The Nightly on Influence: Why trust is everything in the rapidly evolving business of online influence

Cassie Head stands in her Sunshine Coast kitchen, introducing her 100,000 Instagram followers to her new “personal assistant”.

As her loyal and 90 per cent female audience knows, Head is a busy mum and stepmum navigating a job in finance, a psychology degree, co-parenting and relationship struggles, and a recent ADHD diagnosis.

So it is completely on brand for her to be sharing how life-changing her new assistant — a digital Skylight calendar — has been, because her “brain doesn’t have to work for five people any more”.

And therefore it makes sense — and money — for Skylight, which wanted to market to Australian women, to choose Head to promote its product.

She is one of a host of rising “micro influencers” — content creators with up to about 100,000 followers who have developed tight-knit and highly engaged online communities, often through niche content.

Head’s niche is her ADHD journey — which has now spawned a paid subscriber subchannel on Instagram — as well as budgeting tips and affordable family meal ideas, interspersed with her honest life insights.

This includes infidelity in her relationship, her spending habits and parenting struggles. She has also made a point of sharing her journey with paid content creation, which hit a milestone earlier this year when she was able to quit her full-time job in lending.

“For me to work one month of (full-time) work was the equivalent of doing one video on here,” she says.

“The earning potential I have on social media is beyond what I can earn in my full-time job. It’s easier, it’s less commitment, it’s something I enjoy, it’s something I can do in my own time amongst the chaos of my family life. It seems like a no-brainer.”

Rather than gatekeep her success, Head is sharing the behind-the-scenes reality.

“I’m really passionate about educating people, because I think so many people have so much opportunity available to them, and literally anyone can create an Instagram account,” she says.

“(Informing others) also benefits the industry. Because if you’ve got people who are doing things for free when they really should be charging, that really discounts me as a creator, and discounts the industry. So I think that’s why I try to be really transparent with my audience.”

After “fumbling along on her own” Head is now working with Blue Chip Talent agency, which partners talent with brands and represents athletes, media personalities and influencers.

She has shared the wins publicly, in January posting a video of her dancing around her house as she celebrated “a five-figure deal with my dream brand”.

What followers don’t see is the months of negotiations, planning and behind-the-scenes work that can go into a single paid post.

Blue Chip managing director Ryan Chipperfield describes that period as a dating process which, in the case of Head and Skylight, created a “perfect match”.

“It’s completely on brand for her, it’s completely on brand for them . . . then we haggle back and forth and land in a four-figure, five-figure deal range,” Chipperfield explains.

The final fee depends on the brand’s usage of the content, and could include an “inconvenience tax” if the content needs to be turned around quickly.

When introducing paid content, Chipperfield says there is a fine line to tread to ensure loyal follower bases aren’t turned off.

“Followers are prepared to watch a certain amount of ads because of all the content they get for free, but the second it becomes more than that, it’s a wrong value proposition for the audience,” he says.

For six-figure creators, which Blue Chip represents, this usually means one ad per week.

“We can naturally infuse it into the creator’s account, and it’s that right balance of not making the algorithm suffer, and they still get the views and the output, but managing it from a workload perspective . . . we try to keep the factory line moving for the talent.”

As the opportunities grow, so does the number of creators looking to capitalise. This brings with it a host of potential problems in an industry where entrepreneurs forging legitimate and successful small businesses still face the “influencer” stigma.

“The truth is, the influencer name needs a rebrand,” Chipperfield argues.

“‘Content creators’ is the soft rebrand that’s already happening, because people hate to describe themselves (as influencers) and when they do, you lose a percentage of the population.”

While the industry is maturing, it has a long way to go, he says.

“Influencer years are like dog years, it’s like one to seven, and in our 10 years we’ve seen a fair bit, but there’s still a big skills gap and a lot of regulatory issues.

“There’s a lot of non-compliant creators out there who aren’t doing super, aren’t paying the government the PAYG withholding, they’re not set up as a company structure, and there’s not enough advice on those sorts of things.

“I hope those people get good people in their corner to support them.”

Those who do, he says, will be the ones who endure — provided they have the required qualities that can make their content stick.

Chief among those is authenticity and intent, Chipperfield says.

“Cass is the hero of her page. You can’t be afraid to show up as yourself,” he says.

“You’ve also got to show up for your community, that means engaging and communicating with them, a lot of stuff that’s not on the clock, but which actually builds a sense of community.”

The industry is evolving at a rapid pace and while influence was once determined by follower numbers, this is no longer the case.

Increasingly sophisticated AI-driven algorithms are platforming a host of everyday Australians who, like Head, are finding an audience and an income simply by being themselves.

Marketing specialist Nick Baklanov says these short-form recommendation algorithms, which leverage a user’s data to prolong engagement by serving up personalised content, have weakened the connection between follower size and actual reach.

Baklanov, from HypeAuditor, says while historically brands priced creators based on follower count, attention was shifting towards content performance — views, engagement quality and conversion potential.

“A creator with 50,000 followers consistently generating 300,000 to 500,000 reel views may now command significantly more than a creator with 500,000 followers but weak reach,” he explains.

“Followers tell you how many people once clicked a button. Views tell you how many people actually watch right now.”

A recent analysis by HypeAuditor of more than 31 million Instagram creator accounts revealed those with similar follower accounts could have dramatically different visibility and performance.

It found 59 per cent of mid-tier creators, with between 50,000 and 500,000 followers, averaged fewer than 20,000 views per reel — similar to that of nano creators with up to 10,000 followers.

“We’re also seeing a broader strategic shift in how brands approach influencer marketing, with more selecting creators based on the quality and ‘advertisability’ of their video content rather than purely organic reach alone,” Baklanov says.

“Brands increasingly use paid amplification to scale high-performing creator content through advertising platforms.

“The creator’s role becomes less about delivering guaranteed organic reach and more about producing authentic, high-performing content that brands can scale through paid distribution.

“In many ways, the industry is shifting from audience size towards attention performance. Views are becoming a more important signal because they reflect current audience behaviour rather than historical audience accumulation.”

Nano creators can charge from $US50 to $US300 ($70-420) per post, while those with up to 50,000 can reach $US1300. Macro or mega creators, or those with over 500,000 followers, have been the biggest money earners with each post earning in the tens of thousands.

But increasingly, Baklanov says creators who consistently generate strong views can price above their “tier” as more brands evaluate saves, shares, conversion signals and views.

“In many cases, followers today function more like a credibility signal, while views determine actual distribution power.”

Credibility means more than ever as audiences are bombarded with AI-generated, and AI-recommended, content.

Model and creator Julia Muniz Robinson, who has ridden the highs and lows of social media over the past decade, says audiences are demanding authenticity.

“When I first started everything was more polished and curated . . . the perfect image, the perfect outfit, the perfect location,” she explains.

“There is still a place for beautiful content, and I personally love creating imagery that feels elevated and editorial, but audiences now also want to feel something real behind it.

“They can sense when something is too forced or overly produced. They want beauty but they also want honesty. They want aspiration but they also want relatability.

“I think the creators who are able to blend both, the dream and the real life behind it, are the ones people truly connect with.”

Muniz Robinson says short-form video has completely changed the game.

“People want storytelling quickly, but it still needs to have depth. A simple video can perform better than a huge production if it has the right emotion or relatability behind it,” she says.

“For me, the biggest shift is that audiences don’t just follow you for what you wear or where you go. They follow your energy, your perspective, your lifestyle, your family, your values and the way you make them feel.”

Muniz Robinson and husband Jack Robinson, the WA-raised Olympian and world champion surfer, approach their partnerships from a family and lifestyle perspective.

The couple, alongside their toddler son Zen, travel the world when Jack is on the world tour, and Muniz Robinson says her partnerships fit into her world of “family, travel, surf culture, beauty, fashion and wellness”. She has ongoing relationships with Bvlgari, Rhode and Breitling and was recently named, alongside Jack, a brand partner with WA-based jewellers Linneys.

“Trust is really important to me. I want to work with companies that respect my creative eye and understand that the reason people connect with my content is because it feels honest,” she says.

Muniz Robinson has never seen what she does as influencing, rather as building a personal brand and creative business.

“Content creation is not just taking a picture. It’s concept development, styling, location scouting, lighting, filming, editing, writing, understanding your audience, understanding a brand’s objectives, reading analytics, negotiating contracts, managing timelines and constantly adapting to platforms that change all the time,” she says.

“You are the creative director, talent, producer, editor, marketer and business owner all at once. And when your life is also the content, there is a lot of emotional labour in deciding what to share, what to protect and how to keep things feeling authentic without giving away too much of yourself or your family.”