Beauty Influencer

Startup Costs: Under $2,000
Part Time: Can be operated part-time.
Franchises Available? No
Online Operation? No

THE BRIEF:

In the Information Age, social media is rampant -- a 2018 Pew Research Center survey found that nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults use YouTube, 68 percent are on Facebook and 35 percent use Instagram. When you isolate younger demographics, even larger swaths use the platforms -- for example, 94 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds use YouTube. And that’s part of why beauty influencers are so popular. Countless makeup artists and beauty gurus have risen to fame via growing followings on their chosen platform -- take Huda Kattan (more than 37 million followers on Instagram at time of writing) and Zoe Sugg (over 11 million YouTube subscribers), for example. As a beauty influencer, you’ll post regular content on your chosen platform, offer actionable tips about your favorite methods and products and interact with your audience by asking for input and answering questions. Some advantages to this business: You can build your following from anywhere, it’s a job for a people-person and most influencers advise being genuine and sticking to what you love.

ASK THE PROS:

How much money can you make?

Influencers with small but engaged followings of 10,000-50,000 can make around $1,000 per post. At the upper end of the influencer spectrum, Kylie Jenner reportedly charges $1 million per sponsored post, while beauty influencers like Huda Kattan charge upwards of $30,000.

What kind of experience do you need to have?

“The first thing I would say is not to get caught up in all the intricacies and just start. Pick up the phone, the camera, whatever you have in front of you. Get in front of a window, go outside if you need to, and just start and get comfortable. Posting that first video is the first hurdle to get over. If you just start, don’t overthink, don’t be strategic about it and see where it takes you, you’ll figure out your style, your rhythm.” -Deepica Mutyala, Tinted

What’s the most important thing to know about this business?

“You have to be okay with knowing that you probably aren't going to make money for a long time… You have a lot of eyes to compete for… [And] don’t be surprised if something that works for someone else does not work for you. There's no way to actually estimate, like, ‘In six months, if I do this type of content, I'll grow this much.’ You don't know what will catch on. You don't know what people will get sick of. It's trial and error. And then if something works, you work the hell out of it for as long as you can -- and then when people get sick of it, you’d better find something else.” -Jackie Aina, YouTube personality