- Emily Pitcher is a 23-year-old video game developer and UX designer.
- In April, she was laid off from Meta. Now, she’s pursuing content creation as her new hustle.
- Pitcher shared how she rapidly grew her audience and how she makes money.
Emily Pitcher, a 23-year-old video game developer and UX designer, is still adjusting to life as a content creator after losing her job as a designer at Meta.
Starting in early 2023, Pitcher, who goes by Sondering Emily online, began regularly posting to Instagram and TikTok.
“When I was first making content, it was just about promoting my game A Taste of the Past,” as well as her gaming studio, Sondering Studio, Pitcher told Insider.
Her earliest videos about game development went viral, and she began building an audience. But Pitcher realized that she didn’t just want to post about making games — she wanted to create content about the gaming industry and its culture, gaming memes, “cozy games” reviews, and a deeper glimpse into her life as a 20-something “navigating being an entrepreneur — and life in general.”
Then in April, Pitcher found out she was among thousands impacted by Meta’s historic job cuts. Her passion for making gaming content soon became a business.
“I’m 23, unemployed, and I have no idea what I am doing with my life,” Pitcher said in a reel she posted in May. “But I know the internet is a magical place that connects people.” The brief, vulnerable video racked up over 1.4 million views on the app.
In less than a year, Pitcher has built an audience of nearly 100,000 followers on Instagram, where she said she’s seen more success than on TikTok (Pitcher has about 52,000 TikTok followers).
Pitcher typically tries to post between four and six times a week, almost exclusively sharing video content.
“Posting a reel a day is the most effective strategy for me,” Pitcher said.
Working at Meta didn’t unlock all of the secrets to success on Instagram, Pitcher noted. But having worked on Instagram’s search tools, Pitcher knows how important search engine optimization (SEO) is for being discovered within an app.
“I will say, working at Instagram gave me a more informed view on how to caption my videos because I would specifically try to caption them to be what people might be searching for,” Pitcher said.
In her own words, Pitcher aspires to be a “Pokimane of video game development” after seeing how Pokimane, a gaming streamer with over 9 million Twitch followers, had “pioneered gaming as a woman.” Pitcher said she wants to be a similar source of inspiration for young women of color entering tech and game development.
Making money as a gaming influencer
Like many influencers, Pitcher’s primary revenue stream is brand deals.
Pitcher said she looked to other creators for advice as she navigated inking her first brand deals. Specifically, she followed a Notion template for keeping track of sponsorship deals created by fellow gaming creator Kat Liente, a TikTok creator with over 521,000 followers.
“In terms of deciding a rate, it’s honestly kind of arbitrary,” Pitcher said.
Pitcher said that before she had even started taking on brand deals, she had inbound deals offering her upwards of $2,000 for video and Instagram stories content.
“That gave me a starting point,” Pitcher said. “Why don’t I just charge a little bit higher than that? Because you always know that you’re going to be negotiated down.”
Currently, her starting rate for sponsored content is around $2,000 for one video post, she told Insider. (Insider verified Pitcher’s rates with documentation.)
On top of brand deals, Pitcher said she makes a little bit of cash through TikTok’s ad-revenue program on videos. But Pitcher isn’t making money directly on YouTube through its AdSense program, or on Instagram.
“I don’t get paid at all for the videos that I make,” Pitcher said, explaining how she missed the window of Instagram’s Reels Play Bonus program that was paying some creators thousands for viral posts.
“I really do want to diversify my revenue streams,” Pitcher said — especially given the turbulent economy. “I’ve been hearing from a lot of creators that brand deals are drying up, so knowing that, I want to expand.”
In July, Pitcher launched a Patreon for paywalled content and plans to sell merchandise products in the future. She said she’s also still in the process of developing a new video game, but that is years away.
“People are not going to be buying anything from me or my game soon,” she said. “They’re really in it for the long haul.”
Read the 1-page media kit Pitcher sends to brands:
Pitcher’s media kit includes a brief bio, her audience demographics, Instagram analytics, and “signature topics” that she creates content about. She also makes sure to include her contact information.
Read the full article here