Salem King, the charismatic content creator, recently spoke to us about his career so far. Among other things, he told us the origins of his online business, his revenue streams and that one time he had to say no to working with a brand.
What did you study?
Economics, unfortunately.
Hahaha. Why “unfortunately,” and which school?
Madonna University. I went to school at 15, when I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life. My dad sold me this dream of becoming an investment banker. His dream sounded better than anything else at the time.
How soon did that change?
I still think his dream was nice; it just wasn’t for me. I think I was in year three and we had to do econometrics. That was when I realised this was a terrible idea.
You entered one chance!
But in true African child fashion, I still finished. I did NYSC and got a real estate job. I was in sales and marketing, talking big money — ₦154m, ₦260m — with clients. I learned to interact with wealthy people and understand how they think. Then I began playing around with Instagram.
Do you remember why?
I have always been a curious person, so I guess I needed to escape from my corporate job. I remember that I would walk around taking pictures after work. That sort of graduated into wanting to share. And I read a lot of books from my father’s library growing up. I knew I wanted to teach, but when you are 21, who do you want to teach? I thought no one would want to listen, but I found that people were listening when I posted things online.
What was the first big thing?
I don’t really think in terms of milestones. I think the best thing that happened was that I became intentional about building a community. One day I put up a question, “What’s bothering you?” and people started answering.
I freaked out at the number of responses and fled Instagram. I returned later and saw that people were answering each other, which made me realise that what I was doing was beyond just me. I did some research and wrote an e-book titled CommYOUnity.
How much did you sell it for?
₦3,000, and we have sold more than 800 copies.
Salem, you are the king.
[Laughs]
So, when was the first time you worked with a brand?
I can’t remember exactly. But I remember when I still had my former job, a brand reached out and offered ₦20,000 for a series of things I needed to do. I was excited and reached out to a friend who knew more about stuff like this. And she composed an email for me asking for a higher fee.
How did that end?
They didn’t come back. [Laughs]
Na wa. What are your revenue streams now?
Content creation; content strategy for brands; affiliate marketing, which gives me a percentage of sales; influencer partnerships; digital products; and coaching.
What’s the most lucrative?
That should be influencer partnerships. The least lucrative is digital products — the unit price of a product is usually around ₦3,500.
If I came to you for a post on your feed, what might be the damage?
Minimum for my feed is ₦300k. There’s no maximum. For stories, the minimum is ₦150k. But I have to use the product first before recommending it.
Does this mean you do refunds if it doesn’t work out?
Not really. I use the product first before we decide. The brands and businesses do research before engaging someone, so, it makes sense for me to do that as well. There is this idea that influencers are available to the highest bidder, and I am uncomfortable with that.
Have you had to not do something after a sorta agreement?
Yeah. And it can pain!
I can imagine!
There was something that happened one time. A brand said one thing on a call and then sent a different brief. The invoice had already gone out, but I told my manager that I wasn’t comfortable. We didn’t go ahead.
Props for that. What advice would you give people looking to make it online?
This might be oversimplifying things, but here it goes: Determine your audience and learn as much as you can about their problems. Then provide solutions to those problems. People often feel that they need to be influencers to make money on social media, but you don’t have to. There are people with fewer followers than I have that make more money than I do.
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