- With more than 15 million followers on TikTok and a combined 9.2 million Instagram fans, Alan Stokes said he and his twin brother Alex charge a "low five-figure" rate to make sponsored content for brands on social media.
- The Stokes Twins, 23, have worked with major companies like Chipotle, Amazon, Ubisoft, and Crocs.
- The brothers are represented by Amp Studios, a content studio and talent incubator founded by popular YouTube creator and former Vine star Brent Rivera.
- Though they are popular on Instagram and YouTube, they have leaned heavily into TikTok for growth in recent months as the social-video platform has caught fire.
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Alan Stokes and his twin brother Alex first rose to fame on Instagram by adopting a familiar twin trope: posting photos of themselves in matching outfits.
The pair, now 23, have a combined 9.2 million followers across two Instagram accounts. They've consolidated their fan bases into shared "Stokes Twins" accounts on YouTube and TikTok, where they currently have 3.25 million and 15.1 million followers, respectively.
The brothers still make videos wearing the same outfits, but they're now attracting 5-figure sponsorship deals and creating branded content for companies like Chipotle, Ubisoft, and Amazon, Alan said.
In a sign of the times in the influencer world, they are also leaning heavily into TikTok to grow their business.
"Two years ago we didn't know we'd be doing TikTok," Alan told Business Insider. "Our goal is to continue to make videos and expand and grow and see what other cool projects and opportunities we can take on. Pretty much grow as a brand and a business."
The phenomenon of social media "twinfluencers" is well-established, with popular twins like the Dolan brothers leveraging their social media followings to snag sponsorship deals and build direct-to-consumer brands.
The Stokes brothers have focused on growing their audience across key social platforms like YouTube and TikTok, filming videos as a pair and with other creators who work under the same management company, Amp Studios.
Amp Studios, a content studio and talent incubator, was founded two years ago by YouTube creator and former Vine star Brent Rivera. The company represents Rivera, his sister Lexi, the Stokes brothers, and a handful of other young stars who have accumulated millions of followers on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.
"We have a full-fledged content ecosystem where we develop content and creators," said Max Levine, chief operating officer at Amp Studios. "Now we have around nine channels in the studio and we're hitting over one billion views per month."
The Stokes Twins focus on sponsorship deals with large brands
Alan said that he and his brother initially focused on making sponsored content for Instagram posts and Stories and including product integrations in YouTube videos, but that their rapid follower growth on TikTok last year has enabled them to make "a lot of brand deals through TikTok."
The brothers and Amp Studios are able to negotiate "low five-figure deals" for just one to two sponsored posts on their TikTok and Instagram accounts, Alan said. "Sometimes it can be TikTok and Instagram stories as well, but most of the time it's maybe like a [single] TikTok video," he said. Pricing can depend on how organic the post is and how pushy the advertisement can come off, he said.
Levine said the company typically charges a flat rate per post rather than using a cost-per-view model, because views are highly variable. "You don't know if you're going to get 100,000 views or there are literally videos with 100 million views," he said.
The twins haven't made many deals for paid song integrations on TikTok, one of the common ways that TikTok creators earn revenue on the app, because the fees are too low. "There are much lower budgets for music campaigns," Levine said.
"For more popular songs where there's a higher budget and it's more organic, we'll probably consider that offer," Alan said. "We could do a song placement every single day, but we don't want every post to be an ad and we just focus more on the bigger ones."
The brothers are all-in on social media, not Hollywood
While some TikTok stars are looking to turn their social-media fame into acting careers, with some creators even signing up for acting classes, Levine said the Stokes brothers are focused on boosting their audiences on social platforms.
"When a lot of creators reach this inflection point, they want to get into acting or music," Levine said. "Kids are watching YouTube and TikTok now. We want to really double down and triple down on content. We know for a fact [that] we can build a bigger footprint and bigger career," he said. "It might not be a sexy answer, but we've kind of seen it historically work."
For more on how brands and influencers are interacting on TikTok, check out these other Business Insider Prime posts:
- CASE STUDY: TikTok ads have been 300% more efficient than Instagram ones in getting new users for fintech startup Tally: As more adults sign up for TikTok, fintech brands are using influencer videos and its self-serve ad platform to advertise on the platform.
- A milkshake brand blew up on TikTok, and its 460,000 followers have changed how it approaches marketing and its target audience: With 460,000 TikTok followers, the milkshake maker F'real has built a larger following than national brands like Chipotle, Walmart, and Burger King.
- A TikTok photographer explains how he gained 3 million followers in 3 months and was able to quit his job as an insurance actuary: Alexander Stemplewski quit his job to focus on social media and photography. Here are the three ways he plans to earn a living as an influencer.
- How TalentX plans to rule TikTok, starting with 32 influencers and a Los Angeles mansion: TalentX Entertainment is eyeing brand partnerships, merchandising, live events, and television and film development for its roster of TikTok stars.