It seems natural that we would all want to leave our, stamp, our mark of individuality on this world, whether it be for money, glory, or (one would hope) for genuinely altruistic motivations encompassing the desire to simply make this world a better place for current and future generations. The arrival and ubiquity of what are known as social media influencers force such self-reflection.
It’s hard to believe that it has now been a quarter century since Google was founded in Menlo Park, California (U.S.), thereby establishing what many would consider to be a watershed moment of the inception of the internet as we know it today.
Little did we know that world’s first and most popular search engine, for all practical purposes, would pave the way for what are now known as social media influencers. Before rattling off the movers and shakers of the world today, though, the definition of a social media influencer should be provided.
Obviously, an influencer has managed to establish credibility within a certain niche and utilizes that authority to connect with an audience on a variety of social platforms. And, as the average time in which people have spent glued to their iphones and to social media, in particular, has skyrocketed in recent years, this influence is astonishing indeed.
According to the most recent statistics, almost 4.9 billion people partake in following social media, an almost seven percent increase from last year.
The opportunities are endless for savvy marketers to partner their brands with these influencers. Whether these categories relate to health, social activism, humanitarianism, technology, finance, entrepreneurship, or general content creation, the impact they provide in shaping and manipulating behavior–not to mention their monetary contributions to the world economy–has become profound.
Let’s take a look at some of the most significant social media influencers across the world in 2023.
The top two hits were courtesy of the sports world, which was unsurprisingly within its own realm topped by two of the world’s richest athletes, Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi, the latter of whom has incidentally spurred his new Inter Miami FC club to put its top seats on the market for upwards of an absolutely obscene $100,000 USD. Yes, you saw that right—a hundred grand to watch a ninety-minute soccer game.
On a global basis, Selena Gomez, Justin Bieber, Kylie Jenner, Kim Kardashian, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, and Ariana Grande round out the top ten.
Closer to home, Moroccan celebrity social media influencers at the top of their respective games include Ghita Mizdid (video creator); Oubeid Hlal (artist/cardiologist/comedian); Ihssane Benalluch (winner of Best Arab World Social Media Influencer and Goodwill Ambassador awards); Simo Life (entrepreneur); Amine Raghib (tech blogger); and Adil Taouil (content creator).
We’ve covered the categories of interest, but now it’s time to address volume. The number of followers an influencer has determines this type of categorization. For example, there is the “mega”-influencer (greater than one million followers, and whose services may incur up to a $1 million fee per post upon the request of a partnering company) and the “macro”-influencer (500,000 -1,000,000 followers).
Additionally, “micro”-influencers are everyday, ordinary people with varying degrees of fame who have become known for their knowledge about their particular field of knowledge. Their goal is not necessarily to maximize quantity; but rather, to focus on quality interactive relationships. Typically, they may attract 10,000-50,000 followers. This is where the majority of influencer marketing occurs today.
Finally, the newest category is that of the “nano”-influencer, who commands a relatively small following but is identified as an expert in an obscure or highly specialized niche. Often times, (s)he has fewer than 1,000 followers.
It could easily be concluded that when all is said and done, when the monetary value of all the financial transactions emanating from all of this “influence” is sum totaled, the resulting figure hovers in the trillions of dollars.
A crucial question to ask ourselves, as our society continues to pathologically consume at a record pace despite the constant, dire admonitions of our finite resources, is therefore, should we as a society be concerned about this trend of social media influencers dictating our everyday decision-making?
In a nutshell, yes and no. Clearly, the internet—of which social media is a sub-category here to stay—acts an informational superhighway which informs us and helps us to make rational decisions. Yet, it does not weed out the false claims from the facts, as humans are obviously responsible for educating themselves with reputable sources of such information.
Finally, is not the concept of social media influence, as previously alluded to–simply a large-scale popularity contest rooted in obsession with vanity, a mere macrocosm of cliques (the “jocks,” “nerds,” “burnouts,” “geeks,” “preppies,” etc.) most of us encountered in high school that defined–or at least attempted to define–who we all morphed into today as adults?