Russian television presenter and onetime presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak is the country’s highest-earning Instagrammer, Forbes Russia has said in its list of the top 15 earners on the social media app in 2019.
The magazine ranked each user by the income they earn from advertising and sponsored posts on their Instagram pages. All 15 names on the list are people in the entertainment industry, and only two of them are men.
Sobchak, who became famous as Russia’s original “it” girl, brought in $1.6 million from Instagram ads in 2019, Forbes said. Fellow television presenter Regina Todorenko and singer Olga Buzova ranked in second and third, respectively, with earnings of $0.86 million each.
The two men, car blogger Alan Enileyev and MMA star Khabib Nurmagomedov, came in fourth and seventh on Forbes’ list, with Enileyev earning $0.85 million and Nurmagomedov earning $0.57 million.
Women dominate Forbes’ list because the content they create is interesting to both male and female followers, the magazine quoted Mikhail Karpushin, marketing director at the GetBlogger influencer platform, as saying.
Overall, Instagram advertising revenue in Russia is expected to reach 12-15 billion rubles ($188 to $235 million) by the end of 2019, Forbes cited GetBlogger estimates as saying.
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