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18/06/2013 by
6282 views

How Much Is A Social Media Influencer Worth?

Social media influencers are increasingly used by brands to advertize for products or services. Social media marketing company IZEA has researched the worth of influencer tweets, blogposts, photos, and such.

social media influencers

Influencer marketing has been around for a steady while now. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram: all can offer brands many influencers.

But no one actually knows how much a brand should pay an influencer.

Until now. IZEA, a social media marketing company that connects brands with influencers in multiple countries, has done a study on the current state of social media sponsorship.

The following results were found when marketers were asked how much they would pay an influencer:

social media influencers

According to the report by Social Media Today, there was quite a gap between the thoughts of influencers and the thoughts of marketers:

If you ask an influencer, how much is a sponsored blog post worth? Average answer = $223.31 (vs $112.99 according to marketers). If you ask an influencer, how much is a sponsored tweet worth? Average answer = $178.11 (vs.$55.36 according to marketers).

So how many marketers have actually leveraged influencers for their social media marketing? 55,5% of those surveyed! Which types of sponsorships have they used? Mostly blogposts (54%) and tweets (47,3%). These influencers were mostly compensated with cash (46,4%) or free products (45,9%).

What else was interesting about this report? Well, the things that are seen as most important by marketers when it comes to choosing influencers. Shares and amount of engagement, you say? Think again!

The quality of the content is seen as more important than traffic or followers, which is a good development. The ROI of social media sponsorship was measured mostly by looking at the quality of the uploaded content (50,9%). The amount of shares of the posting is the second most used measurement for ROI (39,5%).

For influencers, quality of the advertiser is most important when deciding who to work for, even more important than the value of the compensation they are receiving.

More results? According to Social Media Today:

This same study found that 61.8% of social media influencers have accepted compensation for sponsored content, while 31.7% would consider it, for an impressive 93% in total!

The issues with disclosures and FTC guidelines were also known and understood by most of the study participants. Only 16,7% of influencers did not apply any form of disclosure, and 38,3% of influencers know about the requirements of the FTC guidelines.

Want to read the whole study? Click the link.

My Opinion
I too have done some work as an influencer on Instagram. Reading about the average amount of money an influencer would receive from a marketer by posting a photo ($69,91) makes me happy to say that I’ve been paid much more!

But all joking aside, it is becoming obvious that influencer marketing keeps getting bigger, and both marketers and influencers are becoming more knowledgeable and professional when it comes to (form of) payment, influencer ROI, and disclosure policies/FTC guidelines.

I think it is important to be transparent to social media users when it comes to using influencers. The fact that according to this study only 16,7% of influencers did not apply any form of disclosure, is a good development.

All in all, this study is a great help for marketers when they start using influencers for their social media efforts.

What About You?
What do you think of this study? Have you paid influencers to advertize for your brand?

About the Author
Marion aan ‘t Goor is a Social Media Consultant at ICON&Co. You can connect with Marion via Twitter and LinkedIn.