by apple tree communications

Influencers

In our last SocialScene on influencers, in Septem-ber 2016, we put a face to these opinion leaders: What are they like? What is it that makes them in-fluential? In this second edition, in addition to up-dating the world ranking, we have also sought to analyse their audiences. What are the people who follow these social network celebrities really like?

METHODOLOGY: For the purpose of this report, only the official channels belonging to individuals on the three main social networks in the western world (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) were analysed.

INFLUENCERS: THE FIGHT FOR FOLLOWERS

THE 25 MOST FOLLOWED PEOPLE THE WORLD

42,74%

19,55%

37,71%

29,39%

33,75%

39,13%

31,54%

29,33%

29,31%

28,07%

26,17%

21,17%

52,66%

42,62%36,86%

243M

long history means its audience has grown to be the largest, although little by little the number of users and frequency of use of other networks, such as Instagram, is gaining ground.

Cristiano Ronaldo

297M

1

Selena Gomez

242M

5

Justin Bieber

273M

2

Taylor Swift

262M

3

Katy Perry

4

Comparing this year with the 2016 listing, we see a lot of the same faces, but in different positions. Top of the list is now footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, while Taylor Swift has dropped to third place, overtaken by Justin Bieber.

Throughout this top 25 ranking we see a small majority of women (64%), mainly from the United States (76%), most of whom are music industry professionals. The major exception is precisely the leader of the group, Cristiano Ronaldo, who differs from the general profile.

Facebook continues to be the platform that concentrates the greatest number of fans, despite not being the newest platform. Its

300M270M240M210M180M150M120M

297.457.128

273.226.950

262.529.496

243.437.886

242.623.976

219.271.744

202.199.918

195.979.042

190.235.446

186.688.487

177.513.509

171.216.706

166.938.076

90M60M30M0MFOLLOWERS

CristianoRonaldo

Ariana Grande

Justin Bieber

Taylor Swift

Katy Perry

KimKardashian

Beyoncé

Neymar Jr.

Leo Messi

Barack Obama

Selena Gomez

Rihanna

Shakira

158.941.060

158.079.790

155.430.960

151.413.828

Dwayne The Rock Johnson

JenniferLópez

Lady Gaga

Miley Ray Cyrus

149.522.247

147.795.046

Ellen DeGeneres

Justin Timberlake

165.022.577

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

147.145.621

145.940.667

142.287.026

DemiLovato

VinDiesel

126.782.361

124.638.747

Eminem

Adele

KylieJenner

21

22

23

24

25

when compared to the rest, since she is considered one of the most opinion leader, though apparently this isn’t reflected on social networks.

In terms of the total number of interactions over all the social networks, results show that TW accumulates the lowest percentage of interaction, compared to IG that is the platform where users most interact with influencers.

We calculated the average interaction that the most recent posts on IG, TW and FB generated for the most-followed influencers in the world in order to learn more about their engagement levels, and this is what we learn’t…

Our conclusions show that the oungest of the Kardashians is the leader in engagement with 2%, despite the fact that her sole occupation is ‘celebrity’, she is positioned above singers, athletes and actors.

A figure that stands out is the low level of interaction that Ellen DeGeneres generates,

WHO ARE THE LEADERS IN TERMS OF ENGAGEMENT?

Nicki Minaj

Source: apple tree communications – proprietary research

REFERENCES:

TwitterFacebook Instagram

2.00%1.60%1.40%1.20%1.00%0.80%

2.00%

1.71%

1.39%

1.38%

1.36%

1.33%

0,94%

0,80%

0,77%

0,76%

0,70%

0,67%

0,55%

0.60%0.40%0.20%0%FOLLOWERS

Kylie Jenner

Vin Diesel

Selena Gómez

Neymar Jr.

Cristiano Ronaldo

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson

Adele

Kim Kardashian

Justin Bieber

Eminem

Barack Obama

Ariana Grande

Demi Lovato

Nicky Minaj

Justin Timberlake

Rihanna

Jennifer Lopez

Shakira

Miley Cyrus

Lady Gaga

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

0,20%

X

X

X

Katy Perry

Ellen Degeneres

Beyoncé

Leo Messi

Taylor Swift

21

22

23

24

25

It should be noted that Taylor Swift and Beyoncé have recently removed all content from their social networks, so we can not calculate their engagement in our sampling. In the case of Leo Messi, the player is the only influencer on the ranking without a TW account, so we can't calculate his engagement using this methodology.

1.80%

0,38%

0,30%

0,26%

0,50%

0,47%

0,42%

0,40%

0,52%

1.38%Kylie

Jenner

2.00%

1

BarackObama

1.36%SelenaGómez

1.71%

2

NeymarJr.

1.39%

3

CristianoRonaldo

4 5

ANATOMY OF THE FOLLOWER

Source: apple tree communications influencers tool

* Source: StatusPeople.com. apple tree communications analysis

As far as the age of the followers goes, the majority of Twitter users that follow celebrities are between 18 and 24 years old, whereas the largest age group on Instagram is slightly older: between 25 and 34 years old.

On a general level, we can see that the majority are women: 62% on Twitter and a 61% on Instagram. Plus, a substantial majority of the audience is, just like the celebrities, American. Cristiano Ronaldo is again the great exception, since his followers are mainly male (59%).

12-17 age

18-24 age

25-34 age

35-49 age

50-64 age

Cristiano Ronaldo

14%

47%

28%

12%

0.40%

41% 59%

WHAT DO THE FOLLOWERS OF THESE CELEBRITIES HAVE IN COMMON?

18%

48%

25%

9%

0.5%

Justin Bieber

10%

43%

31%

14%

1%

Taylor Swift

25%

50%

21%

5%

0.3%

KatyPerry

SelenaGómez

20%

47%

22%

10%

0.50%

MEDIA

17%

47%

25.4%

10%

0.48%

69% 31% 63% 37% 69% 31% 67% 33% 62% 38%

12-17 age

18-24 age

25-34 age

35-49 age

50+ age

Cristiano Ronaldo

32% 68%

Justin Bieber

64% 36%

Taylor Swift

72% 27%

KatyPerry

63% 37%

SelenaGómez

71% 29%

MEDIA

61% 39%

8%

26%

52%

12%

1,40%

9%

44%

39%

5%

4%

9%

38%

45%

6%

1%

4%

32%

52%

11%

0.6%

5%

49%

38%

7%

0.5%

7%

37.8%

45.2%

8.2%

1,52%

ANATOMY OF THE FOLLOWER. FALSE FRIENDS

The number of followers these influencers have is in the millions, but not all of these followers are active on social media. Some followers are not even real accounts, but rather profiles set up ar-tificially. If we analyse in depth the Twitter activity of five of the top influencers, we can see that, for example, 6% of Taylor Swift's followers are fake accounts, more than 5 million! On the other hand, whilst Katy Perry and Justin Bieber, have only 3% of followers who are fake, they both have very inactive communities, with only 9% and 17% active followers respectively.

If we rate these influencers according to their active community, rather than according to the absolute number of followers, Katy Perry would be in third place in this top five ranking, and the queen of the ranking would be Taylor Swift with over 28 million active followers on Twitter, well above the runner-up.

ALL THAT GLITTERS MAY NOT NECESSARILY BE GOLD

12345

Taylor SwiftJustin BieberKaty PerryCristiano RonaldoSelena Gómez

28.184.15616.800.5359.154.6032.797.2882.501.342

85.588.903102.247.668105.178.891

61.567.45953.345.821

ANATOMY OF THE FOLLOWER. ORIGINcountry where he works (a further 1.3 % of his followers being Spanish). His largest audience is from Indonesia (8%), a fact that may be related to the 5% fake followers or the 90% inactive accounts that he has on another of his social channels.

In addition to knowing how active they are on each social network, we wanted to find out where the followers of the Top influencers come from, taking the data from Facebook to discover, for example, that the majority of Cristiano Ronaldo's followers are neither from his country of origin (only 1.3 % of his followers are Portuguese), nor from the

8.0%

12.5%

18.0%

19.0%

15.1%

16.8%

16.6%

10.1%

26.6%

19.9%

6.1%

9.8%

7.7%

5.6%

6.3%

5.1%

7.7%

7.0%

4.1%

5.5%

6.7%

10.3%

9.9%

7.4%

6.5%

5.8%

12.2%

10.0%

7.2%

7.7%

5.4%

5.9%

6.1%

5.5%

5.3%

4.4%

7.2%

5.5%

3.2%

4.2%

4.0%

5.8%

4.6%

4.3%

4.8%

4.1%

3.2%

3.1%

2.9%

3.9%

Cristiano Ronaldo Justin

BieberTaylor Swift

ACTIVE USERS(GOOD)

TOTAL TWITTER FOLLOWERS

KatyPerry

SelenaGómez

5%

90%

5%

3%

80%

17%

6%

61%

33%

3%

88%

9%

5%

90%

5%

JUSTIN Bieber

TAYLOR Sw

ift

KATY Perry

SELENA Góm

ez

CRISTIANO Ronaldo

CRISTIANO Ronaldo

CRISTIANO Ronaldo

ARIANA Grande

SHAKIRA

KIM Kardashian

BEYONCÉ

RHIANNA

REFERENCES:

* Source: StatusPeople.com. apple tree communications analysis

EEUUBrazil México UKPhilipinasIndiaFrance Indonesia

REFERENCIAS:

InactiveFake Good

* Source: StatusPeople.com. apple tree communications analysis

THE EURO-INFLUENCERS

95M

However, if we look exclusively at their European followers only Ed Sheeran remains in a Top 10 that now becomes dominated by professional footballers.

300M270M240M210M180M150M120M

297.457.128

124.638.747

69.150.117

68.189.504

65.149.953

64.749.070

64.059.626

60.749.481

90M60M30M0MFOLLOWERS

CristianoRonaldo

Adele

56.714.981

55.070.881

53.594.317

53.543.333

53.526.537

53.302.145

56.721.677

1

2

Cristiano Ronaldo

297 M

1

David Guetta

84M

5

Adele

124M

2

Emma Watson

101M

3

David Beckham

4

The Americans are the most influential, but what about the influencers in Europe? The ranking of the most followed Europeans in the world changes quite a bit compared to the world rankings. Cristiano Ronaldo alongside singer Adele, are the only two matches with the global Top 25.

While singers (especially women) stand out in the global ranking, in the European listing they share protagonism with footballers (10 and 10 in the Top 25).

In terms of nationalities, the British presence stands out (60% of the Top 25) followed by Spain, which contributes 20% of the celebrities.

49.876.888

44.343.699

36.771.771

34.976.493

33.374.740

101.249.614Emma Watson3

95.072.215

Gareth Bale

Harry Styles

ZaynMalik

Andrés Iniesta

Niall Horan

David Guetta

Enrique Iglesias

Jason Statham

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

David Beckham4

Mesut Özil

Cara Delevigne

Zlatan Ibrahimović

Sergio Ramos

Wayne Rooney

13

14

15

16

17

18

Liam Payne19

Gerard Piqué

Iker Casillas

Ellie Goulding

Daniel Tosh

21

22

23

24

Victoria Beckham25

Louis Tomlinson

20

84.064.598

74.851.130

75.630.317

Ed Sheeran

Source: apple tree communications – propiatory research

Being an influencer does not depend on age, and there are younger and younger people out there who are attracting millions upon millions of followers to their profiles. Largely because there is no one more influential for young people than other young people.

In the United States, most under-age influencers are kids with famous parents: if Beyoncé is your mum or you happened to be born a Kardas-hian, well, you are going to be famous one way or another. Their social network content tends to revolve around their own lifestyle, with which they set trends. Their image is the product they peddle.

In contrast, in the UK the most followed youngsters arise from the platforms themselves: YouTube channels about toys and toy playing (reviews and samples of how someone plays with those objects) or young music stars such as Sophia Grace and Rosie McClelland, two girls that went viral on You-Tube and ended up appearing on the Ellen DeGe-neres show singing with Nicki Minaj. In a very short time they were making their own songs and video clips with thousands of plays. The Justin Bieber phe-nomenon is also a case in point.

"MUM I WANT TO BE AN INFLUENCER"

MattyBRaps8.812.5173.071.730

Evan Tube4.511.863271.207

Willow Smith760.089

2.366.037

Brendan Jordan267.860542.281

Mya64.591

Dream Kardashian55.395

Blue Ivy39.826

North West193.033

Toys and Me 6.227.616

75.872

Sophia Grace2.560.666991.130

Rosie McClelland194.315361.045

Cruz Beckham31.766

827.347

Romeo Beckham743.679

by apple tree communications

The importance of on-line influencers has been increasing hand-in-hand with the reach and the use of social networks. That is why apple tree, for more than 5 years, has been analyzing both the social networks the most influential users on them. This ongoing research has allowed us to develop an area specialized in the detection of real influence, based not only on number of followers, but on the ability of certain individuals to create or detect content with high potential to be shared on social networks.

The importance of these people is increasing and they therefore represent a key element in preparing digital or integrated communication campaigns.

WHAT IS #SOCIALSCENE?It is a report published by apple tree communications that analyses the evolution of social networks.We follow:

"The top 100", Spain and the world's most followed: the "audience leaders".

The brands that lead social networks.

What is being said on social networks.

Developments in social communication.

WE MAKE BRANDS MEANINGFUL TO PEOPLE

We believe in understanding people as the basis for strategic communication. Because only when you truly reach people can you communicate effectively to mo-tivate, mobilize them and, ultimately, sell to them.

appletreecommunications.cominfo@homeatc.com

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