The top 10 categories for sponsored Instagram posts in 2019, 84% of which were made by women influencers

• Female social-media influencers are dominating sponsored content on Instagram.
• In a recent report, Klear, an influencer marketing software platform that connects marketers with influencers, studied over 3 million sponsored Instagram sponsored posts worldwide with "#ad" as a hashtag.
• The company found that in 2019, 84% of sponsored posts on Instagram were created by female influencers.
• While the top category for sponsored Instagram posts was fashion, beauty took the top spot for Instagram Stories, with 25%.
• Sign up for Business Insider's influencer newsletter, Influencer Dashboard, to get more stories like this in your inbox.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Female social-media influencers are dominating sponsored content on Instagram.

In a recent report, Klear, an influencer marketing software platform that connects marketers with influencers, studied over 3 million sponsored Instagram posts worldwide with "#ad" hashtags. The report found that in 2019, 84% of sponsored posts on Instagram were created by female influencers.

The report also found that while fashion had the edge as the top category for sponsored Instagram posts, beauty was No. 1 for Instagram Stories (though fashion was nearly tied). In fact, 25% of all sponsored Stories were related to the beauty industry.

Complimentary Tech Event

Transform talent with learning that works

Capability development is critical for businesses who want to push the envelope of innovation.Discover how business leaders are strategizing around building talent capabilities and empowering employee transformation.Know More

Lifestyle and fashion influencers reign supreme on Instagram

Klear categorized each sponsored feed post by company, and found that the top 10 industries that partnered with influencers in 2019 were:

1. Fashion
2. Travel
3. Fitness
4. Beauty
5. Art
6. Parenting
7. Food
8. Music
9. Interior design
10. Wellness

Fashion influencers like Caitlin Patton, who has 24,800 followers on Instagram, prove that you don't need to be Kylie Jenner famous - with 149 million followers - to earn a couple thousands of dollars from a sponsored post on Instagram.

Patton is considered to be a micro influencer, which the report defines as someone with a fan base of 5,000 to 30,000 followers.

"They tend to produce niche content for a highly engaged audience, at a fairly affordable rate," Klear said.

By promoting fashion and beauty brands to her followers, Patton told Business Insider that Instagram is one of her top sources of income. On average, Patton earns about $1,000 for a campaign on Instagram, she said.

Several Instagram influencers interviewed by Business Insider, like mommy blogger Jehava Brown, have said creators often charge brands about $100 per 10,000 followers for a sponsored post on that platform, though brands are increasingly paying attention to other metrics as well.

The top #ad Instagram Stories are about beauty, fashion, and food

Instagram Stories have risen in prominence this year as a source of sponsorship revenue for influencers and the beauty industry has taken the top position.

Looking at the Instagram Stories in 2019 that included a #ad or that @mention a specific brand, Klear found that the top industries that used Instagram Stories for a sponsorship were:

1. Beauty: 25%
2. Fashion: 24%
3. Food: 19%

With the rise of Stories on Instagram (a feature that allows users to post content that disappears in 24 hours) brands in beauty, fashion, and food are capitalizing on the trend and commonly do so in the form of a "sponsored bundle."

Influencers interviewed by Business Insider said depending on the platforms they use, a sponsorship bundle in an influencer marketing campaign will include multiple elements, like a blog post, Instagram post, and a few Instagram Stories - or a YouTube video mention.

This content is also likely to end up directly on the brand's social media accounts as well, as a way to cut the cost of production. The Klear report found that 69% of brands reuse influencer material.

With this trend, influencers like Patton are learning what to look out for in a contract with a brand and have warned to always check a contract's "usage rights." Signing off on "full usage rights" allows a brand full access to use the material an influencer created for a campaign later on, without compensation.

"At the beginning of your career as an influencer, you'll get a contract, and you'll be so excited that you don't really read the fine print," Patton said. "It's important that people educate themselves. If a brand wants full usage rights they should be willing to pay extra for it."

For more on the economics of an influencer career, according to YouTube and Instagram stars, check out these Business Insider Prime posts:

• A TikTok star with 880,000 followers explains the ways she earns money and how much she makes: 22-year-old college student Salina, known as "Salinakilla" online, began uploading videos to TikTok about four months ago and now has 882,000 followers. She broke down how she earns money through the app.
• How much money a YouTube video with 1 million views makes, according to 4 creators: Business Insider spoke with four YouTube creators - Marina Mogilko, Kevin David, Austen Alexander, and Shelby Church - about how much each of them earned from videos with 1 million views.
• An Instagram influencer with 166,000 followers breaks down how much money she earns from a sponsored post: Katy Bellotte, a YouTube creator and Instagram influencer, broke down how much she earns per sponsored Instagram post.