A new trend has emerged on social media the past few years. Athletes and celebrities have not only grown increasingly savvy about how to leverage Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, etc. to build their following and refine their brand; they’ve figured out how to monetize their presence.
HopperHQ, Instagram’s internal scheduling tool, released a top 10 “Rich List” on Monday, which compiles the people whose individual posts are worth the most money in terms of paid sponsorship opportunities, based on their number of followers and their overall exposure.
Singer Selena Gomez topped the list with 122 million followers, while basically the rest of the Kardashian clan came in after her, with Cavs superstar LeBron James rounding out the top 10 with 30 million followers. According to their data, a single LeBron post is worth about $120,000. Here’s more from the co-founder of HopperHQ.com, Mike Bandar:
“In the last couple of years influencers and celebrities have really caught on to the fact that endorsing brands on Instagram pays off, and as you can see from our Rich Lists, there is a serious amount of money to be made. However, it is important that Instagram users are aware their favourite celebs and bloggers are being paid to promote products and services so they can understand when they are being sold to as part of content. The recent introduction of the ‘paid partnership’ label will go some way to ensuring there’s more transparency on the platform.”
That last part is certainly the kicker in these scenarios. The company’s internal data recently showed that only a little more than 20 percent of their sponsored posts were clearly identified as paid content, making it easy to mistake a paid celebrity endorsement for a product or a service they are simply personally interested in and have no monetary stake in.
It seems like an astronomical amount for a single tweet, but for companies that have the money to shell out, it’s a tempting proposition to get your product and/or company name out there in front of 30 million or more potential customers.
