Yeah I mean,, the influencers are 10x’ing their income. I’d want to swing for a slice of that too
I have just over 100K followers on Instagram. I have never bought followers (just for a reference). My engagement down, but that is a general trend across the platform for a lot of people I think.
I don't think any those women have bought followers from what I've seen. And I'm one of their real followers. It always helps to have someone else filming and editing content for you (I do nearly 100% of my own stuff.....but it's really hard to film your own track workout!). There are certainly "Influencers" that you can tell when they bought followers (just look at some of the accounts that follow them and if they look legit). I've seen accounts with huge following numbers (like near 100K) and then just a few dozen "likes" on an infeed post....those people probably for sure bought followers. Companies will pay big money to do forced/paid advertising on platforms like Facebook or Instagram or Youtube or Tik Tok. Using influencers (or better yet their own sponsored athletes) can be more cost effective marketing. And those social media numbers have big marketing power....as long as they are real people. We're at the point now where the line between an "Influencer" and "Pro Sponsored Athlete" is blurred and more gray than black and white imo. Sure, generally "Influencers" simply aren't very fast or elite in terms of times and performances....but if they are often more "relatable" to the average consumer and target market niche... so they might actually sell more shoes.
For example you can be a super fast "pro", but if you only have 10K Instagram followers....how much "Influence" do you really have for a brand's bottom line? Those who are fast can certainly build a social media following and gain influence from top race performances and times, but they have to be active on social media! From what I've seen and experienced it's still kind of the Wild West out there with paid social media gigs, brand sponsorship and valuations.