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Social Media Reach: IE Business School’s Student Influencers
This past February, Cristiano Ronaldo celebrated a record-breaking 400 million followers on Instagram, setting a new bar for a social media influencer’s reach. Almost 40% of all Instagram users follow the football star.
But the top influencers in the so-called Age of Influence are not celebrities. And they are not only on Instagram. People focus on niches like beauty, fashion, business, education, food, lifestyle or other sectors in LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube and other social media.
Influencers take advantage of the parasocial relationship that exists between themselves and their followers, building their platform by connecting with their followers through shared interests—making a connection feel like a friendship to their followers.
IE University President Santiago Iñiguez was one of LinkedIn’s first influencers and is still featured in many articles listing Spain’s most prominent LinkedIn influencers.
But there are more in our IE Business School community. Katerina Berezhna (153k followers) focuses on lifestyle and fashion and promotes social causes such as the Ukraine crisis. There’s also Raffaella Camet (123k followers), a peruvian volleyball player who used to play in her country’s national team, Paula Forcano (36k followers), a travel and fashion influencer, Manuela Ochoa (273,4k followers) a TikToker who focuses on lifestyle and entertainment, Taty Mendes (84,6k followers) a fashion and lifestyle influencer, and Caty Gerard (15,9k followers) an entertainment TikToker.
MEET FOUR OF IE’S CURRENT STUDENT INFLUENCERS:
FRANCISCO BORSOI
BEATRICE NAUJALYTE
VANESSA ALTAMIRANO
EMILIO VACA
Borsoi is a Bachelor in Communications and Digital Media student that started his career as an influencer by chance. He focuses on travel and lifestyle– he has a passion for the luxury hospitality industry and for developing a “curated book” of the places he visits. “Making people travel with me through their own mobile phones is amazing,” said Borsoi.
“I like to create a very clear persona and brand recognition all the way from the color palette to the language use. I like people to see an object, a post, or a video and immediately think: this is very Borsoi.” Francisco Borsoi
Beatrice is also a Bachelor in Communications and Digital Media who besides studying, is also known as The Bliss Bean on YouTube and Instagram. She focuses on helping people be more productive with mindful habits, planning, and productivity techniques. She is passionate about helping others achieve the best version of themselves and said she feels responsible to use her large reach to support causes that she supports.
Her followers’ comments show how impactful her messages are:
“Your planning videos have changed my life for the better. I have become so much more zen, I am nowhere near as stressed as I was and the best part of the change is that I am genuinely HAPPY for the first time in a long time.”
Beatrice’s followers
Vanessa’s journey as an influencer started in her university dorm room in her first year as a Business Administration student where she felt the need to start cooking healthier meals in order to feel better both mentally and physically. That’s when she started her TikTok and Instagram pages better known as @nessrecipes. With her easy and colorful recipes, Ness (as we know her on IG) has helped hundreds of students feel healthier and more confident with their bodies. She said she tries to help people achieve their dietary goals and understand that being healthy can also be delicious.
“Recently I’ve been creating more raw content, especially on TikTok. This is the type of content people connect with because they get to see you as a real person with concerns, happy moments, etcetera, and it makes the connection much more meaningful.”
Vanessa Altamirano
Personal Finance and Investment Influencer on TikTok (372,4k followers).
Emilio is a Masters of Laws student at IE who is passionate about finance. He said he was motivated to become an influencer to share what he learned in university to help people who do not have access to higher education. Emilio helps people of all ages and incomes manage their finances and invest wisely in order to grow economically and improve their lifestyles. He also uses his reach to promote social causes he believes in and provides advice on other topics of interest for his community such as tips for applying to university scholarships.
“In my perspective my content is destined to help others. If it wasn’t like that I would do it anymore.”
Emilio Vaca