How Influencers Got Swallowed by the Talent Management Machine
A new wave of agents is cashing in on social media influencers — with strings attached
Becoming a social media influencer might be a lucrative career option for some people today, with consumer brands growing ever more reliant on influencer marketing. Until around 2012, however, most influencers were just creating content for their websites and social media as a hobby. Any income it did generate simply supplemented earnings from another, more traditional career.
While these early influencers were not driven by money enough to convert their popularity into paychecks, there were people observing their rise and what this could potentially mean for brands. These individuals became the first wave of influencer managers — a resilient bunch of rough-and-ready opportunists, keen to turn extraordinary video views and subscriber numbers into the linchpins of persuasive pitches for sponsorship deals. They saw influencers’ stories as commodities they could leverage based on the fact that there was such evident demand for them and they were more akin to salespeople than talent managers.
In fact, these early industry-makers still hold this position and aggressively protect the worth of what their clients are selling. One influencer manager —…
