Forbes magazine experts turned their discerning eye to what has been hidden from the public eye until now - the income of the Instagram stars.
Most of them are in no hurry to make their contracts public. However, according to preliminary estimates, the total volume of the advertising market in the Instagram network for the year was about 10 billion rubles, and in the near future it will increase by about a third.
How exactly Forbes counted Instagram bloggers' ad revenue
- First, blogs with a subscriber base of 2 million people and more were selected from the entire Russian segment of Instagram.
- The experts then calculated the number of promotional materials published on these blogs for the period from June 1, 2018 to May 31, 2019. As a result, 32 surnames remained from the entire list.
- By polling representatives of the agencies through which bloggers and advertisers find each other, we managed to lift the veil of secrecy over the contract numbers and estimate how many bloggers earned in a year.
- Forbes experts tried to contact the 15 leaders of the list of the highest paid Instagrammers in Russia and ask them to correct the received numbers.
10. Daria Klyukina
Earned from advertising: 560 thousand dollars
The list of the highest paid bloggers of the Russian Instagram opens the list of Daria Klyukina - the star of the show “Bachelor”. The Siberian beauty advertises only proven products of famous brands - clothes, perfumes, decorative and care cosmetics, as well as various gizmos and beauty devices.
The total number of Daria's subscribers has reached 2.7 million people, which means that the employer will have to fork out at least 100 thousand rubles for one advertising post.
9. Yana Rudkovskaya
Earned from advertising: 560 thousand dollars
Yana's Instagram is not the creation of one person, but a family business. In addition to Yana, her husband, the famous figure skater Evgeni Plushenko, and their child, who, despite their age, already bears an advertising penny to the family, also participate in it.
Yana prefers cosmetics, perfume, accessories; her husband and son specialize, of course, in sportswear. And together the family visits restaurants.
8. Anna Khilkevich
Earned from advertising: 570 thousand dollars
Here is a living example of competent self-promotion on social networks. Khilkevich had only one prominent role in the TV series “Univer. New hostel ", but Anna milked everything out of her.
Basically, the actress is gaining a name and popularity not on the movie screen, but on the Runet. Her Instagram account has 9 million subscribers. For comparison: the already mentioned Klyukina and Rudkovskaya have 2.7 and 2.4 million subscribers, respectively.
7. Khabib Nurmagomedov
Earned from advertising: 570 thousand dollars
Sports passions are not a joke. And money. After the recent scandal, when the mixed-style fighter Khabib got into a fight with Conor McGregor (and not in the ring, but in his spare time), visitors flooded to the athlete's Instagram. Well, how not to start monetizing this?
In addition to Reebok sports goods, Khabib does not shy away from energy drinks and even cryptocurrencies.
6. Elena Temnikova
Earned from advertising: 760 thousand dollars
Temnikova is very similar in profile to Polina Gagarina (5th place of the richest Russian Instagram stars), only her earnings are slightly less.
Elena, like Polina, started at the Star Factory, participated in Eurovision, though not a solo, but as part of the Serebro group. Like Polina, she monetizes her 5.2 million subscribers by advertising expensive accessories (Tiffany prefers), luxury cosmetics and clothes.
5. Polina Gagarina
Earned from advertising: 770 thousand dollars
The Star Factory alumna who won second place at Eurovision in 2015 is now into politics. Gagarin is a confidant of Vladimir Putin and Sergei Sobyanin, a member of the Council for Culture and Arts. And all this without stopping the singer's career!
It's even amazing how, with all these responsibilities, Polina manages to be photographed for another advertising photo on Instagram. She often publishes posts where she looks with a thoughtful look at this or that product - be it sweets, coffee varieties, yoghurts, and so on.
However, Gagarin does not publish advertisements too often - several times a month at most. Such a post costs from 200 thousand rubles per ad.
4. Alan Enileev
Earned from advertising: 850 thousand dollars
The second and only man in the world of the highest paid Russian Instagram accounts became popular thanks to video games. Once he decided to play cars better than anyone else and kept his promise: he became the world champion in the game Need for Speed.
It was Russia's first gold medal in the pioneering esports field. And although it was subsequently decided to remove eSports from the list of Russian sports disciplines, Enileev's merit did not remain without official recognition. At the Sochi Olympics, he carried the Olympic flag, apparently as the personification of the future.
Now Alan collaborates with car magazines, and on his Instagram he reviews cars of this class that an ordinary Russian car enthusiast can only buy in his dreams. Of course, Enileev publishes advertising materials on the same topic.
3. Olga Buzova
Earned from advertising: 860 thousand dollars
The tanned diva is one of the most recognizable public figures in Russia. Spiteful critics enviously call her "the goddess of hype." Buzova - ex-participant of the show "Dom-2", and now a TV presenter, singer, owner of restaurants and jewelry stores. Her songs are heard on the radio, on TV shows with her participation, and news sites like to count how many years Buzova has not had sex (no, this is not a joke).
In the Internet space Olga may not be a goddess, but a very popular person. Her Instagram has over 14 million subscribers. She monetizes them by posting dozens of advertising posts a month. According to preliminary estimates, one post costs customers from 100 thousand rubles.
2. Regina Todorenko
Earned from advertising: 860 thousand dollars
Regina was simply doomed to be popular. First, she is a woman. Yes, there are more successful bloggers in the world of Instagram than bloggers. Possible explanation: women are not shy about posting content that is interesting to both sexes. But men in their blog ignore the interests of the female audience.
Secondly, Regina is a famous TV presenter. This phenomenon has long been known - a crowd of fans and admirers follow their idol wherever they go. Including the vastness of the World Wide Web.
In advertising, Regina (or her customers) prefer to target a female audience. Her Instagram regularly publishes advertising posts of cosmetic firms and companies specializing in children's products.
1. Ksenia Sobchak
Earned advertising: $ 1.6 million
Forbes experts gave the laurels of the most “monetary” Instagram blogger to Ksenia Sobchak. The mayor's daughter, her own among the descendants of the nomenklatura elite of the former USSR, a popular TV presenter, whose fame was fueled by a number of scandals and spicy flirting with the opposition - it would be a sin not to become an Internet star with such baggage behind her shoulders.
And why not translate fame into a number of nicely crisp pieces of paper? Here Ksenia is trying to publish, according to estimates of Forbes, several custom posts a week.
Sobchak prefers status advertising, telling subscribers about the benefits of clothes from Dior and Bosco, driving an Audi and Beluga vodka.