By Jennifer McShane
20th Dec 2015
20th Dec 2015
The last few years have undoubtedly seen a resurgence in terms of a supermodel frenzy. It was at its peak in the 1990s but waned for a time when actresses were the favoured “go-to” for brands. However, thanks to the advent of social media, times have changed; models are a hot topic once again. Kendall Jenner, Gigi Hadid, Cara Delevigne – whose names are a column regular every other day and who all topped this year’s Tumbler list of the most ‘Reblogged Models’ – are a new breed; a group that has largely amassed their fame and success due to social media. In fact, we’ve seen such a rise in these model’s fortune that US Vogue devoted last year’s September issue to the “Instagirl” – young models with devoted online followers, whose presence on the runway can guarantee news coverage of a fashion event.
Now, startling figures have been released which cement their place in the fashion world. These Insta-famous models probably never have to work another runway for their entire lives – they can almost solely rely on income from brand promotion via their Instagram or Twitter accounts. Just by giving certain models a few thousand “likes,” you’re potentially helping them rake in six-figure sums. Frank Spadafora, a former casting director and the founder and CEO of an app that ranks the power of models called D’Marie Archive, told CR Fashion Book that “the three most highly ranked supers on social – Kendall Jenner, Cara Delevigne, and Gigi Hadid, in descending order – “‘are currently valued between $125,000 and $300,000 for a single post across their portfolio.'” We can’t even imagine what Jenner earned for having the most popular post on Instagram this year.
@voguemagazine december issue by @mariotestino
A photo posted by Gigi Hadid (@gigihadid) on
Even those with fewer followers are cashing in. “The next tier – very familiar faces like Karlie Kloss, Behati Prinsloo, and Miranda Kerr – can command between $25,000 to $50,000 for a single post across mediums such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram,” Spadafora added. But it isn’t just the earnings that the models get from social media. Their number of followers plays a huge part in how many bookings they’ll get, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“The more followers a model has, the more they can be appealing to certain clients,” Micki Schneider, a senior booker added. “And we encourage the girls and are very mindful, as they create their own brands and become more mainstream, to be as authentic as possible.”
“In fact, social media presence has become such an important component of models’ abilities to book jobs that a new analytics and consulting industry is emerging with the purpose of putting a dollar valuation on a model’s social accounts by measuring not only followers but engagement and post frequency.”
This post-in-exchange-for-a-paycheck model has been around for quite a few years now, initially being very popular with bloggers (The Hills star Audrina Patridge even did this to announce her pregnancy), but it is in the last year that this has really extended to the “It Girl” models of the moment.
A photo posted by @karliekloss on
What all this means is that these models don’t even have to get out of bed to earn potentially ridiculous money, so it is doubtful that the “Insta-famous” model is going anywhere fast; if anything, we’ll see more come out of the woodwork in 2016.
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