More than one-third (36%) of US adults follow social media influencers on a regular basis, according to survey results from YouGov. While men (37%) and women (35%) are about equally as likely to follow influencers, there’s a strong age skew to the results.
Indeed, a majority of adults in the 18-29 (57%) and 30-44 (52%) age brackets report following social media influencers on a regular basis, while that figure plummets to about one-fifth (22%) of those ages 45-64 and one-tenth (11%) of those ages 65 and older.
When sorting by race/ethnicity, the data shows that Black (40%) adults are the most likely to follow influencers, ahead of White (35%) and Hispanic (34%) respondents.
Black adults are also the most likely to have ever made a purchase based on a recommendation from an influencer. While 1 in 4 (25%) adults overall report having done so, per separate results from the same survey, that figure rises to 29% among Black adults. Moreover, 30% of Black adults said that while they haven’t made a purchase based on an influencer’s recommendation, they’ve considered doing so, compared to 23% of respondents overall.
Interestingly, while 18-29-year-olds are the most likely to follow social media influencers, they’re not the most apt to have made a purchase as a result. Instead, that distinction belongs to the 30-44 age bracket, fully 42% of whom said they’ve done so on the basis of an influencer’s recommendation. That compares with 35% of 18-29-year-olds, though an almost-equal share (34%) of the younger group has considered making a purchase.
Finally, 72% of adults believe that social media influencers should be required to disclose when they’re being paid to recommend a certain product. That figure is largely consistent across genders, but falls to 61% among Black adults and 59% among Hispanic adults. Belief that influencers should disclose their sponsorships also drops the younger the age grouop, from 85% of respondents ages 65 and older to just 58% of those ages 18-29.
About the Data: The results are based on an April survey of 7,577 US adults (18+).