“Hey, hoochies!”

That’s the characteristic greeting Allyiah Gainer’s, 27, online followers have been welcomed by for nearly a decade where she ushers them into her life, sharing every part from dating advice, beauty suggestions or simply plain old quality time. She’s that good girlfriend we never knew we wanted. Due to her uncanny ability to make viewers feel as in the event that they’re walking through life right alongside her, Gainer has amassed a following of greater than 728k on YouTube, nearly 500k on Instagram, and 100k Twitter fans through charisma, candor and consistency.

She posted her first video on YouTube in February 2015 while still enrolled at Florida A&M University and dealing as a part-time MAC makeup artist at her local mall. While there, she showed as much as class daily fully made up, and her classmates began asking for beauty advice and even makeup sessions along with her. Eventually, Gainer realized there could also be others that might be involved in her suggestions beyond her campus grounds.

For the last seven years, she’s posted not less than two videos per week, ranging between 30 and 90 minutes long. Lifestyle vlog-style, these videos capture every part she did the week prior and might often take anywhere from 5-10 hours to edit. Gainer does this all herself.

She makes it some extent to answer to almost every certainly one of the a whole bunch, sometimes 1000’s of comments her followers leave in response. Stylized Instagram photos, curated TikTok content, and relatable Tweets all exit every day, a few of that are monetized through brand partnerships.

Although she didn’t confirm, it’s likely that Gainer is raking in high six-figures per yr for her work based on what has been reported about others of her ilk. For example, if influencers with around 275,000 followers negotiate well, they can secure as much as $700,000 in brand deals in lower than a yr. Moreover, micro-influencers (those with between 10,000 – 100,000 followers) can easily make a salary within the low six-figure range.

For Gainer, all of this took time to construct, though. And numerous work.

“People think that in the future you may post your content, and after a couple of weeks you’ll wake as much as 1000’s of followers and all of those offers from firms to represent their brands,” Gainer told ESSENCE. “No, it is a slow burn process.”

She’s right.

Although the expansion of social media has resulted within the age of digital influencers who, on the high end, stand to earn tens of millions through YouTube’s Partner Program, the endorsement of products and other lucrative partnerships, these top earners are few and much between. Research shows it may possibly take as much as two years to amass a following of a couple of thousand on YouTube.

Influencers like Gainer, nevertheless, broke through the noise and has landed deals with Neiman Marcus and Lancome together with being tapped to do multiple special projects with YouTube.

So, how did she do it?

Consistency is vital

It’s certainly one of the oldest adages for a reason, but consistency all the time wins. As mentioned, for years Gainer made sure to set a schedule for herself that allowed for normal content to be posted on her platforms.

“I make it some extent to post not less than two videos weekly based on engagement numbers and my schedule,” Gainer explained. “One vlog on Sunday and one other dedicated video on Wednesday like a ‘prepare with me’ or a fashion haul or something like that because those garner really high views.”

She added: “And that part right there’s something I would like to hone in on, listening to what your supporters prefer to see from you. I initially didn’t prefer to do vlogs, but I saw people really gravitated toward them, and it allowed me to feel closer to them, so I did them more often. Although that is fun work, it’s still work. You could give people what they need.”

Some tools that may allow you to measure viewership, length of watch, and other key metrics are Sprout Social, and YouTube Analytics, Unbox Social, Vidooly, and Quintly.

Be realistic about your pacing

It’s commonplace for Gainer to candidly tell her followers ‘Girl, I’m drained.’

Although the hard-working content creator recurrently hits her weekly deadlines, she allows herself grace when day off is required.

“For me immediately, where I’m at this recent yr, I told myself I’m not going to overwork myself,” she said truthfully. “While you’re creating and getting stuff done, you’re like, ‘I would like to maintain doing this.’ This feels good, right? And you then hit that bump where you weren’t capable of do something you set out to do this day, or something else got here up and wrecked your schedule, you then fall off completely. It really brings you so low. So I just told myself that this yr I’m going to be honest about my workload, what I can produce and never get on a productive high, do an excessive amount of, then experience burnout.”

Gainer shared that prior, she was doing three videos per week—posting on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays—which is quite a bit for many YouTube content creators that on average post not more than two.

“I’m being real with myself and listening to my body. I also don’t need to set myself up for failure with brands by missing deadlines, because they won’t come back if I can’t show up properly.”

Be surgical about rate-setting

If not signed to an agency, most content creators are independent contractors and are sometimes answerable for shaping what their pay looks like. Unfortunately, it’s easy to lowball compensation and miss out on 1000’s if not careful, particularly as Black women who usually tend to suffer from imposter syndrome. Even probably the most seasoned of influencers have fallen victim to undercutting themselves.

“Early on, I had a typical thing of charging brands $1,000 per 1,00,000 views which was so off, but being on the place that I used to be, $1,000 was lit, , I’m like, oh, yeah, I’ll do this. But as I got older and more seasoned within the industry, I started to take a deeper have a look at what impact really means and the way it needs to be monetized.”

Consequently, Gainer said she asked other influencers she’d forged relationships with about their rates, and in addition did some additional research. After some time, she brought on a manager to handle negotiations and rate-setting full time, but for those aiming to look into it themselves, there are tools available. This rate calculator can allow you to determine methods to shift rates up or down, and this text lays out how much a content creator should charge per post.

Words to live by

The last piece of recommendation Gainer to aspiring content creators is probably probably the most obvious, but still incredibly impactful: “Just start.”

She continued: “Don’t let any doubts get in your way. For those who’re fearful about money, keep your day job and hop on YouTube on the lunch breaks. Just do it. Do it.”