Instagram's Influencer Survey Results Reveal How Influencers Get Brand Deals

HypeAuditor surveyed 1200 influencers to find out how much money they earn and how do they get brand deals.

You can see their answers below. Read the article and you will know exactly what activities did Instagram Influencers participate in to gain new followers and grow their accounts faster.

Read our article on the first part of the survey that highlights what Instagram tools influencers use to be more productive.

How many followers do you have on Instagram?

Most influencers (38.44%) who participated in the survey are micro-influencers (5K-20K).
Our recent study The State of Influencer Marketing 2020 showed that micro-influencers are the biggest group of influencers.
They represent 50.5% of all influencers.

How frequently do you post sponsored content for brands on your Instagram?

The majority of influencers post sponsored content a few times a year (35%), 24.9% post sponsored content monthly and 16% have not participated in sponsored activities yet.

Have you worked with the same brand for more than one time?

46.5% of influencers worked with the same brand 2-4 times and 24.1% worked with the same brand more than 5 times 24.10%.

Repeated collaborations show that brands find influencer marketing to be an effective advertising channel.

What kind of sponsored content do you use more often?

25.9% of Influencers use Posts more often, 15.1% use Instagram Stories and 59% of Instagram Influencers use both Posts and Stories as sponsored content. Once thought of as a campaign add-on, Stories are now becoming an integral part of many brands’ marketing campaigns as they can help with creating brand awareness, encouraging engagement, and driving clicks.

How do you get Brand deals?

53.9% of Influencers answered that Brands find them with an advertising offer. 20.8% of Creators search for Brands on their own.

14.2% use Influencer Marketing Platforms.

Have you ever used HypeAuditor’s report when negotiating with Brands?

22.8% of Influencers used HypeAuditor’s Report when negotiating with Brands.

The report contains useful metrics like: Audience Quality Score, Audience by Type (real people, mass followers, suspicious), Engagement Rate and Authentic Engagement.

To get a free Instagram account Report, register at HypeAuditor and connect your Instagram account.

How much do you earn from Brand Deals on average monthly?

67% of Influencers earn from Brand Deals less than 500$ and only 0.8% earn over 10 000$ per month.

What do you think about Hiding likes experiments?

There is an opinion that removing likes can hurt influencers.

Celebrities and influencers benefit from what is referred to as “like momentum,” meaning a user may like their post because they see a high like count and join in.

Getting rid of this mob mentality could reduce the engagement influencers see on their content, thus reducing the amount they can charge brands for promoting their products.

In spite of this opinion, the majority of Instagram Influencers just don’t care – 40.6% of Influencers say that it is all the same to them.

Please note in which activities you participated to grow your account.

Giveaways

The most popular activities to grow followers are Giveaways. 46.5% of Influencers participated in Giveaways.

Instagram Giveaways are limited-time promotions in which brands or influencers promise to give away a product or service to one (or more) lucky entrants according to a specified set of criteria (for example follow the list of accounts).

Giveaways are good to gain new followers fast but those followers generally uninterested in Influencer’s content, don’t engage with Influencer’s post and unfollow the account after Giveaway is finished.

Follow/Unfollow trick

The second place goes to Follow/Unfollow trick with 27.4% of Influencers who tried this trick.

The follow/unfollow method was the most popular trick to gain new followers with very simple mechanics:

  1. An influencer chooses their target audience (using hashtags, geotags or competitor’s account).

  2. The app is starting to follow the targeted audience. And some accounts will follow the influencer back.

  3. As influencer, using the same app, unfollow all new followers after a couple of days. This becomes a cycle.

An unannounced Instagram update in June 2019 rapidly changed the whole industry of Instagram automation. Experts say that Instagram could have changed their limits for actions from one IP. This made follow/unfollow activity more expensive and less effective.

You can read more about the end of Follow/Unfollow trick in our recent study.

Comment Pods

Third place with 24.4% goes to Comment Pods.

Instagram Engagement or Comment Pods are groups of Instagram users that commit to consistently engaging with each other’s content in order to increase impressions and engagement.

To know more about how they affect engagement and sales read our article about Comment Pods.

Instagram Growth Services

16.2% of Instagram Influencers used Instagram growth services.

Instagram growth services are third-party apps that engage from your Instagram account on your behalf. They follow other accounts, comment, and like to boost your account’s presence on the platform. The purpose is to like-follow-comment from your account so others like-follow-comment on your account. Read our article to know how Instagram Growth Services work.

On HypeAuditor's official Instagram page, you will find more insights into various research conducted by the marketing team as well as advice on how to run a fraud-free Instagram account.

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Author
Nick is a marketing and research specialist at HypeAuditor, with a passion for exploring social media trends and uncovering insights to help businesses make informed decisions, recognized by leading publications and events for his expertise in influencer marketing and dedicated to driving innovation in the dynamic world of social media.
Topics:Working with Brands Data-Driven Insights
January 13, 2020
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Author
Nick is a marketing and research specialist at HypeAuditor, with a passion for exploring social media trends and uncovering insights to help businesses make informed decisions, recognized by leading publications and events for his expertise in influencer marketing and dedicated to driving innovation in the dynamic world of social media.
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