How much money influencers make from Instagram Reels

Hi, this is Amanda Perelli coming to your inbox a day early this week. Welcome back to Insider Influencers, our weekly rundown on the influencer and creator economy. Sign up for the newsletter here.

Instagram Reels started as a TikTok copycat but has since become a lucrative feature for some influencers as the company prioritizes it.

“Instagram is really pushing Reels right now,” said Becca Bahrke of the talent-management firm Socialyte.

Still, there isn’t a clear standard for how to price sponsored content on the short-form video feature, industry insiders told my colleague Sydney Bradley.

Many influencers are charging a premium for a video, while others are charging around the same as they do for an in-feed Instagram post.

Sydney dove into how much money Reels are worth. 

Here are a few key factors that impact the rates influencers charge brands:

• How much time it takes for an influencer to script, film, and edit a Reel.

• A creator's engagement rate for Reels vs. an in-feed still image.

• The option to post the Reel as only a Reel and/or as an in-feed video on the creator's main grid. 

One micro influencer with 13,000 Instagram followers said she'd made $300 for her first sponsored Reel.

But others with larger follower counts have made thousands.

Read more about pricing content for Reels here.

How Frito-Lay made a TV commercial remotely during the pandemic by hiring influencers

After many production studios shut down earlier this year, the marketing team at Frito-Lay decided to hire influencers.

The Frito-Lay team hired digital creators with video and photo skills to shoot footage for a 30-second summer TV commercial. 

My colleague Dan Whateley spoke with a Frito-Lay exec who said the commercial actually ended up being more effective than last year's.

Here were a few key points about the process:

• The influencers were already equipped with the gear necessary to create commercial content. 

• The production process took less time - about six weeks.

• The ad was cheaper than a traditional commercial shoot for Frito-Lay and outperformed last year's.

Read more on the production process here. 

A TikTok HR exec explains how to get a job at the tech company

TikTok has emerged this year as one of the most talked-about companies in tech.

And the ByteDance-owned company has tripled its US employee headcount in 2020 despite political turmoil.

Earlier this year, Dan Whateley spoke with the company's head of HR on how to stand out as an applicant.

Here were some takeaways:

• The company is currently running Zoom interviews for prospective candidates.

• Applicants should take the time to explore TikTok's app ahead of an interview.

• Reaching out to current TikTok employees can be a good way to prepare for an interview. 

Learn more about how TikTok has adjusted its hiring process during the pandemic, here.

An Instagram influencer shares the email template she uses to pitch brands and how much she charges 

Gigi Kovach is a part-time influencer balancing a full-time job and two children.

Sydney spoke with Kovach about her rates and the email template she uses to reach out to brands.

Her starting rates include:

• $500: in-feed Instagram post and 5-10 images that the brand can use for their own content.

• Between $75 and $100: three Stories slides. 

• $300: Instagram Reel. 

Kovach's brand partnerships have helped bolster her income this year, she said. 

"Just one or two paid partnerships a month can pay for daycare or pay for a car payment," Kovach said.

Check out a recent email template Kovach used to pitch brands here.

This week from Insider's digital culture team:

How getting 'canceled' can actually prolong a YouTuber's career

For many influencers, getting "canceled" can result in a career boost.

Kat Tenbarge and Madison Hall wrote that despite the negative attention, famous YouTubers likes James Charles have actually benefited from cancel culture.

A data analysis conducted by Insider showed that controversy can help a YouTuber's career. 

For instance, Charles lost 1.7 million subscribers in 2019, the most of any YouTuber in the platform's history.

But he quickly gained those followers back, and today he has 24 million subscribers.

This is part of Insider's "uncancelable" series, which uses data to analyze cancel culture. 

Read more on cancel culture and how some famous YouTubers benefit from it here. 

More from Insider: 

• YouTuber Jake Paul avoided an offer to fight a female UFC champion (Kat Tenbarge)

• A 9-year-old made more than $29 million on YouTube last year (Julie Gerstein) 

• A viral TikTok shows how candy canes are made (Palmer Haasch)

• A man who applied for a position at the FBI lied about running an anti-Semitic Twitter account (Rachel E. Greenspan)

Here's what else we're reading: 

• Meet MrBeast, the North Carolina kid who cracked YouTube's secret code (Lucas Shaw and Mark Bergen, from Bloomberg)

• TikTok star Charli D'Amelio and her family are getting their own show on Hulu (Elaine Low, from Variety)

• Short-form video app Triller will solidify IPO plans before the end of the year (Tatiana Cirisano, from Billboard)

• The 10 highest-paid YouTube stars of 2020 (Madeline Berg and Abram Brown, from Forbes)

Thanks for reading! Send me your tips, comments, or questions: [email protected]

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