What are social media influencers? How do they make money? Is it a stable career? These are common questions when the topic of making an income through social media is presented. 

Social media is a cyber way of sharing aspects of your life with people around the world. There are many apps that are considered to be a social media platform. Examples include Instagram, Snapchat, Tik Tok, Twitter, and Youtube, to name a few. 

People, more specifically teens and young adults, are now making money through social media apps. Some people are even making millions of dollars by sharing their lives with the world. 

There are many methods that these influencers make money. Sponsored posts are a large part of how these influencers make money. These brand deals are a post that is uploaded to social media, that a brand would pay you to upload to promote their brand. A brand deal/sponsored post is essentially a method of advertising that is usually used to reach a younger demographic. The reality television star, Kylie Jenner, makes around 1.2 million dollars per sponsored post. Regardless of the fact that she is not considered a full time social media influencer, she makes exceptional amounts of money on sponsored uploads.

A method that countless content creators/influencers use to make money is by making merchandise. They simply make clothing, phone cases, etc. to sell online to their followers. Influencers like David Dobrik, James Charles, and more are making huge profits from their merchandise sales.

Some social media apps even pay their most popular creators when they upload successful posts. For example, the social media platform “Tik Tok”, has a creator fund where they pay a certain amount of money for a certain amount of views. In summary, each time a person were to post on a platform the app may or may not pay them for the amount of likes and views it gets.

Regardless of creator funds, these influencers still get paid when they post. According to research, most apps pay their creators when they have a successful post. The influencers are essentially getting paid for creating content for their followers and the world to view and enjoy.

This industry is really up and coming in ways of people following pursuit of this social media influencer lifestyle to make an income. Although, the question of the stability in this field arises.

The stability in the career path of being an influencer is not always consistent. For example, if an influencer is currently receiving hate online, they will not be able to make as much money from the support of their followers. For example Shane Dawson was making money as an influencer, until he did not. There was information that got leaked of Shane Dawson retweeting and saying offensive things, so as of now he is currently making slim to none in terms of money.

A problem that also is prominent in the stability of being a content creator is age. The majority of these influencers are all in their teens and early twenties. Therefore, once an influencer gets older people lose interest. The main reason why people are only interested in the younger creators is that the younger generation is the only generation interested in following influencers. 

Another issue in the stability of this job field is the intense competition. Everyday there are new aspiring influencers, who are trying to become successful in the industry. The social media stars involved in the beauty industry have some of the toughest competition. James Charles, Nikkietutorials, Nikita Dragun, Patrick Star, and more are all competing for the top spot in the social media beauty world. The same competitive spirit that is in fields like acting and singing is also in becoming a social media influencer.

A social media influencer is someone who makes an income by uploading creative content for the world to see. These influencers are making millions of dollars per year in this field. A content creator is slowly becoming one of the most competitive career markets today. A few examples of these creators are David Dobrik, Alexis Ren, Charli D’amelio, and more. Who knew that a simple post on Instagram, Tik Tok, Youtube, or more could change your life?