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In simply two and a half years, TikToker Toni Bravo has made a full-time profession out of her social media. In truth, the 23-year-old is financially unbiased and has been capable of maintain her Los Angeles way of life by way of model offers and different gigs she’s landed by way of TikTok.
Whereas the content material creator is grateful for her job, she by no means got down to have this profession – it occurred organically. However this isn’t stunning contemplating her background.
“I was definitely a theater kid. I was always recording myself and filming things. I was on YouTube when I was nine. None of this feels new,” Toni stated. “I think the biggest transition was turning it into a full time job.”
Right here’s how the 23-year-old went from an beginner creator to creating social media – notably TikTok – a profession.
In spring 2020, when the pandemic had first began, Toni moved house from school as everybody was making ready for a lockdown. However as a substitute of simply staying cooped up inside, she started curler skating together with her associates at skateparks from 8 am to three pm and posting all of it on TikTok.
These preliminary TikToks weren’t staged or extremely edited however confirmed herself and her friends having enjoyable whereas skating. Her movies started getting traction on-line, and Toni discovered herself in a really uncommon place: manufacturers had been contacting her.
“Roller skating is definitely what introduced me to social media being a job and being able to make money and work with ridiculous brands,” Toni stated. “I had no management, I had no representation, I was doing everything myself. It’s insane, because I did some pretty cool things with some friends.”
For reference, Toni has modeled for manufacturers together with Coca-Cola, Calvin Klein, and Nike. And was even featured in Buzzfeed, Teen Vogue, and Vogue, to call a couple of publications, all due to her curler skating.
After Toni’s preliminary success with curler skating content material, she graduated from school in June 2022 and obtained a job at Uncommon Magnificence – a make-up model created by Selena Gomez – as a social media affiliate. Via this job, Tony naturally turned extra within the magnificence neighborhood and was studying rather a lot by way of dealing with Uncommon Magnificence’s TikTok.
“I was creating TikToks, coming up with TikToks, editing TikToks. Posting and monitoring the comment section and just learning a lot about the beauty community,” she stated. “So this was my first experience posting about makeup and making videos regarding beauty.”
Toni then began posting make-up content material constantly on her personal TikTok in late 2022 and noticed her account develop considerably. In truth, she’s now reached over 370,000 followers.
Whereas her company job at Uncommon Magnificence helped Toni broaden her horizons as a TikToker, she additionally obtained a crash course on creating nice content material when she utilized and obtained accepted to considered one of Buzzfeed’s creator packages. There she was capable of sit in on model conferences and study from social media strategists and inventive specialists.
“It basically centered around us being the best creators we could be,” Toni stated.
When Toni was initially approached by manufacturers again in 2020, she was with out an agent. However, as a substitute of dealing with contracts by herself, she labored together with her associates to barter offers.
The creator and her associates had been clear concerning the affords they had been getting and the charges that they had been charging for creating content material. On this manner, pay transparency was big for the content material creator firstly of her profession. By being so clear about cash, Toni and her associates knew from early on what they deserved and weren’t afraid to ask manufacturers to rethink their affords.
“If we were all working on a project we would negotiate offers together. We would pop on calls and be like, ‘here’s what they’re offering you. This is what they’re offering me.’ Let’s all come back to them with this number,” Toni stated. “We would all just be like, ‘yo, like, let’s demand this.’ And we’d get it every time.”
Toni went on dealing with model offers on her personal for a while. Since she posted her e-mail on all of her social media bios, she discovered that manufacturers had been capable of simply contact her. And since she gained a lot traction on-line together with her rollerskating, she was in demand.
In late 2022, it obtained to a degree the place the content material creator felt overwhelmed and knew it was time to get a supervisor.
“I was missing out on emails and threads, because they were just too many. And I could not track the details and numbers and contracts,” Toni stated. “And that’s when I was like, okay it makes sense [to get a manager].”
Whereas Toni’s supervisor, Kiki, handles all the logistics of her model offers, Toni is looped into each facet. She is often given a inventive transient, info on the model’s particular marketing campaign, together with a contract that particulars all the monetary features and the timeline of the deal.
A model she’s labored with a number of occasions is Saie, the sweetness model first contacted her again in 2020 after discovering Toni by way of Instagram, and so they’ve not too long ago labored with TikToker once more for a current launch.
When making these movies, Toni by no means goes out of her solution to over-produce them. As an alternative, she retains them as lowkey and easy as doable. Oftentimes, she’s simply filming in her automobile, making her content material really feel genuine and real.
Whereas some manufacturers are a bit extra strict than others, Toni enjoys creating branded content material and says she’s capable of make every TikTok and Reel her personal creation – her favourite a part of her job.
“I have a huge amount of autonomy, which is why I love doing it,” she stated. “I like having fun with how I make things and how I edit things.”
As Toni is in her third yr creating TikToks, she’s been capable of make this her full-time job and is getting paid properly for her work. Whereas a part of her wage improve has to do with the charges she’s charging going up as she continues to develop her accounts, she additionally credit it to the early conversations she had together with her associates about salaries.
“Obviously, the more you start doing gigs, the rates go up as the followers go up, and the engagements go up,” she stated.” And I believe an enormous half was additionally having these conversations with my associates.”
She advises aspiring TikTokers to be constant in posting and in addition to pay attention and interact with their audiences. However most significantly, she thinks the principle cause for her success is that she solely posts content material that she’s genuinely glad to create.
As Toni continues her social media profession, she is adamant on not boxing herself into one class. She’s made movies on curler skating, magnificence, knitting, and her canine, and believes the rationale all of this content material performs so properly – and has landed her dozens of name offers – is as a result of she genuinely cares about her work.
“I think just showing up authentically [on social media] is always the best way.”
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