
An Instagram star with 2M followers couldn't sell 36 T-shirts - paulpauper
https://www.businessinsider.com/instagrammer-arii-2-million-followers-cannot-sell-36-t-shirts-2019-5
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emsy
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20063667](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20063667)

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derefr
Just because you have followers doesn't mean you have fans.

I follow people that post e.g. cat pictures, but I wouldn't buy their merch. I
don't even know who these people are, really; their posts are a commodity to
me. They're "oh, more cat pictures", not "a new post from [X]!" I found them
through the app's recommendations, hit follow, and then never looked into them
further. Why would I want to buy anything from them?

The edges connecting vertices on social networks have _weights_ , despite the
social networks themselves not modelling this. Some people, despite being very
"connected" in theory, have a very low aggregate weight of connection; all
their connections are barely there.

It's like having a million acquaintances and no friends.

(And, of course, some percentage of the vertices you're connected to might be
deactivated/purchased/bots/etc. But even when that's _not_ true, you still
won't make sales on your "personal brand" to mere acquaintances.)

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askafriend
This is missing the point entirely.

The reason she couldn't sell T-Shirts is because she didn't build a real
audience around her. She likely used bots to boost her followers and raise the
status of her profile without actually building engagement.

People who have built real audiences around themselves using social media are
superstars. Casey Neistat and MKBHD can sell tens of thousands of T-Shirts if
they wanted to.

The only point this makes is that Social Media is a tool. It can be used well
or it can be used poorly.

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derefr
I saw the point you made in your top-level sibling subthread and acknowledged
it in a parenthetical to my post. I was trying to talk about a different
situation, which doesn't necessarily apply _to this specific case_ , but
rather is interesting to consider _in general_ as a response to the question
"why couldn't someone with a million followers on Instagram monetize those
followers?"

Let me reiterate: there are people with a million social-media subscribers of
"real audience", who _still_ could not sell a single T-shirt.
[https://chubbycattumbling.tumblr.com/](https://chubbycattumbling.tumblr.com/)
and whatever the equivalents of such blogs are on Instagram likely have a
million+ subscribers—real people—but also have built _no_ "personal brand",
and therefore would generate no interest in products marketed under said
personal brand.

Casey Neistat and MKBHD aren't superstars because they have millions of
followers. They're superstars because they've been marketing their personal
brands from the beginning, and so every (real) follower they've gained is
_also_ a fan. But this does not apply in every situation.

(It _especially_ doesn't apply to corporate social-media outreach, something
of interest to the HN crowd: just posting cool stuff your startup made might
attract a "real audience" of people who _want that stuff_... but unless you're
branding that stuff as _yours_ when you do that, you won't be able to later
convert that audience _at all_. That should be obvious to someone who's job is
"social-media brand manager"—but it's _not_ obvious to someone who wants to
get rich selling merch to Insta followers.)

~~~
askafriend
Ah, got it. I think we're actually on the same page then!

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superasn
I think the problem with this is the same problem with email marketing. It
doesn't mean that marketing on Instagram doesn't work.

I know people who have thousands of subscribers and can't sell $1000 of stuff
and then there are people with 1000 subscribers that can sell $50k worth with
a single email.

It all comes down to the relationship with your list (I guess in this case
your followers). If your list trusts you and trust is easy to gain by giving a
lot of value + authority, they will buy from you. Think if your best friend
tell you to get "X" and he is an expert too then chances are you will try "X"
even if doesn't make sense at the moment. On the other hand if a random
stranger tells you to do it, you will need a lot of convincing and still
you'll be looking for ulterior motives before making that purchase.

~~~
giancarlostoro
This makes sense. Back in 2010 I had a strong following on Tumblr and I
realized years later I could have easily sold products and made decent cash so
many of my followers had a personal connection with me due to chatting on
different platforms and getting to know me. But I didnt want to "sell out" so
I never shoved ads on my blog or spammed products. That seems to be a thing I
see moreso on YouTube and IG anyway.

Sure some artists would advertise swag they were selling on Tumblr from time
to time but they make awesome art why shouldnt they be allowed to sell swag?
Artists got to eat too.

~~~
superasn
Yes also selling word has aquired a really bad connotation mainly because of
these influencers pushing unnecessary stuff on to their list.

But selling can also be giving your list what they signed up for at a price
that they will not get anywhere else. Which is also very important to keep
niches and not to try and sell dog training videos to a person who signed up
for piano lessons (yes poeple can do that)

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bufferoverflow
Fake followers?

Looking at her account, I don't get why she'd have so many followers. She
isn't good looking, not interesting, her videography and photography is very
average.

~~~
wildrhythms
Or the audience is simply not invested.

Twitch streamers sell merch to a much smaller audience, and probably to the
same group of audience who is also subscribed at $5/month. The audience is
already invested and want to support the content; do Instagram followers feel
like they're supporting the content in the same way? Is a follower count even
a good metric to judge audience captivation?

Maybe this is a wake up call to marketing agencies that influencers aren't
nearly as captive as their follower count suggests.

~~~
orev
But that’s the concept of “influencers” — not to sell things directly, but to
influence an audience for when they actually do buy something. That is what
most advertising aims to do — not to make people get up and go buy the thing
immediately.

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jpmattia
When everyone is an influencer, nobody is.

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rdiddly
A lot of ink spilled over this. I expected schadenfreude but really this is
just a high schooler making her first tentative baby steps into selling stuff
and unsurprisingly failing. My story would've been the same back in the day. A
Telemarketing Powerhouse Who Called 2,000 Homes Couldn't Sell 4 Magazine
Subscriptions. Difference was, I just quietly went back to college, while she
has professional marketers analyzing her every move in Business Insider. I
think maybe fuck the internet? Just not for the same reason I thought.

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cosmodisk
I looked at her account on Instagram.First of all I'm surprised she's got so
many followers,as there's nothing even remotely interesting in her posts.
There's no story I'd follow-in fact there's nothing at all. So no surprise
T-Shirt business was a flop.

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arkitaip
Even at a terrible 0.01% conversion rate she would have sold 200 t-shirts.
0.0018% is a rounding error, the quantity you purchase for QA or for handing
out at a pr event. Small Twitch streamers with a tenth of her audience sell
more t-shirts.

~~~
Mirioron
I think it has to do with the fact that twitch streamers tend to be very
engaged with their fans. Especially small twitch streamers. They're kind of
like "rent-a-friend" except they live based on donations.

~~~
arkitaip
Very true. Twitch streamers have really discovered a profound truth about what
it means to be in entertainment.

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floatingatoll
I’d love to see someone run a perfectly great influencer Instagram where if
you can’t verify a purchase within 28 days you are permanently banned from
following them.

Not because I think this is healthy, but because I think people will complain
loudly and campaign to have them boycotted for demanding proof of their
“influencer” status resulting in money spend.

I think such a thing would shred the influencer concept to bits, and so all
the other influencers would react out of fear for losing access to the
“exposure economy” they leveraged their status to create.

~~~
cududa
They already do this for access to a “private” account.

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octosphere
Looks like the store is temporarily down:

[https://www.erashop.us/](https://www.erashop.us/)

My guess is that not enough build-up, or buzz was created, and the initial
attempt to sell was forced and random. It's an old tactic you see various
startups doing: creating a countdown landing page where the 'mystery' of the
product gets people talking.

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alkibiades
this has been happening a long time in hip hop. there’s people with millions
of real followers on instagram because of their antics. but when their album
comes out they don’t even get 10k sales.

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takanori
What do you think an acceptable conversion rate should be?

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groestl
2000000 × 0.1 (post viewed) × 0.1 (post engaged) × 0.1 (clicked link to shop)
× 0.1 (put shirt in shopping cart) × 0.1 (finished payment process) = 20
shirts sold

math checks out

