Data gathered by Adobe reveals that the influencer market continues to grow at a breakneck pace, with 165 million new content creators have joined the ranks in just two years.
This brings the current total to a rough estimate of 303 million, although I can’t see numbers getting particularly accurate anytime soon. Influencers inhabit all sorts of platforms, are from a slew of different backgrounds and aren’t always producing content that’s necessarily in English, thus making it hard to keep track of everyone. The Adobe study that we’re delving into, for example, limits itself to the US, the UK, France, Spain, Germany, Australia, Japan, Brazil, and South Korea as markets to be explored. This leaves out a veritable number of influencers that originate from areas such as South Asia or even a large chunk of Europe. There’s also the further consideration that influencers or content creators are defined differently by different individuals or groups. Adobe defines content creators as individuals who engage with creative output (e.g. art, photography, and…NFT making), and then post the results online for others to interact with. Influencers, business owners, and the like are defined as subcategories of content creators.
The research shows that while influencers (creators with online followings of more than 5,000 individuals) only comprise 15% of creators as a whole, over half of them are in the top income bracket; in simpler terms, 51% of this population generates a household income of over USD 100,000. Did you spend thousands of years studying towards a career in medicine, drowning yourself in debt throughout the process? Did you then realize that getting matched to a residency program is in and of itself a massive hassle, and can often render individuals to waiting tables until they get a job? Well, next time you’re imagining all of that, do so while remembering that some kid out there’s earning a livable income and then some through making TikTok videos on their mother’s phone.
Content creators in general, while raking in a decent sum of money, aren’t making enough to survive. While the average influencer has made it, creators as a whole typically rely on social exposure as a secondary form of income, having full-time jobs instead. However, I expect this number to perhaps keep shrinking as time goes by; after all, currently, 23% of the world’s population defines themselves as content creators. I only expect these figures to keep accelerating.
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This brings the current total to a rough estimate of 303 million, although I can’t see numbers getting particularly accurate anytime soon. Influencers inhabit all sorts of platforms, are from a slew of different backgrounds and aren’t always producing content that’s necessarily in English, thus making it hard to keep track of everyone. The Adobe study that we’re delving into, for example, limits itself to the US, the UK, France, Spain, Germany, Australia, Japan, Brazil, and South Korea as markets to be explored. This leaves out a veritable number of influencers that originate from areas such as South Asia or even a large chunk of Europe. There’s also the further consideration that influencers or content creators are defined differently by different individuals or groups. Adobe defines content creators as individuals who engage with creative output (e.g. art, photography, and…NFT making), and then post the results online for others to interact with. Influencers, business owners, and the like are defined as subcategories of content creators.
The research shows that while influencers (creators with online followings of more than 5,000 individuals) only comprise 15% of creators as a whole, over half of them are in the top income bracket; in simpler terms, 51% of this population generates a household income of over USD 100,000. Did you spend thousands of years studying towards a career in medicine, drowning yourself in debt throughout the process? Did you then realize that getting matched to a residency program is in and of itself a massive hassle, and can often render individuals to waiting tables until they get a job? Well, next time you’re imagining all of that, do so while remembering that some kid out there’s earning a livable income and then some through making TikTok videos on their mother’s phone.
Content creators in general, while raking in a decent sum of money, aren’t making enough to survive. While the average influencer has made it, creators as a whole typically rely on social exposure as a secondary form of income, having full-time jobs instead. However, I expect this number to perhaps keep shrinking as time goes by; after all, currently, 23% of the world’s population defines themselves as content creators. I only expect these figures to keep accelerating.
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