Annagjid "Kee" Taylor, Getty Images
A celebrity hairstylist who earns $1 million a year posting videos on YouTube explains how she made the decision to quit her day job.
Annagjid "Kee" Taylor started out posting 15-second hair videos on Instagram in 2015. She tells NextAdviser, "I didn't know much about YouTube in 2015. I was on Instagram and had gotten popular with hair pictures and videos. And so many people would be in my comments saying 'Do you have a YouTube?'"
"I was like, 'I'm not getting a YouTube and sharing all my secrets with the world,'" she says. "It didn't seem like a fit. I do silk presses all day. I don't do enough styles where I felt like people would want to see me do the same thing over and over again."
Taylor eventually moved to YouTube from Instagram - and she hasn't looked back since.
She grew her subscriber list to 1.32 million and earns $92,000 a month in YouTube ad revenue or just over $1 million a year before taxes.
Taylor offered advice to other hairstylists who may be considering starting their own YouTube channel.
Record Good Quality Content
"[In] the first week of the month, I'll record at least three to four videos," she says. "That way I'll have footage."
Find Good Hair Models
"It's harder to do in Los Angeles because all my friends and family and old clients are still in Philadelphia," said Taylor who moved from Philly to L.A. "I really get way more people to film when I'm in Philly. Out here I have to recruit people. But for the first week in any given month, that's what I try to do; I try to get at least three or four videos' worth so I can just sit home and edit for the rest of the month."
Get your View Count Up
Taylor says going full-time on Youtube requires at least 800,000 views. So record good quality content and the views will come.
"I had two or three viral videos early on," she said. "When that was happening, I was getting a nice check, but I wouldn't say it was enough to quit my day job. I wasn't able to really quit my day job until I was consistently getting 800,000 to a million views a month."
Google pays $2,000 for 1 million views. Taylor needs 46 million views a month to earn $92,000 a month. She says she only posts about 4 videos a month because editing is time consuming.
"I notice some people post [a new video] almost every day. If you can get 60,000 to 100,000 views every few days, you'll for sure hit a million views every month. I never really posted that often because it was a lot of production. Doing YouTube videos is a lot – especially when you're filming them yourself."
She said she always posts a video on Sunday, unless there's an awards show or a holiday.
"I don't post if [there are] award shows or something going on, or if it's Easter, you know, because people aren't going to sit in front of the TV on Sundays. They're with their family. So I try to be strategic."
