YouTube manager secrets, making 'slime' money on TikTok, and how much 1 million YouTube views is worth

Welcome back to this week's Influencer Dashboard newsletter!

This is Amanda Perelli, writing to you from home, and here's an update on what's new in the business of influencers and creators.

This week, I spoke to five talent managers who work with YouTube creators across the lifestyle, gaming, beauty, and fashion verticals to learn what it's really like to manage influencers.

The life of a YouTube manager can be exciting, with exclusive red carpet events and fun projects. But it can also be a challenging gig, as "cancel culture" continues to grow and the latest crop of influencers gets younger in age.

The managers painted a picture of a job that often consumes their entire day, from chasing down their clients for a response to spending hours talking them through a sudden PR disaster. Some managers shared experiences when a brand didn't take their client seriously or tried to sneak in agreement terms on a contract.

"We end up becoming the talent's most trusted advisor," one manager said. "We get phone calls when talent are going through a breakup and we have to be the understanding shoulder to cry on, and that's not in the typical job description."

They also shared an honest "day in the life," the art of negotiating a deal, what they look for in a client (and the traits that turn them away).

"There's scandals, people going on Twitter and PR disasters that you have to talk them through," one the managers said of the job. "I've had a couple of hacking scandals – that happens a lot where the account gets hacked into and they lose followers. I've had people hacking in and take nudes and leak nudes. I've had people take photos of underage clients at parties and take photos of them smoking weed and that's ruined brand deals for them. I've had parents steal money from clients before."

The managers said editing is the largest time suck for their YouTube clients, but influencers are often hesitant on hiring someone new to take over. Read the full post here.

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Self-described "slimer" Ricky Waite told my colleague Dan Whateley that his TikTok profile blew up after popular influencer Addison Rae Easterling reviewed one of his slimes earlier this month, driving over $1,000 in slime sales on his Etsy shop and adding 40,000 followers to his TikTok slime account in a few days.

"To balance school and slime is pretty difficult because I've posted every single day on my Instagram account for I think two years," the high school sophomore told Dan. "I'm staying up sometimes until 1 a.m. doing my homework, but I still have to find time throughout my day to sneak a little bit of slime time."

Slime accounts, in which social-media users post videos of themselves playing with the tactile toy, have been trending on platforms like Instagram and YouTube for years and have recently gotten a boost from consumers who are sheltering in place at home.

Read how Waite achieved TikTok fame and launched a slime business here.

A Sony Music exec explains the label's TikTok strategy and how it responds when a song like 'Break My Stride' catches fire

TikTok has become a major driver of trends in the music industry in recent months.

In January, Sony Music noticed that one of its songs, Matthew Wilder's 1983 hit "Break My Stride," was surging on TikTok.

Dan spoke with the marketing team at Sony Music's Legacy Recordings, which manages "Break My Stride" and the rest of the record label's legacy song catalog, to learn more about the company's strategy for amplifying older songs that have reemerged into cultural relevancy.

"Our entire music catalog is effectively tracked on a daily basis," said Andy McGrath, the senior vice president of marketing at Legacy Recordings. "We're constantly monitoring actions, reactions, and trends that happen on TikTok. We watch what's happening and how many people are creating their own challenges and sharing existing challenges, et cetera, and then we start to say, 'Okay something's happening here.'"

When a song in Sony's collection begins to trend on social media, the company jumps into action to try to fan the flames and help boost its plays on streaming platforms.

Read more on Sony Music's TikTok strategy here.

How much money YouTube pays for 1 million views, according to 5 creators

How much money a YouTube creator makes for a viral video with 1 million views varies, but is usually a big payday.

I spoke with five YouTube creators about how much each of them earned from videos with a million views or more.

The rate the influencer gets from Google's AdSense program depends on a number of factors, from the place in the video where viewers normally drop off, to the type of advertisers the video attracts. Many creators have ad-placement strategies for earning the most money possible.

Their answers ranged from $3,600 to $40,000.

Read the full post on how much YouTube pays for 1 million views, here.

Exclusive: YouTube creator and competitive eater Matt Stonie has signed with talent management firm Night Media

Matt Stonie, a YouTube creator and competitive eater with 11 million subscribers, has signed with the talent management firm Night Media.

Stonie averages around 60 million views per month on YouTube and his content revolves around massive food challenges (like eating 203 Chips Ahoy cookies or 10,000 calories of chili cheese fries) where he shows off his ability to consume huge amounts of food quickly.

He has set several world records, like eating 20.08 lbs of pumpkin pie in 8 minutes. He also won the 2015 Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest.

Stonie will be managed by Nick Brotman, who also manages YouTube creators Unspeakable (19 million YouTube subscribers), Mini Ladd (7 million YouTube subscribers), and Twitch streamer and TikTok creator Neekolul.

Night Media is a Dallas-based digital management company that manages YouTube stars like MrBeast and Preston Arsement.

What else happened on BI Prime:

• How much advertisers have cut their influencer budgets in 2020, according to a survey of marketers who control $46 billion in annual spending: Dan wrote that many brands are not canceling influencer campaigns outright but postponing them to adjust production plans or to retool messaging.

• New TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer highlights music and gaming as focus areas in his first statements after being poached from Disney: Dan wrote that as a relative newcomer to the social-media scene, TikTok's had an outsize impact on the music industry and has recently drawn interest from gaming and esports companies.

• 16 YouTube stars reveal how much they get paid per 1,000 views: I spoke with 16 YouTube creators about how much each of them earn on average for every 1,000 views (their CPM).

• 5 YouTube creators break down their monthly incomes from the platform: I also spoke with influencers who broke down how much they'd earned in a month from the platform.

This week on Insider's digital culture desk:

• A 'Bachelor' contestant was the target of an intricate misinformation campaign. Now, the online fandom that 'canceled' her wants to apologize: Margot Harris wrote that Jenna Cooper, a popular "Bachelor" and "Bachelor in Paradise" contestant, was forced to retreat from the spotlight after rumors surfaced that she'd gotten engaged on the show for publicity and maintained a relationship with a "sugar daddy."

• Lifestyle influencers are using COVID-19 to spread QAnon conspiracy theories: 'I truly believe I owe it to my audience to be more for them during this turning point in our culture': Rachel Greenspan reported that the spread represents a dangerous trend toward belief in unverified information online.

• The first YouTube channel to surpass 1 billion weekly views posts animated kid's nursery rhymes. More than 1,600 people watch its videos every second: Kat Tenbarge reported that on May 17, Cocomelon hit a new viewership milestone, becoming the first YouTube channel in history to surpass 1 billion views within a week, according to data published by Tubefilter.

Here's what else we're reading:

• TikTokers Charli and Dixie D'Amelio to Launch Podcast: Natalie Jarvey from The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the TikTok stars will be launching a podcast with Ramble, the podcast network joint venture between Cadence13 and UTA.

• Don't let the COVID crash fool you. It's still a great time to be a YouTuber: Meira Gebel from Digital Trends wrote that creators who work primarily on YouTube have recently leaned into other social media platforms, like Instagram and TikTok, to connect with a broader audience.

Thanks for reading! Send me your tips, comments, or questions: aperelli@businessinsider.com.

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