ReleaseWire Connect

Welcome to the new purchasing power of fame. Big companies are paying regular folks for their social media influence. Turning tables to give the little guy a piece of the pie, a renegade marketing move is on trend. Quantifying the nature of influence, no matter where it comes from, sites like SWAPD and VirtualAccounts are here to play. And play they do. For instance, SWAPD, with only five months under their belt, has thousands of listings for influencer accounts all up for sale or swap. The company is already a booming business thanks to big companies who pay for organic followers. Simple enough, right? But, an even bigger question looms. If companies and political organizations can generate a larger following by subversively buying influence on social media, which messages are real?

With the lightening speed of the digital age, the term influential properties just broadened its reach. Popular social media accounts are now just that, properties of influence. Seeing the advantage in buying social media accounts, advertisers are monetizing not only what influencers have to say, but how they say it. Creating leverage for themselves by cherry-picking accounts that have a built-in audience wholly interested in their products, they cut to the chase. They also share the wealth and pay up to $50k per account. And why shouldn't they? For the price of a few thousand dollars, they can have a ready customer base all too willing to fork over much-coveted sales.

In the digital age where news travels faster than the time it took to make it, most know their way around social media like the back of their hand. But do they know that social media marketing can net users a hefty payday? Makes one wonder if that code can be cracked by anyone without a steady place in the zeitgeist and the bank account to prove it. According to the research of D'Marie Analytics, celebrities such as Kylie Jenner, Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift, or Rihanna make five to six figures for a single social status update. Regardless if it's Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, or Twitter, all it takes is one upload to net them more than most Americans make in a year. The good news is, recent marketing methods reveal that this money making machine isn't exclusive to celebrities. "Regular Joes," even with very little experience in social media, are getting in on the action. It's all thanks to a little big thing called influencer platforms.

So how did he do it? How did a regular website owner take his platform to viral status and line his pocket with $52k overnight? Sounds too good to be true. But it is true according to the owner of DailyLeap. A lifestyle website designed to garner the attention of virtual passersby with human interest stories, went viral overnight with one post. The one post heard round the world piggybacked on what is now deemed as prime digital age real estate. That "pay dirt" now looks like the willingness to buy or sell an Instagram account, sell a Facebook fan page, or that's right, sell a Twitter account.

Using resourcefulness as a working principle, it was only a matter of time before marketers found another way to exchange social influence for money. Now, a regular joe with a dynamic social media following can parlay their grassroots efforts into immediate cash. Turns out marketing firms and business owners love a shortcut to viewership. And why wouldn't they? For the price of a few hundred to a few thousand dollars they can have a ready customer base all too willing to fork over much coveted sales. Enter, the internet's newest commodity; the social media account gold mine.