WHAT IS A SOCIAL INFLUENCER? HOW MODELS BECOME RICH INSTA-CELEBS

Models and pretty faces alike are making a lot of money these days through social media… but what is a social influencer? Can you become a social influencer, too? We recently wrote a quick overview ofInstagram Models. But today we will delve much deeper into the topic of models and social influencers as a whole.

By the way – being an influencer in the niche of ‘modeling’ is highly lucrative. In fact, models earn the MOST money per post than all other influencer categories. Check out this article from Adweek and see for yourself. Here is an infographic Adweek included to drive the point home:

Infographic original source: http://www.adweek.com/digital/what-is-the-real-cost-of-instagram-influence-infographics/

Pretty crazy, right? Can you imagine snapping a selfie, posting it, getting paid $400+ for that one photo… all while sitting on your couch and drinking a lemonade? It seems too good to be true. But it is the reality of many social influencers/models. In fact, many insta-celeb models make much more than that per post. SO, you’re surely wondering by now: what is a social influencer anyway?!

Social Influencer definition: A person with a loyal audience/following online, who receives compensation in exchange for leveraging their platform to influence said audience. Basically, people who get paid to promote stuff online. That is not a dictionary term, we just made it up, but it should give you the gist. A social influencer’s large following can be based on one platform, or on many combined platforms. Examples of platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Youtube, Pinterest, their personal Blog/Website, etc.

Whether you are an aspiring model, a pro model, or somewhere in between- you’ve surely seen others in your industry promoting products online. You see models hawking diet teas on Instagram. You see models squeezing into waist-training corsets on Snapchat. You see models shouting out random meal prep services you’ve never heard of on Facebook. The list goes on and on. With the help of social media, models who would have never had a chance to rep huge brands ordinarily (too short, too heavy, too augmented, too old, etc) are welcomed with open arms. Yes, there is competition. But the reality is, almost anybody can become a social media influencer these days (with the right following). Bonus: many freelance models can now get scouted and signed by big-name modeling agencies… just by having a presence online. The modeling agents come to THEM, not the other way around. Modeling agencies have acclimated to the changing times. This means that many top modeling agencies now have a division specifically for “Influencers.” (IMG, NEXT, etc.) And guess what? They want to scout you on Instagram before anybody else does!

How do Social Media Influencers make money? There are a variety of ways that models can make money as influencers. But ultimately – it all comes down to engagement. What is the use in having 500,000 followers if only 10 of them comment/interact with your post? No advertiser wants to waste money on a bored, disinterested audience. YAWN. If your audience doesn’t care enough to engage back with you – they damn sure don’t care enough to buy the products you are recommending. However, it is completely attainable to connect with your followers. Once you have established a large following/a great rapport, you have many options to earn an income. Social influencers make money by:

• Sponsored Posts / Photos
• Sponsored Videos
• Sponsored Product Sampling / Reviews
• Sponsored Tutorials
• Sponsored Blog Posts
• Sponsored Shares / Shout-out’s
• Paid Product Placement
• Content Creation (fitness routines, meal prep plans, guide books, etc)
• Advertisement Units (placed directly on their blog, on their Youtube videos, etc)
• Signing on as an official Brand Ambassador (usually involves contract and signing bonus)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Documenting Experiences/Travel/Events for specific brands
• Creating their own Product Line (generally with the help of a larger brand backing them)
• Selling their own branded merchandise (models in particular can sell a lot of calendars, posters, t-shirts, etc. with their image on it)
• Event Hosting / Workshops (online and in-person)
• Launch Parties
• Public Speaking
• Television, radio, magazine, and podcast appearances
• Consulting / Mentoring

How can I grow my social media / social influence following?

• The first and most obvious strategy is to post really great, eye-catching photos of yourself / your life on a consistent basis. It’s so simple it hurts. Draw ’em in with great photos, keep ’em with great personality. Think of your followers as your FRIENDS. Show them the real you, not just some picture-perfect version of you. What does your life look like day-to-day? Do you secretly play video games? Love playing guitar? Make ridiculous car karaoke videos with your friends? Have a 25-pound cat that the world needs to see? Share behind-the-scenes, silly antics from your photoshoots. Post photos of yourself sans makeup, messy hair, in gym clothes. People want to connect with PEOPLE, not some unattainable Barbie doll.
• Find a niche. Don’t just be a pretty face – be a spokesperson for your passions. Are you a die-hard fitness fanatic? Post some of your fitness routines. Are you the world’s best gluten-free chef? Share your recipes with the world, don’t be stingy! Do you volunteer for a cause? Spread the mission.
• Post consistently across multiple social media platforms. A good rule of thumb is at once a day, give or take. Don’t overdo it (people will unfollow you with a quickness). Don’t UNDER-do it either… nobody will find you by posting once a month. (NOTE: If you are private by nature, and prefer to keep your private life private – then by all means. Don’t even bother with social media. You can absolutely be a successful, well-paid model without having to expose your personal life to anybody. Stick to traditional modeling/print jobs/campaigns instead. No harm no foul!)

This sh*t sounds great!! I want in. How do I become a social influencer?

Social media influencers / models enjoy a lucrative income stream online. In order to throw your hat in the ring, you are most likely looking at 3 options here.

1. Get scouted on Instagram (or FB/Twitter/Youtube/your Blog etc etc). If you have a large enough following, this won’t be difficult. As the saying goes, “If you build it, they will come.” Make sure that your contact info is in your bio!! An email address that you check often is essential. But please – don’t say yes to everything that comes your way. For the sake of your brand and audience, be picky – not greedy.
2. Seek social influencer representation on your own. We will soon provide a list of social influencer agencies for our readers. Please subscribe to our FREE newsletter to be notified when this list is ready to go! The link to subscribe is at the top of this page! We are working on it as we speak!
3. Download social influencer Apps on your smart phone. We will soon provide a list of social influencer apps for our readers. Please subscribe to our FREE newsletter to be notified when this list is ready to go! The link to subscribe is at the top of this page! We are working on it as we speak!
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   Instagram: blankitinerary
   There was a time when social media was considered a low-cost method for engaging with customers and prospects. With its maturation as an advertising channel, the costs of social marketing increased while engagement declined, and influencer marketing became the new tactic for engagement. Soon marketers discovered that working with influential social media users and experts didn’t just drive engagement—it had a real return in the form of high-quality leads, conversions and brand awareness.
   Indeed, social media influencers have become indispensable for campaigns. This is true across big social networks, but especially so on Instagram, which has a user base that is second only to Facebook in number and a growing influencer community. While some would argue that the cost of influencer marketing is exploding, according to a report from influencer marketplace Influence.co, the cost of working with influencers on social media can vary greatly.
   The average price per sponsored post is about $300, with some accounts earning more depending on the number of followers or expertise. Modeling accounts are the most lucrative, according to the report, and they also tend to have the most followers. Fitness accounts are also fairly popular on Instagram, but they still earn less per post than photographers.
   Men generally charge more per sponsored post than women, and influencers with more than 100,000 followers can earn close to $800 per post, while those with 1,000 followers or less are lucky if they get $100. There is also an inverse relationship between popularity and engagement; influencers with fewer followers were usually more engaged with their audiences, while more popular influencers were less so. Likewise, more influencer and audience engagement did not result in more money per post.
   Overall, subject matter, quality of content and audience size are all determining factors for how much an Instagram influencer can earn. The challenge for modeling accounts is to cultivate an authentic appearance of style, while photographers are likely to fetch top dollar for high-quality images.

Over the past decade, Pew Research Center has documented the wide variety of ways in which Americans use social media to seek out information and interact with others. A majority of Americans now say they get news via social media, and half of the public has turned to these sites to learn about the 2016 presidential election. Americans are using social media in the context of work (whether to take a mental break on the job or to seek out employment), while also engaging in an ongoing effort to navigate the complex privacy issues that these sites bring to the forefront.

In addition to measuring the broad impact and meaning of social media, since 2012 the Center has also tracked the specific sites and platforms that users turn to in the course of living their social lives online.

In that context, a national survey of 1,520 adults conducted March 7-April 4, 2016, finds that Facebook continues to be America’s most popular social networking platform by a substantial margin: Nearly eight-in-ten onlineAmericans1 (79%) now use Facebook, more than double the share that uses Twitter (24%), Pinterest (31%), Instagram (32%) or LinkedIn (29%). On a total population basis (accounting for Americans who do not use the internet at all), that means that 68% of all U.S. adults are Facebook users, while 28% use Instagram, 26% use Pinterest, 25% use LinkedIn and 21% use Twitter.

Thanks in part to the growing number of older adults who are joining the site, Facebook use appears to be on the rise: The share of online adults who report using Facebook has increased by 7 percentage points compared with a Pew Research Center survey conducted at a similar point in 2015. In addition, the share of Facebook users who check in daily has increased slightly in the past year: 76% of Americans who use Facebook now report that they visit the site on a daily basis, up from 70% in 2015.

What follows is a deeper examination of the current state of the social media landscape in America.

Usage and demographics of social media platforms

79% of internet users (68% of all U.S. adults) use Facebook

Roughly eight-in-ten online Americans (79%) now use Facebook, a 7-percentage-point increase from a survey conducted at a similar point in 2015.

Young adults continue to report using Facebook at high rates, but older adults are joining in increasing numbers. Some 62% of online adults ages 65 and older now use Facebook, a 14-point increase from the 48% who reported doing so in 2015. In addition, women continue to use Facebook at somewhat higher rates than men: 83% of female internet users and 75% of male internet users are Facebook adopters.

32% of internet users (28% of all U.S. adults) use Instagram

Around one-third of online adults (32%) report using Instagram – roughly the same share as in 2015, when 27% of online adults did so.

To a greater extent than the other social platforms measured in this survey, Instagram use is especially high among younger adults. Roughly six-in-ten online adults ages 18-29 (59%) use Instagram, nearly double the share among 30- to 49-year-olds (33%) and more than seven times the share among those 65 and older (8%). And as was the case in previous Pew Research Center surveys of social media use, female internet users are more likely to use Instagram than men (38% vs. 26%).

24% of internet users (21% of all U.S. adults) use Twitter

Roughly one-quarter of online adults (24%) use Twitter, a proportion that is statistically unchanged from a survey conducted in 2015 (23%).

Younger Americans are more likely than older Americans to be on Twitter. Some 36% of online adults ages 18-29 are on the social network, more than triple the share among online adults ages 65 and older (just 10% of whom are Twitter users).

Twitter is also somewhat more popular among the highly educated: 29% of internet users with college degrees use Twitter, compared with 20% of those with high school degrees or less.

29% of internet users (25% of all U.S. adults) use LinkedIn

The share of online adults who use LinkedIn has remained steady over the past year: 29% report using the site, similar to the 25% who said this in 2015.

LinkedIn has long been especially popular with college graduates and high income earners, and this trend continues to hold true. Half (50%) of online adults with college degrees are on LinkedIn, compared with 27% of those who have attended but not graduated from college and just 12% of those with high school degrees or less.

Similarly, 45% of online adults with an annual household income of $75,000 or more use LinkedIn, compared with just 21% of those living in households with an annual income of less than $30,000. And 35% of online adults who are employed use LinkedIn, compared with 17% of those who are not employed for pay.

31% of internet users (26% of all U.S. adults) use Pinterest

Roughly three-in-ten online Americans (31%) use Pinterest, identical to the 31% who used the platform in 2015.

Continuing a long-standing trend, women use Pinterest at much higher rates than men. Nearly half of online women use the virtual pinboard (45%), more than double the share of online men (17%) who do so.

Frequency of use on social media sites

Facebook remains the most popular social media platform, with its users visiting the site more regularly than users of other social media sites. Roughly three-quarters (76%) of Facebook users report that they visit the site daily (55% visit several times a day, and 22% visit about once per day). This represents a modest but statistically significant increase from the 70% of Facebook users who indicated that they visited the site daily in 2015.

Other than this slight uptick among Facebook users, daily engagement for each of the other major social media platforms is generally similar to Pew Research Center findings from 2015.

Instagram and Twitter occupy the middle tier of social media sites in terms of the share of users who log in daily. Roughly half (51%) of Instagram users access the platform on a daily basis, with 35% saying they do so several times a day. And 42% of Twitter users indicate that they are daily visitors, with 23% saying they visit more than once a day.

A slightly larger share of Americans use Pinterest and LinkedIn than use Twitter, but users of these sites are less likely than Twitter users to check in every day: 25% of Pinterest users and 18% of LinkedIn users are daily visitors.

Using multiple sites: The social media matrix

Social media users continue to use a relatively diverse array of platforms. More than half of online adults (56%) use more than one of the five social media platforms measured in this survey, a share that is statistically unchanged from the 52% who did so in 2014.

As the most-used social media site, Facebook continues to be the starting platform for most social media users. Among those who only use one social media platform, 88% indicate that Facebook is the one site that they use. Moreover, the vast majority of those who use other social media sites also use Facebook. For instance, 93% of Twitter users also use Facebook – as do 95% of Instagram users and 92% of Pinterest users.

Outside of Facebook, other sites’ users show high levels of reciprocity. For instance, 65% of those with a Twitter account also use Instagram, while 49% of Instagram users also have Twitter. Similarly, 54% of those who use Instagram also use Pinterest and 57% of Pinterest users are also on Instagram.

Messaging apps

Social media sites are not the only venue where people can connect with others online. Today smartphone owners (at the time of this survey, 72% of American adults) can choose from a variety of messaging apps that fill many of the same functions. Some of these apps look and function like a traditional chat or messaging service, while others offer unique features – such as the ability to post anonymously, or to have one’s posts expire or delete themselves after they are viewed.

This survey asked about three different types of messaging apps that people might have on their smartphones and found that:

• 29% of smartphone owners use general-purpose messaging apps such as WhatsApp or Kik. Due to a change in how this question was asked, this figure is not directly comparable to a previous measure collected in 2015.2
• 24% use messaging apps that automatically delete sent messages, such as Snapchat or Wickr. This represents a 7-point increase from a survey conducted in 2015 (at that point 17% of smartphone owners used these apps).
• 5% use apps that allow people to anonymously chat or post comments, such as YikYak or Whisper. This is the first time Pew Research Center has asked about these types of apps.

In general, messaging apps are especially popular among younger smartphone owners. Some 56% of smartphone owners ages 18 to 29 use auto-delete apps, more than four times the share among those 30-49 (13%) and six times the share among those 50 or older (9%). Similarly, 42% of smartphone owners ages 18 to 29 use more general messaging apps like WhatsApp or Kik, compared with 19% of smartphone owners ages 50 or older.