How much do social media influencers cost?

Influencer marketing is still on the rise and most people are asking the same question. If you are one of them then don’t worry because we got you covered!

So how much does it really cost, you say?

To be honest, there is no clear answer to this dilemma, but there are guidelines you can follow that most agencies and even influencers use. There are even tools which you can use to determine how much cash to shell out for a particular influencer.

We do know that having a brand and partnering with an influencer can really help boost your audience outreach, gain more brand awareness and can dramatically increase your total revenue. Influential marketing simply removes the traditional marketing ads and instead became a huge contributor when it comes to social media strategies today.

First of all, you have got to consider these factors that will affect the cost of influencer marketing and understanding these guidelines will help you adjust your rates for both you and your preferred influencer.

1. The preferred social media platform
2. Timeline of your campaign
3. Number of followers
4. Brand or product
5. Engagement
6. Direct partnership or agency

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The Preferred Social Media Platform

According to a recent survey from Digiday, rates vary depending on the social media platform you wanted to focus on. So in effect, how much should it cost you per platform?

Instagram: $1,000 per 100,000 followers

According to Chelsea Naftelberg, associate director of content and partnerships for social media agency Attention, estimates how much her team should pay an Instagram influencer based on $1,000 per 100,000 followers

Snapchat: Starting at $500 per campaign in 24 hoursAs per the marketers in the UK they pay more for the Snapchat influencers according to these statistics.

YouTube: Roughly $2,000 per 100,000 followers

For YouTubers with more than 50,000 subscribers, marketers can add roughly $2,000 per 100,000 followers per video, up until around 1 million subscribers, at which point a dedicated video could cost upwards of $25,000-$50,000, according to Langer.

Not all social networks are created equal, so I’ve done a little bit of research to see what is the best platform to deliver your content and passively monetize from it. SproutSocial has rounded up four best platforms for social media influencers:

Facebook: Active user count of 2.2 billion. I’ve checked Quora and somehow stumbled upon this user’s interesting point.

Facebook: you should never pay for a Facebook-only influencer. Facebook is a channel for content amplification — thus it only makes sense to pay an influencer to post on Facebook if you are already paying her for content creation on one of her other channels. Facebook organic reach is notoriously bad, so there really is no value in paying a Facebook influencer no matter how large her reach is — unless you can get permission to boost the content (at which point it’s your own money anyways!)

Instagram: Active user count of 800 millionTwitter: Active user count of 330 million. Another interesting thought about using this platform.

Twitter — forget it, stop, turn around and RUN do not walk away. Twitter is a sinkhole for tossing any marketing dollars, much less influencer marketing. Unless you’re getting a free shoutout on Twitter, don’t even think about spending influencer dollars here.

YouTube: Active user count of 1.5 billion

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Timeline of your Campaign

Which really depends on the time you are willing to spend on your brand, time consumes money so make sure you have enough resources to gas it up and keep it afloat in the social sphere.

• The number of posts you want from the influencer.
• The content you will be using (You or the influencer)
• Influencer cross-posting permission from different social media profiles.
• Will it be a permanent post coming from the influencer or have them take it down once the campaign ends?

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Number of Followers

Always consider the followers when picking an influencer to market your brand. The higher it is, the rate will increase as well. Just look at it this way, more followers means more people the brand could reach and according to a recent article from Digiday “The number of followers is still the gold standard for a social star’s “influence”.

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Brand or Product

One of the key factors you should consider is the value of the product or brand you are trying to advertise. It affects as to how your preferred influencers will promote your brand. How big is the brand you are trying to put out there? Maybe it’s a car or a beverage, but keep in mind that you can’t expect to pay the same value on a very different set of products.

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Engagement

Having true engagers to talk more about your brand should be a package when you consider to hire an influencer to do it for you. It’s easy to buy fake followers, but it’s harder to buy fake engagement out there. If that particular influencer, was able to deliver organic engagement through social media posts then that campaign becomes more effective. The higher the engagement rate an influencer gets, so is the value of your campaign.

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Direct Partnership or Agency

Whether you’re aiming to hire the influencer yourself or have a marketing agency set it up for you is totally your call. There are advantages on both sides, I guess we could say that establishing a partnership yourself may cost less than hiring an agency, but you would have to do all the necessary research and calculate the cost on your own. When on the other hand, if you hire a marketing agency they will give you more options in terms of influencers to contact, marketing advice on how you should go about on your campaign and they will handle the collaboration for you to save you the trouble but all for an extra cost. It really depends on how your brand will benefit in the long run.

You may have an idea now on where to start, but there is no definite answer on how much you’re willing to pay a certain influencer since you have to consider all of these factors. Hopefully, our guidelines will help you out on hiring an influencer to market your brand successfully!

Let us know what you think about our guidelines, have you ever hired a social media influencer? Then please share your thoughts in the comment section below!