- Colin Rocker approaches content creation by putting himself in the shoes of his followers.
- The 27-year-old makes TikTok videos giving career advice to Gen Z and millennial professionals.
- He shares how much he earns from paid partnerships with brands like Google and Hollister.
Colin Rocker has a unique philosophy for his career-advice content: he thinks about the questions a previous version of himself would have asked about navigating work and finances, and answers them in his TikTok videos.
The majority of Rocker’s TikTok audience is in their early to mid-twenties, in college, or in high school. Some of his most popular videos have centered around how to land internships. He also has a “corporate survival” series on how to succeed at work, including getting a promotion or the attention of senior executives at your company.
“I feel like I’m serving a previous version of myself through the content,” the New York City-based creator said. “It’s all about talking to someone who’s going through something that I was a few years ago and trying to make their life easier if I can.”
The 27-year-old joined TikTok in May 2020 and, at first, uploaded TikToks about his workouts, motivational anecdotes, and his daily life.
When he started posting about his consulting job at Deloitte, he would get DMs and comments asking him to share more. It led him to pivot to career advice.
Now, he has 72,600 followers on TikTok, and has landed brand deals with companies like Google, L’Oréal, Adobe, Kiehl’s, and Hollister.
Brands have reached out to Rocker directly to strike partnerships
Rocker secured his first brand deal in December 2020 with productivity-software platform Notion. He was paid $300 to create three TikTok videos for $100 apiece.
He had around 38,000 followers at the time, and said the company contacted him directly because it wanted to reach his audience of Gen Z and millennial professionals.
While Rocker mainly creates content about climbing the corporate ladder, he’s also expanding into the lifestyle space, sharing his favorite New York City restaurants and meals and what he wears.
He also recently started a full-time job as a talent agent at Free Agency, where he manages and coaches marketing and engineering professionals at companies like Amazon, Spotify, and Tesla, which has given him new career insights for his videos.
Expanding into new content areas has helped Rocker partner with fashion and lifestyle brands, in addition to the tech and finance companies he’d been working with, he said.
So far, his highest paying partnership has been with UnitedHealth Group Inc., which paid him $3,000 for one TikTok.
Rocker now charges between $400 and $600 per TikTok post. He bases the rate on the company’s specific deliverables and how much he personally likes their product or service.
Over the past six months, he’s made $30,000 in brand partnerships.
“All these brand deals come to me, I don’t do any outreach,” he said. “A lot of other creators have told me to make a media kit, but I don’t see the need for one yet.”
Rocker doesn’t have a management team or agent to guide him through the more difficult elements of being a content creator, such as negotiating contracts. But he said he’s part of a few Slack groups with influencers from across the country. He usually seeks these groups out for advice when he has questions, like what he should charge for a brand deal, or what other creators are doing in light of a potential TikTok ban.
“Many of us have never met, but know each other so well,” he said. “Having a community like that has been vital to my success, and I wish I’d joined sooner.”
Here’s how much Rocker has made from brand deals in the past six months, which Insider verified with documentation:
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