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Roughly one third of U.S. social media users ages 16-34, or 25.5 million people, is a “social creator” or social influencer, according to a new study from Yahoo, Deep Focus, Shareablee and Ipsos, which breaks this huge group down into three sub-groups based on their level of experience and expertise.
Within the total population of social creators identified by Yahoo, 4.6 million or 18% are well-established influencers, termed “socialites” by Yahoo, while 15.5 million or 61% are “rising stars,” and 4.3 million or 17% are “newbies.” Socialites have 1,784 followers on average, while rising stars have 797 and newbies have 1,376.
As Yahoo notes, each influencer tier offers marketers different opportunities and challenges: for example, marketers can “get in on the ground floor” (my phrase) by helping an aspiring influencer build their creative approach to monetization, versus partnering with an established influencer to reach a large, devoted audience, but ceding them creative control as part of the bargain.
In the first group, socialites, 35% have already partnered with a brand online, with 40% of these working with an electronics or wireless tech brand. Overall, 66% of branded posts published by socialites actually featured brand integration. Other popular categories socialites would like to work with include fashion and beauty (33%), entertainment (30%), and travel (20%)....
Here's a look at the young lions of influence. The big question is – are these young social media users really "influencers"?