Is being an influencer a viable career in Singapore? How much can you earn?

In this article I want to share with you what goes on behind influencer marketing, how much money can you make, and how to get started.

At the time I'm writing this article, I have 270K subscribers on my art Youtube channel and 26K subscribers on my tech Youtube channel and 27K followers on my Instagram page. If you look solely at the numbers, you can consider me an influencer. However, I don't consider myself as an influencer. I present myself instead as an artist and urban sketcher, and if you ask me what I do for a living, then I'm a graphic designer with a salary job. I've been creating content online such as reviews and videos since 2009. This blog is just a hobby blog.

In this article I will focus on Singapore Youtubers with stats recorded on Social Blade. The revenue numbers are based only from Google Adsense and for simplicity sake I will use RPM of USD 1 per 1,000 views, and do not include sponsorship or client work so the actual revenue for the Youtubers can be higher. The numbers are from June 2022.

Is being an influencer a viable career in Singapore?

Yes. And there are people who actually make a living out of being an influencer in Singapore.

Tan Jian Hao has 5 million subscribers on his Youtube channel. Many do not like his generic template video ideas but the fact is his channel pulls in 1,000,000 views daily which means his revenue is at least USD 1,000 daily or USD 30,000 monthly. And that's just one of his few YT channels. The profit will be lower since he has to deduct expenses and his crew salaries. And all his crew can be considered influencers as well. And several of the crew have quit in the past to start their own Youtube channels. Why? Because they saw the potential of going on their own.

Next example is JinnyboyTV, Youtube channel created by Malaysian Ji Lim. The YT channel has 1.1 million subscribers with revenue of USD 263 in June 2022. That revenue is incredibly low for a YT channel that size. They used to earn a lot more and even have sponsorship from AirAsia and Fujifilm.

Night Owl Cinematics has 956K subscribers and earns USD 554/month. They used to pull in USD 6K-7K monthly. But revenue dropped drastically due to the controversy. It's unfortunate that their fortunes reversed so dramatically but it also shows the volatility of being in the influencer industry. And reputation and image are important.

Another example is Singaporean singer Boon Hui Lu (文慧如) who is an independent artiste. She graduated from NTU with an accountancy degree and was offered a job at a big accounting firm but she turned that down to focus on her singing career. Today she has close to 600,000 subscribers. Her Youtube channel gets 47,000 views daily, so that's USD 47 daily revenue, or USD 1,410 each month which is actually very low for a YT channel that has more than half a million subscribers.

Here's the table comparing the subscriber count and revenue from Youtube via Google Adsense.

Note that the revenue above are subjected to the 30% withholding tax rate for non-USA creators based overseas. E.g. If you earn USD $100 from Youtube, you only get $70 revenue after tax and before expenses.

To look at other examples, visit this list of Top 100 Singapore Youtubers ranked on Social Blade. Note that not all the YT channels there are based in Singapore. Some YT channels like to mis-categorise as if they are from Singapore so that they can rank higher in a smaller market. I used to be on that list but I'm not anymore because #100 has 792K subscribers while I only have 270K.

There are certainly influencers and creators who have made it big. But there are countless others who don't make any significant money even with the thousands of subscribers or followers.

Takeaway
The amount of money you can earn can vary wildly. A video could go viral to draw in more views and money, or you could get more client work that month. One thing you can be sure is the earnings is not consistent because being an influencer is essentially being a freelancer vs a monthly salaried employee.

A small channel can earn more than a big channel if it can generate more views. A big channel can still earn less because Youtube algorithm doesn't favour them. Youtube is just one of many social platforms used by influencers. For influencers on Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok and others, revenue is likely going to come mostly from sponsorship or client commissioned work. E.g. Xiaxue is an incredibly well known Singaporean influencer and she has 246K YT subscribers but only earned USD 29 from Youtube in June 2022 so you can be pretty sure she cannot survive on that money. She most certainly makes more money from her other websites or work.

How different is it being an influencer in Singapore vs in other countries?

The big difference between being an influencer in Singapore vs in other countries is Singapore's cost of living is high. If you earn USD and live in Malaysia, life is easier.

To make a living as an influencer you have to earn at least higher than the cost of living. And it takes a long time, months and years, to reach the stage where you can earn as much as the cost of living. And it will take an even longer time to earn the the median income in Singapore which is SGD 4,680 (USD 3,370) in 2021.

You can see from the table above that even big YT channels don't earn anything near the median income, and many don't even earn anywhere near the cost of living, at least not with Google Adsense alone.

The opportunity cost of being a full-time influencer in Singapore is extremely high because you can just take a salary job and start earning a monthly salary that will take an influencer YEARS to match.

My recommendation is to do the influencer thing by the side as a hobby and don't rely on it as full-time income because there's no full-time income to speak of when you're starting out. You can take the time to experiment, test the potential or find out whether you really enjoy doing the whole influencer thing.

If you are a parent with kids who want to be an influencer, you can let them do it on the side first as a hobby. Most kiasu parents will want their kids to get a degree before doing the influencer thing so that you have a backup plan. Sure. But you can still do the influencer thing while you're still studying because remember it takes a very long time to build up an influencer career and you can do so while studying for 3-4 years.

Takeaway
The opportunity cost of being an influencer is very high and it will take a very long time before you can even earn the cost of living.

How to get started with the influencer career?

Start today. Thanks to the internet, the cost of internet marketing is almost neglible and newbies can just start as simply as creating a social media page or Youtube channel.

As mentioned earlier, being an influencer is a freelance job. Your salary will be determined directly by how hardworking you are and how diligent you are at finding work. If you are thinking of going full-time from the start, you will probably not be earning much salary for many months.

It is competitive being an influencer. But if you're good at what you do, if you are a professional, you don't really have much competition. Your work will do the marketing for you.

How much can an influencer earn in Singapore

There is no magic number I can give you.

Do a search on "how much can an influencer earn in Singapore" and you'll see many articles with listed prices of per post charges by influencers. The numbers can vary so widely that the revenue information isn't that useful. The sky's the limit while many are just scrapping the bottom.

If you really want to know how much an influencer charges, ask for their rates or find them on their website. Usually the rates are not listed because the chargers will vary with the clients. E.g. A wealthy property developer or restaurant will be charged more compared to a blogshop selling clothes. I personally do not do sponsored posts so I also can't tell you how much I charge. The banner ads on my blog are US $100 each per month though.

And if you're an influencer who wants to know how much to charge your client, just estimate how much sales you can generate for your client and charge accordingly.

What are the various income streams of an influencer

Here's the list I can think of off the top of my head:

• Passive ads - Youtube ads, Google adsense ads
• Active ads - Ads you sell as sponsored posts
• Commissioned work - Clients may ask you to write an article or make a video
• Donations - From Patreon, Ko-fi
• Selling own merchandise under your brand
• Selling your services - Giving talks or courses
• Selling online courses and ebooks
• Affiliate marketing - You earn commission with sales made through your links
• Selling freebies received from companies

Earning through passive ads from Google Adsense requires the least effort since those ads are placed automatically on your Youtube videos. However, the payout is also the lowest at just USD 1 per 1,000 views, and thankfully it's usually higher so USD 2 to 3 per 1,000 views is not uncommon. But still the earning potential of such passive ads is very low. You will need to generate a hell lot of views to earn something substantial each month.

Taking on commissioned work is going to earn more. Imagine a client paying you $200 to write an article or $1000 to make a video. To earn the same amount of money through ads you will need 200,000 and 1,000,000 views respectively. I have 270K YT subscribers and if each video I publish actually gets 4,000 views I would consider it a success. And I earn USD 4 for that video and it's just enough money to buy a pack of 3-in-1 beverage.

If reading all these puny sums of money makes you disheartened about starting a career as an influencer, this is just a precursor of what you can expect for months and years unless you hit the jackpot of discovering what it takes to create a successful Youtube channel or social media page.

About filing taxes

Being an influencer is a freelance job just like an independent graphic designer, musician, tuition teacher, Grab driver or food delivery staff are freelance jobs. You keep track of all your expenses and revenue and file the taxes according. Here's the individual income tax rates on IRAS website for your reference.

IRAS also has specific information regarding money made from social media platforms. One info which is not that well known, in my opinion, is freebies received have to be declared as revenue if it's valued above SGD 100. E.g. If you're a travel blogger and was sponsored a $4000 trip by an airline or tourism board, it has to be declared as a $4000 revenue.

Things that you can list as expenses are rental even if you stay at home to do your work because otherwise you'll be renting a space outside, your own salary, webhosting and internet, transport that you paid to go to places to complete your work. The troublesome thing is you have to diligently collect all these receipts otherwise when it comes to filing taxes it may drive you crazy.

The reality of having an influencer career

If you have intention to be a full-time influencer, it can be stressful because as mentioned it's a freelance job so salary is not consistent.

People think it's easy to earn money when you charge $200 or $1000 per post. Getting yourself to the stage where you can charge that amount of money is difficult and time consuming. An influencer has to work all the time to create content because once you stop posting regularly, people will forget you exist and those social media platforms will also stop prioritising your content because, well, you have no content. That's why in the table of Youtubers above, you can see huge channels with low earnings -- those channels started by posting regularly and slowed down.

It is very important to note that whatever glamourous lifestyle being portrayed is not real life. Everything shown on social media is a curated highlights reel. Not many people will show the less glam side. And if you're trying to attract brands to work with you, you may not want to show the less glam side. Everyone has an image to upkeep.

Is being an influencer fulfilling?

It can be.

Unfortunately, there are many wannabe influencers who make cringing videos just to bring in the views. And those cringing videos not only bring in the views but also give influencers a bad reputation and image. And there are influencers who are sell outs. I remember several local influencers mention they drink 1 litre of fruit juice a day. Yeah, it's a fruit juice company sponsoring that post. By the way, being a sell out is doing a disservice to your audience.

This also presents an opportunity to professional influencers because if you want to work with professionals, be prepared to pay more.

Don't do it for the money because you'll be miserable for a very long time. This is worse than being stuck in a job you do not like because at least with a job you can still get a salary.

Your work will reach many people, and that may create opportunities for you. You can get work through referrals, you can get invites to places or you may get products to review.

Ultimately whether your career as an influencer can be fulfilling will depend on the work you do. You can teach, entertain, express and connect. Having a comedy channel can be fun and fulfilling. Helping people get their voices heard is also fulfilling. You're only limited by our ideas and willingness to try new ideas.