While Meryl Streep and Robert Red­ford may epit­o­mize celebri­ty to con­sumers of cer­tain gen­er­a­tions, this notion is wild­ly out­dat­ed to Mil­len­ni­als and Gen­er­a­tion Z. The celebri­ty spokesper­son of yore is already being sup­plant­ed by dig­i­tal per­son­al­i­ties in many cam­paigns in part to pro­vide what con­sumers per­ceive as more authen­tic con­tent. But what else do mar­keters need to know about influ­ence as it stands today and where it is head­ed?

In per­haps one of the more pro­found sound bites from Social Media Week, Matt Brit­ton, CEO of cre­ative and tech­nol­o­gy agency MRY, said dur­ing one pan­el, “Being an influ­encer is more lucra­tive than a doc­tor or a lawyer these days. The oppor­tu­ni­ties are end­less.”

And he has a point. But in addi­tion to being poten­tial­ly prof­itable for influ­encers them­selves, brands and mar­keters can also reap plen­ty of rewards if they know how to tap the right per­son­al­i­ties.

Here are 10 remark­able influ­encer mar­ket­ing facts that you need to know about work­ing with dig­i­tal per­son­al­i­ties going for­ward.

Fact #1: The Idea Of Celebrity Is Changing

The idea of what defines fame is shift­ing from the A‑list Brads and Angeli­nas of tra­di­tion­al Hol­ly­wood to dig­i­tal fig­ures, says Pauline Mal­colm, vice pres­i­dent of agency strat­e­gy and devel­op­ment at short-form video firm Mak­er Stu­dios, point­ing to a Vari­ety sur­vey that found six of Mil­len­ni­als’ top celebri­ties were YouTube stars.

In fact, the most influ­en­tial fig­ures list­ed by teens include: com­e­dy duo Smosh, online pro­duc­ers The Fine Bros. and Swedish video game play­er and YouTube per­son­al­i­ty PewDiePie, the sur­vey said.

More tra­di­tion­al Hol­ly­wood celebri­ties like actress Jen­nifer Lawrence and singer Katy Per­ry came in at num­bers 7 and 9, respec­tive­ly.

“It’s com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent than what you’d think of five years ago,” Mal­colm said.

Fact #2: PewDiePie Is Leading The Way

PewDiePie is “the most influ­en­tial per­son right now in dig­i­tal media,” Mal­colm said.

With 35 mil­lion YouTube sub­scribers, “he real­ly under­stands his audi­ence,” Mal­colm added. “He cre­ates a video and it has mil­lions of views in five min­utes.”

In fact, accord­ing to a 2014 Forbes sto­ry, he brings in $4 mil­lion in ad sales per year.

Fact #3: Influencers Are Powerful In Part Because Consumers Are Narcissistic

Younger con­sumers want not only authen­tic con­tent, but con­tent in which they see a reflec­tion of them­selves.

“The audi­ence wants to see them­selves and are grav­i­tat­ing [to influ­encers] because they are like them­selves,” Mal­colm said. “Think about this gen­er­a­tion. Every­one wants their 5 to 10 sec­onds of fame. Those influ­encers are real­ly con­nect­ing and they see them­selves and it gives this [sense that] every man can be a mak­er or a celebri­ty.”

Fact #4: Like Traditional Fame, Luck Is A Big Part Of The Influence Equation

As enter­tain­ing as Smosh and PewDiePie may be, it isn’t always about just tal­ent.

“I don’t think there’s a [for­mu­la to becom­ing an influ­encer],” said Har­ry Bern­stein, cre­ative direc­tor of dig­i­tal agency The 88. “They’re just mak­ing con­tent and engag­ing with a plat­form and it’s kind of dumb luck. It’s like there’s a mil­lion peo­ple who can sing and one Madon­na.”

In addi­tion, Bern­stein said that plat­forms are free, open, and engaged. The moment of recog­ni­tion some­times sort of just hap­pens for a lucky few.

“For some peo­ple it hap­pens and for some it doesn’t. It per­pet­u­ates itself,” he said. “And the growth that hap­pens after access is sup­port­ed by the media in some way, like when Vogue lists its top blog­gers. When that hap­pens, it grows.”

Joey Kotkins, CMO at social mar­ket­ing plat­form Inside Social, agrees it’s a com­bi­na­tion of luck and tal­ent and focus that makes influ­encers influ­en­tial.

“If they can seize the moment and their audi­ence real­izes they can con­tin­ue on a growth path with them and their con­tent and per­son­al­i­ty is show­ing through, they can con­tin­ue to grow and excit­ing things will fol­low,” Kotkins said.

Fact #5: True Influencers Drive Action

No mat­ter what plat­form they are on, influ­encers are able to dri­ve action (i.e., sales) with their posts.

“Brands want to grow their fol­low­ings, so those [influ­encers] we want to work with are [the ones] who have true influence…to real­ly dri­ve action in some­one else,” Bern­stein says. “That dri­ving action is the dif­fer­ence between pop­u­lar­i­ty and actu­al­ly hav­ing influ­ence.”

Fact #6: Influence Can Change Overnight

In the fick­le dig­i­tal world, a sin­gle post can change every­thing for both an influ­encer and a brand.

“More than any­thing, social has enabled the democ­ra­ti­za­tion of influ­ence,” Kotkins said. “Any­one who has no influ­ence today can have a ton tomor­row for any num­ber of rea­sons. And if a brand can iden­ti­fy that future influ­ence and talk [to the influ­encer] soon­er than any­one else, they can mag­ni­fy the pow­er of that influ­ence in a mean­ing­ful way.”

Fact #7: Some Platforms Create Their Own Influencers

Bern­stein points to plat­forms like Pin­ter­est and Insta­gram, which sug­gest users and are “build­ing their own kind of influ­encers.”

That’s because these plat­forms are in essence reveal­ing who they think are most impor­tant and/or relat­able to giv­en users.

Fact #8: Influencers Are Cheaper, And More Targeted, Than Celebrities

Mar­keters that opt to work with influ­encers can drill down to find dig­i­tal fig­ures with exper­tise with­in a spe­cif­ic world, which, ide­al­ly, ties back to the prod­uct and/or brand in ques­tion like nev­er before.

“Ulti­mate­ly what these peo­ple have is a hybrid of influ­ence and dis­tri­b­u­tion, which was some­thing not pos­si­ble with tra­di­tion­al tal­ent,” said Ben­jamin Davis, agent at tal­ent agency William Mor­ris Endeav­or. “They’re also in a very spe­cif­ic niche. That’s what’s appeal­ing.”

Fact #9: Influencers Must Remain True To Themselves To Retain Influence

The dig­i­tal world has infi­nite nich­es, which means, in the­o­ry, there’s an influ­encer out there some­where whose voice fits each brand need.

“But it’s impor­tant for brands to engage some­one who can actu­al­ly be them­selves,” Davis said. “And that’s on the brand’s side to ascer­tain.”

Fact #10: Some Brands Are Influencers

In oth­er words, cer­tain icon­ic brands have their own dig­i­tal clout on par with dig­i­tal per­son­al­i­ties.

“Chanel has the most hash­tags of any brand on Insta­gram and didn’t have Insta­gram,” Bern­stein says. “It’s big­ger than social. There will always be brands that rep­re­sent cer­tain things.”

Although, per Insta­gram, Chanel debuted an Insta­gram chan­nel in Novem­ber.

Did you find any of these influ­encer mar­ket­ing facts sur­pris­ing?