The Social List

MoneyHub's Historic Instagram Study Reveals New Zealand's Top Social Media Influencers

Updated 20 July 2024

Important: This is the first and final version of this guide. We will not be re-testing influencer data due to negative responses from a minority of Instagram-account owners/influencers. While our research is robust and based on publicly available hard data, influencing is a delicate subject for those who earn a living from it, and we don't wish to continue reporting in the area.

Instagram Influencing Summary

Influencing for brands is not a proven strategy, nor does it follow a fool-proof formula that guarantees results.
The effectiveness of any influencer campaign depends on many factors, including the nature of your product, the influencer's audiences' interests, the quality and originality of the post, and many more.
Influencer marketing attracts a lot of media coverage, but measuring a return-on-investment can be almost impossible.
We've put this guide together to help New Zealand businesses navigate social media influencing. Our guide covers:

Social Media Influencing and Our Determination to Understand the Industry

Influencers and social media advertising agencies have been hard at work pushing the benefits of the format for businesses, but calculating advertising spend return-on-investment, in general, is tricky.
In our view, social media does not appear to be a solution for fool-proof marketing spending; it remains an evolving niche that offers little insights into its short or long-term effectiveness.
MoneyHub wanted to shed light on the marketing power of a number of ‘influencers’ by drilling down their ‘like’ rate as a percentage of their followers. While our study was limited in the number of influencers it analysed, the results demonstrated a significant range in engagement between different accounts.

Our Research Investigated 'Likes' as a Percentage of Followers

Currently, there are a range of metrics to measure Instagram traction; we believe that analysing the 'likes' received over three months for every post from an individual account is an accurate measure of social media power.
Quite simply, we believe that the higher the number of likes, the more engagement social media accounts have with their followers and the general public. For an advertiser looking to invest in placing sponsored content, the industry equates more likes to greater trust and influence, which will convert to sales and / or brand awareness.
We selected a list of more than 40 influencers based on brand associations, media coverage and for some, a history of sponsored or collaborative posts.

Our Findings

While popularity is subjective, the evidence on our small sample size of around 40 Kiwi influencers showed that Hollywood presence correlated to Instagram engagement, with KJ Apa and Taika Waititi recording the highest engagement.

Our Observations

While it is arguable that 25,000 likes on a post is more ‘Influencing’ than a post with 4,000 likes, the quality of the engagement can be deduced by looking at the total number of followers as a benchmark. A business is paying for results when using social media influencers, so we believe the percentage engagement on posts gives the best indicator.
MoneyHub did notice a trend that ‘less is more’ – those posting less than 20 times over the three months had a higher engagement rate than those posting 50+ times.
With the 'like' button indiscriminately clicked, we believe our dataset is an accurate reflection of how users, real or not, engage with each ‘influencer’ based on our analysis of over one thousand Instagram posts. MoneyHub wanted to bring transparency in this new, somewhat untested and unvalidated form of marketing spend.
While big business can afford to lose money on a few unquantifiable sponsored posts pushing a cola or hair product, not every business could. We believe our hard-working community of startups and small businesses need to challenge the return on investment before being sold on social media influencer spending.

First Steps - What is an 'Influencer'?

An influencer, as defined by social media marketing agency The Social Shop, is "an individual who has the power to impact purchase decisions of others because of their authority, knowledge, position or relationship with their (genuine) audience on social media". If you can't quantify much of that into sales and dollars, you are not alone.

Our list of New Zealand influencers includes the following categories:

Celebrities - celebrity endorsement is global; social media is another way established celebrities push products to their followers.
Bloggers and micro-influencers - this is perhaps the most common type of influencer; someone with an Instagram account specialising in a niche such as fashion, hair/makeup, dining/food or a particular sport. The influencer usually has authority over the area they specialise in.
Experts - experts are qualified specialists in their field, who hope to influence their followers based on their reputation and established trust.

The State and Cost of Influencing in New Zealand

The power and influence of New Zealand’s Instagramming celebrities range from zero to something, but we don’t know quite what that something is. Some Kiwi celebrities have billboards promoting international brands in New York, London and Tokyo. Others have global TV campaigns. And on the other end of the spectrum there are celebrities who get a free Uber ride, some biscuits in the mail, free use of a branded car or an invite to a baby seat launch party. All understand the obligation to whip up an appreciative post even if it’s known in advance that followers won’t engage, or even care.
In many cases, Instagram posts that were probably paid promotions did not specify that they were paid.
We cited a selection of posts enthusiastically announcing a supermarket chain’s conversion to reusable bags, discount codes for online retailers and many others which had not been marked as sponsorship, advertising or collaborations despite clearly appearing as such.
Not flagging posts as sponsored could potentially open up influencers to Advertising Standards Authority complaints.

The Cost of Influencing, for Advertisers and Influencers

Instagram-focused marketing companies have sprung up in the last couple of years – MoneyHub cited one quote from one well-known specialist agency where $10,000 (+ GST) would buy 7 to 20 total posts from 7 to 14 paid influencers; the variation in posts coming from the quality of influencers a would-be client could choose from.
Instagram influencing is not always up and up to infinity. Our research also showed that over a 28-day period in November, some New Zealand Instagram influencers actually lost followers – in one case as many as 75 a day on average from an already low base to start with. Because of the sensitive nature of this particular statistic, MoneyHub has decided to keep the data confidential.
With Government departments and public money now going to influencers to make regulatory obligations ‘popular’, checks and balances need to be put on the value-for-money from such spend.
With the ‘like’ button being indiscriminately clicked, we believe that any ‘influencer’ who fails to convert at least 3% of their followers into likes is at risk of becoming irrelevant. This is based on accepted industry norms, and we believe even social media advertisers would agree here that anyone below 2% is likely to be irrelevant for advertising purposes.
Every ‘influencer’ has a number of factors affecting their reach and conversion of followers: the time of day, the image, the product, their general popularity, to name a few.
There is a real risk that Insta-saturation could negatively affect brand positioning. Furthermore, a paid promotion on Instagram could be far less effective for converting an individual than if they have seen the same product with a friend or relative.

Our View:

MoneyHub challenges the exact payback for many businesses using social media influencing within New Zealand.
For some, it works well. For many, it doesn’t. We want to make startups and growing businesses aware of this before crucial marketing money is misapplied.
Overseas media is turning against the effectiveness of social media influencers. Vogue Magazine has a negative outlook, claiming "only a handful of influencers—with work validated by the industry and general public—have the potential to trade their likes in for cash".

Social Influencer List

Our methodology:

We analysed all posts from 40+ influencers between 1 August and 31 October 2018, recording their total likes 10 days after each post. We then contrasted this to their total followers at 10 November 2018. This gave us our 'like ratio'.
We removed anyone who posted less then ten times over this period, to ensure accuracy in our data.
Our list of influencers was drawn up based on media reports on influencers and from mid 2019 we will revise this list to widen our research to 100+ influencers.

Assumptions and Limitations

Posts vs Stories - our research measured image posts, because agencies and individuals are using (and charging, or receiving non-financial benefits) posts as the primary medium to exert influence on Instagram. Stories have not been measured, but could be a consideration for further studies.
Instagram fraud does exist - our researchers are aware that this can include, but is not limited to, 'fake' followers and robotic likes. Telltale signs are where post likes exceed a user's followers, time after time, on generic, non-viral posts. While our research didn't detect any unusual outliers, we can't conclude that across our entire results there were not one or more instances of influencer fraud.
Instagram algorithm - Instagram displays the posts on user feeds according to what it believes will be of most interest to the user. This means posts by some influencers will be less viewed, and consequently liked, than others. We believe this use of machine learning to bring the most relevant posts to a user directly affects an individual's ability to influence, and is reflected in our data set.

MoneyHub would like to thank the influencer community in New Zealand for articulating the difficulty in measuring Instagram influencing.

Top 10 ‘Most Influencing’

#	Individual	Average Engagement per Post	Total Posts: 1 August-31 October 2018
1	KJ Apa	12.80%	40
2	Taika Waititi	12.72%	18
3	Kris Fox	11.27%	18
4	Eliza McCartney	8.20%	15
5	David Farrier	7.81%	109
6	Renee Wright	7.11%	34
7	Gemma McCaw	6.92%	28
8	Hannah Laity	6.84%	53
9	Kayla Malvina Cullen	6.46%	13
10	Malakai Fekitoa	6.36%	11

5 Most Prolific Posters 1 August to 31 October 2018

#	Individual	Average Engagement per Post	Total Posts: 1 August-31 October 2018
1	Makaia Carr	1.54%	141
2	Jaime Ridge	1.27%	129
3	Rachel Hunter	1.80%	119
4	David Farrier	7.81%	109
5	Dr Michelle Dickinson Nanogirl	2.66%	105

The Full List

#	Individual	Average Engagement per Post	Total Posts: 1 August-31 October 2018
1	KJ Apa	12.80%	40
2	Taika Waititi	12.72%	18
3	Kris Fox	11.27%	18
4	Eliza McCartney	8.20%	15
5	David Farrier	7.81%	109
6	Renee Wright	7.11%	34
7	Gemma McCaw	6.92%	28
8	Hannah Laity	6.84%	53
9	Kayla Malvina Cullen	6.46%	13
10	Malakai Fekitoa	6.36%	11
11	Brodie Kane	6.36%	33
12	Wilhelmina Shrimpton	6.06%	28
13	Jamie Curry	6.06%	16
14	Max Key	5.54%	25
15	Carmen Huter	4.83%	36
16	Laura McGoldrick	4.79%	17
17	Toni Street	4.66%	50
18	Jimi Jackson	4.49%	58
19	Shaun Johnson	4.22%	12
20	Matilda Rice	3.94%	62
21	Iyia Liu	3.88%	20
22	Art Green	3.79%	42
23	PARRI$	3.56%	51
24	Shavaughn Ruakere	3.37%	30
25	Sam Wallace	2.96%	10
26	Dan Carter	2.86%	44
27	Dr Michelle Dickinson Nanogirl	2.66%	105
28	Joseph Parker	2.45%	23
29	Stan Walker	2.11%	97
30	Nicola Easterby	1.98%	35
31	Rachel Hunter	1.80%	119
32	Colin Mathura Jeffree	1.79%	31
33	Shannon	1.67%	95
34	Makaia Carr	1.54%	141
35	Erin Simpson	1.41%	52
36	Jaime Ridge	1.27%	129

Research and data prepared by Frances Metica during August and November 2018 (contact: [email protected])

Must-Know Social Media Influencer Facts NZ

10 Must-Know Social Media Influencer Facts

The concept of social media influencing seems logical - pay someone with a sizable Instagram following to promote your product or service. But it's not that easy, and the success stories tend to be rare - many campaigns fail to gain traction and induce sales, even worse in some cases they have alienated the influencer's core followers. We've listed must-know facts to make businesses aware of the risks involved with this specialist marketing opportunity.

Being 'authentic' really makes or breaks a promotion, and an influencer

People are buying waist trainers - but it's a fraction of what they sold at their peak in 2016/2017. The reason? People have wised up to the fact that these products, being hawked by influencers, are just paid adverts. Their marketing is not genuine, and users don't trust the Instagram influencer or product because of this.

By law, posts now need to be marked as 'sponsored' or similar

The Advertising Standards Authority published guidance in 2018 concerning the "identification of advertisements", to help those who are offered payment or free samples to promote products to their followers, to understand the obligations on them. As reported by Stuff.co.nz, the note says, where it is not obvious or well understood by the audience that content is an advertisement, all parties to it are responsible for ensuring the audience is aware.

This means influencers have little room to hide a post's nature - any advert will need to be highlighted as an advert. This is a massive roadblock for an influencer to connect with its audience - for them, your product or service is just an advert. It's noise, and will its engagement will be less enthusiastic.

Your product or service may be 'off-brand' to an influencer's audience

If you follow someone on Instagram because they post a lot of healthy eating tips, how would you react to seeing them post about car insurance? What about teeth whitening? These posts are disconnected from their audience, and can harm the business at the subject of the advert. Not only is the advert ineffective, but it also looks insensitive and out of place. It also weakens their trust in the eyes of their followers. Because of this, smart marketers will choose an influencer who is a good match for their product, otherwise it will appear disingenuous.

There is no set price, and you might pay too much for what you get

Influencer marketing is somewhat cloak and dagger. Unlike a magazine rate card or online newspaper CPM, there is no set price and whether or not you're getting value for money is unclear. Are you paying based on follower numbers? Engagement rate? A premium because the influencer has 200,000+ followers? It's just not clear.

The return on investment is near-impossible to measure

Influencer marketing can work, but for your brand, product and/or service, it's unlikely to be money well spent. If it is to work, it needs to be organic, original and meet an undiscovered demand. Beyond our measure of likes, you can also measure clicks and shares. However, what matters are not these metrics, but the ones marketers have been using long before social media first arrived.

What matters is:

Acquisition
Activation
Retention
Revenue
Referral

As an example, if you can convince loyal followers of a food Instagrammer that your company's car insurance, tax return service or tote bags will target and win on all of these five criteria, then you have it made. But the reality is there is a lot more to effective influencer marketing than agreeing on a price and posing for a photo.

Long-term customer relationships are much better than one-off campaigns

Followers respect originality and creativity. If you go with an influencer who has a history of posting lots of adverts, this may not be a good thing. Their followers may be fatigued with the ads, and whatever the influencer's creative difference was to start with, it likely eroded with ad after ad. We believe less is more - if you have an influencer who hasn't advertised, and can create a long-term exclusive relationship, the uptake of your promotion is likely to be higher. A spray-gun approach of spending $10,000 on 8-12 posts from 5-10 influencers, for example, will probably be far less effective.

The most suitable influencer won't always be the one with the largest follower count

Influencers come and go, and while Instagram is here to stay, big doesn't mean best. If you are interested in going ahead with an influencer campaign, we believe it's a good idea to look beyond the agencies. We believe going with an influencer who most people don't know about but bring an engaged following (i.e. 10%+ like rate on posts) is going to beat a big, commercial influencer account. If you're unsure, look at their follower count and their last ten posts, and calculate their following. If they have 10,000 followers and each post gets 1,000 likes on average (10%), that's significantly more engaging than someone with 50,000 followers and an average 500 likes per post (1%).

An influencer campaign needs to be meticulously planned

If you spend $10,000 and get 10-15 posts from a range of influencers all with different interests and follower backgrounds, you will probably not develop a connection to their followers. And for this reason it's fairly likely the uptake and/or sales generation will be minimal. Their efforts may feel like a short puff of smoke that quickly disappears into the sky. If you spend another $10,000, the results may not be too different.

Working smarter makes all the difference
Instead, we believe that working directly and closely and with one influencer offers more value. Firstly, your marketing efforts are targeted and isolated to an influencer who fits in with your interests. They will be able to explain to their followers why they are collaborating and point out some of the unique selling points of your product or service. Best of all, you can use exclusive promotional codes which can measure new sales, as well as invest in a longer relationship. By going direct, you can also save money (no agencies to pay etc.) and have one-on-one communication with an influencer. It's the difference between wasting money on posts that are ads, and investing in an influencer who has an active following that is relevant to your business.

There are a lot of frauds wanting your marketing budget

People buy followers. It's a fact. This cynical Irish send-up points out the fact that there are online services influencers buy which see robots (or similar) 'like' or comment on Instagram posts. You may see an account with 50,000 followers, but it may not have grown for months, or it may even be losing followers. Also, there is no way to know if the followers and/or comments are genuine. An agency may curate a list of influencers for you to chose from, but their followers are unlikely to have any interest in your product or service if it falls outside the focus of the account. In a world where influencers can soar and crash overnight, picking the right influencer to do justice to your spend is notoriously difficult.

Whatever you do, it's highly likely that the results will be disappointing

There is no magic formula with influencer marketing. Even some of the biggest Instagram influencers in the world fail at it. As an example, Zayn Malik, the singer with over 30 million Instagram followers, really only has one or two products to sell - albums and concert tickets. Despite a massive social media following, his 2018 album entered in the UK charts at #64, and the next week was out of the top 100.

An objective business owner or marketing manager could ask - is influencer marketing really going to work, and how long do we need to try it for before we give up? The answer really depends on who your influencer is, what you are selling, and what your expectations are. If every marketing dollar counts and allocating budget to campaigns could make or break your business, it may not be the best idea. The odds of success in influencer marketing are stacked up against you - measurable success is rare, and consumers have become saturated with ads pretending to be posts.