TYour outfits, holiday photos from all over the world, colorful food: social media is famous for usually only showing the most beautiful sides of life. Becoming so well known through pictures and videos that you can make a living from it is a dream for many younger people today. The market for so-called influencers, as the social media stars are also known, is growing because they have influence and millions of advertising budgets are now migrating to them. No wonder: Influencers present products in their channels, be it on Instagram, Tiktok or YouTube, in such a way that their sometimes hundreds of thousands of followers think that a friend recommended them to them.
The fact that celebrities have an influence on the value of brands has not only been clear since football star Cristiano Ronaldo, who has a reach of 385 million followers, caused the company’s share price to collapse by putting away two Coke bottles at a press conference for the 2021 European Championship. But social media continues to increase influence – and not just that of soccer or movie stars. According to the Influencer Marketing Hub platform, companies worldwide spent 1.6 billion euros on advertising with influencers in 2016, compared to 13.8 billion euros last year. But how does the business work?