The influencer marketing industry is one that is female-dominated. As of March 2020, female influencers made up 84% of the industry, according to a report by Klear. Here at Talking Influence, we admire the hard work that women put into their roles within the influencer marketing industry and believe that today is the perfect time to acknowledge some of these wonderful women.
Introducing five influential women
- Grace Beverley: At just 24 years old, Grace, who started out her career posting health and fitness videos on YouTube and Instagram while studying at Oxford University, is now the CEO of two multi-million-pound businesses. Grace featured in Forbes 30 under 30 list in 2020, recognised for her dedication to her career and her admirable growth.
The latest project that Grace has embarked on, alongside overseeing her businesses, is her first book: ‘Working Hard, Hardly Working: Redefining Productivity in the Modern World’. Grace’s book will be hitting the shelves in April this year.
- Adesuwa Ajayi: In June 2020, Adesuwa created the Instagram account @influencerpaygap in order to raise awareness of the issue regarding the disparity of pay within the influencer marketing industry, focusing on discrimination of gender, race, etc.
Now with 53.5 thousand followers, Adesuwa continues to keep the conversation surrounding the influencer pay gap going. We welcomed Adesuwa to our Influencer Marketing Show 2020, where she gave an extremely interesting talk focusing on creating opportunities for underrepresented talent, empowering creatives as a whole, and advocacy within the industry.
- Munroe Bergdorf: Model-come-activist Munroe, uses her Instagram platform of over 553 thousand followers to raise attention to difficult, yet essential conversations, particularly surrounding transgender rights and racism. Munroe is well known for being vocal on social media, acting as a role model for other trans people like herself, who may have previously been scared to speak out about their experiences.
Her social media platforms create a safe space for her followers, and she is determined to make the world safe for minority groups. Munroe founded a dedicated Instagram page, @goddessplatform, with the sole purpose of celebrating diversity and queer culture, as well as acting as a tool to help trans people raise funds to cover surgery, medical transition, housing costs, and other basic needs.
- Tali Mar: Defying the stereotype that gaming is ‘just for men’ is Talia Mar. Streaming daily on her popular Twitch channel, she is creating a community for avid female gamers.
When Talia isn’t streaming on Twitch, you can find her posting YouTube videos, and sharing her latest outfits and make-up looks with her one million Instagram followers. Talia leveraged her social media following to enable her to launch her music career. She has 109,001 monthly listeners on Spotify, and her latest single, Jack, generated one-hundred thousand Spotify streams in under 24 hours
- Zoe Sugg: Considered as one of the original influencers, Zoe Sugg, often referred to as Zoella online, has turned her brand into a complete business empire. Zoe began posting beauty and lifestyle videos to YouTube in 2009, her original channel now has over 11 million subscribers, and her ‘vlog’ channel, which she still posts on regularly, has 4.8 million subscribers.
‘Zoella’, which started off as a blog, is now headed up by Zoe as editor in chief but also hosts content from a team of content creators who aim to post inspiring lifestyle and beauty content. As well as developing her blog, Zoe has written and published five books, released beauty and homeware products, and won awards such as Radio One’s Teen Award for best British vlogger, and Cosmopolitan’s award for best-established beauty blog. Zoe is well and truly a household name.
These are just a few of the women paving the way in the influencer marketing industry. We believe that it is important to constantly recognise excellent and influential work. Are you a female creator who wants their voice heard? Do you have news to share about excellent female led projects? We would love to hear from you via our Typeform.