- Kim Kardashian is one of the most-followed people on Instagram, and her amount of influence there means she’s been able to charge nearly $500,000 for a sponsored post.
- Kardashian revealed this week that she hasn’t posted to social media in real-time since she was robbed in October 2016 in Paris, which made her realize that “people really knew my every move.”
- These comments were made on stage at The New York Times’ DealBook conference, where Kardashian also said that eliminating likes on Instagram would be “really beneficial,” and that “really high up people” at Facebook ask for her opinions on addressing mental health.
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Instagram Stories is a popular feature that everyone from celebrities to your next-door neighbor uses to keep their followers up to date on what they’re doing in that moment, but Kim Kardashian doesn’t use the feature that way.
Kardashian, who has 151 million Instagram followers, spoke onstage Wednesday at The New York Times’ DealBook conference, where she discussed the role social media has played in her life and that of the Kardashian-Jenner empire. During the interview, Kardashian West revealed that since getting robbed at gunpoint in Paris in 2016, she doesn’t post Instagram Stories “in real-time.”
“I learned from a bad experience I had when I was robbed that people really knew my every move,” Kardashian said. “They knew what I had, they knew where I was, what I was doing, and that to me really changed the things that I post.”
Kardashian’s tremendous amount of publicity can come at a cost of personal privacy, which Kardashian experienced first-hand in October 2016. Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint at a rented luxury mansion in Paris, and tied up while robbers stole jewelry reportedly worth up to $11 million.
Since the experience, Kardashian now waits a bit longer to post content after recording it to ensure that people can't use Instagram to essentially track her every move in real-time.
"I still want people to feel like they're on that journey with me," Kardashian said. "But I might video something, then post it 30 minutes later when I've left the location, more for privacy."
In her interview with journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin, Kardashian also revealed that she has been in touch with Instagram and Facebook executives to discuss social networks' impact on users' mental health. The effect of social platforms on mental health has been long discussed, and Instagram has been testing removing the "like" feature from its platform.
Kardashian said that removing likes from Instagram "would be really beneficial for people."
"I personally have received meeting requests and calls from really high up people that want opinions and input on how to try to fix these problems," Kardashian said. "It is something that I worry about all the time for my children and what they see. So I hope that they do make some changes just to make it a more friendly place."
Kardashian is a massively impressive force on Instagram, where she can net up to $500,000 for a single sponsored or branded Instagram post on her account. Kardashian joked on stage about how much influence she has on social media, and how brands are often clamoring to get her endorsement.
"It's kind of this joke that I do," Kardashian said. "If I really want something and I'm a bit lazy, I can tweet, 'I'm craving Oreos right now,' and then on my doorstep, every flavor Oreo would show up."