A woman who pays Instagrammers and YouTubers for brands like Cosmo and Esquire says influencers can earn anywhere from $500 to $30,000 for a single post
- Brittany Hennessy, senior director of influencer strategy and talent partnerships at Hearst Digital Media, finds social media influencers to promote Hearst's digital brands.
- Hennessy said influencer marketing is projected to be worth $5 billion to $10 billion by 2020.
- She says most influencers make anywhere from $500 to $30,000 for a single Instagram post promoting a brand or product.
Brands are spending more than ever on influencer marketing and it's "only going to get bigger," says Brittany Hennessy, the senior director of influencer strategy and talent partnerships at Hearst Digital Media. Her job is to find and manage social media influencers to promote Hearst's digital brands, including Cosmopolitan, Esquire, and Harper's Bazaar.
Hennessy said the influencer marketing industry is projected to be worth $5 billion to $10 billion by 2020 - and millions of social media users are cashing in.
In her new book, "Influencer: Building Your Personal Brand in the Age of Social Media," she explains how to monetize your personal brand on social media. She says influencers are paid based on followers, engagement (likes and comments), and quality of content.
"You can easily clear half a million dollars [a year]- which I think a lot of the influencers that I work with are clearing that at a minimum," Hennessy said. But to make that kind of money, you need to be a "top" influencer.
"The top influencer has a large following, because you can't even begin to ask for that kind of money unless you have at least half a million followers, probably more like a million," Hennessy said.
People are commonly paid per Instagram post, YouTube video, or tweet promoting a product or brand.
"Per-post influencers can make anywhere from $500 a post, some of them are making $30,000 a post... I think that's really the range you're looking at," she said. And though follower count and engagement are key, they're not the most important details - prices also vary based on quality of content, she said.
"I once paid a dog $32,000 for two Facebook posts, one Instagram post, and one tweet. Probably took his owner all of three minutes to take the photos and write the captions," Hennessy wrote in her book. She also said she once paid an influencer $100,000 to film three YouTube videos of her putting on a specific brand's makeup.
"The best [influencers] are making millions of dollars a year, but they're not always that large," she said.
In her book, Hennessy details the breakdown generally used to determine how much an influencer should be paid for a single Instagram post:
- Between 10,000 and 99,000 followers can expect $250 - $2,000 per Instagram post
- Between 100,000 and 499,000 followers can expect $2,000 - $5,000 per Instagram post
- Between 500,000 and 999,000 followers can expect $5,000 - $10,000 per Instagram post
- Between 1 million-plus followers can expect $7,500 and up per Instagram post