How to Price our Social Reach
Influencer marketing is an early stage field, so rate data is hard to come by. As influencers, it’s essential to know our worth and how to price our social reach.
Know our worth. Millennials avoid traditional ads like the plague, which is why advertisers are now looking to social media influencers to reach qualified and engaged customers. However, we’re not pricing our value properly. In a recent Forbes article about Influencers upending the traditional advertising model, the
“…top nine influencers at the conference generated more than 227 million impressions of Adobe Summit on social media. In advertising costs, using an eCPM of $20, this exposure would have cost more than $4.6 million.”
And these 9 influencers shared posts on social media
“…at no cost to Adobe.”
What were these influencers thinking? They could have been millionaires by now! Know our worth.
Facts to know:
1. Influencers in general charge $271, on average, to share a sponsored post on Instagram.
2. The average cost for a sponsored post varies significantly by industry. Modeling influencers charge the most $434, on average, per sponsored post. Lifestyle influencers charge the least $172, on average. Modeling influencers also tend to have the largest following 142K, on average, while music influencers tend to have the smallest 26K.
3. Male influencers typically charge more than female influencers, even with the same average following. Male Instagram influencers charge $358, on average, for a sponsored post while female Instagram influencers charge $218, on average.
4. With the right client for our individual niche following, we can generate unparalleled value.
In an influencer marketing group, a client was selling a product with a retail price of $28.
The client disclosed that she paid an influencer $500 for a sponsored post, and made $18K.
Another example here is a client who paid an influencer $700 for a sponsored post, and made $3,600. Yes, we offer incredible value so please don’t sell yourself short!
How to price our social reach?
- Current market price is $10 to reach every 1,000 real followers for your dedicated post pricing. This is the standard pricing model we’ve seen listed on media kits; however, from rate data below, we often charge less.
Audience size seems to be the defining factor of how much we charge per post. Influencers with 100K or more followers charge $763 per post, on average, whereas those with fewer than 1K followers charge $83, on average.
2. A shared sponsored post pricing is usually half the price of a dedicated post. In the below example for someone with 40K followers, a shared sponsor post is $200. A dedicated sponsored post is $400.
3. Don’t say “starting at”. Influencers are often hesitant to put a fixed number up front, so we often say “starting at $xxx” and then provide a custom quote after further discussion — this method sells us short since we’ve just disclosed our bottom line. In our field, clients know they can always negotiate with you and that your number is not fixed. Instead of putting your bottom line $$ on your media kit, we recommend better understanding the market value of your reach and pricing your services accordingly.
4. List different services at different rates and include detail about the service, so clients can choose something within their budget and know exactly what they would receive to make an informed decision. For example, dedicated posts where a client is featured exclusively should cost more than a post featuring several clients.
5. During negotiations, remember less work = less money, and more work = more money. Your client is paying for your value, time, and effort. If your client says on top of the dedicated post, they want you to do an Instagram takeover of their account, be open and ready to negotiate for more money because it is more work and value for the client! Sounds like common sense, but worth iterating because too many of us are doing work without fair compensation.
6. Have a stance on your rate. At this early stage of influencer marketing, you’ll find that influencers are doing the same work for clients at different rates because we simply didn’t have data on how to properly price our service. I have ~90K followers. Using Influencer.co’s rate map, I clicked on the 75K-100K filter, and you’ll see that there is no pricing pattern. Some people at my bracket only get paid $51-$100 for a post, while others with the same following get paid $501–$1000. Know your worth, decide on your price, and stand by it.
Pricing lives in our media kits. If learning about media kits interest you, we dive into 5 Guides for a Kickass Influencer Media Kit in our series about Negotiation Strategies for Sponsored Partnerships.
To my fellow Influencers, if you found this article helpful and want to be a part of our greater conversion, join Influencers’ Alliance.
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