Influencer: The term was clearly not born with the advent of social media. No definition of his role. But the power of digital technology has multiplied its influence tenfold and turned the hierarchy on its head. This is the digital translation of Warhol’s quarter of an hour: today anyone can claim this status. For better and for worse. “Influence, which is a healthy and ethical way to change minds,” is never far from being manipulated,” recalls Benjamin Grange, founder and senior partner of Mascaret, the new name of Dentsu Consulting, with whom trials has joined forces to compile this Top 50 Influencers* list, which will be revealed every Friday from this week, domain by domain.
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It is difficult to navigate in this large and heterogeneous population. “If we target accounts with over 5,000 followers, there will be 150,000 influencers in France and over 7 million in the world,” calculates Guillaume Doki-Thonon, founder of specialist agency Reech. So you can’t put everyone in one basket. “Initially, there were candidates for reality shows — dropshipping, product placement — and others, from social media,” says Reuben Cohen, founder of Follow, an agency that runs a talent stable. Then we saw influencers in lifestyle, then, with the advent of new formats, others in travel, cars, food. Finally, experts have arrived, those who spread knowledge.” .
Various sources of income
But the title does not bring a fortune, few manage to live on it. According to an annual study by Reech, 15% do this job full time – not necessarily able to earn a living: 6% content creators earn more 20,000 euros per year. “This is quite comparable to the ecosystem of authors, where many write out of passion and never get published,” analyzes Guillaume Doki-Thonon.
Product placement, advertising, property sales, crowdfunding, and even story monetization (a formula recently tested by Instagram): income sources differ depending on the audience, the pace of publication, the value of each. Politically committed Tatyana Yarzabek, aka Tatyana Ventoz, for example, refuses to resort to product placement: “We are talking about serious, deep topics. It would be incompatible.” She lives off her work thanks to crowdfunding on Tipee, which brings her between 2,000 and 3,000 euros gross per month. Transparency imposes itself as an obligation to its community, whether it be its political commitments or its brand agreements.
Arnaud Gantier, founder of the Stupid Economics YouTube channel, is required to publish his financial results. Romain Filstroff, nicknamed Monte, who popularizes linguistics, also details his income – partnerships, crowdfunding, shop – in the video. “It is forbidden to hide product placement,” emphasizes Reuben Cohen. “Paid partnerships should be clearly identified.”
The ecosystem has been structured at high speed: the biggest influencers use agencies to manage their brand partnerships, some have created their own, like Hugo Travers, founder of YouTube channel HugoDécrypte. “Today, it is not uncommon for an author with only 50,000 subscribers to hire an agent,” says Guillaume Doki-Thonon.
Rich Alternatives to Traditional Media
These content producers use social media codes that are different from those of traditional media: they prefer common, even familiar language, cuts interspersed with clean shots, and film themselves in front of the camera. “All these influencers are just a click away from the mainstream media and not necessarily known to the general public,” notes Benjamin Grange.
Instead, examples of cooperation with traditional media are multiplying. Hugo Travers was a columnist for LCI, then Europe 1. Romain Filstroff collaborates with the Vortex programart. Problems today illuminates this hidden side of information and knowledge transfer. See you this Friday March 25th for our first opinion leaders in the political category.
*Methodology: Results were obtained by listing all mentions of each influencer in public internet spaces (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Dailymotion, LinkedIn, online media, etc.) in the last twelve months in France. No guarantee of completeness can be guaranteed, Challenges has selected 10 influencers in each category of the Mascaret list.