Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - Confessions of a Microinfluencer

Episode Date: May 31, 2021

We get the inside scoop from a microinfluencer - and the business mind behind him - on how they secure brand deals, get sponsorships, and make moola on TikTok. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Well, it doesn't. Charge for wasting our time. I will take a check. Like an old school check. You recognize her from anchoring on CNN, CNBC, and Bloomberg. The only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. Nicole Lappin. You've probably noticed the meteoric rise of social media influencers.

It's hard to miss if you're on the gram. I sound like a grandma saying this, but you've probably also noticed that TikTok is a thing. Yeah, TikTokers are now in mainstream commercials. There is one of them who has a drink at Dunkin' Freakin' Donuts. You've probably also stumbled across the hashtag bikini pic. So obviously, this climb has a financial trajectory too. Instagram's ad revenue is projected to be $18 billion in 2021. Kylie Jenner reportedly makes a million bucks on a single sponsored Instagram post. But there are only a handful of people in

this upper echelon of influencer-dom. There are seemingly countless influencers with smaller followings who are posting energy drinks and tummy tea and hair gummies and all the things. So is TikTok really a social media app? This has got me thinking. Or is it a marketplace? And also, how do I get a million bucks like Kylie? I have so many questions here. So I reached out to influencer manager Zach Fitch and micro-influencer Matt Wernig to get some answers. Matt, Zach, welcome to Money Rehab. Hey, thank you so much for having me. We love your show. It's awesome.

Yeah, it's good to be on. Good to see you in person. Thank you. And tell our listeners a little bit about yourselves. Yeah, so I'm Matt, and I am the creator of 50 Dates, 50 States. My name's Zach, and I originally was a TikTok influencer, and I started helping people get brand deals. So I ended up creating a company called Ubiquitous Influence with a bunch of my

marketing executive friends. And we now help tons of influencers get brand deals and make sure that we're there for the brand to deploy capital for them at scale on TikTok and there for the creator to make sure they're getting paid what they're worth and not getting taken advantage of. And actually, Matt is one of our influencers that we have. And so we wanted to bring him on your show too, so you can kind of get both sides. I have a thousand questions for you about influencers and micro influencers and nano influencers. But first things first, is it a nano influencer or a micro influencer? So there's two. They're both different things completely.

A nano-influencer, we usually have like 10,000 or less followers. Some companies really love using them because they feel like that audience is really engaged with them and really entertained. And then micro-influencers, we say, is anyone less than a million followers. And then there's the macro-influencers, which is like a million plus. And we work with them as well. Wow. This is like when I found out that my toy poodle wasn't the smallest kind of poodle. There is also a teacup poodle, which is the smallest kind of poodle, and then a tiny toy, and then a toy poodle, and then some other kind of poodle, and then a standard poodle.

And I really just thought there were two kinds of poodles, but apparently there's a whole cornucopia of them, just like there's a whole cornucopia of influencers, apparently. Well, we're Money Rehab, so we want to follow the money trail. Give me some examples. So let's say I'm a nano-influencer in the cooking space, and you find me in the TikTok vortex, which I've been in many nights, as we all have. And you reach out to me, slip into the DMs, and you're like, hey, Nicole, I really like your cooking stuff. You have a really engaged community. Do you want to talk to me as potentially being a client? Is that something you would do? Yeah, yeah.

So that's actually what I do directly. I will reach out to the influencers, find them and match them with the brands. We only go off view count. We call follower count a vanity metric. We don't actually care about that at all. It just typically signifies whether you're a macro, micro influencer.

So if consistently we're looking at all your videos and it's like 1 million, 1 million, 1 million, 1 million, you're very clearly not buying that unless you are ridiculously wealthy because that's thousands and thousands of dollars you'd have to pay per video to get to that point. But with all these influencers, we check all their comments. Do they have a consistent followers that comment like similar things like phrases that the influencer says? And we kind of look for a cult-like following. And those are the influencers that we try to bring on and sign and help out and further their careers.

So that's kind of what we do. But if you're a nano influencer, you're probably looking $100 or less for a post is kind of what it's going to be. So then let's change the example. And instead of a nano influencer with under 10,000 followers, I am a micro influencer. Then how much money directionally, of course, with the understanding that all brands are different, all people are different, all scenarios are different, but like directionally, are we talking three figures, four figures, five figures, six figures, seven figures more?

I would say an average, you're talking three figures for a micro influencer. But if you're in a specific space, like I know a business influencer, she's in the finance space. She actually charges just over $5,000 per post. And it's a little more than we're willing to pay. But because she's in the finance sector, she's able to get those. And big companies have been willing to offer it because of that niche. It really depends. You can have an influencer with 4 million followers that has, let's say, an average of 2 million

views of video, and they could be getting paid monthly like $2,000 because certain brands don't necessarily want to work with them. But then on the other hand, we have another influencer, same exact following, very similar view count, making $50,000 a month. From one video? Not from one video, but from like four or five. And then I'm assuming they sign a contract with you, you give them a direct deposit or something like that. I love logistics and figuring out how it actually works. So most of the time, we sign the contract with the company. We don't necessarily make the influencer sign anything. We have recently been

getting into it more because we've had some issues with influencers not performing or creating the content on time and we need them to, but we kind of like to work on a good faith basis for most things. But the contract, we let them know when they'll be paid. These bigger brands don't pay usually net 15, net 30. And so we have to wait until we get it, then we can pay the creators. We have no initial down payment or anything until the 30 days or 15 days, then we pay the creators out. So you take a cut of what the creator gets, or is there a retainer from the brand? It all depends on what the contract is. A lot of times it will be the brand pays us a certain amount of money and then gives us a creator budget. Other times they say, hey, we have this much money to spend. Go get us this amount. We need this

amount of creators and we'll go reach out, find all the creators and make sure they're getting paid. So young people, the youngins, they don't see this as a career. They don't see it as, you know, I'm in high school or college and I want to be a TikTok influencer when I grow up. It's sort of viewed as a side hustle. I'm assuming there are some people that do TikTok full time. Oh, absolutely. There's tons of people who do TikTok full time. For instance, we do have an influencer making about $50,000 a month from TikTok only. And then there's a lot of people, most people are making a lot less than that. And they are using it as a side hustle or for fun, or they want to build it into something. But I feel like the youngest people, their parents don't see it as a viable

option as a career. And I think really high level, our company, we want to make sure that creators can make it as a career. And we feel like a lot of companies that are assisting them take way too much profit. And so creators aren't able to make it as a career. And so that's kind of our mission is to be the ones who are assisting the creators and making lifelong goals and achieve their dreams of influencing, I guess you'd say. Hold on to your wallets, boys and girls. Money Rehab will be right back. Now for some more Money Rehab. Matt, your handle is at 50dates50states on TikTok. What is the concept? I'm assuming by the name,

you go to 50 states and you date somebody else in all the states? Yeah. So basically 50 dates, 50 states is me traveling around the US, going on a date with a different girl in every state across America. And so I did that all virtually when quarantine hit and I went on a virtual date in every state. But then once I gained traction over social media, that's when I decided to hit the road and go meet them all in person. And how are you doing? Oh, fantastic. I love it. How many states have you gone to? 41. Yeah.

You're going like how? In a Winnebago, in a bus, in a car, on a plane? How are you doing this? No. Yeah. I'm, I'm just in my, I'm in my truck, my old truck that has over 220,000 miles on it. And, uh, it's completely wrapped with my logo. It has a whole wrap design on it that says 50 days to the States. And then the back window has some of my sponsor decals. It has my website, has my socials tag. So it's a very big, like branded out truck. So then, you know, highway people see it or fans will see it and they'll film me going by or they'll take pictures or I'll get asked questions at gas stations. I get asked questions about all the time, but it's a great like marketing piece. Yeah, it's not subtle. No. Yeah, absolutely.

For sure. How do you find these ladies? So when I did it virtually, the first 30 were, cause, and that's how the idea sparked. I was at home, I was on Tinder and the notification popped up that said you could place your location anywhere in the U S for free. And so it hit me. I'm like, okay, like everybody's at home. Everybody's bored. I'm like, let me, let me go see where all the honeys are. And I said, and I was like in North Dakota and you know, North Dakota has a very limited selection of honeys are. And I said, and I was, and I was like in North Dakota and you know, North Dakota has a very limited selection of honeys. And so I, uh, I started putting my location in like New York and LA and Dallas, like all these big cities. And once I started getting matches, that's when it kind of hit with me. Um, but so I matched with like the first 30 through Tinder. And then once I was

putting stuff out online, that's when girls would start DMing me and submitting to like be the date for their state. And how did you start making money from it? I started, I was in the creator fund, but you know. That's a TikTok thing. Yep. Yep. Yep. And so I was in the creator fund, which I was making money off that. But then once I announced my trip, that's when I started getting sponsors and sponsors was a big revenue stream for me. And basically my biggest revenue stream. So sponsors, handful of brand deals.

And then I created my own merch. I made some promotions where people could, you know, pay me for me to like make or write their name on the truck to feel like they're part of the journey, things like that. And so I just developed other little ways and ways for revenue stream, I guess you could say. For the TikTok creator fund, how much money were you making through that? It honestly wasn't that much. In the TikTok creator fund, you can make anywhere from pennies to a couple hundred bucks or whatever if you make a viral video. So I wasn't making

that much. I was making... Each month through the creator fund, I was probably making $800 to $1,000 or $1 1200 bucks. So it wasn't like much. And I never banked on that for like this trip. Cause that's what I feel like I've seen a lot of Tik TOK or creators do is like, Oh, they make really good money on Tik TOK. And then they're like, Oh, I'm going to quit my job. But then their content changes because I'm going to focus so hard on that to be their actual main source of income, things like that. And I knew that with all the expenses I had in my trip, that little bit of income wasn't going to cover it. And I'd find other ways. So you had a full-time job. I did have a full-time job. I was the director of fun

for a baseball team. So I handled like all the entertainment for the baseball team. You know, what happens between innings, on-field games, mascots, skits, dances, giveaways, promos, all that stuff. And how much money did you make from that job? About $35,000 a year plus bonuses. Gotcha. And then at what point did you, I'm assuming, quit your job? I quit right before like Christmas,

like basically the beginning of December or the second week of December. When I quit my job, I didn't have any sponsors lined up. I just took a leap of faith because I don't know, I just had this belief that it would work out. I was like, I guarantee I'm going to be able to get sponsors. I'm going to find a way to make this work. And I just took that jump. And I'm so glad I did. It was kind of scary because you don't know if things are going to work out, but I did my due diligence and then people started reaching out. People started seeing more content and opportunities presented themselves. And so it worked out great. So tell me about the opportunities that presented themselves.

Yeah. So I basically, one of my first sponsors I set up a meeting with was an Anheuser-Busch beer distributor. And so a huge thing on my truck, like plastered all over the back window, it was Bud Light Seltzer. That's what I promote a bunch. But yeah, so I met up with them. They gave me like 720 seltzers for my whole trip, which was insane. A lot of Bud Light swag, cut me a check, things like that. So that was awesome. They cut you a check for what or around how much for doing what? I mean, basically we agreed specific amount of videos and content to be put out, then me to help promote some of their events up back into North Dakota. And so those were kind of

some of the obligations, but then they cut it, you know, in the, for a couple thousand bucks, basically in the, in the couple thousand dollar range total. They gave me a ton of Bud Light swag. They gave me so much different Bud Light merchandise, which was really cool. And so they hooked me up with a bunch of stuff like that, which is awesome. They got me in some connections with other distributors around the US, things like that. So there was a lot of other things that played a part to it. So directionally, how much are you getting now per video? Per video? Well, when it's a sponsored video, I'm usually getting anywhere from about $300 to $500.

And how many followers do you have? 300,000. So roughly how much are you bringing in per month generated from your TikTok 50 dates, 50 states? per month generated from your TikTok 50 dates, 50 states? So it's very, it's very random. It's not like consistent because each month, like I can make more in one week than I do in one month in some cases, which is very like odd. For me, I'd probably say on an average per month, like 3000 maybe. And did you set up an LLC or how did you set yourself up for being self-employed? Yeah. So I set it up as an LLC through Montana. And I also wanted to do that just for like the

rights to it because I had been contacted by producers in LA. And also like there was a bunch of people in the social media world that was starting to start 50 dates, 50 states themselves. They're like, oh, I'm going to do this. And most people were doing them for clout. They were just doing them for fame or followers, whatever. And anybody I look at now who started it, they did two dates and then they stopped. But yeah. So I started as an LLC just so I have the rights to it and then also to just form it as that business. just so I have the rights to it. And then also to just form it as that business. What do you think the perception is from users about brand integration?

Does everybody just get it now? This is what's going to happen. There's going to be a charm thing show up in a video and they know you got paid for it. Is that palatable? Do people go too far? From my perspective as an influencer and person who gets the brands in and a consumer,

I cannot stand when it's very clearly an ad. But I don't care if like Matt goes on his trip and he's like, I found this cool place and they give you charms to remember your places. If you integrate it correctly, I think there's no issue. I think if you do it wrong, you get immediately the video won't be watched anymore by people and they hate it. And if you want to start making money, should you start cold outreach

to brands or to folks like Zach? I compare it to like, if you're an athlete in high school, if you are a tier one, like top notch athlete in high school, colleges are going to be knocking on your door. They're going to want to give you scholarships. You know, it's same with your free creator. If you're a top creator, have millions and millions of followers, deals are going to come at you left and right because you have such a high following and things like that. But for the athletes that didn't like, sometimes you have to be proactive and reach out. Sometimes you have to submit forms through D1, D2 colleges, through the NCAA, stuff like that. Like you have to be proactive in that way. And same with being a creator. Like I'm proactive when I reach out to news and media, I'm,

I send a generic email to every single news to ABC, NBC, Fox, CBS and every state. And then they'll, they'll reach back and be like, Oh, we'd love to. And so like, if I don't reach out though, then they won't get back to me. Same with sponsors. Sometimes like I'll slide in the Ds of businesses on Instagram or on Tik TOK, or I'll reply to someone, something like that. And then it'll just make a, make a new connection that way. What advice would you give content creators who want to get into the influencer world? I would say don't be a copycat. I think like that's the copycat culture is like so huge. I feel like with anything,

when it comes to YouTube, when it comes to TikTok, when it comes to podcasts, like there's so many people that like want to pull pranks or that they want to do makeup or they want to do the same dances. And like, there's so many people doing those same thing in masses. You just have to separate yourself. Like, and I think a lot of the time people are afraid to put themselves out there. They'll be the first to judge, but they'll be afraid to, you know, put themselves out there in a way. So I think don't be afraid of what people say and just put yourself out there and do your thing. Cause I remember I would get slacked for this in the beginning from some of my like closest friends. They were like, Oh, what you're doing is stupid or whatever. Like they, they didn't like believe in it, I guess. But now they, they're like the biggest fans,

you know? And why do you think're like the biggest fans, you know. And why do you think they're the biggest fans? I think it's money. Your friends probably got on board because you were making real money. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think I think that's a thing. I think a lot of my friends look at like the attention I get. People see a lot of the media coverage I get and they see a lot of the cool opportunities I've been presented through sponsors and some of the cool merchandise I get and not just everything that is monetized. And here's a tip you can take

straight to the bank. Influencing can be a great side hustle, but don't put all of your eggs in that basket. Some people in the marketing space like Zach will tell you that being an influencer full-time is viable, but I'm not sold. Being an influencer full-time is risky and competitive. Think about it. There is no job security. Public opinion could change at any time. You could get canceled. I mean, you just have to think about that in the realm of possibilities. As Matt showed us, you can make money and have a lot of fun as an influencer, but should the influencing well dry up, I don't want you to have to start

your whole money rehab journey back on step one. That's all for today's episode. I'll see you back here tomorrow for some more money rehab. Money Rehab is a production of iHeartMedia. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Our producers are Morgan Lavoie and Catherine Law. Money Rehab is edited and engineered by Brandon Dickert with help from Josh Fisher. Executive producers are Mangesh Hatikader and Will Pearson. Huge thanks to the OG Money Rehab

supervising producer, Michelle Lanz, for her pre-production and development work. And as always, thanks to you for finally investing in yourself so that you can get it together and get it all.