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A conversation I’ve had more times than I can count over the years is something along the lines of ‘Cass, how do you have so many followers on your various accounts?’ I try to explain that I’m a partner in BroBible and this is a website with tens of millions of monthly readers which means there are a lot of you bros out there who also connect with us on social media (check out our Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok). Without fail, they then ask ‘but how do I get so many followers?’ Then I have to explain that we’re a business with full-time writers, freelancers and contractors, a full sales team, guys who work on the tech side, and more. Then they zone out whatever I said and go back to living their lives in hopes of quitting their jobs and becoming influencers.
I’ve known a ton of influencers over the years across all the social media platforms. Some have stuck with it and been really successful with it being their primary source of income. And I’ve known a lot who keep their full-time jobs but use their influencer clout to build a supplemental income. The latter ones are the most stable and successful influencers I’ve known because they aren’t stressing over their entire livelihoods being dependent on every single post.
Becoming an influencer is a grind. You have to stick with it every day and become an expert in community building and engagement. You need to be self-aware enough to know when your content is good and when it sucks and stop yourself from posting sub-par content. But it just got a little bit easier to know when you can embrace being an influencer as a full-time job thanks to this ‘social salary calculator’ from Lickd which shows how many followers/likes/views you need across the various platforms in order to quit your day job.
The tool’s easy to use. You put in your desired salary and it shows you how many YouTube views, sponsored posts on Instagram, or TikTok subscribers you need each year to reach your desired salary. For the purposes of this article, I’ve thrown in $35,000, $65,000, $100,000, and $250,000 so you can see what those numbers look like:
Lickd
Lickd
Lickd
Lickd
In order to start making money on YouTube, you’ll need a minimum of 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time. On Instagram, you’ll need around 5,000 followers before you can start charging for sponsored posts. Those are tricky because they generally require someone to have a very specific audience to whatever it is a brand is looking for. And then on TikTok you’ll need 10,000 followers + 10,000 views before you can start monetizing at a rate of just $0.03 per 1,000 views.
If you want to mess around with the calculator yourself, you can check it out here on Lickd.