Can you live on social networks? That of the influencer, of the youtuber or of creator can it really be a real job? The question has been coming back with increasing insistence for at least a couple of years, but now you can answer yes with relative certainty: without bothering Chiara Ferragni, this is demonstrated by cases of complete strangers who have arrived at make hundreds of thousands of dollars thanks to YouTube. Above all, the story of Stardust proves it.
It is a company founded in April 2020 in Rome (but also has an office in Milan) by Simone Giacomini, Fabrizio Ferraguzzo, Alan Tonetti, Antonino Maira and Hector Dore and what it does is churn out talent. Talents on social networks, of course: “We created it in the middle of the pandemic – Giacomini, who is 35, told us – after studying the online platforms for understand what the market wanted. And we saw that the time was ripe to try to do what we wanted to do ”.
Which in practice translates into putting under contract (to date) over 150 creators on platforms such as TikTok, Facebook and Instagram and act as an intermediary between them and companies interested in having online visibility: “They contact us, tell us what they want, if they want posts, photos, videos or other and we appoint the right creator for them “. Receiving one salary at Stardust (between 500 and 3 thousand euros per month) to produce an average of 10 contents per week: “We industrialized the profession of influencer, we gave it regularity and concreteness – Giacomini explained to us again – In spring 2020 we understood that this thing could work, and it could work thanks to TikTok, which was having a lot of success and that it is perhaps the only social network to really reward merit “. What do you mean? “In the sense that on Facebook and Instagram you become famous if you are already famous, but on TikTok no: you can do it even from scratch, as they show many famous cases, from that of Khaby Lame a that of Charli D’Amelio”.
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maps: where the Stardust House is located
That this thing works is shown by the numbers: against an initial investment of 100 thousand euros, Stardust it billed 1.5 million in 2020 (i.e. in just 8 months) and today has 35 employees. More: that this thing works is shown by the Stardust House, a 1500 square meter villa with swimming pool, gym and park, opened on 4 July last year in Briosco, in the province of Monza, which functions as a kind of school for influencer. “Inside – explains Giacomini – there are 15 permanent creators and another 8 that change every week, they are between 16 and 22 years old and in addition to creating videos, they also take courses in photography, editing, editing, diction, acting, English and singing ”. They learn to do what could be their first job, in short.
How do you live inside a content house
The villa of Briosco is a so-called content house, that is, a house where people meet to create content but also learn, a middle ground between the school of Friends (for the learning part) and the house of the Big Brother (due to the fact that you can somehow see what is going on inside). How it is to live in it we had the very young explain it to us Samara Tramontana, who is just 17 years old but on TikTok it already has almost 415 thousand followers: “After waking up and breakfast, at 11 there is a briefing on the videos that each of us has to do during the day, which we then dedicate ourselves to; in the afternoon there are courses, while at dinner time and after we are freer from commitments ”. The clips, which are at least 2-3 per day and that Samara divides between “those of work (those requested by companies that rely on Stardust, ed), those we do on our own initiative and those we do following the trends“, Are filmed in various rooms of the villa:” There are so many – she told us again, who attends the Scientific Sports High School in Lodi – many very different locations, from our room to the room for live broadcasts on Twitch, from the pool to the garden ”.
She entered the Stardust House recently, has already passed the trial month (which there is, as in many other jobs) and managed to do it thanks to her social media accounts: “I opened a second profile on TikTok in March 2021, but I had one even before and I still have another active on Instagram – he told us on the phone – They noticed me by some Reels, they contacted me and asked if I wanted to be part of this thing “. This is what Stardust did with other influencers or potential influencers: “We looked for them and we asked them how much they worked, how much they earned, how much they were paid per post – Giacomini revealed to us – And we asked some if they wanted to join us”. And Samara definitely wanted: “Initially my parents were dubious because they didn’t know TikTok, then they realized that I was fine and I was happy and when I come home (more or less every 2-3 weeks, ed) they see me happy. And so they are happy too ”.
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The future of Samara (and the future of Stardust)
In September Samara will return to school because she has to finish the last year of high school, but this experience has certainly changed her prospects for the future: “I have come up with new ideas and new doors have opened up for me – he told us with the enthusiasm typical of his age – because this thing we do here allows us not only to make ourselves known, but to make other useful ones ”. And when you grow up? “When I grow up I would like to work in cinema, being an actress. And the courses I do in the Stardust House are helping me learn how to do it ”.
Stardust worked with FCA, among others, for the debut of the Fiat Panda 40th Anniversary, with Sky, Chupa Chups, Liu Jo and Kfc and its creators guarantee every day more than 1200 contents, 450 thousand hours and 150 thousand views and on Instagram the profile of the Stardust House has a fan base of over 50 million users nationwide. And the company, like Samara, is also thinking about the future: “By the end of 2021 we will open two more, one in Dubai and one a Miami, strategic for both the US and Latin American markets ”, Giacomini anticipated.
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Participation in the Giffoni Film Festival
Who knows if he will also tell it on the stage of the Giffoni Film Festival, on which he will go up in the afternoon together with Samara and Khaby Lame, real king of TikTok, to be among the protagonists of the day dedicated to the digital world and talk about the new frontiers of the so-called influencer marketing.
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