Shelbi Howell, a 32-year-old stay-at-home mom, lives in a small town outside of the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area. She is not, in any traditional sense, an influencer. Like millions of other women around the world, she posts her daily outfits to TikTok, where she has a frankly paltry 1,624 followers, and Instagram, where she has 1,251. Yet despite being in every sense an ordinary woman on the internet, Howell estimates that she has made more than $500 just from posting to social media.
She does this by posting a video of her outfit or her makeup and reminding viewers – many of whom are people she knows personally – that they can buy the same item via a link in her bio.
Howell uses apps called ShopMy and LTK to earn a cut of the sales for every pair of jeans, lip gloss or button-up shirt she inspires people to buy. These apps promise they can make anyone an influencer. You don’t have to be a former Bachelorette contestant or nepo baby to take part in flogging products to your fans. About 1,000 or so followers will qualify you.
Shelbi Howell posts daily content about being a stay-at-home mom on Instagram and TikTok. Photograph: Shelbi Howell
Representatives for ShopMy, which is currently valued at $410m, say that they have around 90,000 users with less than 500,000 followers who drive $500m in sales. They position themselves as a creative way to make some extra cash. “We’ve always believed that real influence isn’t about how many followers someone has,” said Caley-Rae Pavillard, ShopMy’s vice-president of business development and partnerships. “It’s about trust, connection and the ability to move an audience.”
Critics – and perhaps their friends and families, who grow tired of their posts – worry that it’s an exploitative system.
“It’s almost like mega-influencers aren’t a safe bet anymore,” said Kate Stewart, an assistant professor at Jacksonville State University who studies the relationship between social media personalities and their audiences. “Micro-influencers have less of a presence, which means they have less baggage. It’s low risk.”
Howell sees this as her in. “Smaller influencers are definitely more relatable,” she said. “Once you grow your following to a certain point, it’s hard to stay that way. I’m zoning in on being a mom. So I think it relates to people who might be at home and feel alone in that.”
The hallmarks of influencer excess – posts bragging about private plane rides, free trips around the world and gifted designer bags – do not play as well to a general audience as they did 10 years ago. People are tired of watching rich people flaunt their wealth. Experts have dubbed it “influencer fatigue”. Redditors create online forums dedicated to “influencer snark”, where they gossip or rant about their least favorite personalities.
It is also cheaper for brands to pay micro-influencers a few hundred dollars here and there rather than book top-name talent.
Posts on ShopMy are nakedly transactional, converting friendships into tiny commissions. They are also perhaps increasingly unwelcome as social media transforms into one branded slop pile.
We have ads in our streaming, on every social media platform, and now our friends are trying to sell to us tooKate Stewart, professor
Even as someone who studies social media, Stewart says it feels “so annoying” to watch an Instagram friend try to monetize something online. “We have ads in our streaming, on every social media platform, and now our friends are trying to sell to us too,” she said. “We just want somewhere that’s not trying to sell anything to us.”
Women who used Facebook in the late aughts and 2010s might remember the bleak experience of receiving a “Hey babe” DM from a long-lost acquaintance trying to sell Younique cosmetics or LuLaRoe leggings. Many multi-level marketing (MLM) brands exploited women, promising them the chance to be their own boss and rack in outrageous pay. In reality, the vast majority of sellers made next to nothing – and relationships suffered.
Affiliate marketing is not MLM, but the leveraging of friendships in order to sell product reminds Rebecca Haines of the controversial business strategy. “People use their personal networks to sell MLM products, and folks get suspicious,” said Haines, a professor of media and communications at Salem State University. “Is someone actually reaching out to me because she genuinely wants to connect? Or is she trying to sell me Pampered Chef?”
Maddie Elder, a 24-year-old who just moved to the US Virgin Islands for her husband’s job, is a part-time event planner who has always been interested in fashion. “When I first started getting into it, it was more influencers who used these apps,” Elder said. “I was definitely embarrassed, or like, scared to share. But once I saw that I could make money, that didn’t matter to me anymore.”
Howell’s friends have told her they also want to start using ShopMy, but they are nervous about how the posts will come off. “I tell them, you just kind of have to do it and not care what other people think,” she said.
Maddie Elder said that she made ‘between’ $5,000 and $10,000 through ShopMy in one year. Photograph: Maddie Elder
But Haines worries about the potential for exploitation. Mega-influencers are paid upfront for their work; the people using affiliate links only get paid if people click.
“People who turn themselves into brand ambassadors are commodifying themselves,” Haines said. “They’re performing a very narrow view of femininity, and hoping to get rewards from that. That’s a tough road.”
Representatives for ShopMy did not share how much the average content creator makes through sales. The company’s commission rates vary depending on the type of item. Brands that are popular on social media command the highest rates – a Simon Miller dress yields 30% commission, while Asics sneakers get 3%.
Elder said that in one year, she made “between” $5,000 and $10,000 through ShopMy.
A young newlywed with no children, Howell says her commissions are “fun money”. It’s also cyclical. She will make money from a ShopMy item and then use the cash to buy more clothes – which she will eventually post on ShopMy, too.
Elder describes it as a “reinvestment”. The money she makes goes “back into shopping”.