How Macro Influencers Operate Outside the Algorithm 

Macro influencers have between 100,000 and one million followers. There’s a good chance you follow someone who falls into this category, but as of 2026, they make up a very small slice of the creator economy (between 1% to 5%, compared to the 70% taken up by nano influencers). 

You also might think that this small group of macro creators has it made in the shade — that 100k followers is all it takes for them to be able to say “see ya later!” to a job and start living off brand deals and taking paid trips to the Maldives.

Think again. Today, most macro creators are hustling, and not just in the feed, but outside of it too. This is partially because it’s nearly impossible to earn a full-time living as a creator, even if you have hundreds of thousands of followers.

It’s also because it’s harder than ever for larger creators to land brand deals. Most brands have figured out that they can pay a few nano creators for the price of one macro creator (and get access to more engaged audiences while they’re at it).

All that to say, if you’re wondering what it’s really like to be a macro creator today — how they’re thinking about their monetization, growth, and content strategies — you’re in the right place. I spoke with three macro creators and did some research to understand how creators of this size operate today.

Macro Creators Can’t Rely on Brand Deals for Financial Security 

That’s the headline.

Macro influencers dominate in terms of reach. They deliver higher raw impression counts per piece of content than micro- and nano-influencers. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for engagement.

Larger audiences tend to come with lower engagement rates. The average engagement rate for macro influencers is 2%, compared to nano influencers’ nearly 6%. And sure, overall reach is still important, but 78% of brands now consider engagement rate the top metric when evaluating creators, so it’s no longer the most important goal of influencer marketing campaigns.

On top of that, brands pay $0.20 per engagement with micro influencers vs. $0.33 with macro influencers. That sounds marginal at first, but when you consider the thousands of interactions that occur throughout the course of an influencer campaign, it adds up. 

The point: Brands are prioritizing engagement when it comes to influencer marketing campaigns, and it simply costs them more to get engagement out of macro influencers than smaller creators. So, they’re not investing in macros as much right now; Aspire says that only 7% of marketers choose to work with mega and macro-influencers today.

Of course, there are other ways creators monetize (digital products, affiliate marketing, etc.). But Manychat’s 2026 creator report revealed that brand deals are the second-most-lucrative income stream for creators. Only platform payouts beat them for the top income source. 

This explains why so many macro creators work outside of the algorithm today. Brand deals are great, but they’re not promised, so macros treat them like the icing on the cake (not the whole meal). 

Meet the Macro Influencers: 3 Creators Crushing it on TikTok

To understand the lived experience of macro creators today, I talked to three of them:

• Jackie Coffey @jackiethehappyinvestor: Jackie is a real estate investor and TikTok creator with over 100,000 followers. She’s been flipping houses for over two decades; now, she shares her knowledge online to help others feel confident doing the same. “I make the process easy to understand, short and simple, because I know everybody’s got shit to do today,” she says.
  
• Mecca Evans @meccavellii: Mecca Evans is an actress and self-proclaimed yapper with over 650,000 followers on TikTok. She co-hosts the podcast Unhinged and Immoral with her friend and fellow creator, Jamila Bell. “I do try not to niche myself because I just do so much, but I definitely feel like I’m known for my commentary on pop culture and whatever’s going on in the world,” she says.

• Jaala James @jaala.james: Jaala is a social media manager and creator who started posting TikToks in college. Today, she has over one million followers. “For a long time, I was making skit comedy, which is how I got big on TikTok,” she says. After realizing just how many people were watching her content (millions), she took a step back. “I’ve made my way back to social media, but I completely switched my niche. Now I create luxury lifestyle balanced wellness content,” she says.

Jackie, Mecca, and Jaala are all in different niches and have different-sized followings, but our discussion revealed that they actually have a lot in common. 

They experienced early viral success

It’s pretty common for creators to get a wave of new followers after one of their videos goes viral. That certainly happened for both Jaala and Jackie.

Jackie started flipping houses at 22. She’s 43 now and has flipped over 1,000 units. It’s a pretty physical job — you can’t necessarily do it from a desk. “If I were a licensed realtor, I would lose my license immediately because I break into far too many houses,” she says. 

“If it’s a vacant house or a foreclosure, and I’m going to spend $400,000 on it, you can bet I’m going to get in that house and see what I’m spending my money on. I need to know!”

It’s easy to see how she went viral when you hear her make statements like this. But don’t worry — she says she almost always buys the houses she breaks into.

Then, a little over a year ago, Jackie got into a car wreck. She couldn’t really move. She felt stuck. So she thought, why not get online and start sharing everything she’s learned in her 20+ years as a real estate investor? “I was like, let’s just try with TikTok. It’s easy. It’s unfiltered. I can be raw. I don’t have to over-edit things. I can just get on there and talk.”

So, she did. And people really want to hear what she has to say. “I went to bed, and when I woke up, I had three million views,” she says.

Jaala had a similar experience. She posted a TikTok video at 2 a.m. without much thought. That video now has 23 million views. It marked the beginning of a viral streak in which nearly every video she posted got hundreds of thousands of views.

Thing is, virality might get you some new followers, but it doesn’t guarantee money in the bank. “That was a big problem of mine…getting hundreds of thousands of views and not being able to convert into any actual sales,” Jaala says.

Learn more about the virality trap

They diversify their income streams

All three of these creators maintain significant income streams outside of content creation. Jackie has been running a real estate investing company for 21 years. Jaala works full-time at a PR agency focusing on social media strategy. And Mecca co-owns a medical spa in Houston (in addition to working on her podcast with Jamila).

“Do not quit your job. Content creation income can be unpredictable. You could make 10 to 30 bands this month, and then you might not make anything else for the rest of the year,” says Mecca.

“I’m able to produce the best content because I’m not pressed about money. This is not my main source of income.” 

Mecca says you can tell when a creator goes full-time before they’re financially ready. They start saying yes to every opportunity that comes their way, even if it’s not a good fit — a death sentence if you want to build an engaged audience. “You can feel the desperation,” she says.

Jaala, who went viral in college, says she made a lot of money from one IKEA ad early in her career as a creator. “I got $20,000 put in my bank account at one time. What 21-year-old knows how to manage that properly?” 

“It was such a bad situation, and I completely agree with Mecca. If you have something full-time outside of content creation, you’re able to relax, you’re able to post when you want to.”

“That way, if all else fails and you want to say screw it to social media, you still can have an entire life and career and still be successful and not have to restart.”

They listen to their audience 

One thing that came up again and again in my conversation with these creators is that their content strategy is heavily influenced by what their followers want. 

Mecca, for instance, responds to comments on her TikTok videos with more TikTok videos. It’s natural for her; she wants to participate in discourse around reality TV, so when people say something that resonates with her, she responds.

This is great because it’s more content for her (that’s easy to make) and a very personal way to engage with her followers and give them more of what they want.

Jackie also pays attention to what people in the comments section are saying. She says anyone can visit her page, ask her a question, and get an answer. And they do, which is how Jackie ended up offering a couple of different online courses. 

“I waited for them to ask for it. When enough people had said, ‘Hey, will you make us a course?’, I decided to do it.”

She offers a step-by-step real estate investing course built for beginners and a guide to being a landlord. 

Her attorney advised her to sell the course for $5,000 or $10,000. “I was like…absolutely not! I’m going to do it at cost at first, and if we sell 10 courses, great,” she says.

Jackie sold 1,000 courses immediately. She says that these courses are not the ‘honey on her biscuit.’ (Meaning, they’re not how she makes the majority of her money.) Still, “…it’s still been a very, very lucrative avenue for me,” she says.

They prioritize authenticity over polish

If you’re waiting for your content to look perfect before you post it, these creators would tell you to stop worrying and ship it. Jackie describes herself as “messy” on camera, and Mecca often films herself from bed.

But if there’s one creator in this group who has actively tested what happens when content is driven by performance vs. passion, it’s Jaala. She currently works full-time as a social media manager. “My job is literally to create content. I’m editing videos all day. I’m going to clients’ properties and shooting content with them,” she says.

But Jaala has also been a popular TikTok creator for several years now, gaining thousands of followers and securing over 70k in sponsorships in her first year of content creation.

“I kind of freaked out in college about how many people were perceiving me and how many eyes were on every single video. So, I abandoned it for a while.”

Because of that experience, her mindset is the opposite of what you might expect from a professional social media manager. “Don’t even look at the numbers for the first six months. Just create and pull from your heart.”

That might sound a little idealistic, but when creators get too focused on performance, they lose authenticity, which is the one thing they truly need for long-term success.

While Jaala often looks incredibly polished in her TikToks, it’s because that’s what’s authentic for her. She is in the luxury niche, after all.

Words of Encouragement for Aspiring Creators

I asked Jaala, Jackie, and Mecca for advice for other creators. They mentioned a lot of the things you’ve probably heard before, like to post consistently, learn basic social SEO, and make it really easy for people to understand what they’ll get out of your page.

We’ve covered these strategies and more in our guides How to Become a TikTok Influencer and Learn How to Become a Content Creator on Instagram. Check those out if that’s the kind of advice you need.  

For now, I’ll just leave you with these words from Jackie: “Just start. Start now. Start messy.” 

“Even now in my videos, I just face a window, and I have my cellphone. I don’t usually use a mic unless we’re doing a podcast or something like that.”

Mecca said, “Pretty much same. The only thing I can add to that is just make sure you have fun with it. The clear denominator with all three of us is that, at some level, we’re having fun with what we’re doing.” 

Cheers to that.