This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey there, thanks for tuning in today. This is Side Hustle School. My name's Chris Guillebeau and welcome as well to a brand new month. We are now in the month of August, 2022. You could be listening later, but you know, this episode's going out August 1, episode 2039.
In fact, 2039, we are just cruising along here. And this episode, this particular episode today, it's part of a new feature we've been doing in 2022 called Your First Thousand Dollars. Now, as you might surmise from the title or as you might know, if you've been listening for a while, it's all about how someone made their first thousand dollars. How did they get to that point? How did they make it happen?
Not their first hundred thousand dollars or million dollars. That's cool, but it's also a long story. And in some ways, I think the first thousand dollars is much more interesting because that shows how somebody really gets off the ground, you know, from zero to something significant. And then as we've seen from many stories, it often goes on to be much more from there. So with that in mind, today's feature comes from Rebecca Rogers, the social studies TikTok sensation, social studies teacher, I should say.
We first featured her back on episode 1641, where this teacher gained 1.5 million TikTok followers. She now has much more than 1.5 million. She's also now on multiple social networks, not just TikTok, very smart to diversify. But what about those early days? How did she make it happen?
What did it feel like? And what did she learn? Rebecca has got some insight for us and an entertaining story. I'll come back at the end with a quick wrap-up. [Music]
Hey everyone, my name is Rebecca Rogers.
I was featured on Side Hustle School episode 1641, and I'm back. To tell you a little bit more about the origins of my small business and how I was able to really start making money, especially that first thousand dollars. So for those of you who don't know me, my side hustle is actually social media. Originally, when my story came out, it was just TikTok, but now it's social media across the board, which is crazy. This all started fall 2020, when schools were completely virtual.
This was my third year teaching high school social studies, and my students were really depressed. I was just looking for a way to make my kids smile and turn to TikTok, because that was what all the students were into, and I thought I could create a way to connect and bond with them. I had no idea that my account would skyrocket the way that it did. Everyone loved hearing me tell stories about things that teachers and students experience in schools, and within a few weeks, I realized, wow. This could legitimately be a side hustle.
I can actually do something with this. So what I did was I started researching. I studied my pages analytics. I looked at when people who followed me were online. What other creators did they follow?
What content did they enjoy watching? What was trending and how I could relate trends to my content? I applied all of these skills to my page, and that helped me grow really quickly. And eventually, businesses started asking me, hey, if we send you free stuff, will you post a photo, or will you keep this object in the background of your videos? And at the time, I was still getting started, and I figured I don't have a really big audience, so I didn't ask for any money at first, and that was one of my first mistakes.
Don't be like me, no, you're worth. Even if you only get $20, $50, you earned that. You're promoting their stuff. Don't do it for free, even though I did for a few, but you're learning from me, remember? And as I kept going, I kept analyzing analytics.
I looked to see what videos did well, what videos didn't do well, and if they didn't do well, why didn't they do well? Was it because the content? Was it because of the time that I posted? And I just kept perfecting my craft, because not only did I wanna grow, I wanted to put a lot of effort into these promotional posts so I could start getting paid for them. And eventually, as I would get more offers, they started offering me money.
Not a lot, again, I was still starting out. I started social media in October, late October, and this was only a few months later. But I realized really quickly, I wouldn't be able to make real money just from the TikTok Creator Fund. And if I wanted to make TikTok a true side hustle, it would have to be through these sponsorships, so I took those as seriously as I could. I made an account on Aspire IQ.
It's a place where creators and businesses can connect and talk sponsorships. I reached out to businesses myself that were looking for people to make sponsored posts, and every time I did a good job on one of those, I got a lot of views, got a lot of engagement. That made me much more desirable to other businesses, meaning I could charge a little bit more each time. I think back to when I was able to add up, wow, I made $1,000 for the first time in one month. That was probably around February, and today I charge almost $6,000 per video just for TikTok.
I've more than doubled my monthly teacher salary for just one video for one app, and that still blows my mind. But you know, it all snowballs, it really does. When it comes to social media, there's a couple things that I can tell you is key. And the first is consistently post. The more you post, the more followers that you gain.
That's really just what it is. If you post good content, you're only going to gain followers. At first, I started posting every other day, and I quickly realized I need to change to every single day, sometimes multiple times a day, and that's just what I had to do to grow at the rate that I wanted. The second biggest thing is create that community. Interact with your audience, and whenever you post, they're going to support you.
Ads never do as great on social media as regular videos, but when I post an ad, I just go live and tell my followers, hey, it would be really awesome if you could help me out and go interact with this video. And if you've created that sense of community, they will literally stop what they're doing and do that for you. It's amazing, create that community and use it. They're there and they want to support you, own that. Start small, respond to comments, go live, answer people's questions.
That's how you start small to grow your page in your community and eventually get to that point of having businesses reach out. And then you'll get that $1,000 eventually, the first $1,000, and eventually so much more. You have this, just trust the process. Build your foundations, make sure they're strong, and they will lift you to the sky. Good luck, my lovelies.
- All right, lots of good lessons there. Don't do it for free. Your work has value. Also, isn't it pretty cool? Now Rebecca charges $6,000 a video on TikTok.
Pretty cool business. And she has also, as you heard, diversified to be on lots of other networks, including Instagram, where she has, I think, 100,000 followers. YouTube, I believe it's a million followers. Subscribers, 1.26 million, in fact, at the moment I'm looking at it here. And then also consistently post and interact with your audience, interact, engage.
Ultimately, your success lies in your relationship with those people who choose to give you their valuable attention. So Rebecca totally gets that. I think that's a big part of why she's been successful. So thanks, Rebecca, for telling us about your first $1,000. Listeners, check her out on all these networks, as mentioned, whatever you prefer, R. Rogers World.
That's where you can find your R. Rogers World on TikTok, on Instagram, on YouTube. I think it's just Rebecca Rogers. If you search anything like that, you're gonna find it because, as I said, she's got a lot of followers, and she's doing very, very well. Just a lot of fun, very entertaining.
So lots to learn there. And listeners, if you've got a question or an update for us about your hustle, sidehustleschool.com/questions. That is all for today. I'm excited to bring you lots of stories this month. I hope you'll join me for the journey and keep listening.
My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
