If you read our recent post on how to grow your social media and become an influencer, you’ll know that influencer marketing is a thriving industry that is attracting a lot of attention from brands, marketers, and consumers alike. In fact, by the end of 2021, the industry is expected to be worth almost AUD$20 billion!
So it’s little wonder that casting and modelling agencies here in Australia are now looking to represent influencers as much as actors, models and creatives. Like we said, business is booming in the world of influencer marketing.
With this in mind, we decided to take a look at one or two of the top local influencers in some of the most popular niches in the industry. If you’re looking for some inspiration for your fledgling career as an influencer, then you could do a lot worse than following some of these legends of Insta.
Bear in mind that for this list we’re looking at people who are primarily influencers and who have a significant following on Instagram. So actors, models, and celebrities with huge followings don’t quite make the cut.
Fashion
Pia Muehlenbeck — 2M Followers
@piamuehlenbeck
With over two million followers, Pia is the top Australian fashion influencer on Instagram. She has used her standing as an influencer to launch an eco-friendly clothing brand called SLINKII. The brand creates swimwear from recycled fishing nets that have been reclaimed from the ocean.
She usually posts twice per week and it’s mostly vlogs about her life and what she’s up to. Her posts average around 15,000+ likes and 300+ comments giving her some impressive engagement stats.
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Health and Fitness
Emily Skye — 2.5M Followers
@emilyskyefit
Emily Skye is a personal trainer and mother of two kids who has amassed a huge following on Instagram. She shared her journey through two pregnancies and promotes her health and fitness program. Her content obviously hits the right notes with her followers as her posts average 67,000+ likes and 900+ comments.
Interestingly, the majority of followers who engage with Enily’s content are actually based in the USA while she is also popular here in Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Italy.
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Beauty
Shani Grimmond — 1.4M Followers
@shanigrimmond
Shani Grimmong is a blogger who turned her passion for makeup and skincare products into a successful career as a beauty influencer. She first arrived on the scene on her YouTube channel back in 2011 where she now has 1.5 million followers. She is extremely active on Instagram endorsing products through tutorials and vlogs.
Her posts average over 40,000+ likes and 100+ comments.
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Humour
Ethan Marrell (Ozzy Man Reviews) — 1.7M Followers
@ozzymanreviews
What started out as a bit of fun has turned into a comedic phenomenon. Listen, we’re not even going to try and explain what Ozzy Man Reviews is because you probably already know. As you may have guessed, this legend of the digital space gained his notoriety on both YouTube and Facebook before jumping on the Instagram bandwagon.
We don’t have too much data on his Insta stats but over on YouTube Ethan is hitting home runs every week. His videos average 700,000+ views and engagement of 1,200+ made up of a combination of likes and comments.
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Health and Fitness
Tammy Hembrow — 13.6M Followers
@tammyhembrow
Tammy Hembrow is the ultimate influencer success story. She started out on Instagram sharing her journey to improve her fitness and her career took off from there. Like many female fitness influencers, Tammy documented her two pregnancies and how she recovered her fitness following both births.
With such huge numbers her stats are no surprise. Her posts average 200,000+ likes and 1600+ comments making her one of the most influential people on this list.
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Travel
Tara Whiteman — 1.3M Followers
@taramilktea
Tara Whiteman goes by the moniker of Tara Milk Tea on Instagram where she shares her travels and adventures with over 1.3 million followers. Originally from Sydney, Tara travels throughout Australia and beyond. While travel is her main calling, she also promotes some lifestyle brands and products too.
Tara’s posts have an average of 24,000+ likes and 1700+ comments.
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Beauty
Lauren Curtis — 1.2M Followers
@lozcurtis
Lauren Curtis is a hugely popular influencer who has over 3.6 million followers on her YouTube channel. Her Instagram’s not bad either with just over 1.2 million people looking to her for beauty advice. And she certainly does deliver. She shares tutorials and vlogs on all things beauty including makeup, hair, and anything else you can think of.
While she gets most of her engagement on her YouTube channel, her Insta stats are quite good too with and average of 13,000+ likes and 86 comments per post.
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Cooking
Ann Reardon (How to Cook That) — 191K Followers
@howtocookthat
Although she may ‘only’ have 191K followers on Instagram, Ann is something of a home cooking legend over on YouTube and Facebook. She is a qualified dietician who started a channel debunking culinary myths and teaching people how to cook. It currently has over 4.8 million followers so she’s certainly found her groove.
Ann has even started calling out other channels and videos for creating fake content. She’s a bit of a badass in our opinion.
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Cooking
Nat (Nat’s What I reckon) — 450K Followers
@nats_what_i_reckon
Nat, who has never actually disclosed his surname, is a standup comedian who has become something of a champion of home cooking. He regularly hosts quick cooking tutorials that are extremely popular on Facebook where he has over 1.6 million followers. He’s not everyone’s cup of tea and he swears… A LOT, but that’s part of his charm for many of his followers.
Still, he’s doing great stuff and has managed to get an entire generation of Aussies back into the kitchen and cooking with fresh ingredients once again.
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As you can see, whether you’re a comedian who swears a lot or a dietician who loves to bake and debunk stuff, there’s always someone out there who is willing to listen to what you have to say. So take a little inspiration from these success stories and get out there and start creating content—you never know where it might take you!
