My take...
For most "influencers" it's just a hobby. They just like posting pictures of themselves in cool places. Maybe they have a monetization plan, maybe not. Either way, they make/made their money elsewhere.[0]
For a few, they're the modern equivalent of niche hobby and fashion magazines[1]. They publish some free content on Instagram or Youtube, maybe get some ad revenue, but also publish premium content on a subscription model, or have actual business arrangements with companies. But, they're working hard to do what they do.
EDIT - I didn't really address the original question, which was about one specific woman. I have no idea. I doubt she's being paid by resort owners. Either she has money, friends with money, or she's an escort. Or maybe something else I can't think of.
For certain kinds of influencer that is true. There is a lot more there than just spoiled rich girls trying to get images in resorts with their new Gucci bag.
Plenty of make-up experts, fitness gurus, tech nerds doing CPU unboxing, video game & movie reviewers, political science analysts, etc., that are not focused on flaunting wealth.
I did a study for a Master's degree class on influencers on YT & Insta who only go to spas (like peidcures, massages, etc.), and did ASMRs and Spa reviews -- and just in Asia. While they're reasonably well put together on camera, they're certainly not flaunting great wealth outside of occasionally getting a (fairly cheap) foot massage and cupping treatment -- and, in theory, YT revenue is subsidizing those trips. But some of them get TONS of views and drive actual foot traffic to these locations.
Influencers are businesses, plain and simple. They buy the camera to make a profit.
Compare this to someone like me, who also owns expensive cameras, but I have them to take pictures and show my friends. I plan to make $0 from this endeavor. I'm a consumer, not a business.
what this also reminded me of is a story about "fake influencers" I read which are people on Instagram and so on who pretend to be paid influencers, they go on trips, shoot photos but actually nobody is paying them at all. On the one side, of course, there is a real financial motivation to become more famous, but on the other hand like the entrepreneurs, they just seem to want to consume the influencer lifestyle and for a while just pretend like they're engaging in the actual activity.
I've sort of wondered how this whole influencer thing actually works. There was a girl I ran across on Instagram (friend of a friend) who appears to have no job other than posing in her swimsuit at exotic resorts (sometimes with her boyfriend and sometimes with other women in bathing suits). She only has about 12,000 followers.
Do people pay for her to come to those resorts? Is she just not posting anything about her real life on Instagram to make it look like she doesn't work? Is 12,000 followers really a lot?
Yeah it's a pretty self-absorbed thing to do (and say).
Like, there's no harm if the outcome is mutually beneficial... but you just have to know deep down that posting one picture of a beach out front of a resort for your 2,000 followers to see is not going to generate a worthwhile amount of interest in the resort in reality... But I think most "influencers" are completely deluded anyways, so maybe they really do believe that posting a couple vacation photos is of equivalent worth to the vacation itself...
It's like people who approach photographers and request that they work for free to "build their portfolio".
The luxury product, materialistic worship influencer segment is only a tiny percent of the influencer economy.
For every one influencer posing with a sports car in Dubai, there are a thousand other influencers whose content can be produced at very low cost. Video games, parenting, fitness, beauty/make-up/skincare, cooking, woodworking, gardening, backpacking, dancing, DIY, personal finance, etc all have tons of content creators working from home (or the gym, park, shop, whatever).
I know a woman who started posting videos that were just her holding her cell phone recording a selfie video talking about being a mom. She now has brands paying her tens of thousands of dollars to promote their products, and her videos are still just phone selfies sitting on her couch.
Most influencers can't make a living. There's so many of them that it's a buyer's market.
When I was still selling naughty bikinis online, I did a few promotions with Instagram yoga teachers and I was always surprised by how low their asking prices were.
I guess most of them valued having any success to show for it much higher than being paid a livable wage.
Most people I know who follow "influencers" are blokes who just want to see hot chicks on their Insta feed, or girls with insecurity issues who want to live vicariously through Instagram.
Influencers do work for that certain demographic though, to an extent. Contiki, who offer group travel packages for the 20-something year old market who just want to go on a bar crawl through Europe or Asia, use influencers a lot to sell their product. They're just in the right price bracket where they can say "look, for only $4000, you too can live this kind of lifestyle".
It's the budget-luxury brands that get the best value for money out of influencers. When people splash out a bit of money, they'll look at the successful influencers and say "I want to be like them", and buy the stuff that they're shilling, trying to buy the lifestyle.
Personally, I wouldn't go on a Contiki tour if you paid me, but there are people who enjoy that kind of travel. There are even travel companies that sell packages specifically designed so you can get as much Instagram material as possible, in an attempt to become an influencer yourself. It's a vicious, self feeding cycle.
That’s revenue though, isn’t it? What are influencers’ costs?
I guess living the lifestyle is part of the benefit but the successful influencers I’ve seen often pay production crews, rent luxury products like expensive cars, travel, and just a ton of little things that add up. That’s not including the promotion costs like paying to cross promote with other influencers and other growth hacks.
I suspect it’s more like 1-2% make a significant profit.
Or aims to do it. Most influencers doesn't get a lot of sponsors and therefore can't afford to travel/buy lots of fashion required to maintain the lifestyle influencer audiences wants to see.
It seems to me that the target market of these “influencers” is teens with little to no money that spend hours looking at these “influencers” exactly because these pictures are as close as they’re gonna get to that luxury lifestyle.
People who can actually afford this will just go on holidays by themselves with no thoughts about the “influencers” whatsoever, also because by the time you can afford such lifestyles you widen up to the obvious commercial intents of these influencer “recommendations”, making their “review” purpose moot.
In my social circle people who spend days & nights looking and sharing the influencer pictures can’t actually afford any of that even if they wanted to. Those that can afford it don’t give a damn about the influencers.
When people say “influencer” they’re usually referring to the long-tail of people with 10k+++ followers who don’t really create anything other than a curated snapshot of their life. They’re usually on platforms like Instagram and Twitter where the bar to post content is very low. They make their money by posting sponsored content, because they have no other way of monetizing their audience (they have no skills except for building audiences).
The top 26 list of YouTubers is filled with influential people, and many people would say that they’re influencers, but they’re not typical examples.
I know a handful of "influencers", one a popular bartender at my bar who has something like 400k tiktok subs and I think only in the tens of thousands on IG, another a $cityDateNight type, ala "where to go on dates in $city" with I think 300-400k on Instagram that is run by a couple in their 30s.
I know nothing about this world aside from what I learn from them.
TikTok Bartender said she makes no money on tiktok, but she's recognized all the time. She never says in her tiktoks what bar, or where she lives, but I see people at least once a week pop in and realize it's her and get super excited to meet her. I've never actually asked what she does it for since she doesn't get paid from it, I assume she just likes making skits, teaching bartending and it'll surely help her land gigs if she ever leaves.
$cityDateNight on the other hand, according to TikTok Bartender, makes "a ton of money" from their instagram. I didn't ask for specifics but she emphasized "TON" of money so I'm assuming tens of thousands.. I can't imagine $100k+ but I have no idea.
The genius thing $cityDateNight does aside from that, they go around to different restaurants/bars/clubs/events and get everything for free for advertising the place to their audience. I barely know them but I follow their instagram and they're out running around the city every night.
There's another one that goes to restaurants with poor ratings on Yelp and makes those "You're missing out on this place!! Check it out!!" and a lot of the places are very sub-par and deserve their rating. So we don't trust their reviews at all. They do a great job of making the places look fantastic though so I'm sure they draw in a good crowd to restaurants that need it. No idea how the trade works there.
An ex of mine is a popular skateboarder on ig and gets free skate stuff and sells skate stuff to her crowd but I think it also made her completely addicted to monitoring her social media 24/7. She had a very difficult time putting her phone down no matter what we were doing and her Apple Watch was constantly turning on with notifications. Super frustrating, especially as someone who opens Instagram once a week.
I missed out. I want all of my date nights covered!
For a few, they're the modern equivalent of niche hobby and fashion magazines[1]. They publish some free content on Instagram or Youtube, maybe get some ad revenue, but also publish premium content on a subscription model, or have actual business arrangements with companies. But, they're working hard to do what they do.
EDIT - I didn't really address the original question, which was about one specific woman. I have no idea. I doubt she's being paid by resort owners. Either she has money, friends with money, or she's an escort. Or maybe something else I can't think of.
0 - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4SXMZsFPZMFN5-3UuF-k6w Trent Palmer does a lot of airplane stuff, but earns his living shooting drone footage for movies and commercials.
1 - https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/the-lonely-life-of-a-yac... Alex Jimenez has business relationships with yacht brokers and gets paid to generate content in order to drive clients to lease/buy mega-yachts.
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