CELEBS MAKE HOW MUCH FROM INSTAGRAM?!
heat investigates how much our fave celebs are raking in thanks to all those ads
Can you imagine how happy you would be if you could pocket thousands from posting a selfie in bed? Well, that’s the jammy deal for a lot of celebrities, thanks to the sponsored Instagram post. For popping up a picture of themselves hanging out in their Adidas trackies, these stars are bagging the big bucks.
Mike Bandar, co-founder of Hopperhq, an Instagram scheduling tool, tells us, “In the last couple of years, celebrities have caught on to the fact that endorsing brands on Instagram pays off and, as you can see from our rich list, there is a serious amount of money to be made.”
The rich list reveals the highestpaid stars and influencers of 2017 (see box, right), and it’s Selena Gomez who comes out on top. With over 130million followers on Instagram, the actress/singer has the most-followed account on the platform and can earn more than £400,000 per post. PER POST.
But Kim Kardashian is hot on her heels. Michael Heller, CEO of digital-marketing firm Talent Resources and the man in charge of securing many a Kardashian social-media deal – says that, while Kim tends to stick to endorsing products she has equity in, like Kimojis and KKW Beauty, brands will also pay around £375,000 for access to her 105million followers. Kourtney, Khloé, Kendall and Kylie all made it on to Hopperhq’s rich list, too, racking up over £1million between them for one post each.
In contrast to the Kardashians, our very own reality stars have a smaller budget to work with. Katy Stephens, who manages
Made In Chelsea’s Alex Mytton, exclusively told heat that Alex (who has 437,000 followers) tends to work on campaigns rather than individual posts and that his rates “start at four figures”. Katy tells us, “He’ll do a series of at least three posts, which can include a combination of images, Insta stories and tweets. Instagram remains the most popular.”
While Alex may not be able to keep up with the Kardashians and
their sky-high fees, celebs can still rack up the cash by saturating their feeds with sponsored posts. Like reality star-turnedcountry singer Megan Mckenna who, in the space of just one month, posted a whopping 35 Instagrams relating to 21 different sponsored campaigns.
In fact, social-media brand deals have now become such a profitable business that celebs can count on them to provide a large majority of their income. Busy Philipps, best known for her role in Dawson’s Creek, recently admitted that she earned more money in 2016 from “brand partnerships” than she did in acting roles. She said, “I’m not above it, but I only choose things that I genuinely like and would want to partner with.”
While Busy is always careful to label her posts with a telltale #ad #spon #sp #collab #partnership to suggest it was paid for (as per official guidelines ) some celebrities aren’t quite as transparent. A recent report by marketing firm Mediakix investigated how many ads were posted by the top 50 celebrity and influencer Instagram accounts over four weeks. Of the 152 ads posted, only nine were compliant with the rules. That’s 93 per cent of posts by celebs like Justin Bieber, Gigi Hadid and Katy Perry failing to let us know they are getting richer from the stuff we scroll through.
So, the next time you’re rushing out to buy that amazing tooth-whitening kit you’ve seen all those celebs babbling on about, you might think twice about how many thousands of pounds they’ve pocketed to tell you about their pearly whites…
‘Of the 152 ads posted, only nine complied with the rules’