“I don’t want to go to college anymore; I want to be a YouTube star.” When Nikita Kopotun’s  younger brother, Denis, shared his dream of  becoming a full-time Roblox streamer at 17, he wanted to help. Having just completed an internship at Cisco in China, the Queen’s University engineering student used the connections he’d made with Shanghai factories to manufacture stuffed animals Denis could sell to fans and help his brother turn a profit. Five years later, Denis has 9 million YouTube followers and banks seven-figures a year, while Kopotun has got a business: Juniper, an ecommerce company that partners with influencers to manufacture merchandise to promote their brands.



“We believe influencers represent the next era of commerce,” says Kopotun, who made the&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;30 Under 30 list in 2021. “Brands can’t just be built off t-shirts and hoodies so we want to sell flexible supply chain infrastructure to these creators.”



Chief Revenue Officer Kopotun, 26, and his cofounders—CEO Joel Wegner, Chief Culture Officer Will Cartar and CTO Ryan Wong—launched Toronto-based Juniper in 2016. Today, the bootstrapped brand’s 50 employees work with 60 influencers, including ZHC who has over 19 million YouTube subscribers. Juniper finds their most profitable clients publish long-form YouTube videos that earn them at least $500,000 a year. The company partners with them to create custom products and takes a cut of sales. Juniper generated $31 million in revenue in 2020, up 345% from $9 million in 2019, as consumers increasingly shopped, and sought out entertainment, online due to the pandemic.&nbsp;



While the company is headquartered in Canada, its manufacturers are based in China, where a team of 30 mass produce merchandise—from Denis’ tie-wearing cat plushy Sir Meows A Lot, to InquisitorMaster’s floppy-eared furry onesies, to Lanky Box’s cartoon-printed bedding bundle—and within a month of influencers inking a deal. Retail giants like Mattel rarely collaborate with influencers—and when they do, it’s typically with celebrities like Britney Spears—while DIY platforms like Custom Ink and Teespring don’t offer the same level of customization. Selling custom merchandise offers influencers  another way of monetizing their fanbases. This has enabled many of Juniper’s clients to double or triple their revenues each year. 



For influencers, Juniper’s products can serve as a launchpad. This past year, Denis’ Sir Meows A Lot became the protagonist of a YouTube cartoon series with nearly 1 million subscribers. “The designs and branding that Juniper did changed the way my channel looked,” he says. “It’s so easy to make any product by just slapping a logo on it, but to make products that characters very specific to that creator’s audience is so much more valuable.”



Unlike his influencer clients, who grew up on the internet, Kopotun spent most of his childhood in studios training to be an elite ballet dancer. He was sidelined at 17 with tendonitis in his knee, but believes his training has set him up for success as a founder. “I learned a lot about personal rigor and work ethics which has transitioned really well into business,” he says.



That tenacity has earned him clients like Jack Douglas, an influencer whose YouTube video series,&nbsp;Yesterday I Asked You, has garnered 92 million views. He partnered with Juniper after the company cold emailed him a plan to create a board game based on his show. “All I’ve wanted to do for years now is to take&nbsp;YIAY&nbsp;and diversity into games,” says Douglas. “Having&nbsp;YIAY&nbsp;exist as a board game wouldn’t have happened without Juniper.” In addition to the board game, scheduled to be released this spring, the two have also produced a plushy version of Douglas’ toy American Eskimo, Klondike.&nbsp;



Despite the growth Kopotun has seen this past year, he isn’t resting on his laurels. His goal is to transform Juniper into a tech platform that enables influencers to set up stores and sell custom products without the help of customer support representatives. He hopes that this platform—as well as a refined manufacturing process to produce more orders and of different sizes, allowing Juniper to serve smaller influencers—will be ready to launch in early 2022. “What we really want to be doing is supporting all sorts of brands and extending ourselves to the bottom 99% of creators,”  says Kopotun. “We believe that we’ll be able to hit unicorn status in the coming years by building this out.”



By Alexandra Sternlicht, Forbes Staff

1602605560067

Meet The Company Making $31 Million A Year Helping Influencers Build Their Brands With Custom Merch

Like any self-respecting cult, the Stepchickens follow a strict code of conduct as dictated by their absolute leader, Mother Hen, a comedian named Melissa who posts on TikTok as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@chunkysdead" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">@chunkysdead</a>. Mother Hen&nbsp;<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@chunkysdead/video/6827103874424376582?lang=en" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">has widely preached</a>&nbsp;a message of peace, telling her 1.7 million TikTok followers: “We do not rule by being cruel, we shine by being kind.” Further, she has asked all Stepchickens to make themselves easily identifiable and make her photo their TikTok profile picture.



Mother Hen has created TikTok’s first “cult.” (Her word.) Boiled down, she is a social media influencer, and the Stepchickens are her fans, just as more famous TikTok influencers—Charli D’Amelio,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@addisonre?lang=en" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Addison Rae</a>&nbsp;and the like—all have their fanbases. But Mother Hen’s presence and style is quite singular, particularly in the way she communicates with her followers, what she asks them to do and how the Stepchickens respond to her. After all, not every member of the Charli hive use her image as their profile pictures.



“These influencers are looking for a way to build community and figure out how to monetize their community. That&#8217;s the No. 1 most important thing for a creator or an influencer,” says&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/tiffany-zhong/">Tiffany Zhong</a>, cofounder of ZebraIQ, a community and trends platform. “It&#8217;s become a positive for Gen Z, where you&#8217;re proud to be part of this cult—part of this community. They are dying to be part of a community. So it&#8217;s easy to get sucked in.”



Mother Hen, who didn’t return a request to comment for this story, already had a popular comedy vlog-style TikTok account on May 6&nbsp;<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@chunkysdead/video/6823732594560027910?lang=en" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">when she asked</a>&nbsp;her followers to send suggestions for what they could name their cult. From the ideas offered up, she chose Stepchickens, and in the 19 days since, her following has more than doubled. (It was around 700,000 back at the beginning of this month.) She has posted videos&nbsp;<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@chunkysdead/video/6825025000567753989?lang=en" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">about taking edibles</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@chunkysdead/video/6826138962034232582?lang=en" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">her celebrity lookalikes</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@chunkysdead/video/6825303907648965893?lang=en" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">her relationship status</a>&nbsp;(“all this cult power, still no boyfriend”). And perhaps in violation of her first-do-no-harm credo, Mother Hen has implored her followers to embark on “battles” and “raids,” where Stepchickens comment bomb other influencers’ videos, posting messages en masse. She has become the mother of millions: TikTok videos with #stepchickens have generated 102 million views on the app, and her own videos have received 54.6 million likes.



Mother Hen is now concentrating on feathering her nest. She has launched&nbsp;<a href="https://www.stepchickens.com/shop" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a large range of merch</a>: smartphone cases ($24), hoodies ($44), t-shirts ($28) and beanies ($28). Corporate sponsorships seem within reach, too. TikTok accounts for the Houston Rockets, Tampa Bay Rays and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@chunkysdead/video/6826826102409809158" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">one for the</a>&nbsp;Chicago Bulls mascot, Benny, all changed their profile picture to the image distributed by Mother Hen. The Rays sent her a box of swag, addressing the package to “Mother Hen,” of course. She dressed up in the gear (two hats, a fanny pack, a tank top) and recorded herself wearing it&nbsp;<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@chunkysdead/video/6830515719269141765" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">in a TikTok</a>, a common move by influencers to express gratitude and signal that they’re open to business sponsorship opportunities. Mother Hen has launched a YouTube channel, too, where she’ll earn ad revenue based on the views that her 43,000 subscribers generate by watching her content.



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Then there is the Stepchickens app available on Apple devices. This digital roost is a thriving message feed—it resembles a Slack channel or a Discord server—where Stepchickens congregate, chat and coordinate their raids. They can also use it to create videos, ones “to glorify mother hen,” the app’s instructions read.



The app launched last Monday and has already attracted more than 100,000 users, a benchmark that most apps do not ever see and the best reach within months of starting. Since its debut, it has ranked as high as the ninth most popular social media app in the world on the download charts and in the Top 75 most downloaded across all types of apps. The Stepchickens have traded 135,000 messages, and the app’s most devoted users are spending as long as 10 hours a day on it, says Sam Mueller, the cofounder and CEO of Blink Labs who built the Stepchickens app.



“There&#8217;s this emergence of a more active—a more dedicated—fan base and following. A lot of the influencers on TikTok are kind of dancing around, doing some very broadcast-y type content. Their followers might not mobilize nearly as much as” the Stepchickens, says Mueller. Mother Hen’s flock, by contrast, “feel like they&#8217;re part of something, feel like they&#8217;re connected. They can have fun and be together for something bigger than what they&#8217;re doing right now, which is kind of being at home bored and lonely. There&#8217;s untapped value here.”



&#8211;

gettyimages-1133793983-594×594

Birds Of A Feather: The Stepchickens Cult On TikTok Is The Next Evolution Of The Influencer Business

While a growing number of influencers are dictating what
brands sell, beauty entrepreneur Jackie Aina is of the view they have the duty
to use their platforms responsibly.&nbsp;&nbsp; 



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



Mixing up the inspirational with informative, the
thought-provoking with tongue-in-cheek, and sarcasm with calling out brands for
not being inclusive, Jackie Aina is influencing the beauty industry one product
at a time. 



With over three million YouTube followers and 1.2 million on
Instagram, Aina is one of the stand-out digital influencers cashing in on
online followings to broadcast messages to millennials, lifestyle brands and
billion-dollar cosmetic conglomerates. 



Although Aina does all of this with a dose of humor, the journey to YouTube stardom started some 10 years ago for the 31-year-old beauty entrepreneur, when she was desperately searching for a way to escape loneliness and unfulfillment. 



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Her Brush With Business (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2019/03/27/her-brush-with-business/" target="_blank">Her Brush With Business</a>



“I had gone on to marry the guy who inspired me to join the
military. We were stationed in Hawaii and we were very unhappily married. I
didn’t have a job and YouTube was buzzing in 2009. We had a lot of Asian faces
who were really the faces of beauty on YouTube and I didn’t really see anyone
like me. So, my best friend, literally every day, said ‘why don’t you put your
makeup looks on YouTube’ and I always said no.”



Her friend’s unrelenting pursuit finally paid off.&nbsp; 



“So, one day, I decided I wasn’t doing anything, and being
bored and not being fulfilled emotionally and I didn’t have a lot of positive
things going on for me at the time, so that left me a lot of time to consume
content and then I started creating it.



&nbsp;“I truly tapped into
something that I needed at the time mentally and that was great. People didn’t
know me but they would just gas me up; they were so nice and would always give
me positive encouragement which I really needed at the time,” Aina says.



That was a lifetime ago. These days, the Los Angeles-born influencer, who was called&nbsp; ‘beauty influencer of the year’ by Women’s Wear Daily last year, is short-listed among the top beauty influencers in the United States, with lucrative brand collaborations behind her. 



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">Most notably is her collaboration with the Estée Lauder-owned brand, Too Faced, as part of the Born This Way foundation range, which she helped to create. </blockquote>



Celebrities and influencers are increasingly being paid
several thousands of dollars per tweet or Instagram post to promote products,
services and even social causes. 



With most millennials avoiding posts that look like
sponsored ads, brands are now increasingly interested in ads that appear
organic. And that is where influencers come in. 



Remuneration for such posts is usually decided after
considering factors like number of followers, popularity, engagement, frequency
of posts, as well as the format of the post. 



Furthermore, influencer accounts with&nbsp; massive follower counts can leverage their
social media clout to showcase brands to their followers and perhaps, most
importantly, use their brand voice to fight against injustice in the industry,
something Aina is passionate about.



“A lot of years on YouTube were spent seeing comments from
people who say things. It is easy to sit and complain but what are you doing to
change the industry?” 



In response, Aina decided to use her platform to fight for
the change she wanted to see in the industry. She holds other influencers
accountable for offensive remarks and joins controversial and tough discussions
about issues like colorism in the beauty industry. And brands are starting to
listen. 



It was her outspoken voice in the beauty space that caught the attention of the beauty conglomerate, Too Faced, which short-listed Aina to help expand its foundation range and ensure the makeup undertones would also compliment women of color.



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="At 21, Kylie Jenner Becomes The Youngest Self-Made Billionaire Ever (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2019/03/08/at-21-kylie-jenner-becomes-the-youngest-self-made-billionaire-ever/" target="_blank">At 21, Kylie Jenner Becomes The Youngest Self-Made Billionaire Ever</a>



“That was a testament to brands actually listening. Just
because you think someone is not watching, doesn’t mean they are not watching.
They are definitely watching. Sometimes all you really need is that one
opportunity and that can be leveraged over and over again,” Aina says.



As brands increasingly turn away from traditional marketing,
towards social influencers, young, connected digital natives like Aina, will
continue to play an important role in the success of beauty brands for the
foreseeable trend-obsessed digital future.

Jackie

Making Up For Millions

The Instagram influencer marketing industry is expected to exceed $1 billion by the end of 2017, and more than double by 2019. A Santa Monica-based influencer marketing industry Mediakix forecast these figures by studying the #spon #sp and #ad hashtags on the platform, which saw over 9.7 million posts tagged in 2016, with 14.5 million expected for 2017.
While South Africa may be late to the party for most things digital, there are a fair amount of influencers making waves locally. No matter the niche, there are bloggers and influencers who, through their combined digital platforms, are regarded just as important as journalists when it comes to making an invite list; or taking part in a campaign best aligned with their brand. It is predominant with fashion, beauty and lifestyle bloggers in South Africa where some have quit their full-time jobs to focus on being an ‘influencer’.
<div id="attachment_34458" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34458" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-34458" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Aqeelah-Harron-Ally-200x300.jpg" alt="Aqeelah Harron Ally" width="300" height="450" />Aqeelah Harron Ally (Photo supplied)</div>
Aqeelah Harron Ally, a 27-year-old fashion, beauty, and travel blogger at <a href="http://fashionbreed.co.za/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FashionBreed</a>, from Cape Town, worked full-time for five years before quitting her job, and tells us she could have afforded to leave sooner, but didn’t have the courage.
Ally, who has been blogging for seven years, initially started her blog so she could work for a magazine to ultimately become a fashion editor. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Film, Media &amp; Writing, and Drama from the University of Cape Town; and a Diploma in Make Up Artistry.
The decision to quit her job has worked out well for Ally, who says she is much happier now, even though being her own boss can be stressful at times.
“I’ve been lucky because for the last two years, I’ve landed many contracts which span over four, six, or even eight months; this helps a lot with stability, however I’m also fine without those kinds of jobs.”
She has other once-off campaigns that are booked a month or two in advance, and out of the events she attends, about 60% are paid attendance, which is generally tied to a campaign she is already creating content for.
“I seldom get paid just to attend an event and cover it, but I have done it in the past.”
Another digital content creator who quit her full-time job after five years is 26-year-old Anna-Belle Durrant from Parktown North in Johannesburg. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature and Philosophy from the University of the Witwatersrand. She started her blog <a href="https://shesaid.co.za/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SheSaid</a> back in 2013 initially to share her love for Johannesburg, but it has blossomed into stories about travel, fashion, healthy living and design.
“So far it’s worked out incredibly well; I love that I am the master of my own time and creations, and I’m still very fortunate to work closely with agencies like Cerebra [previous employer],” says Durrant.
To her, blogging is like freelancing; work comes in when it comes in and you just have to go with the flow. “However, I do work with brands on a retainer basis to create content around their offerings; and my campaigns run across all my social channels and blog. When you become a blogger, your mind-set changes completely, what you earn is in line with how much you work… so work hard and you should be ok,” she says.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2017/10/06/sharing-economy-400000-guests-home/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Sharing Economy: 400,000 Guests At Home</a>
However, the industry has been marred by a fake follower problem where users deceive brands into paying them for being an influencer. Mediakix ran an experiment on two accounts proving how easy it is by purchasing fake followers from as little as $3 for 1,000 followers and $4 for 1,000 likes. Once these accounts reached a threshold of 10,000 followers, they signed up for campaigns – and got accepted for two paying jobs each.
The onus of this falls on PR companies or marketing agencies who need to ensure they’ve done thorough research before approaching an influencer. A quick search on Memeburn.com for an article titled Fake followers are a massive problem, as SA duo proves shows the extent of it in South Africa.
Ally says what they’re doing is illegal.
“It is straight-up fraud because you’re telling a brand to pay you for something you can only pretend to offer. Buying followers is selfish and entitled, but more than anything it’s a charade they won’t be able to keep up with because there are so many tell-tale signs that reveal the cracks in the lie.”
<div id="attachment_34459" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34459" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-34459" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Anna-Belle-Durrant-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="450" />Anna-Belle Durrant (Photo supplied)</div>
Durrant on the other hand feels that while you can cheat anything in life, rather focus on your own content and what you need to do to build your brand as the truth always comes out in the end.
Both Ally and Durrant work extremely hard at being full-time bloggers and share similar sentiments that it’s not all freebies, fame, travel and parties. “You’re a stylist, photographer, writer, curator, art director, model, negotiator/businesswoman, social media manager, video maker; the ultimate definition of a jack-of-all-trades,” says Ally.
Durrant compares it to running a magazine that needs to be published constantly except she’s the CEO, photographer, stylist and janitor, all while fighting for invoices to be paid. “It’s a lifestyle of work hard, play hard.”
Ultimately, both find it very rewarding. For Ally, it’s all about the relationships with her readers, and stresses on how much she values it. “YouTube really extended my reach in this sense which has been so great. It’s also been rewarding growing as a content creator and actually getting paid for it. I’m really thankful for this because creatives don’t often get to say that. It’s really special being able to work for brands I grew up loving and respecting, even more so when their international teams fly to South Africa and get closely involved in what we do.”
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2017/07/11/workplace-future-now/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Workplace Of The Future &#8211; Or Now?</a>
Durrant loves that she gets to do things and go to places she could only have dreamed of.
“A highlight was exploring a music festival on the coast of Wales last year. Traveling makes me happy, I get to do that for my job; I honestly couldn’t ask for anything more. I also get to meet really incredible people and work with truly inspiring charities and brands, I have inspiration around me 24/7.” &#8211; Written by Nafisa Akabor

Tag: influencer

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Meet The Company Making $31 Million A Year Helping Influencers Build Their Brands With Custom Merch

Birds Of A Feather: The Stepchickens Cult On TikTok Is The Next Evolution Of The Influencer Business

Making Up For Millions

When It Pays To Be Online