People are earning $100,000 (£63,000) a month on Instagram. No, this is not an ad-placement for a rip-off scheme. This is how RewardStyle and its liketoknow.it tool -- soon coming to Europe, its founder Amber Venz told the WIRED Retail audience -- is helping content creators monetise their massive social media followings.
By content creators, we're talking about the bloggers that have been wielding more power online than fashion editors, but reaping few of the potential rewards associated with that. We also mean models, actors and any big name celebrity with an Instagram following to match. RewardStyle lets those creators it works with -- all 9,000 of them worldwide -- use its tools to tell consumers exactly where to buy the shoes, clothes, furniture or other product they are featuring. Liketoknow.it allows the public to recieve details on how to buy what's in an Instagram image by 'liking' any one that features the liketoknow.it logo. The creator takes the biggest cut, only paid by the retailer (the more than 4,000 RewardStyle works with) once the purchase has gone through.
Venz, who started out as a blogger herself, depicts an industry of formerly 'inexperienced' content creators that are only now being empowered to transform their following into a profitable business. And it's not just the bloggers that have been looking to RewardStyle, and liketoknow.it. Venz told the story of a young actress who came to the company asking for help with their digital presence. 'She has a million followers, but told me she was losing out on jobs to another actress because they had a larger following.'
Both sides of the industry -- creators and retailers -- have struggled to fairly capitalise upon the burst in product images being published across Pinterest, Instagram and elsewhere. Venz points that brands will pay a celebrity heading to Coachella $100,000 (£63,000) to Instagram a photo of themselves wearing that brand's boots -- with no way of measuring its conversion to sales. 'How do you rationalise that?' RewardStyle does so with its tracking tools, which spread across every platform and pinpoint exactly what's being bought, when, and because of which content creator.
'It's all about solving real problems for real people -- content creators, retailers and consumers.'
No one can argue retailers haven't had a good run of things in comparison to the social media stars of the last five years. RewardStyle wants to create a balance where there is currently none.
'Companies talk about 'free content', but it's user-generated content promoting their products. You're saying this photo has value but you're exploiting it without compensating the creator. The ethical thing to do is compensate them for their work.'
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