• Kyra Ann is a minimalist who shares her experience and tips on YouTube with her 77,000 subscribers.
• Kyra told Business Insider she has three main revenue streams: her day job at a nursing home, her YouTube channel, and the commissions she earns through affiliate links. 
• She earns more money a month from her YouTube channel than at her day job, and she shared how much money YouTube paid her in February.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

As soon as Kyra Ann finishes her day shift at a nursing home, she heads straight to her apartment to work on her YouTube channel. 

Kyra started her YouTube channel in 2017 and now has 77,000 subscribers. She shares tips on minimalism, saving money on a low income, and organization. 

Her three main revenue streams are her YouTube channel, her day job at a nursing home, and the commissions she earns through affiliate links from the Amazon Associates Program, she told Business Insider.  

YouTube creators like Kyra generally make money a number of ways, from ads on videos filtered by Google to brand promotions, merchandise sales, and revenue through affiliate marketing.

The Google AdSense program allows creators to earn money off the ads that play within a YouTube video, and creators with 1,000 subscribers and over 4,000 watch hours can apply for YouTube's Partner Program and start earning money. YouTube pays creators a certain rate that varies based on the type of content and the advertisers the video attracts.

As an influencer, Kyra earned $1,817 from AdSense in February, which is more than what she earns a month at her day job, she said. She also earned $158 from Amazon's affiliate program.

Since Kyra is a minimalist, she doesn't own a TV, and she tries to spend as little as possible each month. She also works in a kitchen, so most of her meals are free, she said. In total, she spent about $1,400 in February. 

"I never would have thought that that was possible," she said. "I was like, 'Wait a minute, I've been working at my job for eight years and now I'm getting paid more from YouTube?'" 

The rise of sustainable living on YouTube 

Throughout 2019, there was a general rise in interest on YouTube around sustainable living. Videos on sustainable living have doubled this year. Some of the top categories are van life/tiny home, minimalism, and zero waste, a YouTube representative told Business Insider.

For instance, the solo van-life traveler Jennelle Eliana Long gained 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube within a month of posting her first video after YouTube recommended her videos to its users.

Though Kyra's YouTube channel never went viral, her videos tend to attract many viewers because of the subject. She has nine videos with over 100,000 views.

She said the most she's earned from a single YouTube video was about $6,000. 

"I didn't keep any of that money," she said. "I actually threw it all to my student loans."

For more on the business of influencers, according to YouTube stars, check out these Business Insider Prime posts: 

• How do influencers pay taxes? 4 steps to conquer tax season as a self-employed social-media creator: We spoke with social-media influencers on YouTube and Instagram who shared their strategies and tips on staying organized for tax season.

• How much money a TikTok creator with 1 million followers can expect to earn from a brand deal, according to an influencer manager: Creators say this number depends on overall engagement, and they shared the rates they charge.  

• A YouTube creator explains why personal-finance videos can make much more money than many other types: Marko Zlatic runs a YouTube channel with 298,000 subscribers, and he posts videos about personal finance, stocks, and real-estate investing.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns explains why country music is universal

• Reddit is one of the most popular websites in the world, so it's unsurprising that a subreddit about the coronavirus disease has more than 600,000 members.
• However, both the popular subreddit and coronavirus-related content has been left seemingly unchecked and unfiltered by Reddit moderators.
• Reddit's website doesn't display or prioritize any verified information from official health organizations, like the CDC and WHO, as other major platforms have done — including Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Amazon.
• Reddit has faced criticism before for the actions of its communities, particularly for a type of vigilante investigations common on the platform. Reddit users were held responsible for incorrectly identifying a 22-year-old college student as one of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

As millions flock to social platforms to find the latest on the coronavirus, Reddit is one of the last popular websites to hold out on providing and prioritizing verified information from health officials to its users.

Reddit users have already clamored to a number of coronavirus-related subreddits, including r/coronavirus, which has more than 600,000 members. However, information-hungry users are getting little help from the platform in directing them toward the most accurate and up-to-date news from official sources, such as the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Aside from Reddit, most major websites and platforms have enacted changes to ensure links to official health organizations have appeared at the top of search results for coronavirus-related queries. Reddit's lack of action raises concerns about what the platform is doing to prevent the proliferation of misinformation, an issue the Reddit community and its army of amateur sleuths have run into before— with serious consequences.

Nearly 100,000 people have contracted COVID-19, the coronavirus disease, which originated in China and has since spread to at least 86 countries. The resulting fear over contracting the illness has led to a global shortage in face masks, the cancellation of major conferences and events, and even an economic meltdown.

Social networks including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and TikTok have all stuck notes and pop-up windows with links to the CDC and WHO at the top of search results, with many citing the move as a way to prevent the spread of misinformation. E-commerce marketplaces like Amazon, where many have went to stock up on face masks and hand sanitizer, have also implemented similar pop-ups and guidance on their websites.

Reddit declined to provide an on-the-record statement to Business Insider, but directed users to a blog post posted Monday that advertises the platform's ask-me-anything sessions with doctors and coronavirus experts.

Without any links to official coronavirus information, a Reddit search for the disease brings up a slew of posts across the platform citing sketchy sources, linking to unverified social media posts, and making bold — and potentially fear-mongering — claims. One coronavirus-related post— shared in r/popularopinion with nearly 40,000 upvotes — blatantly forwards a racist belief related to the disease.

Redditors have responded to the need for information by launching a network of subreddit for users to share and retrieve the latest news stories, reports, and headcounts of affected individuals. There's r/coronavirus, which has more than 600,000 members, and was reportedly the fastest-growing subreddit on the platform as of Thursday. There's also r/China_Flu and r/COVID19, which each have tens of thousands of members.

It appears that banner initially enacted a banner at the top of some of the biggest coronavirus subreddits with links to the CDC and WHO, as The Hill reported in early February. However, those banners have since disappeared from Reddit.

In an effort to provide accurate information, moderators have provided links to useful resources, and have implemented forum rules about not sharing sensationalized, unverified or unreliable sources. Some of these moderators are experts and PhD students, according to The Hill, and one said he spends "hours each day" removing misinformation from coronavirus subreddits.

However, these moderators told The Hill that Reddit is still "rife with coronavirus-related misinformation."

Nevertheless, these subreddits lack official oversight. In scrolling through posts in the popular forum, r/coronavirus, Business Insider found a number of claims about newly reported outbreaks and the number of deaths. That's not to mention the various discussion threads where Redditors can share opinions, and the moderator-run coronavirus Discord group, where its 10,000 members are free to share conspiracies, theories, and debate best safety tips.

A former r/Coronavirus moderator told Vice that Reddit's moderation system has been "inefficient" in preventing the spread of coronavirus misinformation.

At least two subreddits — r/wuhan_flu and r/coronavirusconspiracy— have been "quarantined" by Reddit for containing misinformation and "hoax content." The quarantine means these subreddits won't appear in users' search and recommendation results, and Redditors are required to explicitly opt in to view these communities' content.

A deep-dive into content on r/wuhan_flu, conducted by Vice, found that the page was full of "unvetted information, conspiracy theory, and paranoia." Users in the group have went as far as to accuse some moderators of the other coronavirus-related subreddits of being "Chinese Communist Party shills" who are censoring information.

As one of the top 20 most popular websites in the world, Reddit has been at the forefront of disseminating news. However, Reddit's prominence means the platform has the power to play a significant role in spreading misinformation if it doesn't take precautions to stifle it.

Perhaps the most well-known example of Reddit's power came in 2013 in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing. A group of Redditors-turned-amateur sleuths took it upon themselves to try to identify the suspects in the bombing, and zeroed in on a 22-year-old missing student after claiming he looked similar to photos of one suspect. Redditors and high-profile journalists were quick to share on social media the name of the student, Sunil Tripathi, who was later found dead and cleared of any wrongdoing. Reddit later issued a public apology to Tripathi's family

SEE ALSO: Some travel influencers are afraid their globetrotting careers are in peril, as the coronavirus outbreak cancels plans and isolates them abroad

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• Former Apple advertising guru James Vincent built consulting firm Fndr over three years using his connections in venture capital and tech.
• He and his three partners have since worked with Snapchat, Farfetch, Glossier, Vice Media, and Polaroid, among others.
• The firm's internal pitch deck outlines how it uses intense coaching sessions to help founders define their companies.
• Fndr has clients spend hours in its "radical safe house" environments — a 1929 Craftsman-style bungalow in Venice Beach, California, and a loft in Dumbo, Brooklyn — where they're probed on the ideas behind their business.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Over the past three years, Fndr claims to have built an impressive client portfolio that includes Snapchat, Glossier, Vice Media, and the 83-year-old Polaroid without ever directly pitching itself.

"It's a relationship business," chief operating officer Rebekah Jefferis said.

Instead, the clients came primarily on the strength of referrals from venture capital firms including Y Combinator, Attention Capital, and LocalGlobe.

CEO James Vincent said the firm takes an unusual approach that convinced tech founders like Snapchat's Evan Spiegel, a longtime client, to spend hours in Fndr's "radical safe house" environments — a 1929 Craftsman-style bungalow in Venice Beach, California, and a loft in Dumbo, Brooklyn — to discuss the ideas at the core of their businesses in an intimate environment with no smartphones in sight.

The company shared a deck, included below, that describes this approach, which Vincent calls "a highly orchestrated series of intense meetings to pull the genius out of a founder."

The firm uses therapy-like sessions to get founders to be brutally honest

Chief strategy officer Nick Barham said the firm usually works with businesses early in their lifespan, when the founders are the only ones thinking about their brand.

As the deck shows, each client participates in three daylong sessions at the firm's safe houses over four to six weeks with each group consisting of the company's founder and no more than four more people. The idea is to provide a safe environment where the client can be asked probing questions that will help them define the company and ultimately stand out in a crowded field. 

"We're very honest to the point of being brutal," chief creative officer Stephen Butler said.

This approach, which grew out of the partners' experience at ad agencies working with famously unforgiving founders like Apple's Steve Jobs and Airbnb's Brian Chesky, may resemble therapy. But Jefferis said it's closer to coaching — people aren't asking the firm to solve their problems but to help shape how they talk about their companies.

Fndr's approach has led to longstanding relationships with companies like Snapchat

Barham said Fndr lies firmly on the creative side of the consulting spectrum; unlike McKinsey or Deloitte, it doesn't get into supply chains or efficiencies issues.

Although the founders worked at major ad agencies, the firm doesn't produce any marketing materials, either.

Instead, the company's core product is a playbook summarizing each client's narrative that can help shape everything from internal documents like hiring guides and product road maps to communications briefs or investor decks.

Fndr has helped clients choose ad agencies or PR firms to implement the ideas from those strategy sessions. Vincent said they helped Snapchat move from thinking of itself as a social network where you can connect with anyone to a platform for sharing with real friends.

"Real friends" was the title of the company's first global ad campaign, which ran in 2019.

The partners want to apply their creative skills to a market where brands mean more than ads

Unlike most consulting firms, Fndr doesn't release case studies or any real evidence of their work. Barham said that's because part of their agreement with clients involves not revealing what they do. Fndr sells high-touch services rather than concrete deliverables like ads or apps, and bills clients for each block of sessions instead of using the industry's standard hourly model.

In this way, the partners hope to avoid the commoditization that has hurt ad agencies as clients increasingly demand cheaper, faster work.

Vincent also thinks consumers no longer place the same value on the sorts of classic campaigns he oversaw during nearly 17 years leading the Apple account at TBWA\Chiat\Day and Media Arts Lab, including "Mac vs. PC" and the iPod "Silhouette" ads.

So far, Fndr has had some success with its approach. But the consulting field is intensely competitive, especially for a company that relies so heavily on relationships to drive new business. And one reason Vincent is talking about his company now is to better define the Fndr brand, because there is no shortage of consultants eager to sell young founders on their own supposedly unique way of doing things.

SEE ALSO: Mark Penn's Stagwell Group snapped up startup Headliner Labs to help clients take advantage of buzzy retail tech

Fndr cites its partners' experience working with some of the biggest names in tech such as Apple, Airbnb, and Snap as well as newer companies like Glossier, Airtable, and Farfetch.

Fndr says it isn't interested in established companies' old ways of thinking and tries to help established companies refresh their brands.

Newer Fndr's clients include stem cell-based leather maker VitroLabs Inc, fine art ecommerce company Avant Arte, digital health insurance platform Alan, and Brex, a corporate credit card for startup companies.

Before joining Fndr, the firm's partners worked at top ad agencies including TBWA\Chiat\Day, Media Arts Lab, and 72andSunny.

Fndr focuses on the idea of "intentional narrative," or a brand story that can shape products, communications, and structural decisions in the short and long term.

Fndr requires clients to visit one of its two spaces for their consulting sessions: a 1929 Craftsman-style bungalow in Venice Beach, California, and a loft in Dumbo, Brooklyn.

"They're not rolling brainstorms," Vincent says of the meetings. "They're pointed, topic-driven provocations."

The deck says Fndr prefers clients to have no more than 5 participants from each clients at each session to maintain an intimate environment that focuses on the founder and his or her closest partners.

It also states, aspirationally, that the sessions can be part of a longer relationship with clients.

Fndr will provide each client with a "playbook" consisting of the "language architecture" behind their brand's story. It is the closest thing the firm has to a demonstrable product.

• TikTok's self-serve ad platform is still in its infancy. But some of its beta users say it's more cost effective than competing products at Instagram and Facebook for driving website visits and app installs. 
• One of its beta testers, the Australian teeth-whitening brand HiSmile, said TikTok's self-serve ads are three to four times cheaper than ads on competing apps for driving traffic to its website.
• While TikTok has been a lead generator for HiSmile, the app's ability to drive purchases is still an open question.
• "TikTok's ad platform is very new, so it's not quite tuned to what will get you the most conversions," said Justin Gaggino, HiSmile's second-in-command.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

TikTok's self-serve ad tool launched in beta last year, and some of its early users are already considering boosting their investment in the platform after seeing promising results. 

"For us from an influencer and an organic standpoint, it's definitely a place we're going to play further and further into," said Justin Gaggino, an executive at the teeth-whitening brand HiSmile. "From the paid side, we'll continue to test and scale up because the attention is on TikTok now."

Gaggino said HiSmile has been testing TikTok for about six months. It's found TikTok's self-serve ads to be three to four times cheaper for driving traffic to its website than ads on Instagram or Facebook. He attributes its lower costs to the fact that TikTok has fewer advertisers and therefore less competition in its biddable ad auctions.

Some other companies have found TikTok's self-serve platform similarly cost effective. The fintech startup, Tally, told Business Insider that TikTok ads were 300% more cost effective than Instagram ads for driving installs of its automated debt management app.

While HiSmile says TikTok is cheaper than its competitors in generating leads to its website, they're not always the most qualified users. 

"TikTok's ad platform is very new, so it's not quite tuned to what will get you the most conversions," Gaggino said. "It takes a bit of maturity for TikTok itself to understand its own pixel and relaying those messages and feedback and better information to get those conversions that brands are looking for."

As a beta user, HiSmile serves in-feed video ads on TikTok using a "Shop Now" button as a call-to-action. The company has tested some of the platform's targeting tools, filtering by age and geography and using behavioral targeting to reach 16-and-older users in the US, UK, and Australia who are interested in topics like personal care and beauty.

"I don't tend to trust it super heavily just because obviously it's new and there's a limited amount of information that TikTok itself will have so far," Gaggino said of the company's audience segments. 

HiSmile first began engaging with TikTok's Generation-Z user base back in May 2016 when the app was still called Musical.ly. The company grew an audience of roughly 17,000 followers on Musical.ly. It stopped investing marketing resources in the app until August 2019 — a year after it was merged into TikTok by its parent company, ByteDance.

"We were seeing it become kind of this cultural zeitgeist where things that were on TikTok and songs were then porting over to Instagram and Reddit," Gaggino said. 

Now the company is using a combination of influencer marketing, organic reach, and paid ads to grow its brand awareness and follower count on TikTok. 

To learn more about HiSmile's TikTok strategy, including its recent influencer marketing campaign that helped the company add 100,000 new followers in a week, read our full story on Business Insider Prime:

How a teeth-whitening brand gained 100,000 followers on TikTok by sponsoring a 'wave' of content from the Hype House and Sway LA

And for more stories on how companies are using influencers to promote their brands on TikTok, check out these other Business Insider Prime posts:

• TikTok star Charli D'Amelio gave Dunkin' 294 million free video impressions in under 2 months and got her own cold-brew tap as a thank-you: Brands are taking over TikTok, making appearances in both organic (unpaid) videos and sponsored posts created by influencer marketers.
• Leaked campaign brief shows the video ideas Cash App pitched to TikTok influencers, including 'when you win a bet by doing something dope': Cash App paid dozens of influencers to promote its app on TikTok. Here are the content ideas the company shared with creators for sponsored posts.
• A milkshake brand blew up on TikTok, and its 460,000 followers have changed how it approaches marketing and its target audience: With 460,000 TikTok followers, the milkshake maker F'real has built a larger following than national brands like Chipotle, Walmart, and Burger King.
• CASE STUDY: TikTok ads have been 300% more efficient than Instagram ones in getting new users for fintech startup Tally: As more adults sign up for TikTok, fintech brands are using influencer videos and its self-serve ad platform to advertise on the platform.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns explains why country music is universal

• The tech and culture festival SXSW has been canceled because of coronavirus fears.
• On Friday, the mayor of Austin, Texas, announced that the event would not go ahead on March 13.
• The coronavirus outbreak has caused major disruption around the world, hampering business supply chains and causing the closures of offices and public events.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

South by Southwest, the annual technology, film, and music festival in Austin, Texas, has been canceled because of the coronavirus outbreak, the latest cancellation in a string of high-profile events that have shut down amid the widening health scare.

On Friday, Austin Mayor Steve Adler announced a state of disaster and that this year's event — which had been due to kick off on March 13 — had been canceled.

SXSW, as South by Southwest is known, is a freewheeling nearly two-week long celebration of emerging tech and media that attracts movie stars, industry leaders, and influencers. Before the event's cancellation, more than 35,000 people signed a petition urging the organizers to call off the event because of the coronavirus, and numerous major companies had pulled out — including Facebook, Twitter, Intel, and TikTok. 

Canceling the festival could represent a big blow to the Austin local economy. South by Southwest estimates it brings about $350 million to Austin each year. It was not immediately clear if people or companies who bought tickets to the event would be issued refunds.

In a statement, the SXSW organizers said that as recently as Wednesday, Austin's department of public health had said there was no evidence that shutting down the event would make the community safer. "However, this situation evolved rapidly and we respect the city of Austin's decision," the statement said.

"We are committed to do our part to help protect our staff, attendees, and fellow Austinites," SXSW said, adding it was the first time in the event's 34-year history that it would be canceled.

The event is one of several major events and conferences that have been canceled amid the growing coronavirus outbreak. The major tech-industry conference Mobile World Congress was called off, the Game Developers Conference was postponed, Facebook canceled its F8 conference and its marketing summit, and Google canceled I/O, its yearly gathering for developers.

The coronavirus, which began in Wuhan, China, two months ago, causes a respiratory disease known as COVID-19. Cases have been recorded in 70 countries, including more than 100 in the US. More than 100,000 people have been infected, and more than 3,000 people have died from the virus. The vast majority of cases are in China. 

SXSW, which was first held in 1987, said in a statement on Friday that it was looking into rescheduling the event, as well as providing an online alternative.

"We are exploring options to reschedule the event and are working to provide a virtual SXSW online experience as soon as possible for 2020 participants," the organization said.

Here's the full statement from SXSW:

SEE ALSO: From SXSW to San Francisco's gaming confab, the coronavirus is forcing tech companies and cities to make a tough choice with huge stakes: Cancel or let the show go on?

Join the conversation about this story »

• Mike Bloomberg spent more than $600 million of his own money to become president, and in the process he created 200-person data firm Hawkfish.
• It was supposed to become a long-term Democratic agency and counterpart to the Republican party that's similar to Blue State Digital.
• A source known to Business Insider said that many executives and temporary staffers would leave Hawkfish, but former Facebook CMO Gary Briggs would continue to lead the firm.
• The future of Hawkfish could play a significant role in shaping the political ad market, which will account for up to $10 billion in spending during this election cycle, according to WPP's GroupM.
•  Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Mike Bloomberg spent more than $600 million in 101 days, including more than $75 million on digital advertising, according to The Wall Street Journal. One of his big bets was creating Hawkfish, a digital data firm that grew to more than 200 employees in less than a year under the former Facebook CMO Gary Briggs.

Spokespeople and sources have said that beyond electing Bloomberg, the firm aspired to become a long-term Democratic agency and counterpart to the Republican party that's similar to Blue State Digital, which helped President Barack Obama's 2008 and 2012 campaigns.

"We are not built for any one campaign, but in this for the long haul," Hawkfish wrote in a recent LinkedIn post.

Now, the major question is how the firm that poached top talent from the worlds of tech and advertising will work to defeat Donald Trump and strengthen the Democratic Party's digital playbook. The firm could influence how campaigns allocate their ad dollars in this election cycle, which could account for up to $10 billion.

Hawkfish is in a state of flux as the election moves into its next phase

One senior-level Bloomberg campaign staffer said several leaders at both Hawkfish and Bloomberg 2020 — himself included — would leave in the coming days for other jobs including their former posts at top tech companies, but that Briggs will continue leading the firm.

Briggs declined to comment.

The teams are recalibrating after spending the past several months laser-focused on making Bloomberg a viable candidate, said the staffer, who is known to Business Insider but spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss the matter.

"They've built a company that is extremely leveraged into the thumbs up or down of one man," said another Hawkfish employee.

This person, whose identity is known to Business Insider but requested anonymity, citing the strict NDAs each staffer is required to sign, took leave from an ad agency job to work at Hawkfish but planned to return to the agency.

It was widely reported that Bloomberg staff would be paid through the November election if he stayed in the race.

The Washington Post reported that Bloomberg would continue to invest millions in Hawkfish as a separate business and that "hundreds" of Bloomberg campaign staffers would go to work for a new independent expenditure campaign (IEC) he formed.

A Bloomberg aide confirmed that report but declined to elaborate.

This IEC, whose name and scale are not yet clear, will support the eventual Democratic presidential nominee and down-ballot Democrats running for office across the country in November. It will do so without coordinating directly with any specific candidate, per FEC regulations.

The memes scored headlines, but Hawkfish is all about voter data

Hawkfish created the memes and tweets that earned attention for Bloomberg and led Facebook to change its political ad policy, but the Hawkfish employee said its most important work concerns voter identification and turnout efforts, not advertising.

Hawkfish itself said it was created as a competitor to The Data Trust, a private firm established nearly a decade ago by Republican Party fundraisers Charles and David Koch that claims to have information on 260 million Americans and signed an exclusive data-sharing agreement with the Republican National Committee in 2015.

The information collected by Hawkfish can also be used to develop, test, and target ads, as it was during Bloomberg's brief run.

Jeff Greenfield, chief attribution officer at cloud-based ad measurement company C3 Metrics, said that with the expertise that Hawkfish now has, it could be sustainable after the election and work for any client.

"Think bigger than Biden," said the Hawkfish employee.

SEE ALSO: Meet the key people who are leading Mike Bloomberg's digital campaign to topple Donald Trump

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: 5 things about the NFL that football fans may not know

• Notable pets, like Jiff Pom and Doug the Pug, have become celebrities and well-known stars through content their owners post on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
• However, pets have significantly shorter life spans than everyday influencers, which raises a unique issue about what owners do with these accounts after their pets' deaths.
• Owners who spoke with Business Insider had a variety of responses: Some continue to post photos for the fans, others bring in another animal to carry on the account, and others leave the accounts untouched as a way to honor their pets' legacies.
• Several owners shared how having a internet-famous pet has made the grieving process a drawn-out experience, and how some are still able to earn money even after their pets' deaths.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Cyber Monday is one of the biggest days each year for online retailers, including for the brand centered around a four-pound cat named Lil Bub.

Instead of spending the weekend before the online shopping holiday recovering from Thanksgiving dinner, Lil Bub's owner Mike Bridavsky was busy making sure his website was ready for the onslaught of traffic expected Monday. He prepared for thousands to flock to the Lil Bub online store to snatch up t-shirts, socks, and pillows bearing the cat's recognizable appearance: her small stature due to feline dwarfism, her lack of teeth, and her tongue permanently hanging out of her mouth. But he couldn't have anticipated what else his weekend had in store.

Lil Bub died that Sunday, just over 3 months ago, leaving behind a slew of adoring fans to grieve. In her 8 years of life, Lil Bub accrued millions of social media followers, served as the face for numerous animal welfare causes, and became a widely recognizable and beloved face across the internet. 

"Bub had a complete lack of self awareness, this ability to overcome all the obstacles she's felt," Bridavsky told Business Insider. "She wasn't just a famous Instagram cat ... She engineered herself to look this way so she could catch people's attention and they could learn about her."

Lil Bub turned into an established social media influencer in much less time than it takes many of her human counterparts. Pets like Grumpy Cat, Marnie, and Boo have become not just household names, but full-blown celebrities. These pets have shown that influencers don't have to be human to get fans to line up for hours for meet-and-greets, or earn thousands of dollars a year from ads and sponsorships. 

However, these pets' significantly shorter lifespans raise a whole set of questions about what comes after. After internet pets pass, their owners still remain. Not only are they left with a slew of social media accounts bearing the name of their pets, but also with a loyal following that, in my cases, have turned to these animals as a bright spot during the grayest of days.

"Everyone loves pets. They can say offensive things on Twitter and they can't get in trouble. They're just adorable and perfect," Loni Edwards, the CEO of pet influencer management firm The Dog Agency, told Business Insider. "Being able to touch so many people regardless of where they live or their age ... that's such a unique type of content creator."

Several owners of famous pets spoke with Business Insider about their struggles and experiences handling the online presences of their animals after they died. While some have preserved these accounts as an homage to their pets, others have continued to share photos of their animals from the massive backlog of content they've acquired. There are still others who have continued their pets' legacies by getting another who can substitute for — not replace — the original on social media.

The key point many owners factored into their decision-making has been the impact their actions have on their pets' followings and fans. Even though some owners stumbled accidentally into the world of influencing, they have nevertheless taken to heart the often significant role their pets played in the lives of their fans.

"You're a lucky man to have had this magical creature in your life, and we were especially lucky that you shared her with all of us," an Instagram user commented on a recent photo of Lil Bub. "Her magic will never be forgotten."

SEE ALSO: Inside the 3-floor New York City penthouse ex-WeWork CEO Adam Neumann is selling for $37.5 million

The unique stages of grief

Although owners act as the brains behind the careful crafting of their pets' social presences, they're often able to avoid the spotlight and recognition typical influencers regularly deal with. 

To many, an owner's most prominent role in the lives of their pet's fans comes when they have to craft a carefully worded message online informing the community of a beloved pet's passing. Having to grieve in such a public way makes the process even more daunting, according to Jennifer McFarling, the person behind the social presence of famed golden retriever Parker Pup.

"It's one thing to deal with a loss privately, but to have people watching you was something I was afraid of," McFarling told Business Insider. "Dealing with the added pressures of finding a new normal while answering people's questions and 'what's next?' was something we, as a family, dreaded."

Most owners who spoke with Business Insider said they shared news of their pets' deaths shortly after they happened, within a day or two. There are some who were forced into expediting the process due to both media pressure and fan concern, much like a publicist in the wake of a celebrity death.

Such was the case for Brian Edwards, whose dog Piper — known online as the Airport K9— died in 2018 after a battle with cancer. Edwards told Business Insider that Piper passed away at night, and that he planned to wait to craft his Instagram post until the next morning, after his emotions had settled. But in the middle of dinner with his family, Edwards was notified that a local news station had found out and aired news about Piper's death. He rushed home to notify Piper's followers before they found out about his death somewhere else.

Edwards called the situation "disappointing and angering," but credited his support system with helping him get through the especially hard days without Piper.

Yet owners of these celebrity pets also become inherently responsible for both their own grief and that of their followers. Instead of dealing with the loss on their own, pet owners said they felt an obligation to also be there to comfort their pets' fans — whether that made the grieving process easier or more difficult.

"Having him so popular made it worse on some days, but made it way better on most days," Brant Pinvidic said, who was known for his unnaturally sociable pet turkey named Albert. "You don't even get to deal with your own processing ... but it's not about you. You have to understand it's not about you."

But to others, like Dorie Herman, the fanbase is what made the grieving process bearable. In the days and weeks following the death of Herman's famous dog, Chloe Kardoggian, people were constantly messaging the account to offer their support and happy memories of the chihuahua.

"The community really rallied around me. It made it much less of an isolating experience," Herman said. "Everyone should be lucky enough if they have to lose a pet for it to be a social media pet."

Preserving the legacy

When you visit the Instagrams for famous pets like Mr. Pokee and Loki, you can't immediately tell that these accounts' original namesakes are no longer alive — and that's the whole point. 

Many owners have chosen to maintain these accounts and their hoards of followers even after the pets' deaths. Several owners told Business Insider they do this as a way to preserve the legacy and memory of their animals: who they were, what they were like, and what causes they stood for.

It's common for famous pets to champion causes related to animal welfare and adoption, as was the case with Smiley, a dog who was born without eyes. Joanne George, Smiley's owner, turned her dog's viral fame into an opportunity to launch anti-bullying campaigns in schools, advocate for special needs dogs, and teach people about the importance of "seeing with your heart."

After Smiley died, George was crushed. But six months later, they adopted another dog with visual impairments who they named Sunny.

"Those first few months, I was hurting of course, full on grieving," George told Business Insider. "But we still had things to teach people and to share ... what I created was a legacy, and I wanted to carry it on for the people of my community." 

George's decision to continue on social media without Smiley is not an anomaly. After Sage — the smaller half of popular dog duo, Harlow and Sage— passed away in 2013, owner Brittni Vega introduced a new dachshund named Indiana. The account for Chloe Kardoggian turned into The Kardoggians after Chloe died in 2018.

Introducing a new (but similar) face to the accounts does more than just maintain the pets' legacies. In addition to building a community around their beloved animals, the owners have often seen a steady stream of revenue from their Instagram-famous pets. By keeping the accounts alive, even after a pet's passing, some have been able to salvage sponsorships and brand deals. 

Although the owners who spoke with Business Insider declined to disclose how much revenue their pets have generated, it can sometimes be enough for the owners to quit their full-time jobs.

That was the case for Lil Bub's owner, who said he has no plans to stop posting new photos and videos especially given the extensive backlog of content he captured during the tiny cat's 8 years on earth.

"The reason I started posting is because she was changing people's lives on a daily basis. It's never been more clear to me that people want me to keep posting," Bridavsky told Business Insider. "To think I would just stop feels selfish. I would be doing the animal community a disservice by letting go."

• Facebook is banning non-essential business travel for its 45,000 employees.
• It will also conduct job interviews entirely via video-conferencing software.
• The new restrictions are due to mounting concerns around the global coronavirus outbreak.
• Facebook previously restricted visitors to its offices and encouraged Bay Area employees to work remotely.

Facebook is banning all non-essential business travel for its employees globally and will conduct job interviews entirely over video-conferencing software, in the latest sign of how the coronavirus is impacting major businesses.

On Saturday, the Silicon Valley social networking giant sent guidance to employees informing them of the new restrictions, Business Insider learned.

The move comes after Facebook encouraged its employees at its Bay Area headquarters to work remotely due to the viral outbreak, and previously banned social visitors to its offices, and shifted most — though not all — job interviews to video-conferencing.

Facebook's ban on non-essential business travel applies across all its offices for all 45,000-odd employees, as well as domestically within the United States.

At least two Facebook workers have tested positive for the coronavirus — a contractor in Seattle and an employee based in Singapore.

COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, has sickened more than 100,000 people and killed nearly 3,500, and is causing mounting disruption around the globe — disrupting supply chains and forcing the closure of corporate offices and major events.

Many major tech companies in the Bay Area — the site of a US outbreak — have instituted remote work policies for at least some of their employees, including Apple and Google. Industry events including MWC, F8, and I/O have been cancelled, and on Friday, the SXSW tech and culture festival in Austin, Texas was also cancelled. 

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Jeff Bezos reportedly just spent $165 million on a Beverly Hills estate — here are all the ways the world's richest man makes and spends his money

• This is a preview of the Global Digital Video market research report from our partners at eMarketer.
• eMarketer PRO analyzes the TV and video industry and provides in-depth analyst reports, proprietary forecasts, customizable charts, and more. 
• Check if your company subscribes to eMarketer PRO, or learn more about access here.

As global internet usage increases and bandwidth improves, digital video viewership is quickly replacing traditional TV viewership as the preferred method of media consumption around the world — and digital ad spending continues to grow accordingly.

Between social video apps like TikTok and Snapchat, social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, connected TVs, over-the-top (OTT) streaming services like Netflix, Disney+, and Hulu, and live videogame streaming services like Twitch, the digital video landscape has never been so expansive. 

But each country is facing its own technological, competitive and regulatory hurdles, resulting in a fractured global digital video landscape. With more marketing dollars going towards digital video ads than ever before, it's crucial to know whether they're being put to good use.

To help navigate the broad scope of the industry, eMarketer has published the Global Digital Video report, a comprehensive analysis covering both trends touching the entire global digital video ecosystem, as well as those occurring within specific regions throughout the world. 

No matter which major video market you are looking at, these are the global digital video trends to pay attention to:

Digital Video Trends in 2020

1. Rising Viewership Across All Devices and Platforms
2. Growing Monetization of Video — including Ad Spending & Subscriptions
3. Traditional TV Ad Viewing and Ad Spending Decreasing
4. Video Platforms to Suit All Needs Available in Most Countries
5. Video Streaming Services Investing Heavily in Original Content

More to Learn

If you are looking to take advantage of the growing digital video marketing landscape, you need to be equipped with the right knowledge. Understanding the why behind these trends will help you adjust to the quickly evolving industry and make smarter decisions for your business. 

Get a more comprehensive look at the industry with theGlobal Digital Video report, covering topics like digital video vs. mobile phone viewers across different platforms, digital video monetization strategies and trends, FAQs, and analysis by country.

Interested in the full report and getting more content like this each day? eMarketer PRO features in-depth analyst reports, proprietary forecasts, customizable charts, and more.

Click here to inquire about access, or check to see if your company already subscribes to eMarketer PRO.

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• Jack Dorseycofounded Twitter in 2006 and the company has made him a billionaire.
• He is famous for his unusual life of luxury, including a daily fasting routine, regular ice baths, and a penchant for dating models.
• Dorsey holds two CEO jobs at Twitter and Square, and activist investors Elliott Management have threatened to oust him from Twitter.
• Visit Business Insider's home page for more stories.

From fighting armies of bots to quashing rumours about posting his beard hair to rapper Azealia Banks, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey leads an unusual life of luxury.

Dorsey has had a turbulent career in Silicon Valley. After cofounding Twitter in 2006, he was booted as the company's CEO two years later, but returned in 2015 having set up his second company, Square.

Since then, he has led the company through the techlash that has engulfed social media companies, at one point testifying before Congress alongside Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.

His latest threat comes from Elliott Management, an activist investor seeking Dorsey's removal from Twitter, per Bloomberg reporting. The firm holds substantial stock in Twitter, and four board seats.

Dorsey has elsewhere provoked his fair share of controversy and criticism, extolling fasting and ice baths as part of his daily routine. His existence is not entirely spartan, however. Like some other billionaires, he owns a stunning house, dates models, and drives fast cars.

Scroll on to read more about the fabulous life of Jack Dorsey.

Rebecca Borison and Madeline Stone contributed reporting to an earlier version of this story.

SEE ALSO: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey says the company will build support for a more remote workforce as concentrating employees in San Francisco 'is not serving us any longer'

Dorsey began programming while attending Bishop DuBourg High School in St. Louis.

At age 15, Dorsey wrote dispatch software that is still used by some taxi companies.

Source: Bio.

When he wasn't checking out specialty electronics stores or running a fantasy football league for his friends, Dorsey frequently attended punk-rock concerts.

These days Dorsey doesn't favour the spiky hairdo.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Like many of his fellow tech billionaires, Dorsey never graduated college.

He briefly attended the Missouri University of Science and Technology and transferred to New York University before calling it quits.

Source: Bio.

In 2000, Dorsey built a simple prototype that let him update his friends on his life via BlackBerry and email messaging.

Nobody else really seemed interested, so he put away the idea for a bit.

Source: The Unofficial Stanford Blog

Fun fact: Jack Dorsey is also a licensed masseur.

He got his license in about 2002, before exploding onto the tech scene.

Sources: The Wall Street Journal

He got a job at a podcasting company called Odeo, where he met his future Twitter cofounders.

Odeo went out of business in 2006, so Dorsey returned to his messaging idea, and Twitter was born.

On March 21, 2006, Dorsey posted the first tweet.

Dorsey kept his Twitter handle simple, "@jack."

Dorsey and his cofounders, Evan Williams and Biz Stone, bought the Twitter domain name for roughly $7,000.

Dorsey took out his nose ring to look the part of a CEO. He was 30 years old.

A year later, Dorsey was already less hands-on at Twitter.

By 2008, Williams had taken over as CEO, and Dorsey transitioned to chairman of Twitter's board. Dorsey immediately got started on new projects. He invested in Foursquare and launched a payments startup called Square that lets small-business owners accept credit card payments through a smartphone attachment.

Sources: Twitter and Bio.

In 2011, Dorsey got the chance to interview US President Barack Obama in the first Twitter Town Hall.

Dorsey had to remind Obama to keep his replies under 140 characters, Twitter's limit at the time.

Source: Twitter

Twitter went public in November 2013, and within hours Dorsey was a billionaire.

In 2014 Forbes pegged Dorsey's net worth at $2.2 billion. As of March of this year he was worth roughly $5.1 billion.

Source: Bio. and Forbes

It was revealed in a 2019 filing that Dorsey earned just $1.40 for his job as Twitter CEO the previous year.

The $1.40 salary actually represented a pay rise for Dorsey, who in previous years had refused any payment at all.

He's far from the only Silicon Valley mogul to take a measly salary, Mark Zuckerberg makes $1 a year as CEO of Facebook.

Dorsey does, however, hold Twitter shares worth $557 million at the time of the filing.

Source: Business Insider

He might have been worth more had he not given back 10% of his stock to Square.

This helped Square employees, giving them more equity and stock options. It was also helpful in acquiring online food-delivery startup Caviar.

Sources: Business Insider and Caviar

With his newfound wealth, he bought a BMW 3 Series, but reportedly doesn't drive it often.

"Now he's able to say, like, 'The BMW is the only car I drive, because it's the best automotive engineering on the planet,' or whatever," Twitter cofounder Biz Stone told The New Yorker in 2013.

Source: The New Yorker

He also reportedly paid $9.9 million for this seaside house on El Camino Del Mar in the exclusive Seacliff neighborhood of San Francisco.

The house has a view of the Golden Gate Bridge, which Dorsey views as a marvel of design.

Source: Business Insider

He works from home one day a week.

In an interview with journalist Kara Swisher conducted over Twitter, Dorsey said he works every Tuesday out of his kitchen.

He also told Kara Swisher that Elon Musk is his favourite Twitter user.

Dorsey said Musk's tweets are, "focused on solving existential problems and sharing his thinking openly."

He added that he enjoys all the "ups and downs" that come with Musk's sometimes unpredictable use of the site. Musk himself replied, tweeting his thanks and "Twitter rocks!" followed by a string of random emojis.

Source: Business Insider

Facebook CEO and rival Mark Zuckerberg once served Jack Dorsey a goat he killed himself.

Dorsey told Rolling Stone about the meal, which took place in 2011. Dorsey said the goat was served cold, and that he personally stuck to salad.

Source: Rolling Stone

His eating habits have raised eyebrows.

Appearing on a podcast run by a health guru who previously said that vaccines caused autism, Dorsey said he eats one meal a day and fasts all weekend. He said the first time he tried fasting it made him feel like he was hallucinating.

"It was a weird state to be in. But as I did it the next two times, it just became so apparent to me how much of our days are centered around meals and how — the experience I had was when I was fasting for much longer, how time really slowed down," he said.

The comments drew fierce criticism from many who said Dorsey was normalising eating disorders.

In a later interview with Wired Dorsey said he eats seven meals a week, "just dinner."

Sources: Business Insider, The New Statesman

In the early days of Twitter, Dorsey aspired to be a fashion designer.

Dorsey would regularly don leather jackets and slim suits by Prada and Hermès, as well as Dior Homme reverse-collar dress shirts, a sort of stylish take on the popped collar.

More recently he favours edgier outfits, including the classic black turtleneck favoured by Silicon Valley luminaries like Steve Jobs.

Sources: CBS News and The Wall Street Journal

He also re-introduced the nose-ring and grew a beard.

Dorsey seems to care less about looking the part of a traditional CEO these days.

Singer Azealia Banks claimed to have been sent clippings of Dorsey's beard hair to fashion into a protective amulet, although Dorsey denied this happened.

In 2016 Banks posted on her now-deleted Twitter account that Dorsey sent her his hair, "in an envelope." Dorsey later told the HuffPo that the beard-posting incident never happened.

Sources: Business Insider and HuffPo

Dorsey frequently travels the world and shares his photos with his 4 million Twitter followers.

On his travels, Dorsey meets heads of state, including Japan's Prime Minister Shinzō Abe.

Source: Twitter

Tweets about his vacation in Myanmar also provoked an outcry.

Dorsey tweeted glowingly about a vacation he took to Myanmar for his birthday in December 2018. "If you're willing to travel a bit, go to Myanmar," he said.

This came at the height of the Rohingya crisis, and Dorsey was attacked for his blithe promotion of the country — especially since social media platforms were accused of having been complicit in fuelling hatred towards the Rohingya.

Source: Business Insider

However, Dorsey says he doesn't care about "looking bad."

In a bizarre Huffington Post interview, Dorsey was asked whether Donald Trump — an avid tweeter — could be removed from the platform if he called on his followers to murder a journalist. Dorsey gave a vague answer which drew sharp criticism.

Following the interview's publication, Dorsey said he doesn't care about "looking bad.""I care about being open about how we're thinking and about what we see," he said.

In September 2018, Jack Dorsey was grilled by lawmakers alongside Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.

Dorsey and Sandberg were asked about election interference on Twitter and Facebook as well as alleged anti-conservative bias in social media companies.

Source: Business Insider

During the hearing, Dorsey shared a snapshot of his spiking heart rate on Twitter.

Dorsey was in the hot seat for several hours. His heart rate peaked at 109 beats per minute.

Source:Business Insider

When he's not in Washington, Dorsey regularly hops in and out of ice baths and saunas.

Dorsey said in the "Tales of the Crypt" podcast that he started using ice baths and saunas in the evenings around 2016.

He will alternately sit in his barrel sauna for 15 minutes and then switch to an ice bath for three. He repeats this routine three times, before finishing it off with a one-minute ice bath.

He also likes to take an icy dip in the mornings to wake him up.

Source: CNBC

Dorsey's dating life has sparked intrigue. In 2018, he was reported to be dating Sports Illustrated model Raven Lyn Corneil.

Page Six reported in September last year that the pair were spotted together at the Harper's Bazaar Icons party during New York Fashion Week. Page Six also reported that Dorsey's exes included actress Lily Cole and ballet dancer Sofiane Sylve.

Source: Page Six

He's a big believer in cryptocurrency, frequently tweeting about its virtues.

In particular, Dorsey is a fan of Bitcoin, which he described in early 2019 as "resilient" and "principled." He told the "Tales of the Crypt" podcast in March that he was maxing out the $10,000 weekly spending limit on Square's Cash App buying up Bitcoin.

Source: Business Insider and CNBC

At the end of 2019 Dorsey said he would move to Africa for at least three months in 2020.

Dorsey's announcement followed a tour of Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa. "Africa will define the future (especially the bitcoin one!). Not sure where yet, but I'll be living here for 3-6 months mid 2020," he tweeted.

Dorsey then came under threat of being ousted as Twitter CEO by activist investor Elliott Management.

Both Bloomberg and CNBC reported in late February 2020 that major Twitter investor Elliott Management — led by Paul Singer — was seeking to replace Dorsey. 

Reasons given included the fact that Dorsey splits his time between two firms by acting as CEO to both Twitter and financial tech firm Square, as well as his planned move to Africa.

Source: Business Insider

Tesla CEO and frequent Twitter user Elon Musk weighed in on the news, throwing his support behind Dorsey.

"Just want to say that I support @jack as Twitter CEO," Musk tweeted, adding that Dorsey has a good heart using the heart emoji.

Source: Business Insider

But Dorsey managed to strike a truce with Elliott Management.

Twitter announced on March 9 that it had reached a deal with Elliott Management which would leave Jack Dorsey in place as CEO.

The deal included a $1 billion investment from private equity firm Silver Lake, and partners from both Elliott Management and Silver Lake joined Twitter's board.

Patrick Pichette, lead independent director of Twitter's board, said he was "confident we are on the right path with Jack's leadership," but added that a new temporary committee would be formed to instruct the board's evaluation of Twitter's leadership.

• How much money a creator on YouTube can earn from a single video varies depending on the audience that watches it, the amount of time they spend watching, and how long the video is, among other factors.
• YouTube's Partner Program allows influencers to earn money directly off their channels by placing ads within videos, which are filtered by Google.
• We spoke to eight YouTube stars who each shared the most they've made from a single video, from $6,000 to $97,000. 
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Creators on YouTube often have no idea how much money they will earn off a single video after they upload it to the platform.

While creators with 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours are eligible to have their videos monetized with ads by joining YouTube's Partner Program, the amount they get paid per thousand views (CPM) can vary wildly. Why is that? The ads that play in their videos are filtered by Google, and how much money a creator earns depends on the video's watch time, length, video type, and viewer demographics, among other factors.

YouTube star Shelby Church (1.4 million subscribers) told Business Insider that extending her videos to over 10 minutes long helped her channel earn more money because she could place more ads and boost her rate. And some topics, like finance, get a higher rate because the audiences they attract are valuable to advertisers.

Many creators also try to avoid swearing or copyrighted music in their content because those factors can increase a video's chance of getting flagged by YouTube and demonetized.

So if a creator does everything right in the eyes of YouTube, how much can they expect to make?

Business Insider spoke to eight creators with very different channels and they shared the most amount of money YouTube has paid them for a single video.

Sign up for Business Insider's influencer newsletter, Influencer Dashboard, to get more stories like this in your inbox.

Kyra Ann — $6,000

Kyra Ann is a minimalist who shares her experience and tips on YouTube with her 77,000 subscribers.

Her three main revenue streams are her day job at a nursing home, her YouTube channel, and the commissions she earns through affiliate links. 

She told Business Insider in March that the most she's earned from a single YouTube video was about $6,000. 

"I didn't keep any of that money," she said. "I actually threw it all to my student loans."

Kyra earns more money a month from her YouTube channel than at her day job, she said. In February, she earned $1,817 from AdSense. 

Read the full post: A minimalist YouTube creator shares exactly how much money she makes in a month with 77,000 subscribers — and what she spends

Natalie Barbu — $8,000

Natalie Barbu is a 22-year-old social-media influencer and YouTube creator with 227,000 subscribers. 

Barbu posts videos twice a week to YouTube about her day-to-day life experiences. 

She started her YouTube channel about eight years ago, while she was in high school. She'd post videos talking about fashion and beauty as an after-school hobby, long before she knew she could be earning any money from the platform, she said.

Barbu graduated with an engineering degree from NC State University and said while she was attending college, she began to take her channel more seriously. She would post one video to her channel a week about her college life experiences and what it was like to be a girl studying engineering, she said. 

The most amount of money she's earned from a single YouTube video was around $8,000 from her video on how to start an online store, which has 390,000 views, she told Business Insider in February. 

Read the full post (and watch the video): CRASH COURSE: An influencer explains how YouTube ads work, her advice for making more money, and how much she earns

Ruby Asabor — $9,000

Ruby Asabor is a 22-year-old YouTube content creator and motivational speaker.

She has 140,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel, Lavish Ruby, which she started four years ago, and today she has established several revenue streams around her digital business. 

She said on average she earns between $2,200 and $2,500 for a every 100,000 views on YouTube. 

Asabor's finance- and business-related videos target an older audience, which is favorable to Google's advertisers. Her average viewer is someone who cares about financial education and the advertisements that play in her videos will often be for banks or stockbrokers, she said. These advertisers pay more than others because there are fewer videos on YouTube that attract their target audience.

The most she's earned from a single YouTube video is around $9,000, she told Business Insider in February. 

Read the full post: A recent college grad living in New York says she makes a 6-figure income as a YouTube influencer. She broke down how she does it.

Alyssa Kulani — $23,000

Canadian YouTube creator Alyssa Kulani has 676,000 subscribers. 

Kulani, 20, said her first YouTube video was a vlog, which she uploaded to her YouTube channel when she was 13 years old, around 2012. By the time she was in high school, she had around 100,000 subscribers. 

Kulani never finished high school, dropping out her senior year, she said. That's when she began working in retail, and soon after, her friends on YouTube, who had channels of their own, encouraged her to take her channel more seriously because she was "missing out on a huge opportunity."

In late 2018, YouTube's algorithm picked up and recommended a video she posted in October of that year titled, "Telling my best friend I like him...*PRANK*," which prompted the video to go viral and gain 4 million views. 

She told Business Insider in November, that she earned $23,000 from that video, and that she continues to make money from it today. 

Read the full post: A 20-year-old YouTube creator explains how she earned $23,000 in ad revenue from a single video

Shelby Church — $30,000

Shelby Church is a YouTube creator with 1.4 million subscribers.

In 2019, Church said she earned around $140,000 from YouTube ads, which is more than double what she made in 2018.

Last year, she realized that if she extended her videos to over 10 minutes, she could include more ads and earn more money. She said she usually includes one pre-roll ad before the video (which is the default on YouTube), and two ads within the video, three or four minutes apart. Her videos are typically about 10 to 12 minutes.

Her video about Amazon FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon) had an unusually high CPM rate, she told Business Insider in January. The video earned her about $30,000 in AdSense revenue from 1.8 million views.

Read the full post: How much money YouTube paid a creator with 1.4 million subscribers during 2019

Kevin David — nearly $50,000

Kevin David is a YouTube influencer and entrepreneur with 900,000 subscribers. 

David told Business Insider that he'd made as much as $50,000 in Google AdSense revenue from a single YouTube video.

His how-to guide for using Facebook ads made just under $50,000 in Google AdSense revenue, and his "Shopify Tutorial for Beginners" video, which required minimal production because he filmed it using the screen-record feature on his laptop, had made over $40,000, he told Business Insider in August 2019. 

David gets the ideas for his content by looking at the Google Ads Keyword Planner to see how often people are searching particular phrases, and at other combinations of video topics and thumbnails that have been successful in view count, he said.

He said he made his Shopify tutorial video while staying in a cheap hostel in Australia, with no camera or equipment.

Read the full post: A YouTube creator explains how he made nearly $50,000 in ad revenue from one video, without millions of subscribers

Brian Barczyk — $50,000

Brian Barczyk, 50, is a YouTube creator and reptile influencer who posts vlog-style content about his life and the animals he breeds.

He told Business Insider that he supports himself and his family financially from the money he earns as a YouTube creator. 

Barczyk's highest-earning video is one he posted in July 2017, titled "MY SNAKE IS EGG BOUND!!! NOW WHAT?!!!" Today, the video has over 28 million views.

Barczyk earned around $50,000 in AdSense from the video, and continues to earn about $300 to $500 a month from it, he said. That's the most he's made from a single video, according to a screenshot viewed by Business Insider in January. 

He said his channel gained around 300,000 subscribers from the video as well. 

Read the full post: How much money YouTube paid a creator for 28 million views — on a video about snakes

Paul Kousky — $97,000

Paul Kousky has 11.8 million subscribers on his YouTube channel PDK Films.

In 2015, Kousky dropped out of college to focus on online video as a full-time job. Now 24, he said that he earns a majority of his revenue through the ads in his YouTube videos. 

He films videos about Nerf guns, and he told Business Insider in December that his video titled "Nerf War: Tank Battle," with 166 million views earned around $97,000. 

"Some people think that's low; some people think it's high," he told Business Insider. "For me, that's just what I'm used to on my channel. Some people get a couple million views and pull in $100,000 in AdSense off that."

He posted the video to YouTube in February 2018, and it went viral worldwide six months later, he said. 

Read the full post: A YouTube influencer explains how he made $97,000 from a single video

• Marketing-tech firm mParticle has raised $45 million in Series D funding on March 2, bringing the company's total funding to more than $121 million.
• The firm said it would use the money to create products and partner with tech firms to stay ahead of competitors like Adobe and Salesforce.
• Data privacy laws like California's Consumer Privacy Act are requiring marketers to change how they collect and use people's data, and mParticle has signed a deal with LiveRamp that helps advertisers target and create ad campaigns.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Marketing tech firm mParticle has raised $45 million in Series D funding as it looks to strike bigger deals with tech firms and stay ahead of Adobe and Salesforce.

MParticle is one of several marketing tech firms that sells software called '"consumer data platforms" that help brands collect and manage first-party data from websites and apps to stay in line with growing privacy regulations like California's Consumer Privacy Act.

Over the past couple of years, the number of companies pitching consumer data platforms to marketers has ballooned to include firms like Amperity, Simon Data and Segment as well as cloud giants Adobe and Salesforce.

MParticle chief operating officer and cofounder Dave Myers said the new funding, which was announced on March 2, would be used for new products, hiring internationally and inking deals with tech firms like LiveRamp.

"If there's a common theme that underpins [the brands that we work with], it's that they have an imperative to adopt to changing consumer behavior — that's a struggle," he said. "Being able to understand that data, have quality around that data and stitch it together for analytics, personalization and targeting is a massive challenge from an infrastructure perspective."

Mparticle's funding was led by Arrowroot Capital and included previous investors. The 7-year-old firm counts Spotify, Starbucks and NBCUniversal as clients and has raised more than $121 million to date.

Startups are racing to beat the marketing clouds

In recent years, Adobe, Salesforce and Oracle have spent millions to build marketing platforms that promise to handle all of advertisers' data needs. In November, Adobe rolled out a consumer data platform, and Salesforce launched one last summer.

But some marketers say that they don't want to be limited to working with one company. That could be good news for firms like mParticle that are trying to fend off the marketing clouds.

Last year, mParticle rolled out an API that helps marketers create personalized marketing messages in real time — like recommended products based on order history — and avoid hitting consumers with the same ad over and over.

Myers said mParticle planned to stay competitive by inking tech partnerships that are aimed at helping marketers collect and use data — starting with LiveRamp. The deal lets marketers crunch first-party data into audiences that is then pushed to LiveRamp's IdentityLink product to manage and target ad campaigns.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: A 45-year-long study discovered trends in successful hyper-intelligent children

• A detox tea brand called Teami has agreed to pay $1 million related to allegations that Instagram influencers used faulty health claims in sponsored posts and failed to "adequately" disclose they were being paid.
• According to the Federal Trade Commission, Teami made more than $15 million from their detox teas and products, in part because of the company's campaign using paid influencers, such as rap star Cardi B and "Cheetah Girls" member Adrienne Bailon.
• The FTC alleges Teami made "deceptive health claims" that its detox teas would help customers lose weight, fight cancer, treat colds, and clear blocked arteries.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A detox tea brand heavily promoted on Instagram has agreed to pay $1 million over allegations that influencers posting about their products made misleading health claims and failed to disclose they were paid.

The Federal Trade Commission alleges that Teami, a maker of detox tea and other wellness products, made "unsubstantiated claims" that its teas could cause weight loss, fight cancer, and prevent the flu. Teami went further to promote their detox tea on social media through a network of popular influencers, who published these misleading health claims alongside their Instagram posts, according to the FTC.

Detox teas and other quick-fix health products have long been popular choices for endorsements among influencers and celebrities. Their effectiveness and dubious claims have long been questioned: A US senator, Richard Blumenthal, called on the FTC to investigate the "misleading, predatory marketing practises" of detox teas back in June 2019.

As the influencer marketing industry has exponentially grown in the last several years — and is expected to reach $15 billion by 2020— the FTC has started to crack down on social media stars' ad campaigns and sponsorships online. The FTC has had a formal set of endorsement guidelines since 2017 that require influencers to disclose when posts are ads and when they're getting paid for content. More recently, the FTC has been reviewing these guidelines to revamp them and incur harsher penalties for those found in violation. 

The particular brand in question in this case, Teami, made more than $15 million in sales of its teas by using such health claims "without scientific evidence,"the FTC said. It turns out the FTC's judgement calls for Teami to pay $15.2 million, but the company is unable to pay that amount so the FTC landed on $1 million.

"Finally, the order imposes a $15.2 million judgment—the total sales of the challenged products—which will be suspended upon payment of $1 million, based on the defendants' inability to pay the full judgment," the FTC wrote in the settlement.

This also isn't the first time that Teami has heard from the FTC about its sponsored posts on Instagram. Back in April 2018, the FTC sent Teami a letter directing the company to ensure its Instagram posts were clearly marked as ads.

As part of the complaint against Teami, the FTC sent out warning letters to ten influencers who made "inadequate disclosures" in their Instagram ads featuring Teami's detox teas. According to FTC's endorsement guidelines, ad disclosures have have to be "clear and conspicuous" in social media posts.

In particular, the disclosures in these Instagram posts featured "unambiguous" language, and were often hidden under the "more" tab that cuts off long captions on Instagram's mobile app. The influencers mentioned by the FTC included a mix of celebrities, TV personalities, and social media influencers: rap star Cardi B, Adrienne Houghton of the "Cheetah Girls," Instagram model Brittany Renner, and more.

The FTC's recent letters include a directive to these influencers to draft a written response to the FTC by March 30 that says how they'll ensure their sponsored posts will "clearly and conspicuously" disclose relationships with brands.

The FTC's complaint against Teami features 19 examples of Instagram posts in which paid influencers didn't adequately disclose their relationships with the detox tea brand. Some of these social media posts in question have already been taken down, while some remain up on Instagram.

Here are some examples of the Teami-sponsored posts that the FTC cited in violation of endorsement guidelines:

SEE ALSO: Influencer-pet owners reveal what it's like to keep the legacy alive after Lil Bub and other viral animals died

Cardi B, rap star — Instagram, November 2018

Leyla Milani-Khoshbin, reality TV star — Instagram, July 2018

Alexa PenaVega, "Spy Kids" actress — Instagram, July 2018

Brittany Renner, Instagram model — Instagram, July 2018 & September 2018

Darnell Nicole, reality TV star — Instagram, August 2018

Adrienne Houghton, "Cheetah Girls" actress — Instagram, October 2018

Jenicka Lopez, reality TV star— Instagram, February 2019

Jordin Sparks, "American Idol" singer — Instagram, August 2018

Katya Elise Henry, fitness influencer — Instagram, August 2018

Princess Mae, YouTuber — Instagram, June 2018

Katlyn Celeste, beauty influencer — Instagram, May 2018

Patti Stanger, the "Millionaire Matchmaker"— Instagram, August 2018

Brittanie Evans, makeup artist — Instagram, June 2018

Rasheeda, reality TV star — Instagram, June 2018

Molly Hopkins, "90 Day Fiancé" star — Instagram, October 2018

Jessica Carroll, "Bachelor" star — Instagram, September 2017

Camelia Katoozian, beauty vlogger — Instagram, August 2017

Rochelle Brann, reality TV star — Instagram, March 2018

Lisa Rinna, soap opera actress — Instagram, May 2018

• You & Mr. Jones' Oliver, a company that builds in-house ad agencies for clients like Unilever and Adidas, hired Kristi VandenBosch as US president to help expand in North America.
• VandenBosch, who worked at agencies like TBWA\Chiat\Day in addition to launching Revlon's internal agency, said the in-housing trend is not slowing.
• She said ad agencies should fear companies like hers more than consulting firms such as Accenture and Deloitte.
• At the same time, she said in-house teams can never competely replace outside agencies.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Kristi VandenBosch is the new US president of Oliver, a company owned by You & Mr. Jones that builds and manages in-house ad agencies for clients such as Unilever, Adidas, and Microsoft.

The executive, who worked at traditional agencies like TBWA\Chiat\Day before building Revlon's in-house division, told Business Insider that the advertising in-housing trend is speeding up — and that it's a bigger threat to traditional ad business than consulting firms like Deloitte or Accenture, even as it collaborates directly with its clients' external agencies.

Of course, as the president of an in-housing company, she has a vested interest in this prediction playing out, and skeptics in the agency world have pushed back.

But VandenBosch points to the fact that Oliver has grown much faster than more traditional agencies.

Some executives think in-housing is overhyped, but VandenBosch says it has led to big agencies pitching for low-level work

London-based Oliver, part of "brandtech" firm You & Mr. Jones, hired VandenBosch as part of an effort to expand its presence in North America. Since launching in 2004, Oliver has grown to more than 3,000 employees in 25 countries.

VandenBosch said that the company has grown year-over-year by 100% to 150% for each of the past four years in the US — far beyond the 10% that would be healthy for a traditional agency.

Meanwhile, she said, agencies are now competing for business they wouldn't have bothered touching in the past.

"I see very large agencies fighting now to resize banner ads," VandenBosch said.

She also downplayed the idea that big consulting firms would cannibalize ad agencies, saying few can offer real savings to advertisers.

"If they can't go in and do a consulting gig for less than $750 and hour, then I guarantee you they're not going to be able to build an in-house agency for $75 an hour," she said.

One thing CMOs should never do is compare their in-house teams with outside agencies

Oliver's agencies, which VandenBosch calls "implementations," participate in standard RFPs. For example, Unilever's U-Studio has restructured itself three times to account for changes in the packaged-goods giant's marketing strategy.

But a key lesson VandenBosch drew from her time at Revlon is that companies' in-house advertising teams are not the same as outside agencies — and most in-house agencies can't completely replace outside agencies because they were not built to pitch for new business.

"Don't pitch your in-house agency against [WPP's] Johannes Leonardo. They will become demoralized," she said.

For this reason, VandenBosch insists there will always be a place for agencies like Wieden and Kennedy and Droga5 to make award-worthy campaigns while companies like Oliver and RedHouse handle more of the everyday work like banner ads and ecommerce product shots in addition to heavy lifting on big-budget TV campaigns while continuing to operate in collaboration with these agencies.

VandenBosch says more agencies will buy themselves back from holding companies as in-housing continues to grow

In-housing has not been universally successful.

Intel's acclaimed agency Intel Inside closed in late 2018; several agency executives told Business Insider that a Super Bowl LIV pregame ad for Procter & Gamble's Secret, which was created by its own agency, was mediocre at best; and few can forget Pepsi's 2017 effort starring Kendall Jenner that critics accused of co-opting the Black Lives Matter movement.

But VandenBosch argued that Intel's agency closed because the company hired a new CMO who adopted a dramatically different and that even the best agencies make bad Super Bowl ads. She added that anyone skeptical of in-housing should look to Apple's poaching of top agency talent and the work produced by its agency, Omnicom's Media Arts Lab.

She said the trend will continue to grow as clients, particularly established companies in industries like packaged goods and beauty, feel pressured to produce more content with the same amount of money.

Meanwhile, as ad holding companies continue to chase vanishing growth, VandenBosch predicted that more agencies will buy themselves back and that big players like Omnicom and MDC Partners will spin off holding companies of several agencies that operate as a team.

There will be winners and losers — but for now, Oliver appears to sit firmly in the former group.

SEE ALSO: Meet the 25 power players who are trying to turn around WPP, the world's biggest ad holding company

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Behind the scenes with Shepard Smith — the Fox News star who just announced his resignation from the network

• Facebook has added a former McKinsey exec and Estée Lauder's CFO to its board of directors.
• 40% of Facebook's directors are now women.
• The appointments come following a period of heightened turnover on Facebook's board.

Facebook has appointed two new members to its board of directors, increasing the diversity and representation of women in the governance of one of the world's influential internet services whose products are used by more than 2 billion people everyday.

On Monday, the social networking giant announced it was adding former McKinsey executive Nancy Killefer and Estée Lauder Companies chief financial officer Tracey T. Travis, expanding the board following a period of heightened turnover.

The two new additions bring the total number of Facebook board members to ten, and means that 40% of Facebook's board members are now women. That's a big change from just eight years ago, when Facebook became a publicly traded company without a single woman on its board of directors.

Facebook has made significant changes to its board in recent years.

In October 2019, Susan Desmond-Hellmann, the CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and lead independent director on the board, departed after six years. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and businessman Erskine Bowles left in April 2019, while Peggy Alford, the former chief financial officer of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, was appointed. Drew Houston, the CEO of Dropbox and a friend to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, was appointed to the board in February 2020.

In addition to Killefer, Travis, Houston, Zuckerberg, and Alford, Facebook's board includes Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, investor Marc Andreessen, General Catalyst Managing Director Kenneth Chenault, Founders Fund investor Peter Thiel, and Cranemere Group CEO Jeffrey Zients.

In a statement, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said: ""Nancy brings a great deal of private and public sector experience to this position. She's held a number of senior roles in the US government and was a leader at McKinsey for many years. Tracey has a strong finance and corporate leadership background, not just in her role as CFO at The Estée Lauder Companies, but also serving on the board at Accenture. We have a lot we need to get done in the coming years and I think their experience is going to be very valuable. They're both very accomplished business leaders and I'm looking forward to working with them."

Do you work at Facebook? Got a tip? Contact this reporter via encrypted messaging app Signal at (+1) 650-636-6268 using a nonwork device, email at rprice@businessinsider.com, Telegram or WeChat at robaeprice, or Twitter DM at @robaeprice. (PR pitches by email only, please.)

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NOW WATCH: Inside the US government's top-secret bioweapons lab

• SXSW has laid off approximately a third of its full-time staff Monday, as first reported by Wall Street Journal reporter Elizabeth Findell and confirmed by a spokesperson to Business Insider.
• The tech and culture festival was called off on Friday due to coronavirus fears.
• SXSW employs around 175 people year-round, meaning that somewhere around 58 jobs were likely impacted by the layoffs.
• SXSW told the Wall Street Journal on Sunday that its insurance policy did not cover disease-related cancellations, putting the organization in a tough financial position.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

South By Southwest, known as SXSW, laid off roughly one-third of its full-time workforce Monday, as first reported by Wall Street Journal reporter Elizabeth Findell and confirmed by a spokesperson to Business Insider.

"Due to the City of Austin's unprecedented and unexpected cancellation of the SXSW 2020 events in March, SXSW has been rigorously reviewing our operations, and we are in the unimaginable position of reducing our workforce. Today we said goodbye to approximately one-third of our full-time staff," the spokesperson said.

While the spokesperson did not give a specific number, the Wall Street Journal previously reported that the company had 175 full-time employees who worked on SXSW year-round. That means that somewhere around 58 jobs were likely affected by this move.

The two-week long tech and culture festival held annually in Austin, Texas, was forced on Friday to cancel this year's event for the first time in its 34-year history after city officials banned large events amid the outbreak of coronavirus.

SXSW CEO and co-founder Roland Swenson said the organization's insurance policy didn't cover disease-related cancellations, according to the Wall Street Journal, putting the organization in a financial bind and ultimately leading it to the layoffs announced Monday.

"Those of us in the business of live events know the level of trust required to execute an event of SXSW's scale, and we are deeply sad to let people go this soon. We are planning for the future and this was a necessary, but heartbreaking step," the SXSW spokesperson said.

Canceling the festival will likely be a major blow to Austin's local economy, as SXSW estimates it brings about $350 million to the city each year. SXSW is far from the only major event that has been derailed due to the spread of COVID-19 disease, with companies pulling the plug on at least a dozen conferences, resulting in an estimated total economic hit of $1 billion.

SEE ALSO: The coronavirus has forced companies to cancel major conferences, causing an estimated economic loss of $1 billion.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: People are still debating the pink or grey sneaker, 2 years after it went viral. Here's the real color explained.

• Google is cracking down on ads that feature medical masks that promote protection from COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus.
• Google's existing policy blocked advertisers from promoting messages about coronavirus but did not include related products that marketers are peddling on e-commerce marketplaces.
• Facebook has also removed ads related to coronavirus.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

As concerns about COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus, continue to grow and spread, Google is cracking down on ads that promote medical masks.

On Monday, Business Insider flagged several mobile and search ads that promote medical face masks.

A Google spokesperson said its advertising policy prohibits marketers from promoting ads that explicitly mention coronavirus and that it's blocked "hundreds of thousands of ads" over the past six weeks when coronavirus concerns began to grow. However, that policy does not include ads that don't mention coronavirus but promote products meant to capitalize off it. For example, the ads promote N95 masks, which are used to filter out particles in the air during wildfires, but are being marketed as products to help with coronavirus.

Google said it would temporarily block ads over the next few days mentioning surgical face masks in all ads across mobile, search, and YouTube.

"We're committed to protecting users and surfacing helpful, authoritative information as the coronavirus situation continues to evolve," said a Google spokesperson. "Out of an abundance of caution, we have decided to temporarily ban all medical face mask ads. We're actively monitoring the situation and will continue to take action as needed to protect users."

Business Insider tried to contact advertisers behind some of these ads, including e-commerce marketplaces called Best Dang Stuff, Ziqi Goods, and Sea-North, multiple times on Monday. The advertisers did not respond to emails and calls for requests for comments.

Facebook has also banned coronavirus-related ads that it said tried to "create a sense of urgency" around the virus or protection claims.

Both Facebook and Google are dealing with a slew of misinformation spread across its platforms about coronavirus. The Google spokesperson said that the company is also working with publishers to give them more control over ad placements.

Google is preparing its employees and rolling out features for coronavirus

In addition to its ad policy, Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai published a blog on Friday saying tt hat Google has created a 24-hour response team that communicates with the World Health Organization to help make decisions about the tech giant's offices.

He added that searches for the query "coronavirus cleaning advice" grew over 1,700% in one week in the US, leading the company to create a feature that alerts people with information from the World Health Organization on Google. Google is also donating ad space from YouTube to government and non-governmental nonprofits to promote information and resources for people about coronavirus.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Here's how to escape a flooding vehicle

• The Shorty Awards honor the best of social media, from people to organizations, and this year's list of finalists includes YouTube influencer Jeffree Star, actress Sophie Turner, and the internet's favorite memes, like Baby Yoda Sipping Tea. 
• New to this year's finalists: TikTok creators are nominated for categories other than "TikTokker of the Year," which shows the rise of the platform. 
• This year's awards ceremony will be held virtually on May 3 due to the coronavirus outbreak. The event will be livestreamed on ShortyAwards.com. 
• Check out the full list of finalists for the 12th annual Shorty Awards, below. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The list of finalists for the 12th annual Shorty Awards is officially out.

The Shorty Awards honor the best of social media, from people to organizations. This year's list of finalists include YouTube sensation Jeffree Star (17 million subscribers), Game of Thrones actress Sophie Turner, and the Baby Yoda Sipping Tea meme. 

This year's awards ceremony will be held virtually on May 3 due to the coronavirus outbreak. The event will be livestreamed on ShortyAwards.com. 

"We're disappointed that we can't bring everyone together this year for a physical event in New York City as we have done for the past 11 years," a spokesperson for the Shorty Awards said in a statement to Business Insider. "However, given the public health concerns, we feel it's our responsibility to put the safety of our community and public health first."

New to this year's finalists: There are several TikTok stars nominated within categories like Food & Drink, Meme of the Year, Weird, and Beauty. This is the first year TikTok creators are nominated  in categories other than "TikTokker of the Year," which is due to the number of viral trends, challenges, and crazes that spawned from TikTok and dominated social media in 2019.

These finalists are determined both by rankings from The Real Time Academy and public votes. 

Here are the 2020 Shorty Award finalists: 

For more on the finalists, check out these posts on Business Insider Prime: 

• YouTube creator Jennelle Eliana has posted only 3 videos and already has 1.5 million subscribers. She told us how it happened.
• How YouTube star MrBeast, who has 22 million subscribers, uses keywords and the 'shock and awe' effect to maximize views.

Sign up for Business Insider's influencer newsletter, Influencer Dashboard, to get more stories like this in your inbox.

Actor (Arts & Entertainment)

Angela Bassett
Billy Porter
Brie Larson
Naomi Scott
Rebel Wilson
Sophie Turner

Celebrity (Arts & Entertainment)

Adam Sandler
Beyoncé
Demi Lovato
Jennifer Aniston
Jonathan Van Ness
Zendaya

Comedy (Arts & Entertainment)

Aidy Bryant
Lamorne Morris
Randall Park
Trevor Noah
Trevor Wallace
Wanda Sykes

Dance (Arts & Entertainment)

Benny The Bull
Ghetto Spiderman
Harper Watters
Izzy and Easton
King's United
Sherrie Silver

Music (Arts & Entertainment)

Billie Eilish
Celine Dion
Lil' Nas X
Lizzo
Missy Elliott
TWICE

Sports (Arts & Entertainment)

Alex Rodriguez
Allyson Felix
Coco Gauff
Megan Rapinoe
Simone Manuel
Zion Williamson

Animal (Creative & Media)

MAYA THE SAMOYED
Puddin
Reagandoodle
Tito the Raccoon
Venus the Two Face Cat
Waffles the Cat

Arts (Creative & Media)

Adam Hillman
Dave Pollot
Mike Bennett Art
Pablo Rochat
Positively Present
strawberrypuffcake

Beauty (Creative & Media)

Ariel Tejada
Cohl's World
Jessica Vu
Kheris Rogers
Letícia F Gomes
Nikita Dragun

Fashion (Creative & Media)

Adut Akech
Aquaria
Carmen Carrera
Edgar Artis
Menswear Dog
Tabria Majors

Food (Creative & Media)

Amirah Kassem
Erik Lamkin
Juns Kitchen
Naturally.Jo
Sam the Cooking Guy
Y.Na

Health & Wellness (Creative & Media)

Chloe Ting
Diary of a Fit Mommy
Massy Arias
Megan Jayne Crabbe
The Sad Ghost Club
Wheels2Walking

House & Home (Creative & Media)

Bobby Berk
Farah Merhi
Joanna Gaines
Our Faux Farmhouse
Ryan Serhant
Studio Mcgee

Journalism (Creative & Media)

Caitlin Dickerson
Hannah Morales
Mina Kimes
Mona Chalabi
Stephen A. Smith
Yamiche Alcindor

LGBTQ+ Account (Creative & Media)

Dom and Nick
Edison Fan
Jammi Dodger
Rain Dove
Rose and Rosie
Ty Turner

Lifestyle (Creative & Media)

Chachi Gonzales
Cherry Wallis
Color Me Courtney
Jose Zuniga
Les Do Makeup
Raven Navera

Meme/Parody Account (Creative & Media)

Comments By Celebs
Dilfs of DisneyLand
PigeonsDoingThings
sonny5ideup
Subway Creatures
Thoughts of Dog

Parenting, Family and Kids (Creative & Media)

Team 2 Moms
The Bramfam
The Bucket List Family
The McClure Family
The Rush Fam
Through Our Eyes

Weird (Creative & Media)

Buttered Side Down
Caitlin Doughty
jackstauber
Jan Erichsen
Pro Bird Rights
The Nekci Menij Show

Activism (Tech and Innovation)

Amanda Nguyen
Bindi & Robert Irwin
Greta Thunberg
Oluwaseun Ayodeji Osowobi
Paul Nicklen and Cristina Mittermeier
Shaymaa Ismaa'eel

Gaming (Tech and Innovation)

Azzyland
bugha
Gloom
LazarBeam
NoisyButters
Vanoss Gaming

Podcaster (Tech and Innovation)

Conan O'Brien
Emma Chamberlain
Gaby Dunn
Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey
MKBHD
Nikole Hannah-Jones

Travel (Tech and Innovation)

Carrie DeJong
Eva zu Beck
Fearless & Far
Haley Dasovich
Maryjane
VagaBrothers

Breakout YouTuber (Team Internet)

Jennelle Eliana
Jordyn Woods
Niko Omilana
Noah Schnapp
Supercar Blondie
Talia Mar

Instagrammer of the Year (Team Internet)

Adam Waheed
Laetitia KY
Poorly Drawn Lines
Strange Planet
Wolfgang
World Record Egg

TikTokker of the Year (Team Internet)

Avani Gregg
Brittany Broski
Emmy
Howie Mandel
Just Sul
theewilliam45

Twitch Streamer of the Year (Team Internet)

AnneMunition
dakotaz
LilyPichu
Loeya
Maria Lopez
MrFreshAsian

YouTube Comedian (Team Internet)

CalebCity
Eddy Burback
Kiera Bridget
Morgan Adams
Sarah Schauer
Scott Cramer

YouTube Ensemble (Team Internet)

Dope or Nope
Kian and JC
Montoya Twinz
Sam and Colby
Squirmy and Grubs
YouTwoTV

YouTube Musician (Team Internet)

BlackGryph0n
Catie Turner
LLusion
Pomplamoose
Sam Tsui
SethEverman

YouTuber of the Year (Team Internet)

ContraPoints
Eugenia Cooney
Jeffree Star
Mr. Beast
Vereena Sayed
Wengie

Emoji of the Year (Content)

Australian Flag
Just a little bit
Boooooring
Sloth
Otter chillin'
Assisted Walking

Gif of the Year (Content)

And I Oop
Dog Yes
Idris Elba on Hot Ones
Lady Gaga Eye Roll
Marsai Martin at the BET Awards
Tesla's Bulletproof Window

Instagram of the Year (Content)

John Mayer's bottle cap kick
Lizzo post AMAs
Now we're Friends on Instagram too!
Ramen can fix anything
Will Smith getting to 50M followers
World Record Egg Post

Meme of the Year (Content)

Baby Yoda Sipping Tea
Gonna tell my kids...
Gummy Adele
Mr. Sandman Challenge
Ok Boomer
Woman Yells at Cat

• Online ads are appearing from brands with names like Safe Mask, Viral Tech Mask, and Flu Mask Store that have popped up overnight and claim to protect against coronavirus.
• Business Insider made numerous attempts to contact six companies advertising face masks but got no response. One company listed a phone number for a customer service firm that claimed to not work with the vendor.
• Google, Facebook, and digital firms like Revcontent are trying to curb face such mask ads, in the latest example of how digital publishers and adtech firms struggle to police questionable advertisers.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

As concerns grow about the spread of the novel coronavirus, Google, Facebook, and other digital ad sellers are scrambling to crack down on ads for products that claim to protect people from the scare even as experts say masks won't do much to protect you.

Ads for face masks that claim to protect people from the virus have popped up on Google, Facebook and publisher sites over the past couple of weeks. Behind the ads are sellers that have seemingly popped up overnight and have opaque contact information and customer service channels.

Business Insider found ads from five different companies running mobile and search ads with Google that promote face masks with urgent pitches like "buy now." The advertisers — Best Dang Stuff, Ziqi Goods, Sea-North, Flu Mask Store, and Viral Tech Mask — link to websites that sell face mask products with limited information about the companies. A sixth company, called Safe Mask, ran an ad campaign through Revcontent, which distributes sponsored content ads on publishers' sites, that appeared on USAToday.com.

Business Insider made numerous attempts to reach each company through emails and phone calls but got no response.

In the case of Safe Mask, it listed a company called Strong Current Enterprise for customer service inquiries. A representative for Strong Current Enterprise told Business Insider that the company does not work with Safe Mask. Eighty-two complaints about Strong Current Enterprise are filed with the Better Business Bureau, and the company did not reply to a follow-up email from Business Insider seeking more information.

Another company, Flu Mask Store, created its website earlier this year and uses Shopify to run its e-commerce features. A Shopify spokesperson did not respond to a question about the firm's policies for businesses that sell coronavirus-related items.

New York City is cracking down on businesses that price gouge face masks, fining businesses up to $500. EBay and Amazon are also monitoring the prices and marketing for face masks.

Marketers continue to struggle with rogue advertisers

Face mask advertising is the latest example of the digital ad industry's ongoing struggles to police and stamp out fake and questionable material.

On Monday, Google said it was revising its policy about coronavirus to include face mask ads after Business Insider flagged several ads to the company that featured products like medical face masks.

"We're committed to protecting users and surfacing helpful, authoritative information as the coronavirus situation continues to evolve," said a Google spokesperson.

Facebook has also said it would ban ads that promise to cure or prevent the virus, or attempt to "create a sense of urgency" about it.

Revcontent pulled the Safe Mask ad after an inquiry from Business Insider. Revcontent also said that it was manually removing content about the coronavirus from its network of content, citing a policy against "unsubstantiated health claims and ads attempting to incite panic or disseminate harmful, misleading content about the virus."

While publishers have gotten better at policing ads that pass through digital middlemen, ads from questionable advertisers as well as fraud and bots persist. Adtech firm Integral Ad Science recently identified a bot scheme called the 404bot that digs into unaudited ads.txt files to boost clicks and create fake URLs, costing publishers $15 million in lost ad revenue.

In the case of face mask ads, Augustine Fou, an independent ad fraud researcher and consultant, said the ads likely pass through automatic ad systems because the ads are often vetted for the text they contain but not the image.

"Despite some new technologies that try to scan the code of every single ad, some still get through," he said.

SEE ALSO: Coronavirus has threatened to cancel the Tokyo Olympics — here's why the fallout could be terrible for the TV business

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Taylor Swift is the world's highest-paid celebrity. Here's how she makes and spends her $360 million.

• Austin, Texas-based SXSW cancelled the festival last week over coronavirus-related concerns and only offering refunds on hotel reservations.
• The festival's organizers are trying to minimize the damage by deferring payments until 2021, 2022, or 2023 and working to set up a "virtual online experience."
• Advertising and events executives said the cancellation could have ripple effects across their industries and lead to reduced spending on such events.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Austin, Texas-based South by Southwest cancelled the tech, music, and film festival for the first time in its 34-year history over concerns about the spread of the coronavirus and won't refund attendees and vendors. 

An email, printed below, that SXSW sent to registered attendees and vendors on March 6 shows how the organization is scrambling to minimize the damage without providing any refunds beyond hotel fees. Passes to the event ran about $1,400 per person for mid-priced interactive badges that last the length of the 9-day festival, said one source, with discounts for larger groups.

SXSW is offering to defer amounts paid for this year's festival until 2021, 2022, or 2023.

Several ad agencies told Business Insider that they and their clients stood to lose thousands of dollars but that the local creative and service industries would take a far bigger hit.

The scenario provides a preview of the potential postponement or cancellation of other ad industry events such as the Cannes Lions festival, scheduled for June 22-26. Chairman Philip Thomas said the festival's parent company, Ascential, is planning for all possibilities.

SXSW did not respond to a request for comment.

SXSW is negotiating to defer payment for agencies and sponsors, but not providing any refunds beyond hotel reservations

In addition to attendee passes, costs to sponsor events can run as follows, according to one agency:

• A daylong event officially sponsored by a company runs $10,500
• A evening event with a featured speaker is $5,200
• A sanctioned event, which does not appear on the SXSW schedule but bears its logo and stamp of approval, costs $5,200
• A sanctioned event without "marks" or logos costs $2,600 

Also hurt are agencies that planned to stage events at SXSW for clients. Krystle Loyland, CEO of Austin ad agency Preacher, said experiential agencies would be hardest-hit.

Kristin Owen, co-founder and chief operating officer of Austin-based events company DoStuff Media, said everyone from major concert organizers like LiveNation to local servers, bartenders, florists, and Airbnb hosts who relied on SXSW would be impacted.

Some ad agencies said clients have been reducing spend on SXSW over the past several years

Executive strategy director Elizabeth Thompson of IPG's R/GA Austin said clients had already scaled back their SXSW investments over the past three to four years as attendees lost interest in events like huge stages sponsored by advertisers and wild cryptocurrency parties.

The cancellation could lead agencies to question the long-term value of such events and pay closer attention to the terms in their contracts, Loyland and Thompson said.

Read the full SXSW email to agencies, sponsors, and vendors below.

Dear ____,

The SXSW staff has been working diligently to produce our 2020 events and we know you were looking forward to participating.

The City of Austin has cancelled the March dates for SXSW and SXSW EDU. SXSW will faithfully follow the City's directions, and we are exploring options to reschedule the event. We are also working to provide a virtual SXSW online experience as soon as possible for 2020 participants, starting with SXSW EDU.

We are devastated to share this news with you. "The show must go on" is in our DNA, and this is the first time in 34 years that the March event will not take place. We are now working through the ramifications of this unprecedented situation.

In addition to the online and potentially rescheduled events mentioned above, 2020 registrants can opt to defer their registration to 2021, 2022, or 2023. We will be in touch soon with a system for deferral and FAQ. 

You don't need to take immediate action regarding your 2020 registration. It will remain in our system for future opportunities that will be available to you. If you have any questions, please email reg@sxsw.com. 

If you have booked a hotel through SXSW Housing & Travel, your reservation will not be automatically cancelled. To change or cancel your reservation please follow the instructions in your SXSW Hotel Reservation Confirmation email. 

We will continue to work hard to bring you the unique events you love. Though it's true that our March 2020 event will no longer take place in the way that we intended, we continue to strive toward our purpose - helping creative people achieve their goals. Please see our full statement here. 

We deeply appreciate your ongoing participation and support.

SXSW

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