Influence Barometer 2026: 86% of Brand Mentions Are Organic

Most of what French creators say about brands, nobody paid for.

That's the headline finding from the second edition of the Influence Barometer, published by UMICC, France's federation for the influence and creator professions, and CPA, the French digital marketing trade association. Traackr is one of four influencer-technology partners whose combined data powers the report's market analysis.

The study tracks creators with more than 10,000 followers and at least 30% of their audience in France, across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, X and, for the first time, LinkedIn. Between April 2025 and March 2026, more than 51,000 of them mentioned at least one of 1,000 tracked brands, over 325,000 times. The ten sectors are the same as last year, so the numbers compare year over year.

Here's what stood out.

Organic content is still doing most of the work

86% of brand mentions were organic, up from 85% last year. Paid collaborations made up 14.3%. Views rose 10.2% to 30.4 billion, while the average engagement rate eased to 2.03%.

Where engagement comes from is shifting too. Instagram still carries 60% of content. TikTok, with just over a quarter, drives 41% of views and 49% of engagements. Micro-creators (10K to 50K followers) post the highest engagement rate of any tier at 5%, and 9.9% on TikTok.

What this means for you: the creators already talking about your brand are a large, measurable asset. Knowing who they are, and which ones move your audience, is where a strong program starts.

Beauty is closing the gap with Fashion

Fashion is still the largest sector by volume. Beauty grew on every metric, with mentions up 26% and engagements up 32%. It now holds 29.7% of all mentions, seven points more than last year, and engages at 4.45% compared with Fashion's 3.80%. TikTok drove much of that growth: Beauty mentions on the platform rose 57%.

Smaller sectors are worth a look as well. Gaming has the highest engagement rate in the study at 10.3%, and Finance and High-Tech gained ground once LinkedIn entered the picture.

What this means for you: category benchmarks move quickly. Tracking your share of voice against your category, platform by platform, shows where the next opportunity sits.

LinkedIn brings corporate influence into view

Adding LinkedIn let the study measure something new this year: the reach of executives, subject-matter experts and employees. The report identifies five types of voices, from the CEO to independent outside advocates.

Two examples stand out. Bouygues Group's communications director, with about 13,600 followers, drew 80,000 views on a post explaining what the group does, with 21 times fewer followers than the corporate account. And the most active voice on E.Leclerc is an independent retail analyst, who mentioned the brand 11 times more often than the company's own president.

What this means for you: some of the voices shaping your brand are people you don't pay and may not track yet. Bringing them into your measurement gives you a fuller view of your influence.

Download the full barometer report for the full analysis.

Curious how your brand’s creator marketing performance in France? Connect with us, and we'll show you with your own data.

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