- Achieng Agutu, 26, is an influencer with about 730,000 followers throughout platforms.
- 2022 was her first full calendar yr working as a full-time influencer.
- She broke down for Insider how a lot she earned in model offers every month.
Two years in the past, Achieng Agutu, a 26-year-old life-style and trend influencer, had simply graduated from enterprise college with a grasp’s diploma in advertising and marketing.
Whereas her latest Snapchat Reminiscences have been flooded with “throwbacks” to the late nights Agutu spent consuming ramen and ingesting Purple Bull “struggling to make it previous examination week,” her day-to-day now appears to be like fairly totally different, she advised Insider.
“At that time, I couldn’t suppose past my nostril,” Agutu stated. “I undoubtedly wished to be full time in social media, however I didn’t consider the extent of the way it may change my life and alter the lives of the folks round me.”
Agutu began sharing extra content material all through 2020 and at first of 2021, had below 100,000 Instagram followers, in line with SocialBlade information. Now, Agutu is wrapping up her first yr as a full-time influencer with about about 488,000 Instagram followers, and 730,000 complete followers throughout Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
She’s additionally incomes seven figures.
Repped by Digital Model Architects, a expertise company below the UTA umbrella, Agutu is closing 2022 with greater than $1 million in income from model offers on social media. Insider verified Agutu’s earnings with documentation offered by DBA.
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“I assumed probably the most I may make was in all probability $500,000,” she stated. “It is so surreal. I have not had the time to course of how far financially I’ve come.”
How Agutu earned cash throughout her first yr as a full-time influencer
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Agutu went full time as an influencer in 2021 and signed with DBA the identical yr, however 2022 was a yr of experimentation as she tailored to her new profession.
Transitioning to full-time influencer work meant restructuring her total schedule, navigating learn how to preserve a sustainable cadence of content material and paid sponsorships, and likewise determining what kinds of paid content material labored greatest.
“Folks wish to really feel one thing, they wish to be moved to do one thing,” Agutu stated. Paid content material that felt like a scripted advert made her really feel like a robotic, she added, so as an alternative, she targeted on delivering branded content material that match into her each day life-style and voice.
She works carefully together with her staff at DBA to plan partnerships that make sense for her personal model and income targets. Lengthy-term partnerships are most popular over one-off offers, too, Agutu stated. Along with being extra profitable, these longer-term offers provide extra for each her viewers and the model, she stated.
Agutu has a longstanding partnership with skincare model Ole Henriksen, and has labored with quite a lot of magnificence, trend, and different life-style manufacturers — from Aerie to Imaginative and prescient Cellular to even Denny’s diner — in 2022.
Here is a full breakdown for Agutu’s earnings from model offers in 2022:
Agutu continues to be ready on about $76,000 from model offers to be paid out, in line with DBA. Excellent checks are usually not unusual in influencer advertising and marketing, nonetheless. Manufacturers typically have totally different payout schedules, some lasting so long as three months.
Planning forward for 2023 — from scheduling time without work to diversifying income streams
As an influencer, Agutu is aware of to not count on the identical payout each single month like salaried employees. As an example, Might was her highest incomes month — exceeding $200,000 — which she credited to trend week offers and Coachella.
Alternatively, October was a decrease month — however for good cause. Agutu took the month off after she hit a “breaking level” and wanted to handle herself to keep away from burnout (a difficulty many creators face).
Succeeding within the influencer business typically requires adapting.
Agutu, like many different influences, needs to go “past the digital area” and rely much less on model offers to pay the payments, she stated.
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Heading into 2023, Agutu is eyeing methods to diversify her earnings as she continues to develop her viewers and financial turbulence looms. Some choices she is contemplating are increasing extra on YouTube and YouTube Shorts, internet hosting extra in-person occasions, and probably collaborating with a model to construct one thing tangible like a product line of her personal.
There might be loads of “trial and error,” Agutu acknowledged.
However earlier than 2023 picks up velocity, Agutu stated she might be taking a while off. She’s going to spend time together with her household in Kenya to “join with [her] roots” and spend time specializing in herself to be able to “get again to the power” she had.
“I perceive just a little bit extra of learn how to tempo myself,” she stated.