Brazil has more influencers on Instagram than residents in Rio de Janeiro

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In recent years, digital influencers have occupied a large space in the public sphere and have multiplied exponentially. On Instagram alone, there are more than 10.5 million content producers in Brazil. This number is larger than the population of the city of Rio de Janeiro, estimated at 6.7 million people.

In the methodology of the 2022 edition of the Nielsen Annual Marketing Report, influencer accounts are considered to have more than a thousand followers or subscribers who “exert influence on digital platforms or on digital audiences.”

For the company, an account with 1,000 to 10,000 followers is considered a nano-influencer – meaning it features local connections and records “high engagement and low cost.” Thanks to these tens of thousands of followers, Brazil is the analyzed country with the largest number of influencers on Instagram.

According to the projections of IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), the capital Rio de Janeiro will have 6,775,561 million inhabitants in 2021. Thus, Brazilian influencers on Instagram correspond to about one and a half inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro.

The United States tops the ranking of countries with the largest number of digital influencers. There, more than 13.5 million content producers are registered on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.

“As the pandemic has led to more traffic on social media platforms, influencers of all sizes are emerging worldwide. The largest share comes from the United States, where most active influencers are found on Instagram, although Brazil tops the list of Instagram influencers with more than 10.5 million producers,” the report states.

The study also shows that female content creators worldwide prefer Instagram and TikTok, while men prefer YouTube.

“In terms of the demographics of their creators, the social media platforms differ significantly. While Instagram and TikTok are generally female-dominated platforms with a significantly younger audience, YouTube is heavily dominated by male influencers and has slightly more older influencers,” Nielsen explains.