Russian influencers thrive on telegram

Karina Kasparyants began her career as an influential in her teens, and made YouTube videos of beauty tips, shopping and watching her everyday life as a student in Moscow in the mid-2010s. Soon she also started posting on Instagram and gradually building up a follow -up of more than 2 million people. At the time, major foreign brands spent a lot in the Russian market, and Kasparyants were able to build profitable relationships with companies, including Samsung Electronics Co. and Hennes & Mauritz AB. “Then I wanted to throw all my energy into Instagram, because that’s where the biggest brands spend their advertising budgets and invite influencers on per -tour,” she said. By 2021, the size of the marketing enterprise in Russia reached 15 billion rubles, according to data from the digital marketing platform Perpluence. Russia’s full -scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 threatened to disrupt it. Many Western brands have drawn from the Russian market. Some US-owned social media businesses have changed their policy to limit the ability of Russian users to receive payments. In March 2022, the Russian authorities banned Instagram as part of broader restrictions on freedom of expression. The earnings of influencers on Western platforms dropped, so they had to adapt. Like many others, Kasparyante followed a large part of her audience to Telegram, the private messaging service, which set up a parallel channel where she could make up her lost income. Over the past three years, Telegram has contributed to supporting an influencer economy that has disregarded sanctions and censorship to continue to grow. However, that success can be fragile. The Russian government has embarked on a new suppression of foreign platforms and has driven users to more flexible homemade services. “There is always a risk telegram that can be blocked,” said Sergei Lyashenko, CEO of Besess, an advertising platform on social media in Moscow. “The only constant in this market is adjustment, every six months, sometimes every month, you must review and adapt to what is still legal and available.” Telegram was launched in 2013 by Russian brothers Nikolai and Pavel Durov, who previously founded the social media platform VContacts in St. Petersburg. The Durovs have left ECCONTACTS – since the renovation of UK – in 2014, claiming to have been effectively taken over by the state. UK is now run by Vladimir Kirienko, the son of one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assistants. Based in Dubai, telegram has often been criticized for offering sexual abuse, terrorist content and other criminal groups. Pavel Durov was charged last August in France on charges, including complicity in the spread of sexual abuse of children and drug trafficking. Durov denies the charges. The Russian government tried to block telegram in 2018, after the platform refused to provide security services access to user data, but the restrictions largely failed due to the technical complexity to block the service, and in 2020. Since 2021, Telegram’s monthly active users in Russia have risen by 60% to 120 million – more than 90% of the country’s internet users – according to the sensor, a market instrument. The Russian government’s efforts to block and limit foreign platforms were not a total success. Virtual private networks, which can hide the location of a user and access prohibited services, are regularly the most popular programs in Russian stores, despite the efforts of authorities to use their use. But still, Instagram’s monthly active users in Russia dropped from 52 million users in 2021 to 33 million by mid -2025, according to Sensor Tower. Over the past year, YouTube has lost almost 40% of its monthly active users in Russia, according to Russian Media Monitoring Agency Mediaccope. UK, which has its own video platform, recently caught up with YouTube with the monthly active users, Mediaccope Data shows. But it is Telegram that has benefited the most and filled the gaps left by other platforms. Independent media and bloggers moved to the platform to dress blocks on their websites and other social media services, while state media and propagandists are now using it extensively. According to TG Stat, a telegram monitoring service, since May 2022, the app has grown in all channel categories in Russia, including blogs, news and media, politics and education, which becomes an all-in-one media space with nearly 1.4 million channels. “Telegram Today is used today as a publication and distribution platform: Public channels serve as micro-blogs, links to living streams and podcasts are shared,” said Payal Arora, a digital anthropologist and professor of AI cultures at the University of Utrecht. “Telegram channels function like hyper-local news rooms, hobby clubs and stream libraries rolled into one.” New realities Kasparyante began to actively develop her telegram channel in 2022, as well as her presence on UK and Rutube, a state-run Youtube alternative. She has now reached a stage, she said, where her accounts on Telegram and Russian platforms covered the lost income of YouTube and Instagram. “I couldn’t just throw away the part of my audience that was no longer on Instagram,” she said. “In the beginning, I couldn’t believe that something that was always allowed is banned, but people are adaptable, so we got used to the new realities within four months.” Unlike traditional social platforms like Instagram, Telegram’s interface looks like a messenger like WhatsApp. The channels were originally used for long -shaped text, which made it difficult for influencers to repeat their feeds on the new platform directly. Over time, they adapted to use the tools available, using a mix of format-short circles, a feature such as Instagram stories for daily updates, podcast-like voting notes for longer reflections and a mixture of images and text for branding. Inflators who spoke to Bloomberg News said they found that involvement in posts is often higher on Telegram, because users are more judicious about who they follow and interact with it. “On Telegram people, not only do everyone subscribe to everyone, like a shop or whatever, they really draw on you because they want to follow you,” said Mary Chervotkina, a Moscow-based influence. “And the audience is much more loyal, even if the numbers are smaller.” However, Telegram also offers Russians a way to make money. Since the full -scale invasion, Russia has mostly been cut off from mainstream payment systems. Telegram, unlike Western platforms, enables users to make and make payments using Yoomoney, a transaction service owned by Sberbank, which is compatible with MIR cards, Russia’s alternative to Visa or MasterCard. Telegram rejected a request for an interview and said in a statement: “Telegram’s use by the creators gradually grows around the world because our platform provides robust instruments to help them market and earn, all without the opaque promotional algorithms that use the legacy social media.” Local companies followed audiences on Telegram. Anastasia Timofeichuk, a marketing marketing expert, said: “For trademarks in Russia, their focused ads on Meta platforms. A micro -influencer, a content creator with 10,000-15,000 followers, can earn between $ 300- $ 1,000 for a single advertisement. Kasparyante mascara promoted by the French cosmetics company Clarins, and the lip lining of the Pupa of Italy, which has set her followers to Ozon, Russia’s largest digital market. The revenue of influencers. will be. ‘ The share of Instagram will drop to those who work within the law, ‘Lyashenko said. It is pre -installed on all tablets and phones sold in Russia from 1 September. takes place parallel, “Lyashenko of Besess said.” It creates a vacuum that Russian platforms are expected to fill. ” © 2025 Bloomberg MP This article was generated from an automatic news agency feed without edits to text.