How This TikToker Landed Over 100 Brand Deals

In simply two and a half years, TikToker Toni Bravo has made a full-time profession out of her social media. In actual fact, the 23-year-old is financially impartial and has been in a position to maintain her Los Angeles way of life by means of model offers and different gigs she’s landed by means 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 shocking contemplating her background.

“I used to be positively a theater child. I used to be at all times recording myself and filming issues. I used to be on YouTube once I was 9. None of this feels new,” Toni mentioned. “I believe the largest transition was turning it right into a full time job.”

Right here’s how the 23-year-old went from an beginner creator to creating social media – significantly TikTok – a profession.

In spring 2020, when the pandemic had first began, Toni moved residence from school as everybody was getting ready for a lockdown. However as a substitute of simply staying cooped up inside, she started curler skating along with her pals 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 have been contacting her.

“Curler skating is certainly what launched me to social media being a job and having the ability to earn cash and work with ridiculous manufacturers,” Toni mentioned. “I had no administration, I had no illustration, I used to be doing every thing myself. It’s insane, as a result of I did some fairly cool issues with some pals.”

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 number 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 bought 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 group and was studying loads by means of dealing with Uncommon Magnificence’s TikTok.

“I used to be creating TikToks, developing with TikToks, modifying TikToks. Posting and monitoring the remark part and simply studying loads concerning the magnificence group,” she mentioned. “So this was my first expertise posting about make-up and making movies concerning magnificence.”

Toni then began posting make-up content material constantly on her personal TikTok in late 2022 and noticed her account develop considerably. In actual fact, 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 bought a crash course on creating nice content material when she utilized and bought accepted to one in every of Buzzfeed’s creator packages. There she was in a position to sit in on model conferences and be taught from social media strategists and inventive specialists.

“It principally centered round us being the perfect creators we may very well be,” Toni mentioned.

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 along with her pals to barter offers.

The creator and her pals have been clear concerning the provides they have been getting and the charges that they have been charging for creating content material. On this approach, pay transparency was large for the content material creator in the beginning of her profession. By being so clear about cash, Toni and her pals knew from early on what they deserved and weren’t afraid to ask manufacturers to rethink their provides.

“If we have been all engaged on a venture we’d negotiate provides collectively. We’d pop on calls and be like, ‘this is what they’re providing you. That is what they’re providing me.’ Let’s all come again to them with this quantity,” Toni mentioned. “We’d all simply be like, ‘yo, like, let’s demand this.’ And we’d get it each 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 have been in a position to simply contact her. And since she gained a lot traction on-line along with her rollerskating, she was in demand.

In late 2022, it bought to a degree the place the content material creator felt overwhelmed and knew it was time to get a supervisor.

“I used to be lacking out on emails and threads, as a result of they have been simply too many. And I couldn’t observe the small print and numbers and contracts,” Toni mentioned. “And that is once I was like, okay it is smart [to get a manager].”

Whereas Toni’s supervisor, Kiki, handles the entire logistics of her model offers, Toni is looped into each facet. She is often given a inventive temporary, info on the model’s particular marketing campaign, together with a contract that particulars the entire monetary facets and the timeline of the deal.

A model she’s labored with a number of occasions is Saie, the wonder model first contacted her again in 2020 after discovering Toni by means of Instagram, they usually’ve lately labored with TikToker once more for a current launch.

When making these movies, Toni by no means goes out of her technique to over-produce them. As an alternative, she retains them as lowkey and easy as potential. Oftentimes, she’s simply filming in her automotive, 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 in a position to make every TikTok and Reel her personal creation – her favourite a part of her job.

“I’ve an enormous quantity of autonomy, which is why I like doing it,” she mentioned. “I like having enjoyable with how I make issues and the way I edit issues.”

As Toni is in her third yr creating TikToks, she’s been in a position to make this her full-time job and is getting paid properly for her work. Whereas a part of her wage enhance 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 along with her pals about salaries.

“Clearly, the extra you begin doing gigs, the charges go up because the followers go up, and the engagements go up,” she mentioned.” And I believe an enormous half was additionally having these conversations with my pals.”

She advises aspiring TikTokers to be constant in posting and likewise to pay attention and interact with their audiences. However most significantly, she thinks the primary cause for her success is that she solely posts content material that she’s genuinely blissful 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 explanation 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 believe simply displaying up authentically [on social media] is at all times one of the best ways.”