There's new competition in town for influencers who can rake in as much as $1 million per Instagram post — and it isn't even human

Virtual influencers are taking center stage on social media, gaining millions of followers, reported Tiffany Hsu of The New York Times .
They're providing competition for human influencers, who can earn up to $1 million per Instagram post.
The rise of virtual influencers signals a shift in the influencer industry, as brands and followers move away from famous human influencers who appear inauthentic.
Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories .

Celebrities and bloggers are sharing the social media limelight with a new kind of star: virtual influencers.

These social media marketers are computer generated, made by companies to attract followers and likes and they're garnering millions of followers, reported Tiffany Hsu of The New York Times . They're not real, but they look real or, at least, similar enough to their real-life counterparts. They're pictured partaking in the same activities that influencers do, flaunting clothing and attending awards shows.

Just look at virtual influencer Lil Miquela, created by an LA-based startup, who has 1.6 million followers . Even bigger brands are following suit Balmain created a "virtual army" of digital models and KFC developed a virtual version of Colonel Sanders, Hsu wrote.

Their popularity creates a problem for influencers seeking partnerships with brands. "Why hire a celebrity, a supermodel, or even a social media influencer to market your product when you can create the ideal brand ambassador from scratch?" Hsu asked.

Virtual influencers aren't unlike the real-life versions they're imitating, who project curated versions of their best life but they don't need to maintain a camera-ready appearance or handle online trolls the way human influencers do, Hsu said.

"That's why brands like working with avatars they don't have to do 100 takes," Alexis Ohanian, cofounder of Reddit, told Hsu. "Social media, to date, has largely been the domain of real humans being fake. But avatars are a future of storytelling." Celebrities like Selena Gomez and Kylie Jenner, who have more than 100 million followers a piece, can earn anywhere from $800,000 to $1,000,000 per Instagram post, while those with smaller followings 1 million followers charge $1,300 to $3,000 per post, reported Mic , citing Hopper HQ's 2018 Instagram Rich List . Read more : Why brands are turning away from big Instagram influencers to work with people who have small followings instead Virtual influencers are part of a growing change in the influencer industry The popularity of virtual influencers signals a bigger shift in the influencer industry, as brands and followers drift away from those who don't appear authentic. Influencers launching their own products fail 50% of the time, Shirley Leigh-Wood Oakes, cofounder of leading brand agency WickerWood , previously told INSIDER . Reasons can include bad marketing or lack of personality or emotion, she said, although some suggest that it's a sign the influencer bubble is about to burst. Brands are also increasingly working with micro-influencers, who have 10,000 to 50,000 followers, and nano-influencers, who have 800 to 10,000 followers, reported Business Insider's Rachel Hosie . Many factors fuel this switch, but it's largely because influencers with smaller followings are seen as more relatable and trustworthy than more famous influencers, so the endorsements come off as more genuine, she wrote. But not all is lost for human influencers: Fans still interact less with virtual influencers than they do with the average fashion tastemaker online, wrote Hsu, citing data from influencer marketing startup Captiv8. Read the full New York Times article

NOW WATCH: This giant 1950s town replica in California is a new kind of treatment center for people with Alzheimer's