Crunching The Clemmie Hooper Numbers: How Many Followers Does A Scandal Cost?

Two weeks ago, it emerged that Clemmie Hooper had admitted to trolling friends, colleagues and her husband on an anonymous blogger and influencer forum. But, now that the dust has started to settle, what remains of Clemmie's Instagram kingdom - which once has over 675,000 followers and partnership deals with big brands like Marks & Spencer.

According to the data that Grazia sourced from Crowd Tangle, in the last 30 days, Clemmie Hooper has lost 14.4K followers,

While 14.4K is a lot of people, it makes up just 2.7% of her following. Perhaps fans want to see how she weathers this storm, or maybe their affection for her overrides their objection to her behaviour. Or maybe they've missed the entire drama - Hooper has only posted two Instagram stories about it.

Simon Hooper, her husband (otherwise known as Father of Daughters), has posted about his wife's actions, saying that he was saddened and unsure how to behave. Over the course of the drama he has lost just 1,900 followers, and still sits at 1.1 million followers. That's 0.17% of his following - hardly an enormous dent.

While brands probably aren't queing up to work with Clemmie right now, her Instagram is still an enormously valuable asset. According to InfluencerMarketingHub, Clemmie's average post would be around £2540. Simon - who has now returned to posting as usual - is worth around £2592 per post.

There's no doubt that Clemmie has experienced a backlash for her behaviour, but from the number of followers she has lost and the estimated value that her Instagram retains, it seems that her loss may well be contained.

The next step, in terms of Instagram career management, will probably be to see whether people unfollow her when she goes back to posting as normal, and whether the level of community management needed to delete abusive (or even just accurate) comments makes using social media impossible.

Social media strategist Yunus Emre Oruc told Grazia: 'Eventually, incidents like this are seen as an erosion of trust and credibility, but there's also the side that is simply about numbers. Instagram influencers leverage their follower numbers to strike up deals with brands, get free trips, etc - a successful influencer would either keep the numbers steady or increasing them. If an influencer suddenly starts losing followers en masse as well, that will obviously affect their ability to negotiate their fees and be seen as a very negative case for their business.'

Social media industry commentator Matt Navarra said: 'For this particular incident, it’s likely that the impact will be more significant. This is due to a few things: Clemmie Hooper was working with warm family-friendly brands such as M&S, among others, who will be more sensitive to this sort of scandal. Also, some of her comments posted under her pseudonym were potentially highly offensive and racist. 'Plus, the influencer marketing industry is going through a lot of change with a growing interest in and demand for nano / micro influencers [people with fewer than 50,000 followers].'

So, what is next for Hooper, according to Navarra? 'In the short term, Clemmie will take a big hit on her follower growth and interest from brands wanting to work with her. She will also be the target of a lot of online harassment, rightly or wrongly. It’s also fairly common for high profile "baddies” in the media spotlight to find fame and fortune by leveraging the scandal with new media opportunities.'

But, Navarra does't think that all is lost for Clemmie's social media dynasty. 'In the longer term, it’s quite possible she will rebuild her online empire once more, whether under a new personal brand or behind the scenes for another brand not solely focussed on her and her personality and interests. But her name will always be tarnished and she will find it hard to secure deals with the same sorts of brands she has been fortunate enough to work with in the past. And possibly not with the same big-money deals she has been used to.'

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