Who Runs The (Advertising) World? Girls

In a culture infiltrated by social media, companies have quickly figured out that the most lucrative approach to advertising is to join forces with digital media’s biggest stars. Leading the pack of social influencers with the greatest leverage — considering audience size, target market, and brand identity — are some of the most recognizable young female celebrities in Hollywood.

The two youngest members of the Kardashian empire, Kendall and Kylie Jenner, are, surprisingly, in the latter end of the top six social influencers, according to D’Marie Analytics. Kendall Jenner has curated an audience on her rise to dominating the runway and fashion spreads for some of the industry’s biggest brands including Balmain, Victoria’s Secret, Dolce & Gabbana, Estée Lauder and more. She also teamed up with sister Kylie to launch their self-named clothing line in partnership with PacSun, which is now also independently sold in a number of clothing stores. Kylie has also gone on to leave her imprint on the beauty industry with trademarked hair extensions and Lipkits by Kylie, which continuously sell out upon re-release.

Also among the Jenner sisters as social media’s top influencers are pop stars Rihanna, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, and leading the pack, Selena Gomez. According to D’Marie, a social media post by Gomez, 23, which travels across major traffic aggregators Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, is valued around $550,000. If you take a look at the pop star’s social platforms, the brands forking up that kind of dough are at the top of their industries. Pantene and Coca-Cola are just two of the major endorsement deals Selena Gomez has landed over the past couple years.

D’Marie Analytics CEO Frank Spadafora explained what the breakdown of that $550,000 price tag looks like, saying:

“The rate-per-post is her 'ad equivalent' value per post across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This may be different than how much she is actually getting paid when participating in social media campaigns. That is up to negotiations between her agents and the brands. This valuation is based on D'Marie's algorithm which measures 56 metrics including followers, post frequency, engagement, quality of post, click-thru and potential to create sales conversions from her social content.”

In addition to celebrity endorsements, companies are turning to the ever-growing blogger demographic within the Millennial generation, predominantly female, to promote their brands. The advantage to this strategy is in the reach. Foodies follow food bloggers; the fashion-obsessed follow fashion bloggers; exercise enthusiasts follow exercise bloggers, and so on. You don’t get more niche than that.

In the case of female celebrity influencers, look no further than their respective followings to understand exactly how this money-making cycle works. According to D’Marie, Selena Gomez’s audience on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram grows by approximately 200,000 followers per day. One paid promotional post on the singer’s Instagram alone will reach nearly 90 million fans across the world.

While it may make many seethe with jealousy to think of these already rich and famous women raking in even more dough, think of it this way: Their work in social advertising is seriously helping close the pay gap in entertainment. As Forbes points out, the world’s highest-paid actress, Jennifer Lawrence, made $52 million in 12 months, compared to the $80 million banked by Robert Downey Jr., the world’s top-paid actor, in the same time period.

No men crack the top 10 in terms of social influence, according to D’Marie. The first man on the list, Justin Bieber, comes in at a paltry number 11, and is the only male in the top 20.