Being in the era of technology, companies are in need of finding creative and cost-effective ways for promoting themselves. One of these efficient ways is working with influencers and, even a step further, with Virtual influencers. Working with influencers gives brands a chance to showcase their products in an authentic way which is impossible to achieve in traditional marketing ways.
Influencers share their videos using your products and generate a buzz about your brand through social media platforms. Virtual influencers are now pushing the boundaries of possibility in influencer marketing campaigns.
What is a virtual influencer?
A virtual influencer is a digital character with human characteristics, features, and personalities created in computer graphics software. They are actually designed to become Instagram influencers as a perfect substitute for an actual human influencer.
A virtual influencer can do anything a human influencer can do with more control and engagement. Their accounts’ engagement rates are nearly three times of a real influencer.
As a matter of fact, the virtual world has become a part of the digital marketing industry. Virtual influencers are notable for many businesses as they are far from real people’s drama.
How to create a virtual influencer?
If you are looking for a virtual Instagram influencer for your brand, you can create one. It’s not an easy thing to do, but you can do so by following these steps:
- Understanding your audience: Above all, you to understand who you are creating the digital influencer for. In other words, you must know what features and characteristics will attract your audience.
- Creating a persona: Now is the time to build your influencer around those qualities your audience likes.
- Designing your virtual influencer: Draw an ideal model based on the characteristics you made. You must align geometry with a reference photo, add texture to your character, choose a pose and environment, set lighting, and finally export your artificial influencer.
- Building online presence: To present your new virtual influencer to the world, you must promote it on social media platforms.
- Posting content: Finally, you can use your famous or soon-to-be-famous ai influencer to promote your products by posting photos or videos on platforms such as Instagram or YouTube.
Don’t forget to track the account’s changes to see how your character is doing. You may need to apply some changes to accomplish your goals.
Benefits of working with virtual influencers
Working with digital influencers on Instagram has many privileges compared to other influencers.
- Control: Companies control all aspects of virtual characters and their accounts.
- Brands’ safety: Unlike the real ones, virtual influencers do not have any history or controversies to hurt anyone.
- No physical limitations: Digital influencers do not age, do not become sick, and do not fear doing things like skydiving.
- No regulations: No regulations have been created around these CGI influencers yet.
- Money-saving: Virtual influencers simply cost less. On average, an authentic influencer or model with at least one million followers can charge brands over $250,000 per post. In comparison, a top virtual Instagram influencer with over 3 million followers charges only about $240,000.
How to find the top virtual influencers?
If you’re interested in working with virtual influencers, you should know where to find them. There are so many possible ways to find influencers, but we will tell you the easiest ones.
- Google: Search on Google and read different blogs to find your targeted influencers.
- Hashtags: Search influencers by hashtags on Instagram and find them in different niches.
- Marketing platforms: You can use many marketplaces to find influencers. The best one is Ainfluencer.
Ainfluencer
Ainfluencer helps you find influencers in a safe, secure, and easy-to-use platform.
You can search for particular influencers by specifying the gender, location, number of followers, etc., through Ainfluencer’s Al engine.
Ainfluencer is a free platform that lets both Instagram influencers and brands connect and collaborate.
Top 5 virtual influencers
Now let us introduce some of the top virtual influencers:
magazineluiza
Lu do Magalu is a virtual influencer created in Brazil in 2009. She was designed to promote iBlogTV on behalf of Magazine Luiza, and that’s the reason she named Magula. She shares unboxing videos, product reviews, and software tips on her Instagram account, which has about 5.8m followers. Magula has been the most followed virtual influencer in the world since 2020.
Lilmiquela
Lil Miquela, a famous American CGI influencer, was created by Brud, an AI company, in 2016. As well as being an influencer model, she is also a singer and YouTuber. This digital influencer has more than three million followers on Instagram and has worked with so many famous campaigns such as Calvin Klein, Dior, and Prada.
Noonoouri
Noonoouri, another top virtual influencer, was created by Joerg Zuber, the founder of Opium Effect which is a creative agency in Munich, Germany.
She is a 19-year-old digital character who has taken the fashion industry by storm and worked with most top luxury fashion brands, including Lacoste, Versace, and Bulgari.
While her goal is to entertain, she also aims to inform her audiences about various social causes. She is much more than just a digital character. She is also an activist and vegan who publicly supports sustainable fashion.
Knoxfrost
Knox Frost is a 20-year-old robot living in Atlanta, Georgia. His decision to start sharing on Instagram brings him turmoil, as he receives tens of thousands of comments telling him he’s “not real.” Despite the difficulty of ‘processing’ the Internet’s mixed reactions to his existence, Knox persevered on his life’s mission: which was to fit in.
Knox Frost has partnered with global organizations from the World Health Organization to Rock the Vote. This virtual Instagram influence has appeared in Forbes, Business Insider, AdAge, Fortune, Adweek, Buzzfeed, Mashable, Dazed, Betches, CNN, and more.
Shudu.gram
Shudu Gram is another well-known computer-generated or virtual Instagram influencer and model who was considered the world’s first digital supermodel. As a matter of fact, she was created by the fashion photographer Cameron- James Wilson in 2017, who was inspired by the South African princess Barbie doll.
She was described as an “art piece” by her creator. Many people admitted that they couldn’t tell if she was a real person.
Conclusion
Virtual influencers are becoming a huge part of influencer marketing. They are getting more and more popular. You can use our step-by-step guide to create your own digital influencer.
You can also use Ainfluencer and find many of them for promoting your brand.
Lu do Magalu is one of the world’s earliest virtual influencers created by Magazine Luiza in Brazil in 2009. She shares unboxing videos, product reviews, and software tips on her Instagram account, which has about 5.8m followers. Magula has been the most followed virtual influencer in the world since 2020.
Virtual influencers are digital characters with human characteristics and features created in computer graphics software. They are designed to become Instagram influencers as a perfect substitute for human influencers.
They can do anything a human influencer can do with more control and engagement. Their accounts’ engagement rates are nearly three times of a real influencer. Virtual influencers are notable for many businesses because they are far from real people’s drama. They cost less than real influencers and have no regulations or physical limitations.
