The Evolution of the Influencer

The influencer marketing industry will be worth $15 billion by 2022, up from $8 billion in 2019, and that growth is powered by the long tail of influencers.

Companies like Glossier and FabFitFun have built huge businesses by leveraging microinfluencers and user-generated content. In an interview with Kara Swisher, Glossier’s Emily Weiss said, “Every single person is an influencer.”

An influencer is someone who moves culture and changes consumer behavior by sharing content on the Internet.

The Internet enabled unprecedented access to celebrities, and the celebrities who have done best on social media are those who have leaned into this access. Influence is no longer about being an elusive star on the red carpet; influence is about being intimately familiar and relatable.

In 2020, millions of influencers earn a living on social platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok. These influencers are the foundation of the “solopreneur” phenomenon, which is disaggregating work and changing the meaning of a career.

This is one reason I’m bearish on companies like Brud, which are creating virtual influencers (yes, it’s a thing). Gen Z has a strong “authenticity detector” and I’m skeptical that digitally-created influencers will replace real, tangible, relatable people.

OnlyFans elegantly captures all three of these trends. On OnlyFans, anyone can create a paywalled account and set a subscription price—$5/month, $20/month, etc. OnlyFans is known today for pornographic content, but I’m confident it will move beyond porn.

In the Influencer 2.0 era, anyone will be able to launch a brand.

Influencers are the future of discovery-driven, brand-centric commerce. This means that they’re juxtaposed to Amazon and search-driven, brand-agnostic commerce. Picks and shovels like Shopify and Stripe enable influencer commerce.