Here’s how much brands are paying for celebrity posts

The brand-sponsored, product placement machine may have been churning for over a decade now, but new data released by analytics platform Captiv8 shows just how much celebrity brand endorsements are worth.

As reported on by The Economist, social influencers like artists, fitness and beauty bloggers and even radio personalities can make up to US$300,000 per post, depending on the social media platform and their respective audiences.

Captiv8 notes a celebrity with an average Facebook following of $00K – 500K, earns around US$6,250 ($8,211) for each post. Meanwhile, over on Facebook-owned photo-sharing site Instagram, a celebrity with over 7 million followers earns an average of US$150K ($196.9K) per post.

The social media platform offering the biggest income for influencers is 11-year-old YouTube, with content creators followed by over 7 million earning an average of US$300K ($393K) per post.

YouTube’s recent purchaseofinfluencer marketplace FameBitrecognisedcreators’ reliance on brands to sponsor their careers. In a move to counter the fact YouTube only pays out on a share of ad revenue, the Google-owned video streaming giant is now helping creators, like artists, find suitable brands to sponsor their content.

One industry figure toldTMNa local artist (who will not be named), earns an average of $5,000 – $7,000 per sponsored post on social media. This particular artist has over 230K followers on Facebook and over 270K on Twitter.

Megan Rose, Managing Director of Australian publicity and media relations firm Connect PR, has paired talent with brands like Weet-Bix (Kate Ceberano, Troy Cassar-Daley, Fletcher Pilon), Ambition Entertainment (Robert Rigby), Luckiest Productions (David Campbell) and Enjoy Lighting (The Bachelor Australia).

Speaking to TMN, Rose said there are some best practice guidelines she makes sure her clients are aware of:

“We will always provide a digital brief with must haves i.e. key message, tags etc. and some inspiration,” she said. “But the celebrity needs to own it and do the post in a way that their followers will respond to and feels natural and authentic to them. No scripts!”

Celebrity endorsements are certainly nothing new, and increasingly becoming the best way to reach millennials. Music drives more conversations on Twitter than any other topic, and artists are controlling those conversations.Meanwhile,Snapchat reaches 40% of all US 18-34-year-olds every day.However, the talent aren’talways disclosing the fact they’ve been paid to push the product.

As reported byTMNin August, the Federal Trade Commissionin the US is investigating the practice of product endorsements on social media. It feels consumers should be made aware ofbrand-sponsoredcontent and the popular #sp (sponsored post) disclosure hashtag could go against FTC guidelines.

“If consumers don’t read the words, then there is no effective disclosure,” Michael Ostheimer, staff attorney in the FTC’s Ad Practices Division, toldBloomberg.“Ifyou have seven other hashtags at the end of a tweet and it’s mixed up with all these other things, it’s easy for consumers to skip over that. The real test is, did consumers read it and comprehend it?”

Megan Rose suggests in most cases that celebrities should work with brands they actually believe in.

“There are usually official tags like ‘#s’ in place, indicating there is a commercial arrangement and I do believe most social media users are fairly savvy these days and get it,” Rose told TMN. “I would also suggest that in most cases talent would only promote/work with a brand they genuinely like or see as a good fit with their own personal brand, so therefore I don’t think it’s a major problem.

“A great way to be open about the commercial aspect without the post looking scripted and having a big ‘sponsored post sign’ is to say things like ‘love working with’ or ‘I’ve been working with’, etc.,” she added. “Celebrities need to be respectful to their followers and do it in a way that is true to their own brand.”

As pointed out byThe Economist,since January, more than 200,000 posts per month on Instagram have been tagged with“#ad”,“#sp”or“#sponsored”.