Full-time influencers earn LESS than part-timers? Shocking stats from our survey!

A few weeks back, we worked with Think City to launch the Nak Famous Survey, which, among other things, asked the big questions in life like what do people really think about influencers? And how influencers see themselves?

The reason for this collaboration? Think City and CILISOS are launching a unique initiative in the KULektif – a group of influencers to be mentored to tell more interesting stories about the centre of our fascinating capital, the KL Creative & Cultural District.

If you think you’d like to be in that exclusive programme, fill up this form before 13th August 2024!

Back to the survey, After two weeks, we managed to get 452 respondents (thanks gais!), so here are some basic stats about them:

• More men (70%) than women (26%) took our survey, plus 4% lain-lain gender.
• They’re mostly millennials aged between 28-43 years old (73%).
• Most are from KL, Selangor or Putrajaya (70.5%), but we have representatives from all states.
• Most of them spend their time on Facebook (59.5%) and Instagram/Threads (53.7%).

We had over 30 questions in the survey, so we really really owe it to these hardworking individuals that took the survey! Speaking of hardworking…

1.  28% of respondents hide low quality content

We always thought we were the only ones rajin enough to click on that HIDE AD or REPORT POST button. But we’re happy to hear that ALOT of you do that. Unfortunately, one of the things you hide is also CILISOS source of revenue 🙁

• Ads and sponsored/promoted stuff (59%) (not CILISOS stuff la right?… right?)
• Obvious scams (57%)
• Fake news and propaganda (43%)

These three things are considerably more annoying to our respondents than religious and racial stuff (25%), low quality content from content farms (28%), stuff from influencers they don’t like (26%), and even political stuff (12%), which is the lowest on the list.

Interestingly, while both sexes seem to be equal in their hate for most of these things, guys hate political stuff considerably more than girls for some reason (15% guys vs only 5% girls). 

But anyway, the point is that it’s hard to get people to follow you, and even harder to stay relevant when people keep hiding your ads. So how’s an influencer to cari makan in Malaysia? Well, this may be counterintuitive to some, but…

2. Only 11% of our respondents want to be influencers

Considering that this survey is called the Nak Famous Survey, you’d think that people who take it would want to be influencers, right? And people have been worrying about kids wanting to be influencers instead of studying summore!

Well, while a lot (like 80%) of our respondents actually post to their social media at one point or another, only 11% consider themselves influencers. Since more than 70% of our respondents have less than 1,000 followers (including the kesian 21% who claims to have less than 10 followers), it’s to be expected, but still, quite shookening.

Anyways, the very idea of being an influencer was met with derision by the majority (58%), although quite a number of our respondents harbored dreams of influencing someday.

• 10% want to be an influencer.
• 18% hope to be signed to an agency one day.
• 18% hope to collaborate with other content creators in the future.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, of the 10% who want to be influencers, Gen Zs are twice as likely to pick this option compared to millennials. So wait… what are the other 90% doing?

3. 63% of Malaysians are lurkers that never even follow content creators 🙁

We get it. Y’all got commitment issues. A majority (63%) tend to just watch content and not follow, while another 14% exclusively follow content from overseas.

But if you like the content, it really helps for y’all to follow at least. Heck, we’re not even asking for a payout… which is good since a majority of our respondents (67%) are not very likely to shell out their hard earned cash for social media content.

However, there are a bunch of you that actively support content creators, though.

• 24% actually paid for YouTube Premium
• 6% gave gifts during livestreams on TikTok and Facebook
• 5% subscribe to their favorite creators (like on Patreon)

Still, those are day-to-day income for content creators. What about partnerships and brands? A majority (83%) of our respondents haven’t made a single cent from their social media posts, while others mostly (11%) made below RM5,000. However, there are those who’ve managed to bag between RM5,000-RM10,000 (2%) and over RM10,000 (2%) as well… for a single project!

Life is tough for the majority, BUT 22% did say they do follow local content creators, and women are twice as likely as men to do this (Thanks ladies!). When we asked them to name their top influencers, the top three most mentioned are Iqtodabal (but probably undi rosak or something cause he’s our editor-in-chief), Khairul Aming, and Wabikong.

While we’re on the topic of local, we also wanted to find out where y’all capturing your OOTDs…

4. 56% of you have done the cheesy KLCC wefie

When we asked our respondents where their friends would ask them to hang out on a Saturday, the most popular (20%) option would be to go somewhere trendy, like a cafe that went viral recently. Other options include

• A fun place, like karaoke or a theme park (14%)
• Somewhere close to nature, like a park or forest reserve (14%)
• Somewhere busy and bustling, like a mall (11%).

A quiet place (think museums and historical sites) is the least popular option, with only 7% picking that. Maybe that’s why our suggestion for Lembah Bujang as our company trip got shot down 🙁

Back in civilisation, 56% of our respondents have taken the infamous selfie from the bottom of KLCC, and we’re sure you have also. Other, less popular things include:

• Went to Aquaria KLCC (47%)
• Went to PetroSains (41%)
• Gone up the KL Tower (40%)
• Done a tour of the Central Market Downtown KL area (36.5%)

Having explored the area for our workshop, we’re hoping to work with Think City to push this Downtown area up the list in next year’s survey 🙂

“Honestly, there are so many stories in this area, waiting to be discovered! We want more people to not only share their adventures in Downtown KL with their friends and followers but also to become storytellers to the vibrant and flourishing creative ecosystem,” – Izan Satrina Mohd Sallehuddin, Senior Director of Partnerships & Creative Sector, Think City.

Even further down the aiyoyo funnel, a small portion (2%) of our respondents have never even been to KL. That’s gonna make your influencer life a bit harder cos

5. To be a huge influencer, you’d need… the right friends?

Well, wanting to be an influencer is one thing, but knowing how to be one is another. So how does one even begin to be popular online? “By being trendy, duh!” this writer used to think, but not so according to our respondents.

Only a small number (12%) actually cares about what’s totally hip and in right now when they post. The majority (70%) just post whatever they want, so trends don’t matter much to people these days. What does, then? When asked what superpower would help them make it big, here are the top three picks:

• Knowing the right people (24%)
• Having a big budget (20%)
• Having talent (19%)

Having cable seems to be less important to the elderly, though: our older Gen Xers (44-59 years old) are less likely (only 14%) to pick that option. However, they’re more likely than average to pick something not in the top three: knowing about trends before they happen (14% vs 10% average).

Speaking of trends, it ain’t cat videos no more cos…

6. Malaysian men like their content… longer

Honestly, this warmed us a bit. In an age when everyone thinks attention spans are getting shorter, who would watch a documentary about some historical site rather than a travel vlog to Japan?!? Apparently, a significant amount of people.

Predictably, length matters to men… when it comes to videos. For some reason, 23% of our male respondents prefers longer videos like documentaries and vlogs, three times as many women (7%).

When asked what kind of content our respondents have been watching, the top three are

• Food-related content, like cooking shows and restaurant reviews (46%)
• Memes and pop culture stuff like brainrot content and movie reviews (36%)
• Big brain stuff like documentaries and explainers (29%)

As Malaysians, food content being the top watched isn’t really surprising, and people do go to social media to be entertained by memes and celebs. But documentaries being up there is a bit weird, considering it beats out stuff like cute animal videos (13%), fashion and beauty stuff (7%) and travel content (20%) to be there.

This might just be because the ones who took this survey are probably Cilisos readers, and we do explainers and documentaries. But when we asked them what would grow a content creator’s presence online, the top three ideas they have are

• Make higher quality content (52%)
• Post stuff on more platforms more often (34.%)
• Collaborate with more famous content creators (32%)

It’s obvious that high-quality content beats other ideas by a significant margin, so all this might point to the fact that Malaysians – or at least our survey respondents – could use a little more well-made intellectual content in their online lives.

So if you’re an aspiring influencer who’s now thinking of making that kind of content, here’s a happy accident for you. 

As mentioned earlier, we’re working with Think City to hold two workshops to guide a new generation of content creators on how to make quality, valuable content, with Downtown KL as a canvas and we’re offering you the opportunity to sign up for this RM2700 workshop absolutely free.

“Content creators are paving the path for new ways we consume and experience content online. What better way to help us coach a future generation of content creators with CILISOS by uncovering the hidden gems and unique experiences in Downtown KL.” – Izan Satrina Mohd Sallehuddin, Senior Director of Partnerships & Creative Sector, Think City.

As part of the Think City KULektif, you’ll not only learn the ins and outs of content creation with a purpose but also get special access to events by Think City and potential content sponsorship opportunities with Downtown KL creative and business communities. Why are we doing this? To make Downtown KL a more creatively vibrant place than it already is… There’s so much to KL we have yet to discover… let’s do it together?

Register for the KUL! Content Creators Programme here!

And as is customary for surveys, here are some interesting facts that we can’t fit elsewhere in the article, but we’re including just for fun. Thanks for reading!

• We can actually see in the data that the love for memes and pop culture content go down as our respondents’ age go up. Conversely, the love for health and wellness content goes up.
• When it comes to flame wars, women are more likely to enjoy the fallout and drama that follows. Men, on the other hand, are more likely to create the drama in the first place.
• Sorry, podcasters: Audio is our respondents’ least favorite type of content by far. The most liked content formats are images and short videos.
• By language spoken, Chinese speakers are more likely to prefer connections as their influencer superpower, whereas Indian speakers prefer either having a big budget or great talent.
• A majority of our respondents have had their touch of fame: 72% had gotten more than 20 comments on their post at least once.
• Our respondents are just as likely to pay for YouTube Premium regardless of their income.