Have you ever wondered whether a social media influencer or a YouTuber with a large amount
of subscribers can actually get a visa and work in the United States?
Many of these people are traveling the world and when they come to the United States, they
need a visa.
What is that visa?
Watch this video and I'll tell you more.
Hi everybody.
My name is Jacob Sapochnick and I'm an immigration attorney based in San Diego, California.
In this video, I want to talk about the special visa that would allow a social media influencer,
a YouTuber or anybody with a large following online to come to United States and work,
essentially take photos, get paid and do all the things they usually do.
But in the U.S. you need a visa for that.
What is the social media influencer as you know and if you are one you obviously know
but a social media influencers is a person that either has a large following on Instagram
or YouTube or Facebook and large brands are appealing to those people paying them money
so they can talk about their products so they can promote their products because they influence
their audience.
Social media influencers are dominating the market since 2017.
It's going to continue to grow.
As this industry continues to expand more and more of this influencers who are not U.S.
citizens, who are not green card holders and they're coming to the United States because
this is one of the biggest markets and they're getting paid or about to get paid or signed
deal memos.
Whenever that happens, there's a need for visa, just like any other professional, just
like any other artists.
What is the visa that would allow a social media influencer to be able to come to the
United States and work?
I can tell you that for us, we have a large following on Facebook and if you follow our
Facebook page or Instagram page, you can see that we have more than 100,000 people that
follow us so in a way we are kind of like influencers in our space.
I can see and we understand the needs of influencers and how it works.
The logistics of having a lot of fans, dealing with brands that are contacting you
to try to get deals and all these things right now require a visa.
The visa that is appropriate for social media influencers to be able to work in the United
States is called 01-B. The 01-B is an artist visa and just like many other artists that
are coming to work in the United States, social media influencers will fall under this category
because we have to show that they have a special ability, extraordinary ability to do something
that they are risen to that level of exceptional ability that would allow them to come in and work.
The 01-B visa has six criteria that the social media influencers must meet at least three of those.
Give an example, we have to show the amount of followers, engagement, letters from other
peers, high salary, publications in magazines and newspapers, online T.V. shows and things
like that.
All these things are coming together as part of a package for a case,
if I can demonstrate that, if I can show that, that particular influencer has that many followers,
is using these followers to promote as many brands.
We need letters from the bigger brands that an influencer has works with,
the bigger the brand, the better it is, the stronger the case will be.
All in all the 01-B visa is the perfect visa for social media influencers coming from
all over the world to take photos, to create content and get paid for it.
It's going to be very difficult for an influencer to get paid in the U.S. unless they have the
right visa and the 01-B visa is now being utilized more and more by social media influencers
to be able to come into work in the U.S.
Also the immigration service is now being informed and are being educated that there
is such a visa and that visa fits influencers and not just regular artists because social
media influences are in fact artists themselves.
Again the 01-B visa is the Perfect Visa for social media influencers to be able to come
in and work in the United States.
We'll use a follower statistics, brand deals, deal memos, names and people that they're
associated with online, high salary achievements and high payments for posts, for campaigns.
All these things together will make strong evidence for an 01-B case.
We've done quite a few of those.
If you guys are interested, just send us an email.
Send me an email to Jacob@h1b.biz and post as a comment if you have any questions about
this or any other visas.
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