Who are today’s most important influencers and what do they know?

Since we entered the digital era – the era of the Internet and social media, artificial intelligence and applications, people who do best in that metaverse influence our business and private lives. A new branch of marketing was born – influencer marketing, and a new type of professionals who “carry” this industry – influencers.

 

“From soup to nuts”

 

We divide influencers according to the number of followers on social media into macro, micro and nano, and according to the topics they deal with, into food influencers, travel influencers, beauty influencers, mom influencers, DIY influencers, etc., although the largest number of them combine several categories, so they are called lifestyle influencers. These are people who at the same time successfully promote hotels, restaurants, food, drinks, clothes, cosmetics, technology… They often have an entire army of followers, and the most successful of them operate globally. Some are most present on Instagram, some on TikTok, You Tube, Facebook or LinkedIn. Their audience ranges from kids to seniors, as do their demographics.

 

The Kardashians know knowledge

 

It is interesting to note that according to foreign and some domestic research, the most influential people on social media are people who, in addition to “influencing”, have some other, more “tangible” profession, so athletes such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar, Messi or Luka Modrić and singers like Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Jennifer Lopez, Selena Gomez, Beyoncé or Severina have an extremely large number of followers.  The Kardashian reality family belongs to a special category, which has as many as 5 representatives in the top 25 of the world’s biggest influencers.

 

If being an influencer was easy, everyone would be one

 

If we concentrate on people whose main profession is “influencing”, Croatian Instagram is dominated by young women, while TikTok, YouTube and LinkedIn are dominated by men. They all have in common that they are extremely active on their channels, through their own content and engagement with followers, often take positions related to social issues and often combine their online business with offline, through the launch of their own brands and appearance in traditional media, such as television. They skillfully handle their public image and enter commercial collaborations while constantly finding ways to remain interesting to their audience.

 

Many brands learn from them and use them more and more in their campaigns, which today are unthinkable without influencer marketing. This is shown by the estimate of the global value of investment in IM of 21.1 billion USD in 2023, which is an increase of 300 % compared to 2019, with a prediction of reaching the value of 200 billion USD by 2032.