An influencer has candidly revealed how much money she earns from each social media platform for her content.
Erika Kullberg, a lawyer who uses her TikTok to share investment advice, money-saving hacks and travel tips, has accumulated more than 9m followers on the platform. In addition to her TikTok followers, she has 4.1m followers on Instagram, 3.3m followers on Facebook and 755,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel.
In a video posted to her TikTok on Wednesday, the content creator and founder of legal tech startup, Plug and Law, opened up about the income she makes as a result of her followings and content, with Kullberg revealing that she earns a few dollars each day from the video-sharing platform alone.
“In case you’re curious, here is how much every social media platform has paid me with 17m followers,” Kullberg began the video.
According to Kullberg, who noted that she started creating TikTok videos “exactly a year ago,” she has since accumulated a “lifetime total” of 452m views on the platform. “And you can see that I’m making a few dollars each day,” she continued as she showed a screen recording of the daily payments, which ranged from $2.23 to $24.88.
“That brings my total earnings on TikTok to $3,255,” Kullberg revealed, before adding: “BUT, wait until you compare that to YouTube.”
TikTok pays creators through its Creator Fund, which the platform created as a way of giving creators the “opportunity to earn money doing what they love and turn their passion into a livelihood”. According to the platform, the funds that each creator can earn “are worked out by a combination of factors; including the number of views and the authenticity of those views, the level of engagement on the content, as well as making sure content is in line with our Community Guidelines and Terms of Service”.
To be eligible for the Creator Fund, TikTok notes that a creator must be based in the US, UK, France, Germany, Spain or Italy, be at least 18, have at least 10,000 followers and have at least 100,000 video views in the last 30 days.
The influencer then moved on to her Facebook account, where she said she began posting videos just a few months ago. According to Kullberg, since she started using the platform to share her content, she has received “three payouts,” with the first for $447 and the second for $895.
Kullberg then revealed that she received her biggest payout from Facebook in September, when she earned $1,729 from the platform.
While reflecting on her Facebook content, Kullberg noted that the “cool thing” is that the videos she posts on the platform are the same ones “she already made for TikTok”.
“So there’s no extra work besides hitting upload,” she said.
In the video, Kullberg then directed her attention to Instagram, where she said her videos have received 263m views.
Kullberg said that Instagram “pays some creators, but not if you have over 1m followers,” which she said means that she has made zero dollars from the social media platform. While influencers can make a significant amount from Instagram posts, the revenue does not come from the platform directly, but rather from brands and advertisers.
According to the influencer, when it comes to how YouTube pays its creators, she said that it varies depending on whether it’s a short video or a long video.
Kullberg then used her own content as an example, showing viewers a screenshot of a short 29-second video she’d posted to the platform about a credit card hack that has since been viewed 1.8m times. “And I made $3 from it,” she said.
However, as a result of a 12-minute video she’d uploaded to the platform, which was viewed 2.3m times, YouTube paid Kullberg $35,000, according to her TikTok.
“For my grand total earnings from YouTube, and remember this is all BEFORE taxes, $196,000,” Kullberg revealed. According to Kullberg’s YouTube channel, she posted her first video on October 29, 2019.
Similarly to TikTok, YouTube has a Partner Program, which “gives creators greater access to YouTube resources and monetization features”. The eligibility requirements for the video-sharing platform include having more than 4,000 valid public watch hours in the last 12 months and more than 1,000 subscribers.
As of Thursday, Kullberg’s video has been viewed more than 1.8m times, with viewers in the comments praising her for the transparency.
“This transparency!” one person commented, while another said: “Not a lot of people would show this. That’s so cool and transparent. Congrats btw.”
“I’m always so curious how much creators make. Thanks for sharing the info!” someone else wrote.
Others revealed that they were inspired to start creating content on YouTube, with one person joking: “Okay okay I should get my YouTube channel going.”
“I need to make a YouTube,” another person wrote.