The trend for online pet pages has been continuously growing in popularity. Brands including Bodyshop, Dyson, Ralph Lauren collaborate with them to promote their products, people around the world are trying to turn their four-legged friends into social media stars, and there are talent management firms that specialize only in pet influencers.
Pets produce the most universally favored content of the social web: cat and dog-content.
Compared to other types of influencer profiles, pet influencers are significantly different. Instead of reflecting problems than human influencers may touch upon, pet influencers’ content brings us together by entertaining us. Pet content usually doesn’t include major political agenda, strong opinions or messages.
What’s more, pet content does not make us feel bad about ourselves, since we don’t compare ourselves with pet influencers. Pet content often resonates with our state of mind and makes us feel good, which is something we all value.
What Makes Petfluencers So Popular?
From the brand’s perspective, having an ambassador that will 100% resonate with your audience is a complete win. Working with influencers is often connected with worrying about the influencer’s reputation. No brand wants to get an embarrassing experience as the result of the media covering something inappropriate that the influencer said or did. From this point of view, petinfluencers are very similar to virtual influencers – both can be fully managed by the brand.
Perhaps most importantly, animals are genuine and authentic by nature. Dogs can’t put on a fake smile.
The world of “petfluencers” includes not only adorable dogs and cats but even bunnies, hedgehogs and insects, garnering millions of followers from around the world.
In our new research, we examined Instagram accounts of Pet influencers to find common patterns and features, and also compiled the most complete and relevant top list of Instagram petfluencers.
We have finally found out who controls Instagram – cats or dogs.
Key findings
The majority of pet influencers are Micro-influencers – 43.82%
Pet influencers’ content has a higher engagement rate compared to the worldwide engagement rate.
The majority audience of pet influencers are female – 61.46%
The majority of pet influencers – 44.13% – are from the US
Dogs have 14.9 M more followers than cats in the Top 100 Petinfluencer list. Dogs rule on Instagram.
84 pet influencers accounts from the top 100 list have verification badges.
For the majority of pets from the list, Instagram is not the only platform, they also have accounts on TikTok and YouTube.
Distribution of Petfluencers by Tiers
For our research, we have analyzed influencer accounts from HypeAuditor Discovery Database in the Animals category. In total HypeAuditor’s Database has over 11M Instagram accounts and only 37.2K (0.3% of all creators) post in this category.
The number of Macro and Mega pet influencers is limited. The majority of pet influencers are Micro-influencers (44%).
How Much Money Do Pet Influencers Make?
Influencers’ remuneration for a post or a story depends on many factors, such as the creator’s number of followers, engagement rate, content production costs and so on.
In the graph above we provide average market prices in US dollars for a pet influencer’s post, but you must remember that there are always exceptions.
Petfluencers’ Engagement Rate
Engagement Rate or ER is a commonly used benchmark measuring creator’s success on Instagram as it determines how well the audience connects with a creator’s content.
Highly engaging content with many likes and comments often stands a better chance of organically appearing on an Instagram feed. The average engagement of pet influencers is higher than the worldwide average for all tiers. Followers are more engaged with pet influencers’ content.
Audience of Petfluencers by Age and Gender
The audience of pet influencers is largely female – 61.46%. The core audience of pet influencers are women aged between 18 and 34 years old.
Distribution of Petfluencers by Countries
The majority of pet influencers – 44.13% – are from the US. This is not surprising, according to a recent survey done by Mars Petcare US, 1 out of 6 pet owners in the USA has created a social account specifically for their pet.
Most Popular Pets among Top 100 Petfluencers
We have collected the list of top 100 pet influencers by the number of followers. There are different types of animals in this list: 44 dogs, 40 cats, a fox, 2 cat and dog couples, 2 hedgehogs, a puma, a raccoon, 2 pigs, an otter, a squirel, a monkey, a bunny, goats alpaca and a caracal.
Interestingly, the dogs of the same breed of Pomeranian Spitz were in the first and the last place on our list. The biggest following belings to the cute @jiffpom – 10.3M, and the smallest on our list – to the chocolate @bertiebertthepom – 430K.
There is an opinion that cats rule on the Internet. Images and videos of domestic cats make up some of the most viewed content on the web.
To find out who is more popular on Instagram, we have compiled a top list of the most popular animals, counted their total number of subscribers and compared among themselves.
Dogs have 14.9 M more followers than cats. Dogs rule on Instagram.
Instagram Verification for Pet Influencer Accounts
84 from 100 accounts of the Top List have Instagram verification badges.
A verified badge is a check sign located next to the name of an Instagram account in the search and in the profile. It means that Instagram has confirmed that an account officially belongs to the public figure, celebrity or a global brand.
In our study "In-depth Research of Instagram Verification: Does Verification badge Impact Engagement," we found out that only 3.26% of Instagram accounts are verified.
Verified hedgehogs, cats and dogs prove that Instagram understands the importance of petfluencer accounts for its ecosystem.
Top-20 Petfluencers
1. jiffpom
https://www.instagram.com/p/CAAGekhlvXJ/
Instagram followers: 10.2M
Engagement rate: 0.74%
Yearly growth: 13%
Estimated post price: n/a
TikTok followers: 20.9M
YouTube subscribers: 274K
2. nala_cat
https://www.instagram.com/p/CAFyQGcgaBm/
Instagram followers: 4.4M
Engagement rate: 1.1%
Yearly growth: 6.6%
Estimated post price: $2,669–$4,804
TikTok followers: 196K
YouTube subscribers: 28.5K
3. itsdougthepug
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_-jiZ7p0PR/
Instagram followers: 4M
Engagement rate: 2.03%
Yearly growth: 4.3%
Estimated post price: $11,696–$21,054
TikTok followers: 3.3M
YouTube subscribers: 330K
4. juniperfoxx
https://www.instagram.com/p/CADsFAKlNh7/
Instagram followers: 3M
Engagement rate: 4.29%
Yearly growth: 6.1%
Estimated post price: $16,883–$30,390
TikTok followers: no
YouTube subscribers: no
5. broleyblue
https://www.instagram.com/p/B97TMHmpwBy/
Instagram followers: 2.9M
Engagement rate: 5.99%
Yearly growth: -7.8%
Estimated post price: $14,735–$26,523
TikTok followers: no
YouTube subscribers: no
6. realgrumpycat
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_I-mnbBLQC/
Instagram followers: 2.6M
Engagement rate: 2.22%
Yearly growth: -3.4%
Estimated post price: n/a
TikTok followers: no
YouTube subscribers: no
7. marutaro
https://www.instagram.com/p/CBIVRKlBTFO/
Instagram followers: 2.5M
Engagement rate: 1.37%
Yearly growth: 0.1%
Estimated post price: $3,000–$5,000
8. iamlilbub
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_5ZpaCAs8I/
Instagram followers: 2.4M
Engagement rate: 3.29%
Yearly growth: 13.20%
Estimated post price: $14,019–$25,235
9. smoothiethecat
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_LGrlNl3i0/
Instagram followers: 2.2M
Engagement rate: 3.86%
Yearly growth: 12.5%
Estimated post price: $7,000–$10,000
TikTok followers: 360K
YouTube subscribers: 128K
10. tecuaniventura
https://www.instagram.com/p/BvFrc9vlYPF/
Instagram followers: 2.1M
Engagement rate: 3.86%
Yearly growth: -1.2%
Estimated post price: n/a
11. tunameltsmyheart
https://www.instagram.com/p/CAD4-5uhPBC/
Instagram followers: 2.1M
Engagement rate: 1.85%
Yearly growth: 3.1%
Estimated post price: $2,500–$5,000
12. loki
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_5e4SzpmhT/
Instagram followers: 2M
Engagement rate: 2.15%
Yearly growth: 1.9%
Estimated post price: $6,000–$10,000
Brand mentions: @toyotausa, @gopro, @teamtoyoata and others
13. venustwofacecat
https://www.instagram.com/p/B-zYc9yA8Wu/
Instagram followers: 2M
Engagement rate: 1.24%
Yearly growth:12.6%
Estimated post price: $2,000–$3,500
TikTok followers: 1.9M
YouTube subscribers: 12.5K
Brand mentions: @tiktok, @cbdmdusa, @crownandpaw
14. white_coffee_cat
https://www.instagram.com/p/CAHCyY6hHTr/
Instagram followers: 2M
Engagement rate: 1.39%
Yearly growth: 4.9%
Estimated post price: $2,500–$4,500
Brand mentions: @cbdmd.usa, @stainmaster, @ferapetorganics and other
15. mayapolarbear
https://www.instagram.com/p/B5iGW3uFGUS/
Instagram followers: 2M
Engagement rate: 11.59%
Yearly growth: 25.9%
Estimated post price: $10,000–$15,000
TikTok followers: 3.2M
YouTube subscribers: 1.6M
Brand mentions: @furbodogcamera
16. sukiicat
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_-dNtsAjws/
Instagram followers: 1.9M
Engagement rate: 6.2%
Yearly growth: 30.8%
Estimated post price: $10,000–$15,000
YouTube subscribers: 3.6K
Brand mentions: @orijenpetfood
17. marniethedog
https://www.instagram.com/p/B9mzaWHg52L/
Instagram followers: 1.8M
Engagement rate: 4.72%
Yearly growth: -5.70%
Estimated post price: $8,500–$15,000
YouTube subscribers: 36.4K
18. cobythecat
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_xCDMrhzvO/
Instagram followers: 1.8M
Engagement rate: 2.36%
Yearly growth: 13.50%
Estimated post price: $5,000–$9,000
Brand mentions: @spotify, @proplan, @sephora
19. mr.pokee
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_xeBAHAQGd/
Instagram followers: 1.8M
Engagement rate: 5.4%
Yearly growth: 29.2%
Estimated post price: $10,000–$15,000
TikTok followers: 716K
YouTube subscribers: 7.1K
Brand mentions: @truewoods_clothing, @kaptenandson, @oceana
20. hosico_cat
https://www.instagram.com/p/CACp-EjlnIr/
Instagram followers: 1.8M
Engagement rate: 2.59%
Yearly growth: 17.9%
Estimated post price: $2,000–$4,000
TikTok followers: 291K
YouTube subscribers: 146K
Brand mentions: @pidan
Methodology
The report uses data from a wide variety of sources, including market research agencies, internet, and social media companies, news media, and our internal analysis.
We have collected and aggregated open data from a variety of sources: social platforms, catalogs, websites, crowdsourcing, and many more. After that, we processed the data by anonymizing, sorting and structuring, cleaning and removing any irregularities, and enriching the data.
Then we transformed the data into intelligent estimations by using best-in-class estimation and machine learning algorithms developed by our team of leading data scientists and influencer marketing experts.
