'I have 22 million followers but kept my day job'

A TikTok content creator whose videos of him cleaning pools have been watched by millions of viewers said continuing with his day job kept him "grounded".

Miles Laflin, known as The Pool Guy online, from Bedfordshire, has encouraged others to create online content about their job too.

He said: "I've been doing swimming pool work for a long time, I never really saw what the interest was – I liked my job but then I started seeing [people say] it's satisfying.

"Across all social medias I've got 22 million followers, but I still have got to go out and do my day-to-day job, so I feel like it helps keep me quite grounded."

"A lot of people lose themselves when they get to a certain point, like how many followers they get," he added.

Mr Laflin won the high-quality content creator of the year title at the first UK and Ireland TikTok awards.

The 34-year-old travels around the world cleaning pools and sharing videos of the process online.

He said: "There's an audience out there for whatever you're doing, there's going to be someone out there that wants to watch your job and how you do it,"

"If you are thinking about doing content on your job then go for it - 100% TikTok changed my life, I got brand deals and I travel all over the world."

Mr Laflin had been cleaning pools as a business for about 10 years when he first started making TikTok content.

Yet despite now having millions of viewers, and an award, the content creator continues his pool cleaning business.

He found his growing popularity on social media has attracted more customers and he estimates 90% of his work comes from people who watch his videos.

One 40-second video of him cleaning some steps of a pool has more than 170 million views on TikTok.

He said: "It's quite crazy to think that many people have seen my videos."

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