Influencer: the term was obviously not born with the advent of social networks. Nor the definition of its role. But the power of digital technology has increased its reach tenfold and turned hierarchies upside down. Such is the digital translation of the Warholian quarter of an hour: anyone can claim this status today. For better and for worse. “Influence, which is the healthy and ethical way to change opinion”, is never very far from manipulation, recalls Benjamin Grange, founder and senior partner of Mascaret, the new name of Dentsu Consulting, with whom Challenges has joined forces to draw up this list of the 50 best influencers* which it will reveal every Friday from this week, domain by domain.
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Complicated to navigate in this abundant and heterogeneous population. “If we target accounts with more than 5,000 subscribers, there are 150,000 influencers in France and more than 7 million in the world”, calculates Guillaume Doki-Thonon, founder of the specialized agency Reech. All are therefore not to be put in the same basket. “Originally, there were reality TV candidates – who did dropshipping, product placement- and the others, from social networks , says Ruben Cohen, founder of the Follow agency, which manages a stable of talents. Then, we saw lifestyle influencers, then with the arrival of new formats, others on travel, cars, cooking. Finally arrived the experts, those who disseminate knowledge.” The latter generally reject the name of influencer, overused, according to them, because the word can refer to the stars of reality TV who appear regularly in Dubai They rather call themselves “content producers”.
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Various sources of income
But the title does not make the fortune, very few manage to live on it. According to the annual study conducted by Reech15% carry out this job full time – without necessarily being able to earn a living: 6% of content creators earn more than 20,000 euros per year. “It’s quite comparable to the ecosystem of authors, where many write out of passion and are never published”, analyzes Guillaume Doki-Thonon.
Product placement, advertising, sale of objects, crowdfunding and even monetization of stories (formula recently tested by Instagram): the sources of income differ according to the audience, the rhythm of publication, the values of each one. Politically committed, Tatiana Jarzabek, alias Tatiana Ventôse, for example refuses to resort to product placement: “We are talking about serious, deep subjects. That would not be compatible.” She lives from her job thanks to crowdfunding on Tipee, which provides her with between 2,000 and 3,000 euros gross per month. Transparency is an obligation vis-à-vis its community, whether it concerns its political commitments or its agreements with brands.
Arnaud Gantier, the founder of the Stupid Economics channel on YouTube, is obliged to publish his financial results. Romain Filstroff, alias Monté, who popularizes linguistics, also details his income – partnerships, crowdfunding, shop – in video. “It is forbidden to conceal product placement, emphasizes Ruben Cohen. Paid partnerships must be clearly highlighted.”
The ecosystem has been structured at high speed: the biggest influencers go through agencies to manage their partnerships with brands, some have created their own, like Hugo Travers, founder of YouTube channel HugoDecrypte. “Today, it is not uncommon for a creator with only 50,000 subscribers to take on an agent,” says Guillaume Doki-Thonon.
Rich alternatives to traditional media
These content producers use the codes of social networks, different from those of traditional media: they favor a common, even familiar language, an editing punctuated by clean cuts and film themselves in front of the camera. “All these influencers are one click away from the traditional media and are not necessarily known to the general public, observes Benjamin Grange. We thus risk missing out on an alternative wealth of information that is nevertheless very accessible.”
But the examples of collaborations with the traditional media are multiplying. Hugo Travers was a columnist on LCI then Europe 1. Romain Filstroff collaborates with the Vortex program ofArt. Challenges today shines a spotlight on this hidden side of information and the transmission of knowledge. See you this Friday, March 25 for our first top influencers in the political category.
*Methodology: The results were obtained by listing all the 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 Mascaret’s list.
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