Crystal Nicole never imagined she could build a career as a content creator.
Nicole’s foray into content creation started while attending the University of New Orleans, she told AFROTECH™. She studied civil engineering, a field encouraged by her mother, after originally aspiring to study fashion and design. Her mother believed there was no “true career” in those creative fields, ultimately steering Nicole toward a more traditional course of study.
“She said, ‘You have cousins who are engineers, why don’t you look up engineering?’ I also am a math head; I love math. So it wasn’t a terrible idea … And I found the one sector of engineering that felt the most [like] design, and that was civil,” she told AFROTECH™. “I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll be designing buildings or highways instead of clothes.'”
While pursuing her studies, Nicole was also navigating her natural hair journey. She had a relaxer for more than a decade and was going to a hairstylist every two weeks before she decided to go natural. Once she did, she found herself receiving frequent questions about the products she was using and if she had any tips. What started as casual advice soon revealed a larger gap in representation and resources, prompting Nicole to launch a YouTube channel to share her experience and help others on similar journeys.
“I wasn’t even an influencer at that time. I was literally just making videos for fun to help other people. It was never something that I thought would become a career. And I also found so much passion in it because there was so many Black women who didn’t know who they were naturally or how to even take care of what was given to them, including my mom … It was just something that I was doing to provide education for people and to do for fun while I was still in college,” she explained.
Eventually, Nicole received her first offer for a YouTube video reel. Although she didn’t disclose the financial details on the record, she admits the money wasn’t a livable wage, but viewed it as a start. She began taking content more seriously after graduating from college in 2018. She was living in Austin, Texas, and working as a civil engineer with a $70,000 salary.
There came a point when her work as a content creator exceeded her monthly income, which she states was nearly $4,000 monthly after taxes.
“I’m making two, three, four times my engineering salary off of three deals, and I’m straight out of college. So that’s when I was like, ‘Wait, is this trustworthy? Is this something that I can actually make into a career?’ And that’s when I started to measure the consistency and track more regularly my progress to see if it could compare with my job,” Nicole admitted.
She remained at her job for about a year and a half, then quit two months into the pandemic when she realized her passion could supplement her income.
Brand Deals
Today, Nicole’s journey has led her to earn more than one million followers across social media and build partnerships with beauty and skincare brands such as Youth to the People, Kiehl’s, Charlotte Tilbury, Olay, Aveeno, SheaMoisture, CeraVe, NYX Cosmetics, L’Oréal Paris, Clinique, and Kérastase.
When considering brand deals, their integrity and alignment with her values serve as her compass, and you won’t catch her compromising for products that don’t work for her or that she wouldn’t use, she acknowledged to AFROTECH™.
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Her biggest brand deal to date has been Olay. Understanding her worth and signing with an agency in 2023 was key to getting to where she is now, she said.
“You can’t do these things on your own. I wouldn’t have had that deal if I didn’t have management. Because what you realize is in order to be advocated for properly, you have to first know what you’re worth,” she explained. “And if you’re your own team, you have no idea what your counterparts are charging … When you sign to the right person who believes in you and can advocate for you, that’s when you’re able to see what you’re truly worth because they know. They’re in these fields themselves with your counterparts. So that’s really important.”
Nicole also shared that she earns the most from TikTok and Instagram. However, she made the distinction that it’s not because they compensate her directly, but because brands are paying her to post on the platform. She named YouTube as the platform she earns the most from in direct payments.
“The only thing with YouTube is you actually have to build your account to qualify for monetization. Then you have to create videos that are consistently engaging in order to get that money. But once you have that, YouTube pays the most directly,” she noted.
Advice for Content Creators
Nicole has advice for content creators who are looking to create their own success stories.
She says “organization is the name of the game,” and uses Notion for tasks like creating recording and editing schedules, determining which days to send invoices, and tracking which companies have made payments.
Beyond her agency, she has hired two video editors and an assistant.
“In this industry, you, a lot of people view influencing as a fun career or as a fun hobby. They don’t view it as a career,” she noted.
Being organized became essential for Nicole once she took to content creation full time.
“That was my reality check when I realized the IRS is gonna be coming for this money … I feel like a lot of influencers don’t understand is, when you’re an influencer, when you’re your own entity, you have even more of a responsibility than when you were a nine-to-five. There’s no such thing as you getting a tax return. You’re paying taxes and you’re paying them at 30% typically,” she shared.
“If you’re not setting money aside, you’re gonna have money piled up but you’re also gonna have money that is due and you don’t realize how much is due because you’ve never had to pay taxes, you’ve only had taxes returned to you,” she added.
Aspirations
Looking ahead, Nicole wants to continue to educate others using her platform. She also aspires to create a skincare product with a brand and launch a tall girl clothing line.
