The average Internet celeb makes more money from a single social media post than most do in a year

Shawn Knight

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Staff member

One of the things I cherished most about being a youth was the fact that I was oblivious to the world around me and didn’t see the commercialism in everything. These days, it’s even more prevalent thanks to social media, a fact that has forced the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to take action.

Just last month, for example, the FTC settled a complaint with Warner Bros. over promotional tactics involving Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, a video game released in 2014. Specifically, the FTC didn’t approve of Warner Bros. paying influencers (those with large social media followings) to “review” the game and the control they exhibited in those “reviews.”

Deceptive endorsements like these aren’t exactly new. As FTC Ad Practices Division Deputy Michael Ostheimer explained a few weeks ago, they’ve been monitoring deceptive endorsements for decades and outlets like social media are just another vehicle to present them.

While that case has been settled, it brings up some interesting questions regarding influencers and endorsements. For example, just how much money can someone with a large social following make from endorsements? Probably more than you’d imagine.

Captiv8, a company that links brands with influencers, told The New York Times that someone with 50,000 to 500,000 followers can make an average of $2,500 for a YouTube post, $1,000 for a mention on Instagram and $400 for a post on Twitter. A user with three million to seven million followers, however, can command an impressive $187,500 for a YouTube post, $75,000 for an Instagram or Snapchat post and $30,000 for a tweet.

The next time you see a celebrity or influencer posting about a product or service on social media, ask yourself, “Is this a genuine post or are they simply getting paid for this promotion?” Odds are, it's probably the latter.

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Ugh, that is disgusting.

I don't see how this is disgusting. I do, however, see how this is a great opportunity for people to leverage social media for income.

Reminds me of the instagram who*es I see in the gym. Yeah, the camera phone is annoying, but they're making bank on that noise while most are searching for a better way to pay the bills.
 
It's not so much the act of doing so, as commercialism would not function without it, but how people get paid stupid amounts of money for it. Also probably a mix of bitterness and envy for not being famous myself; a combination of genetics, bad timing, and lack of drive is the culprit for that though ha ha ha~
 
Ugh, that is disgusting.

So the celeb will agree to be paid even though they do not use the product. As I see it, this is deceptive advertising. That is the FTCs objection, and, to me it is, at the very least, disgusting.

Why? Because it amounts to selling the product by lying about it. So you might say that just because there are people who knee-jerk buy the product because the celeb promotes it (who does not use the product) are suckers. However, if the celeb was not promoting the product in the first place, the knee-jerker would not buy the product.

If you have to market your product by lying about it, then perhaps you should consider that you should not be marketing your product at all.

But there are some out there that could care less whether they have to lie about their product to sell it. I would not want to be you on the day you meet your maker.
 
Paying people to lie about a game review is illegal. Paying researchers to give a new drug an ok is wrong, but it happens all the time. Why do you think you see those commercials "Did you take effexor? Did you develop procron in your kidneys? Call 1800 the lion will get you the money you deserve!".

Furthermore you have paid reviews on sites lack amazon bumping up those stars. If you read through the 5 star reviews sometimes youll notice 90% of them have the same tempo. They will make claims like "my husband loves the new back massage brace, it feels better then the real thing!"
 
Paying people to lie about a game review is illegal. Paying researchers to give a new drug an ok is wrong, but it happens all the time. Why do you think you see those commercials "Did you take effexor? Did you develop procron in your kidneys? Call 1800 the lion will get you the money you deserve!".

Furthermore you have paid reviews on sites lack amazon bumping up those stars. If you read through the 5 star reviews sometimes youll notice 90% of them have the same tempo. They will make claims like "my husband loves the new back massage brace, it feels better then the real thing!"
One could argue that the reason we see all those "enhancement" ads and ads that make people think they have something wrong with them so that they will then run out and buy the latest miracle drug is because congress authorized prescription drug advertising - in the US at least. There are doctors out there that want that advertising stopped, and I personally agree with stopping it. However, those drug companies have some serious green with which they line the wallets of those in congress. Is it any wonder why some in congress just love big business?
 
Meh Phillip defranco did a while thing on this and its totally misleading.

Change the headline to "the average musician makes 4million a year" and then cite "average" as Tswift and so on.

The AVERAGE person with under 1 million active followers doesn't make nearly that much, it's only "super star celebrities" that make that much.
 
Meh Phillip defranco did a while thing on this and its totally misleading.

Change the headline to "the average musician makes 4million a year" and then cite "average" as Tswift and so on.

The AVERAGE person with under 1 million active followers doesn't make nearly that much, it's only "super star celebrities" that make that much.

This, nobody bothered fact checking. It would be really nice if techspot would dock the pay of anyone who is this wrong.
 
Meh Phillip defranco did a while thing on this and its totally misleading.

Change the headline to "the average musician makes 4million a year" and then cite "average" as Tswift and so on.

The AVERAGE person with under 1 million active followers doesn't make nearly that much, it's only "super star celebrities" that make that much.

This, nobody bothered fact checking. It would be really nice if techspot would dock the pay of anyone who is this wrong.

You're both absolutely right. The headline is complete clickbait.
 
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