they become a content creator overnight. But if you're somebody who has the goal of becoming a content creator, content creator, and you do not want to become one by chance, then really be consistent. Like, doesn't matter if you post every single day, but you have to be relevant enough. You have to be seen on people's feed back to back, back to back. You need to at least post four times in a week, like at least four reels in a week. And you can post a few carousles here and there. And stories is a genius. It's like a hidden genius feature that can really like help you connect with your community. Be raw.

[00:08:24]Be as raw as you can on your stories.

[00:08:26]Talk to your audience. Ask them to ask you questions. Put up polls. Share things about yourself which you feel will tank if you post as a real. But if you post on stories, you will actually make meaningful conversation with your community. uh share about like where you're going, what you're doing, what you're eating, what you're drinking, what your preferences are, just anything like just share the most random small details about yourself and you will see that your community is like really connecting with you. They're bonding with you. They're relating with you that yeah, even I love this color. Yeah, I love this cafe and just any of that. But of course, as a girl, I would not recommend you to post realtime stories of where you are. The world is a creepy place. Do not do that. I don't do that personally. And one more thing that I feel is amazing right now is trial reels. I post a lot of my uh like musty loweffort content on trial reels and surprisingly it does really well. And you also if you feel like you want to try out a few things uh and you're not sure about that particular niche or category of content, put it out on trial reels be you can literally spam your trial reels with a lot of reels and you can see okay this is connecting with people this hook is working. You can post the same video with different uh beginning hooks to see a which video will perform even more or which one will reach more people and then post that on your main feed and you can really be able to experiment with different kinds of content like somebody who has a very aesthetic feed might not want to post something which is low effort not very aesthetic but they really feel for that video and but and they really want to put it out there so they can post it on trial res. It's a very good place to like document things also I feel. So yeah, trial less is a like use it, exploit your trial less.

[00:10:05]Post as many videos as you can to figure out your niche, to experiment, to see what is working for you and then post things on your feed. So that way you can curate your feed in a better way. You can make sure only the things that matter are on your actual feed while also being able to experiment well. Now, how can you stand out? Apart from consistency and picking a niche. Uh again to speak a little more in detail about uh niche, don't completely limit yourself to a niche like let's say something like politics, finance, these things are very very very particular. So you need to just post about those thing like you can't be talking about politics and like financial decisions and things like that and suddenly post like a couple video with your partner like it's too random. But if you're doing travel you can also post lifestyle side by side. If you're doing food you can also post travel side by side. You can also post fashion along with travel like to show the outfits you wore on a trip. But these are all very lifestyle oriented niches which can coincide like you'll see a lot of lifestyle creators creating travel content but not the kind of educational travel content you would see on very particular travel creators feed like Akancha Monga. She posts so much information. and her content is so like well educational but you will not see a lot of like loweffort fashion or you know random lifestyle hauls and shopping hauls from a trip kind of content on her page but on a lifestyle creator like let's say Tanisho you can see a lot of travel content in terms of what she ate in a particular country or what she bought from a particular country what she's doing in a day there but you will not see informative content there like cost of traveling to Korea or something like that got it So you can pick a niche but don't limit yourself so much that you can't explore and step into other fields. And make your niche something that people know you by like let's say um or have a few IPs like let's say I post a lot of like singing videos in my car where I'm not actually singing but like just sharing my playlist on my page and that is an IP. A lot of people know me by these videos and they relate with me because we have a similar music taste. To have something that the moment people see that piece of content, even if your face is not visible right from the beginning, they just know it's you.

[00:12:16]They just know it's your content. Like a lot of creators do walk pop videos like that is their thing. You will not see them sitting here and talking directly to the camera. You will see them interacting with like the crowd at public places and that's their thing. So have a niche and experiment with that niche in the beginning to see what is relating and what you can fixate on and move forward with. Of course with time you can evolve, you can upgrade your content, you can change your niche even if you feel like it's not working for you anymore. But in the beginning it is very important to have a niche to build that audience and to target a particular kind of people who can relate with you and who will engage with your content.

[00:12:52]Another thing is show your personality.

[00:12:54]Like Instagram no longer is about music montages, about aesthetics, about like the most perfect curated video. That used to be a thing, but it's not anymore. Even now, even though we say the attention span is less, but compared to earlier, people are watching 1 minute, one and a half minute long videos on Instagram if they are really engaging. Nobody is making 10 second, 15-second videos anymore. Like that can be one or two videos as a beach beach.

[00:13:17]But overall, you will see a lot of people just directly talking to the camera or sharing their personality or literally sitting with a messy bun, oversized t-shirt and just sharing their heart out. So show your personality even if your content is about travel or music or movies or just sharing educational things. Show your personality through it that people can relate to you as a person. they can feel like oh like oh my god we are so similar like have that kind of an aura and vibe while sharing or creating content because relatability really really really is very important at the moment if you see most people who have like really big number of followers and if you just go through their comments you can see people talking to them as if they know them really well and you can't know somebody who doesn't share anything about their life sure maintain your privacy do not like overshare about things you that are very personal to you and you don't want to but you can share with your preferences, your likes, your dislikes, your personality, the kind of mindset you have and things like that on your page which will help the audience connect with you and will attract the kind of audience that also relates to you. Like really, really, really focus on relatability. Okay, another question that a lot of people who even know me personally keep asking me, do I earn from posting organic content? So, no. On Instagram, it's not like YouTube where you get monetized and based on the number of views and watch time, you get paid. On Instagram, you keep posting organic content to get good reach to connect with your audience or just whatever you feel like posting because you like creating videos. But the brand deals that come by looking at your feed, by looking at the reach you have on your videos is what pays you. So on Instagram, I only get paid through the brand collaborations that I do. Now, how do I get paid on Instagram? One is through brand collaborations where I post a real where I'm talking about a brand, promoting a brand, a product to you. Second is integrated reel where the whole video is not about that brand.

[00:15:06]You're just doing a small integration like let's say five products uh you should carry on your trip and say a sunscreen sunscreen. So that's just an integrated deal which would be like 10 seconds in a 40 50 second video. So for that you do get paid lesser than a dedicated video but it's not that harsh on your reach because it is also like an organic content integration. And another thing is ad rights. So brands if they really like your video or if they want to run ads on your video then they will ask for ad rights and you can charge for that as well. So that's brand collabs through real or posts or stories and ad rights on that branded content. Now the third thing is UGC which I feel a lot of people can do even when they have very less followers. So in UGC you get paid to create a video and give it to the brand and now the brand has full rights on that video and they can run it on ads, they can post it on their feed, they can put it on their website. You have to be clear about the usage of that particular video. So UGC stands for user generated content which is that you as an actual customer or something you're creating content for uh for the brand and you can be clear about your payment terms with them in the beginning like where do you want to use this video and you can charge accordingly for that and a lot of times brands are also paying you to just shoot the video and give it to them and they will edit it.

[00:16:31]So a lot of times scripting and all of that is handled by the brand because this content goes on their page. So you don't have to create this content like you would for your page. You are being very personal about your own self and things like that. It's going it could be a very very dedicated brand video because this goes on the brand's page.

[00:16:48]So a lot of people who are good with communication, dialogue delivery and stuff, you all can pitch yourselves to brands for UGC content because you don't have to post it on your page. So the reach of your page doesn't really matter and you get paid to just create the video. The whole execution of the video and then delivering that video and then they do whatever they want to with that video. And the last thing uh the perks that we get as creators are bartered. So a lot of my trips like almost all of my trips have something or the other that is sponsored. So it could be experiences, it could be the property, it could be the flight tickets, just anything. Then another thing is experiences in your own city. like we get hosted at a lot of cafes to just go there, dine in and just put stories or a carousel post or a real whatever you are comfortable with. And lastly, PR. So, we get a lot of gifts from brands whenever they launching a new product or if they want us to try their product. A lot of clothes, we get skincare, makeup, like I'm not even joking. I have not bought a single skin care, hair care, body care product since 2020.

[00:17:47]Three. So, that's like 3 years of me not buying anything. I just use whatever the brands are sending me because I trust those brands. Most of the times the brands that I work with or who send me PR are brands that I have anyway been using or are very trusted in the market.

[00:18:00]By getting things for free or for butter, you are also saving a lot of money. So technically money saved is money earned and that is just something that you will in hindsight realize that aai literally saved so much money in the last one year by not having to spend on these experiences or products. But yeah, don't do butter when you have a very good reach. Don't do butter for like a small product when you have a very good reach because that's just exploitation.

[00:18:24]If you know the brand can pay well or if you know the amount of work you're putting in and you know your worth, do not do butter for things that you can just buy for like 500 rupees or something, do not do butter for that.

[00:18:35]Like that's just state of exploitation.

[00:18:36]Especially if you have good reach. But if you're on a trip and you would have anyway paid for this 5,000 rupee experience on the trip and you would have anyway created content for that particular thing then it makes sense to just collaborate with that uh experienced organizer or pages like get your guide and head out because you will anyway be spending on it. You will anyway be creating content for it. Might as well get it for free. How can you decide how much to charge for the deliverables that you are giving out? So I will talk about myself. I have 90,000ish followers right now. And for a collab real, I charge anywhere between 75 to 85K for just the video. Then for a non- collab reel, I charge anywhere between 65 to 75K.

[00:19:19]For ad rights on these reels, I charge around 15 to 20K for a month. For stories, video stories. A lot of times if it's like a package cost then you just give out a story as a free deliverable to maintain a good uh bond and relationship with the brand. But if you're charging for a story then it's anywhere between 15 to 20k for a story.

[00:19:41]For a carousel post it's anywhere between 30 to 40k and these are just my commercials. If you have exceptional reach like some people their followers might be less but their reach is always like 200k 300k 500k 1 million then you can of course charge much higher. Now for UGC you can charge anywhere between 7 to 10K if you just have like 1,000 2,000 3,000 followers and moving on if you become like a well-known face you have a lot of followers you have a good community then you can charge much higher like right now for 90k followers and being around for so long in this uh community I charge anywhere between 45 to 55k for a UGC video which I negotiate like if I feel sometimes that okay the work is not that much and it's easier money for me then I don't want that collab to go away. I will charge less for that particular UGC or a brand collab if I feel like it's less work and it will also perform well on my page.

[00:20:35]it's not even that dedicated and it's not very brand like like it's a very chill sort of a video and I can get good reach on it then I will end up doing that collab on a less money sometimes and even when I want to work with a very well-known brand but they don't have a high budget and I would want to at least do one video with them to form a good bond so I can get more opportunities later I would probably end up giving like a discount or like charging them less if I know that they might walk away with the current cost So yeah I feel these things when you are in that phase trial and error and experiment mistakes you will understand no I should this is how I should go about it this is how I should go about it now coming to you on how you can decide your cost based on your followers you can charge anywhere like let's say if you have 10,000 followers you can charge anywhere between 7 to 15k for a branded video again depending on your reach if your reach is less you can't charge more than the number of followers that you have then if have like 20k 30k followers then you can charge anywhere between like 20 25 30k for your branded videos and usually then if you have 50k 70k then you can charge anywhere around like 45 to 65 70k for your videos. So it depends on your followers like is 5k p 5 5k depending on your reach you can charge and of course as in when you're negotiating and you see the response all brands are not going ahead with the campaign because of the commercials you can be honest with them you can ask them okay what is your budget and if you feel you're comfortable with that budget go ahead do it but do not do too many branded videos in one month just because you feel like okay I'll do 10 videos and I'm getting paid like 5k for each video I'll earn 50k in a month but that will hamper the reach of your page. Your page will start looking like some teley shopping ad while page where you're just promoting something or the other one after another and you will lose credibility because you're promoting anything and everything that is coming your way. So for somebody who is starting out, of course, Ber is a great thing. If you are like less than,000 followers or less than 2,000 followers, Ber is amazing. Especially if you really like that product and you would have bought it anyway. You can build your page portfolio and just the kind of branded content you can make for other brands through that. You can do UGC like I explained earlier. You can pitch to brands. You can organically like there is no commercial, no butter, nothing involved in this. Just organically talk about your favorite products or just share things about the favorite products you're using on your stories or your reels very organically because that will you know bring that brand to you. This person already uses my product and their content is good. I like the aesthetics of the content or I like the way they speak and I could probably explore a collaboration with this creator and even other brands who see that content can come to you thinking organically you are attracting more brands your way and lastly just cold DM brands just DM brands that you want to work with this is what I can provide this is how much I charge let me know if you're interested we it's open to negotiation yeah you want to so at least brands know you exist maybe if you DM like 100 brands maybe only five will revert back with a positive response only two might be willing to pay three might only want to do barter but at least this way you are getting to build your experience and eventually once you start posting or working with brands brands will just start coming your way because the kind of content you create is what resonates with them. Now two pieces of advice I would give is one this field is very uncertain and unpredictable and financially you will not have a security every month. Even if you reach a very good stage as a creator even even if you have 1 million followers there can be a few months when you have nothing. You have absolutely no brand collabs. You only have a few barter or PR coming your way here and there. And there could be a few months where you are swamped with so many brand collabs and touchwood so many brand collabs are getting locked that you have to say no to a few brands or sometimes timelines are not matching. They want the video immediately but you already have like two pieces of content going up the coming week and you don't want one more and you would have to say no to them. Sometimes if you have already promoted a hair care product then you have to say no to the few hairare products that are coming your way because you are not building credibility by promoting three shampoos in a span of one one week. Then there are also retainers. So a lot of brands they lock you for like 6 months.

[00:25:04]So that gives you security for sure because you are getting you already know but you don't know you never know brands festive season time a lot of brands are running festival campaigns so that's a very good time to work with brands and a lot of brands are active at that time and secondly be very strong you need to be very thick skinned in this industry there can be a lot of hate coming your way for the most random unexpected thing there can be a lot of trolling happening for the way you speak, the way you look, and just do not pay heed to these people. I know it's very easy for me to sit here and say that, but honestly, the more you ignore them, the more you don't care about them, and the more you see them as people who are jobless and faceless and who do not matter, the easier it is for you because you cannot sit and genuinely be worried about what a random person on Instagram who you don't even know is speaking about you.

[00:25:58]Like, that cannot affect you in a way where your work is getting hampered, your confidence is getting hampered.

[00:26:03]Like I know it's it can get very tough sometimes people are genuinely very brutal but just understand and just have this mantra in your head that you don't even know them. You don't even know where they live. Half of the times they don't even have a DP. They have zero followers. They are just random ass people who are really unhappy with their lives and they have nothing better to do. So ignore them. Like you are thriving. You are out there. You are making a random person get so triggered that they are literally taking the time out to comment on a random person's page. You are winning. Trust me. Now as somebody who is just beginning, I can understand there will be a lot of fear of judgment from your society, friends, family and people around you. And I get it. Even till now of course even if it's as a joke my friends will pick on like one word if I'll say it in a weird way or an accent or just something if I say which is to unusual or funny they will pick on it and even like after 2 years of that video being posted they will keeping me with that word and it's fine like you are putting yourself out there you are literally stepping out of your comfort zone people are going to make fun of you and try to put you down a lot of people around you might also be jealous of you. You never know. But that shouldn't hold you back because trust me, you just get out of that phase of 2 3 months of fearing the judgment and being like anxious around your friends and family. But after that, the returns, the gains you get are unmatchable. The same friends and family will really like you know clap for you much later when you are successful and just doing really well. So do not care about what these people are saying. If you want block them, remove them as your followers.

[00:27:39]Hide them. Do whatever you want to that can give you more confidence. But get into this if that is really your calling. Do not let people's judgment hold you back. Because after like 2 3 years when you have 100k followers, 200k, you're just doing really really well financially in your career, experiences wise, opportunities wise, you will literally be like and genuinely the returns in content creation are unbelievable. Like you know a lot of people there are controversies influenc but it is real like you are risking a lot by becoming by becoming a content creator. You are probably not taking a job. You have so much financial insecurity and uncertaintity because you do not get paid the same amount every month. You are risking that. You are putting yourself out there. you are literally bearing your soul out for the world to see and being prone to so many hate comments, trolls and just so many things. So the rewards are also going to be equally good. And sometimes you you really don't know like so many people they do so well. A lot of comedy creators and all within a year they hit 1 million followers because they are so good. People relate to them. People find them really funny and then the amount of money they earn, the kind of opportunities they get, the kind of brands they work with, it is unreal. So you never know. You could be putting in just 3 months of time, proper proper dedicated time to this and you will end up getting gains that you never imagined you would. So genuinely do not take this as a joke.

[00:29:11]The returns you can get from content creation are unmatched. This video is already very long. I think I will just stop here. There is so much more to talk about, but right now I've just covered like the basic gist of what can get you started. And if you like this video and if you want me to share more on like what a niche is, what a hook is, how to get into scripting, shooting, editing, and just like actual specific tips on the execution part of content creation and how you can be one and just any tips and tricks I have for you as a content creator, then let me know in the comments. I will most definitely shoot that video as well and put it out there for you. And yeah, I really hope this was helpful. And yeah, even if one of y'all ends up becoming a content creator and if my tips help you in any way, I will genuinely be so glad like video. So yeah, thank you so much for watching and sticking out till the end if you did and I will see you in the next video. Oh, and all the best for your content creation journey. Bye.