Russian bloggers increased their income on Facebook, Instagram and X to 4.7 billion rubles

The Association of Bloggers and Agencies (ABA) told the newspaper that the main increase in bloggers’ income is associated more with an increase in the cost of placements than with the influx of new advertisers. The association noted that within the Meta* structure, the most important player in the market is Instagram*.

“Exactly [Instagram*] interesting for bloggers due to its functionality and algorithms: the recommendations feed allows short videos to go viral. It is the Reels format that is now the most popular not only as regular content, but also for advertising integrations,” ABA explained.

The income of large bloggers on Instagram*, whose audience exceeds 800 thousand users, increased by 20% compared to 2023. During the 11 months of 2024, the five largest national bloggers on this social network earned a total of 130.5 million rubles (+21 million rubles year-on-year).

The ABA added that Facebook*, which is initially more preferable for text publications, has not sparked much interest among advertisers and popular Russian-speaking bloggers, and X is “simply inconvenient as an advertising and promotional tool.”

Bloggers failed to massively transfer their audience from banned social networks to legal platforms, Yaroslav Meshalkin, managing partner of the digital communication agency Heads’made, told Izvestia. However, he added that “over time the situation will stabilize.”

*Meta and its Facebook and Instagram members are recognized as extremist organizations whose activities are prohibited in the Russian Federation.