It’s no question we live in a world dominated by social media and there are major players that make up that world, so we came up with a list of 25 biggest influencers in social media.
Most days, I love social media, but I definitely would not say I’m obsessed. I know some people that can’t last twenty minutes without checking their social media accounts for updates. Even worse are the people who constantly love to post whatever is on their mind, or need to post five different selfies a day. We get it, you’re into yourself, but not everyone wants a play-by-play of your daily life. I think social media is most useful for keeping up with people you don’t get to see very often or even those distant relatives you wouldn’t know otherwise. Post-college, it’s been great to stay in touch with former classmates who I wasn’t really close with, but you never know when you will run across them again. I’m not much of a poster, aside from the occasional Instagram post, or Snapchat, but some people do post interesting things, which I like.
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According to Statista, 81% of U.S. citizens have a social media profile as of 2017. Recently, Facebook announced that they reached 2 billion users, which is mind-blowing when you think about how the world’s population is 7 billion. But I guess that was always the goal of Facebook, to connect the world, but who knew it would become so massive and change the world? If you are more interested in where the most people are using social media, you should also check our list of 10 countries with the most Facebook Inc (FB), Twitter Inc (TWTR) and Instagram users. Social Media has also become a huge business in itself. Not only are the people who founded the major social media sites, now multi-millionaires and billionaires, others are also making a living solely through social media. From YouTube and video stars to bloggers, people can make more money than the average American in a typical 9 to 5 job just by creating an existence and gaining a following on social media. Now, these people have become influencers, whether in music, comedy, fashion, design or just about any other field you can think of.
In order to create our list of influencers, we dug deep on the internet to see what are the biggest influencers in different niches. Forbes helped us find who are the biggest influencers in Home, Beauty and Fitness categories. For the remaining categories, we used We Build Buzz and Net Imperative. After we collected the information from our sources, we compiled our list by taking the highest rated social media influencers and we came up with our list which consists social media influencers from every category. Keep in mind that we kept our focus mainly on individuals and small groups.
Let’s see if you recognize any of the names on our list of biggest influencers in social media.
25. Gary Vaynerchuk
Gary Vaynerchuk is the CEO of the Vayner Media. He has experience is video blogging, is a desired social media public speaker and he is the co-owner and direction of operations at a wine retail store. Also, he has been named four times as a New York Times bestselling author and internationally recognized as an internet personality.
24. Brian Clark
Brian Clark is the founder as well as the CEO of Copyblogger, Rainmaker Digital, and StudioPress. He has other newsletters like Further and Unemployable which are providing smart strategists for coaches, entrepreneurs, consultants, and freelancers.
23. Ann Handley
Ann Handley is the chief content officer for MarketingProfs and columnist for the Entrepreneur magazine. She is also creating and managing social media content for several other companies and currently, she is one of the people with the biggest influence in the social media.
22. Jay Baer
Jay Baer found his way on our list because he is one of the greatest top-marketing speakers in the world. Jay Baer is also a marketing consultant and the author of the bestselling book titled “Youtillity”.
21. Ted Rubin
Ted Rubin is also among the greatest influencers because he is one of the leading social media strategists. But, despite being one of the best social media strategists, Ted Rubin is also a speaker and a creator of the concept ROR: Return on Relationship.
20. John Lusher
John Lusher can be a little bit of everything, but so is everyone else when it comes to social media. He is a mad scientist and a Twitter expert as well. Despite that, John Lusher is the owner of John Lusher Consulting and he works closely with small and medium businesses in the area of Marketing Strategy and Brand Management.
19. HolaSoyGerman
German Alejandro Garmendia Aranis who is well known for his YouTube channel HolaSoyGerman and JuegaGerman is also a musician, singer, and writer, as well as a comedian. He has been active since 2011 and today he has more than 31.5 million subscribers on HolaSoyGerman. On HolaSoyGerman he even has 17 billion views while on JuegaGerman more than 4.6 billion.
18. Yuya
Mariand Castrejon Castaneda who is known as Yuya is a Mexican vlogger and YouTuber. She is using the name lady16makeup on Youtube and in 2015 she was the highest paid beauty vlogger of the year. In February 2017 her YouTube channel was the 18th most subscribed on YouTube with over 17.5 million subscribers now. Her subscribe rate is growing for about 60,000 new subscribers per week.
17. Dude Perfect
Dude Perfect is American sports group based on YouTube. The group consists of Coby and Cory Cotton, Harrett Hilbert, Tyler Toney and Cody Jones who are former school basketball players and college roommates. Their YouTube channel has more than 18 million subscribers and 2.9 billion views. Dude Perfect’s channel has been active since 2008.
16. ElRubiusOMG
Ruben Doblas Gundersen is a Spanish YouTube personality known as El Rubius or ElRubiusOMG. His channel consists of game plays, vlogs and currently has more than 24 million subscribers and more than 5 billion views. Ruben is the sixth most subscribed person on YouTube and the second in the Spanish language.
15. Cameron Dallas
Cameron Alexander Dallas, next on the list of biggest influencers in social media is an American internet personality, model, singer, and actor. He is known from YouTube and his prominence on the video application Vine. He started vlogging in 2012 and today he is one of the biggest influencers in social media. He even starred in movies such as Expelled and The Outfield. He has more than 5.5 million subscribers on YouTube and 19.4 million followers on Instagram.
14. Jenna Marbles
Jenna Marbles, that ranks 14th on the list of biggest influencers in social media, is an American actress, comedian, vlogger and YouTube personality. Her name is Jenna Nicole Mourey and she has more than 17 million YouTube subscribers and more than 2 billion views. This year she became the 22nd most subscribed channel on YouTube and the second most popular channel by a woman. She started vlogging back in 2009 and today she is one of the biggest influencers on the internet.
13. Grace Bonney
Grace Bonneywith her interiors and DIY blog. She started her blog back in 2004 as an independent designer. Even though there was no Etsy at the time, Grace still managed to surface amongst the greatest influencers. Grace’s blog called Design*Sponge is reaching more than a million readers every month.
12. Elsie Larson
Elsie Larson started blogging three years after Grace Bonney in 2007. She started her blog with the help from her sister Emma Chapman for fun and they turned their A Beautiful Mess blog into a lifestyle company. Currently, they are working on their third book. They parlayed in a photo editing application called A Color Story which now has three million downloads.
11. Kate Albrecht
Once Kate Albrecht, next on our list of biggest influencers in social media started blogging, her blog was all about her online jewelry store. But today, this blog is Kate’s full-time job as she runs the business with her husband Joey Zehr. They have a very popular YouTube Channel where the pair is overseeing a handful of product lines starting from cosmetics to temporary tattoos to lampshades. Back in 2015, Kate and Joey published their first book titled “A Hot Glue Gun Mess”.
10. Paloma Contreras
We are continuing our list of biggest influencers in social media with Paloma Contreras that is based in Houston, Texas and she is an interior designer. She started blogging more than a decade ago and soon enough many magazines took interest in her work and started approaching her. Paloma is the one that did home brands from One Kings Lane to Kitchen Aid. Paloma Contreras’ book is expected to be released somewhere in 2018 as she is getting ready to start licensing in the furnishing space.
9. Zoe Sugg
Zoe Sugg also known online as Zoella started her web to show off her cosmetics purchases from her childhood bedroom. Today, she is 27 years old and she has more than 11.6 million YouTube subscribers and even a best-selling line of beauty products in the United Kingdom at Superdrug. According to Nielsen Bookscan, Zoe’s first novel “Girl Online” broke the first-week sales record. After this huge success, Zoe Sugg wrote two more books.
8. Michelle Phan
It has been a decade after Michelle Phan, next on the list of biggest influencers in social media published her very first YouTube video and today she is one of the biggest influencers in social media. Michelle is the co-founder of subscription cosmetics box Ipsy which back in 2015 was valued of even $500 million. As Michelle Phan’s business was growing she stopped using sponsored content as she learned that the viewers preferred authenticity over ads.
7. Huda Kattan
Huda Kattan is based in Dubai and she is an entrepreneur who started blogging seven years ago in 2010. Before she started blogging she worked in finance which she says made her miserable. Seven years later, Huda and her two sisters created a beauty empire which took over the world with their false lashes. Their eyelashes are favored by the Kardashian family and their line is sold at Sephora.
6. Nikkie de Jager
Dutch makeup artist Nikkie de Jager, that is up next on our list of biggest influencers in social media managed to attract more than 7.6 million followers on Instagram. Nikkie uploaded her first video back in 2008 and this year, in 2017, she debuted a collaboration with Ofra including liquid lipsticks and a highlighter palette she designed. Nikkie said she is all about the glow and it is her existence on YouTube where she has more than 6.6 million subscribers.
5. Kayla Itsines
The Australian Kayla Itsines, the next on our list of biggest influencers in social media is a 25-year-old workout queen. She launched an app called “Sweat With Kayla” and it earned more than $17 million last year. This application is beating its competition on Apple’s iOS and Android’s Google Play by more than 30%. Kayla Itsines has an Instagram account where more than 6.8 million people are following her.
4. Jennifer Selter
Jennifer Selter, that ranks 4th on our list of biggest influencers in social media, based in New York started building her body and her empire in her early teenage years. Jennifer is one of the biggest influencers on Instagram where she has more than 11.2 million followers and she even started her own line of workout gear which is expected to launch this summer.
3. Emily Skye
Up next on the list of biggest influencers in social media is Emily Skye that is an Australian fitness influencer who started growing her social media following from 2011. First, Emily had a Blogspot page where she shared her workouts, meals and her experience in fitness competitions. Today, she has her own online program which includes video tutorials and even an app. This is just one source of income for Emily. She also launched a makeup line and in 2018 she will launch a line of sneakers with Reebok.
2. Michelle Lewin
At the second place on our list of biggest influencers in social media, we have the Michelle Lewin that is based in Venezuela and she has a partnership with health and workout brands which are bringing her income of even $10,000 per one Instagram post. This 31-year old fitness influencer has more than 15 million Instagram followers on two accounts. Michelle has her own line of supplements and a various home workout equipment.
1. PewDiePie
PewDiePie is a Swedish web-based comedian and video producer. He is well known for his Let’s Play commentaries and vlogs on YouTube where he has about 55 million subscribers. At the beginning, PewDiePie used to fund his videos by selling prints of his Photoshop art and working at a hot dog stand. Today he has more than 55 million YouTube subscribers and incredible 15 billion views. With PewDiePie we finished our list of the biggest influencers in social media.