Abstract:
Social Media Influencers (SMIs) play a growing and important role within the consumerist realm. The wealth of SMIs social capital lies in the number of followers they have who are loyal patrons to the SMIs brand. Companies have realised they need to take advantage of the power of SMIs’ social capital to successfully advertise their goods and services in the modern market. Specifically, paid partnerships and brand collaborations are the main avenue that SMIs and brands are optimizing their reach. SMI and micro-celebrity Sarah Stevenson, popularly known as Sarah’s Day on social network sites, is used as an example to portray the way these marketing techniques are launched on platforms such as Instagram and YouTube. It is evident from the examples provided, complimented by scholarly theory that it is mutually beneficial, financially and social capitally, for SMIs and enterprises to work together.
Introduction:
The virtual revolution through the rise of social networking opened an entire new perspective on online commerce. Now, more than ten years on from the birth of social media networking, the fine-tuned tools of technology are beginning to create a market shift in world of advertising. The market is now saturated with advertising plastered across every orifice, which is desensitizing customers. It is becoming clearer that traditional forms of media promotion, such as television, newspaper, radio and magazine advertising are quickly becoming outdated. This has left establishments scrambling to find the next wave of marketing techniques to sell their latest products and services while re-finding the attention of their consumers, leading to partnerships with Social Media Influencers (SMIs) to access their community of followers. SMIs are the new form of “micro-celebrity,” exposing their personal brand online to their thousands of faithful followers (Khamis et al., 2016; Hearn & Schoenoff, 2016). The term “micro-celebrity” is now becoming synonymous with SMIs and is defined as “mind-set and a set of practices that courts attention through insights into its practitioners’ private lives, and a sense of realness that renders their narratives, their branding, both accessible and intimate” (Khamis et al., 2016, p.202). Companies now realise the social capital that SMIs create through their followers can highly valuable in branding and marketing. This paper will discuss the importance of optimizing SMIs community of social capital to create effective and successful sales for brands on social networks such as Instagram and YouTube.
Social Networks and Social Media Influencers:
With social networking becoming ubiquitous within our lives its capabilities have a powerful influence over how we construct our existence. Whether that is entertainment, socialization, play or information sharing, social networking sites have become the platform where an increasing amount of our activity plays out (Langlois, 2016). These days, a potential “worldwide audience” is at the fingertips of anyone that has to access to a smartphone (Dijkmands et al., 2015, p.58). SMIs have capitalized on this possibility by exposing themselves to the online world and in return for their “micro-celebrity” status they have received an overwhelming response of support in the form of followers. More and Lingam (2017) define SMIs as
“any person who reviews product, posts a blog about a new product, any industry expert or any person who has a potential to influence people” (p.1).
Therefore a SMI can be anyone with social media platforms that have a few thousand followers to a few hundred thousand followers. Influencers are formed over time, not born instantly, through designing themselves on their social networks through their own original and reliable personal brand (Hearn & Schoenhoff, 2016, p.194). Although it may be thought that the basis SMIs influence lacks credibility and depth, Freberg et al. (2011) found in a survey that SMIs were believed to have similar qualities to CEOs. SMIs were “perceived as smart, ambitious, productive, poised, power-oriented, candid, and dependable” (Freberg et al., 2011, p.91). Clearly, through their qualities and intense community of following, SMIs are held to a high regard from their audiences. Most importantly to companies promoting their products and services SMIs “help potential customers make a buying decision by influencing [their] opinion, through social networking” (More & Lingam, 2017, p.1). This makes it vital for brands to work with influencers to promote their goods and services with the goal of having a positive impact on marketing and sales.
Business on Social Media:
Many companies, and their customers, see it as essential to have a presence on Social Networking Sites (SNS). In Kaske et al.’s (2012) studies, it was even found that companies that have a social media presence tend to have “higher customer retention, better customer communication, potential avoidance of outrage, sales increases, and greater reach” (p. 3904). Although not all businesses are based economically online, having a presence to engage with customers is shown to improve “customer retention, customer communication, and outrage avoidance” which becomes an asset termed ‘customer equity” (Kaske et. Al., 2012, p. 3901; p. 3903). Media saturation in today’s social networking systems, sites and platforms has lead to collaboration with SMIs to optimize their community of followers’ trust, commercializing the attention economy. SMIs now hold the loyal attention of a large number of people on social media so it is simple to understand the reasoning behind the drive to work with them. Thayne (2012) continues that
“in contemporary societies we are confronted with more information than can possibly be fully processed; therefore, attention economics emphasizes the significance of designing and developing methods to swiftly and effectively direct attention in order to deliver the right advertisements to the desired target market” (p.2).
This rethought process has been accessed by optimizing on the social capital of SMIs to market their products through avenues such as paid partnerships and collaborations. Within this essay this will be displayed using a local Australian SMI called Sarah’s Day who has recently been optimizing on her strong social capital.
Defining Social Capital:
Keely (2007) simply explains that social capital can be thought of as a common set of understandings and values within a community or society, allowing groups to develop levels of trust and provide an environment where they can work together if they are so inclined. Katz et al., (2004) states that “[strong] community ties are linked to intimacy, voluntary involvement, frequency of communication, feelings of companionship, knowing each other in multiple contexts, enduring ties, mutual ties, having one’s needs met, and shared social characteristics. Virtual communities and online environments deliver all of these” (p.337). Until the rise of the Internet and particularly SNS, societies were not able to form these intimate ties with such a large scale of individuals negating the boundaries or distant, race, time-zone’s and even language. This is because in because pre-Internet social capital had a stronger tie to spatial proximity (Katz et al., 2004). The mechanics to allow communication and the relationship formation outside of spatial proximity were tied to telephone and mail communication, which deterred the formation of strong ties, widespread asynchronous communication and community construction. SNS have allowed astronomical growth of social capital because connections are “based more on common ideas, interests, and occupations” rather than purely location (Katz, 2004, p.345). Koput (2010) believes that the expansion of social capital is rooted in repeated contact, which “must be ongoing, meaning that it is subject to occurring again at some time, although such a time can be indefinite” (p.3). SNS allows fluid and repeated access to promote communication with ease.
Discussing SMIs and Social Capital Optimization through Marketing:
It is clear that SMIs, through the power of the affordances of social media in a technological driven world, are able to gain an extreme amount of social capital online. SMIs have created virtual communities by promoting their personal brand and attracting like-minded people to follow them. Whether that community be based around fitness, fashion, beauty, sport, gaming, cooking or even mindfulness, SMI’s are tapping in on the variety of the Internet to extradite their niche group of followers. The success of SMIs and a method to measure their social capital is based “on factors such as number of daily hits on a blog, number of times a post is shared, or number of followers” (Freberg et al., 2011, p.90).
Figure 1: Sarahs Day Instagram account (Stevenson, May 2018c)
To expand on the methods utilized by SMIs and provide industry examples I will use a well-known Australian SMI called Sarah’s Day (@sarahs_day) and formally named Sarah Stevenson who is a New South Wales based Instagrammer, YouTuber and self-titled content creator. Originally Sarah started her YouTube channel in 2013 and has grown her “micro-celebrity” status to now having over four hundred thousand followers on Instagram and over six hundred thousand subscribers on YouTube (www.youtube.com/SarahsDay). Sarah engages frequently on accounts posting daily on Instagram, interacting multiple times a day on her Instagram stories and posting videos on YouTube channel every three days. She has been chosen as a case study due to her recent surge of working with other businesses for mutually benefiting profit through paid partnerships and collaborations.
Sarah is a vlogger, therefore someone who creates vlogs which Gao et al. (2010) claims is rooted from the amalgamation of the two separate words video and blog. It is obvious that video’s “can show a lot more than text, [therefore] vlogs provide a much more expressive medium for vloggers than text-blogs in which to communicate with the outer world” (Gao et al., 2010, p.2). Sarah Days’ niche in the building of the personal brand that she attracts is females who are interested in holistic health, fitness and cooking. She has built a community online from her followers around the world which she calls her #sezzysquad. Sarah’s Day clearly has created a strong social capital emphasized by Katz et al.’s (2004) belief that “[the] functions of virtual communities to foster communities of interest, information spread, and equality of status all work to enhance social capital, despite their lack of direct physical orientation” (p.325). It is Katz et. al’s (2004) belief that more recently, because of the common basis of ideas, occupations and interests, that ties and relationships have become more “organic.” Because Sarah’s community are people that follow her for her health and fitness advice alluding to the fact that their following is based in common interests, it is clear that Sarah has built a strong community with hundreds of thousands of followers.
In more recent months Sarah’s Day has proved Katz et al.’s (2004) thought that an increase of social capital online will transfer to a “rise in offline contact, civic engagement, and a sense of community, and the other traditional forms of social capital” (p. 325). Although the financial aspect of companies alliance with this SMI haven’t been made public, Sarah’s Day has recently been working with White Fox Boutique, an online clothing store and iHerb.com an online health food store (Stevenson, 2018a; Stevenson, 2017; Stevenson, 2016). I will use Sarah’s Day affiliations with brands through collaborations and paid partnerships to understand the mutual financial benefit of optimizing the social capital of SMIs networks.
Paid Partnerships:
An article in the economist detailing the finances behind paid partnerships proves that companies are exploiting influencers’ social capital. It is now believed that “[hiring] such influencers allows companies to reach a vast network of potential customers” (“Celebrities’ endorsement,” 2016, para. 2). Paid partnerships or sponsored posts are a relatively new realm in the social media world however social networking sites are starting to form rules around this area to ensure that followers understand what is authentic and what is paid. Frier (2017) explains that in the past year “[influencers] are supposed to signal when they are being paid via hashtags on their posts that say #ad or #sponsored” (para. 4). In October 2016, Sarah’s day posted a video that she sneakily said was brought to subscribers by iHerb.com, meaning that she was paid to publish this vlog. Although it may have aligned with her content, she didn’t outwardly and clearly announced that it was a paid partnership because many influencer “simply fail to note the relationship at all out of concern they’ll appear inauthentic” (Frier, 2017, para. 4). As Hearn and Schoenhoff (2016) state, “[the] pursuit of “authentic” promotional connections with fans can include celebrities posting “candid” photos of “everyday life” in brand- name outfits on Instagram, or mentioning a product they have encountered on Twitter” (p.204). This example is shown by Sarah’s Day underwhelming emphasis to mention the paid partnership and over emphasis of stating that these are products she would usually buy however she wanted to make it more accessible to all of her fans by using an online store.
The perks of these partnerships can be astronomically and financially beneficial for the SMI involved. According to the Economist a SMI with between half a million to a million subscribers can be paid up to twenty-five thousand dollars for a sponsored YouTube video (“Celebrities’ endorsement,” 2016), that amount can even soar to three hundred thousand dollars per video on the basis of having over seven million subscribers. Although that amount may seem astronomical as Freberg et al. (2011) claims, SMIs “represent a new type of independent third party endorser who shape audience attitudes through blogs, tweets, and the use of other social media” (p.90). The trust built from the social capital of Sarah’s Days’ following has a positive impact on the iHerb.com by providing a positive review of their products and service shifting the desired eyes of the attention economy onto their business.
Figure 2: The Economist detailing differentiation of compensation for SMIs for each platform dependent on the size of their social capital through the number of followers they have (“Celebrities’ endorsement,” 2016)
According to the statistics of this particular video review, as of March 27th, 2018 Sarah’s recording had over one hundred and sixty thousand views, which lead to over two hundred shares and provided her with over two hundred and fifty subscriptions (Stevenson, 2016). The number of subscriptions and shares driven from this particular video proves that mutually beneficial relationship for both company and SMI.
Brand Collaborations:
SMIs’ CEO like qualities are helping them realize the benefits of being business savvy where they hold the power in a knowledge economy (Freberg et al., 2011; Crogan & Kingsley, 2012). Therefore, another form of alliance with companies is shown through official collaboration. This is when an SMI works with a brand to collectively create a product from that brand associated with the influencer SNS pseudonym. Recently there have been many examples of this however in the case of Sarah’s Day in recent months she has collaborated with White Fox Boutique, an online clothing shop. Sarah announced on February 27th, 2018 that she had spent half a year “designing and developing a 15 piece active wear collection [from scratch],” with the online clothing boutique (Stevenson, 2018a). The line gained so much attention from her followers that on the launch date the site crashed from overflowing traffic (Stevenson, 2018b).
Figure 3: Sarah’s announcement that her overwhelming loyalty from her social capital led to a website crash from overflowing traffic when her collaboration was released (Stevenson 2018)
It is fascinating that “simply by expressing themselves, individuals have become empowered participants in an emerging online reputation economy, where the reputation generated by social media participation functions as a new form of currency and, more generally, value” (Hearn & Schoenhoff, 2016, p.203). This has literally turned in financial currency for both influencers and the brands that they associate with. There is no denying from the information shown for SMIs combined with the traffic and attention gained through SMIs social capital that collaborations are mutually beneficial.
Conclusion:
This paper has discussed the economic benefits for SMIs and companies combined in a society that is noticing the rise of the “micro-celebrity” (Marwick, 2016). Influencers are becoming the new powerful ‘authentic’ voices online in a world that is saturated with advertising and commercialism. The desire to hold onto authenticity while self-sustaining through business relationship is the unwavering downfall of these relationships. SMIs are chasing to form a “perception of authenticity [to create] a space that is readily exploitable, insofar as SMIs can parlay the trust they inspire into myriad commercial arrangements” (Khamis et al., 2016, p.203). SMIs are trying to under emphasize the affiliations with brands through paid partnerships and move to more collaborations to hold steadfast strength in their social capital. Nevertheless, the combination of “influence maximization” and “social influence” have created a new wave of marketing online through social media (More & Lingam, 2017). It is undeniable that there is bilateral economic prosperity gained through the union of SMIs and brands with the strength of the community of social capital in SMIs networks.
References:
Celebrities’ endorsement earnings on social media. (2016). Retrieved March 17, 2018, from https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/10/daily-chart-9
Chen, H. (2017). College-Aged Young Consumers Perceptions of Social Media Marketing: The Story of Instagram, Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising, 39(1), 22-36. doi:10.1080/10641734.2017.1372321
Crogan, P., & Kinsley, S. (2012). Paying attention: Toward a critique of the attention economy. Culture Machine, 13, 1–29. Available: http://www.culturemachine.net/index.php/cm/issue/view/24
Dijkmans, C. Kerkhof, P. and Beukeboom, C. (2015). A stage to engage: Social media use and corporate reputation. Tourism Management 47. 58 – 67.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman2014.09.005
Freberg, K., Graham, K., Mcgaughey, K., & Freberg, L. A. (2011). Who are the social media influencers? A study of public perceptions of personality. Public Relations Review, 37(1), 90-92. doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2010.11.001
Frier, S. (2017, June 14). Instagram to Make It Clearer When Influencer Posts Are Paid Ads. Retrieved March 17, 2018, from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-14/instagram-to-make-it-clearer-when-influencer-posts-are-paid-ads
Gao, W., Tian, Y., Huang, T., & Yang, Q. (2010). Vlogging. ACM Computing Surveys, 42(4), 1-57. doi:10.1145/1749603.1749606
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Hearn, A. and Schoenhoff, S., 2016. From celebrity to influencer: tracing the diffusion of celebrity value across the data stream. In: P. David Marshall and S. Redmond, eds. A companion to celebrity. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 194–212.
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Kaske, F., Kugler, M., & Smolnik, S. (2012). Return on Investment in Social Media–Does the Hype Pay Off? Towards an Assessment of the Profitability of Social Media in Organizations. 2012 45th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. doi:10.1109/hicss.2012.504
Katz, J. E., Rice, R. E., Acord, S., Dasgupta, K., & David, K. (2004). Personal Mediated Communication and the Concept of Community in Theory and Practice. In P. Kalbfleisch (Ed.), Communication and Community: Communication Yearbook 28 (pp. 315-371). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
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Khamis, S., Ang, L., & Welling, R. (2016). Self-branding, ‘micro-celebrity’ and the rise of Social Media Influencers.Celebrity Studies, 8(2), 191-208. doi:10.1080/19392397.2016.1218292
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Stevenson, S. [Sarah’s Day]. (2016, October). Healthy Snacks | Healthy Food That Taste Naughty [VEGAN]. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyRWbEbyZIw&t=318s
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Hi Danielle, awesome paper – I’m a big fan of Sarah’s Day so knew I had to read this one 🙂
The rise of influencer marketing has led to a really disruptive shift in the way users create and share social media both on Instagram as well as YouTube. According to market research conducted by the NPD Group in 2016, influencer collaborations bring in two times the dollar volume in comparison to traditional celebrities – https://www.npd.com/wps/portal/npd/us/blog/2016/do-consumers-crave-collaborations/.
The point you mention about Sarah not disclosing a paid sponsorship with iHerb is one that’s really important to consider in terms of maintaining social capital as an influencer. The success of an influencer (and thereby the level of social capital they obtain) is so reliant on how much their content is viewed/shared or engaged with; this dependency on their followers means that the volatility of audience backlash can be far-reaching and long-term if they are not transparent about paid sponsorship opportunities. These online communities of followers may become resistant to consuming inauthentic content, questioning credentials or credibility particularly when it comes to health and wellness when there is a lack of disclosure.
In response to this lack of transparency in Australia, advertising standards for social media influencers were actually revised as of March 2017, ensuring these influencers addressed accountability by acknowledging their collaborations with brands. Sponsored content is required to be defined and clearly labelled under a new code by the Australian Association of National Advertisers (Further info here: http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/social-influencers-must-reveal-ad-under-new-transparency-rules/8315962).
As influencers and their various paid sponsorship don’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon, we can only hope full disclosure is provided to loyal followers and the various influencer-fan communities for future posts!
Thanks for sharing this paper!
Cheers,
Teresa
Thanks for your comments Teresa!
I really appreciate your input about influencer collaborations being more powerful than celebrity collaborations. I have noticed the market definitely shifting in that direction in the last couple of years but it is fascinating to know that there is starting to be strong market research to back up the trend. I am sure academia will follow through soon as well.
I definitely agree that full disclosure of sponsorship deals should be provided by influencers but I understand the difficult dichotomy that they face by doing this. It definitely questions their authenticity as a trusted voice. I think that is why a lot more influencers are starting to either collaborate on a product with brands or bring out their own content. This article by CampaignDues written at the end of 2017 narrows in on this influencer industry shift – https://www.campaigndeus.com/blog-post/influencers-own-brand-beyond-content
It will be interesting to see where this new phase of marketing goes in the next few years. Will it be a passing trend when influencers become over saturated with paid posts, sponsorships losing the attention of their followers? Or will it grow to be the only form of marketing in the future, diminishing the need ‘old school’ advertising in newspapers, radio and television.
I would be fascinated to know what you think?
Danielle
Hi Danielle,
It will definitely be interesting to see how influencer marketing shifts! I think with the increasing prominence of influencer-industry collaboration, we may start to see an over saturation of sponsored content on social media – how soon until the balance of content on our social media platforms becomes 90% advertising / 10% interaction with our friends and family? Or are we already there? Either way, SMI capital is currently one of the most effective marketing strategies so I think influencers will continue to have a strong presence in future, but the form this takes might be completely different as to what we see today.
Cheers,
Teresa
Hi Danielle, great paper! I am fascinated around the topic of social media influencers and the promotion of business and products online through influencers and ‘micro-celebrities’.
I often wonder how long will the social media influencer trend last? Will there be a time where social media influencers are no longer the latest and greatest? Will our interest and trust in them wear off? What will be the next big thing in online and social media marketing? I find it hard to trust the opinions of online influencers, they only show us the best parts of their lives and its hard to believe that they are trying to sell stuff to us online because they genuinly love or use a product – after all they are usually getting paid hundreds of dollars to promote this stuff to us.
What do you think the future of online marketing is? Do you think the online influencer trend will wear off? Have you ever purchased a product because a social media influencer promoted it to you? I would love to hear your personal thoughts.
Lauren
Hi Lauren,
I think the trend for Social Media marketing is heading towards using more Micro-SMIs to market products instead of massive SMIs. I was studying an app last semester called TRIBE which is a platform to mediate the relationship between influencers and businesses (https://www.tribegroup.co/) however they focus on micro-influencers. To them a micro-influencer is anyone with 3k – 100k followers. They target more niche markets because I think they believe there is more trust established within those micro markets.
As I am starting to notice I think even Mega-SMIs like @SarahsDay to @NikkieTutorials with multiple hundreds of thousands to millions of followers are starting to lose a bit of their trust amongst their followers with their rising “celebrity” status online.
So maybe that is the future, allowing the Long Tail theory to prosper and focusing on the smaller, niche markets. However it’s definitely something to keep an eye on going forward. And even still I think a lot of industries aren’t even up to date with the current trend of Influencer marketing – so I think the boom micro-Influencer marketing is still a few years off.
I would love to know your thoughts Lauren?!
– Danielle
Hi Danielle!
This was a great read, I’ve deffinatly noticed this shift toward using SMIs in marketing and can say I’ve fallen into the trap of SMI myself. I found all of your discussion really well thought out and informed and it got me thinking about a few points that I would be interested to hear your though’s on. Mainly I think it would be interesting to look at the place of the consumer. As you focused on the the mutually benificial aspect between SMIs and enterprises, where does this leave the place of consumers other than being influenced?
I liked your point on consumers becoming desensitised from traditional forms of advertising causing the shift toward what we see today. This raises the question for me, what happens when we now become desensitised to social media advertising and has this already begun?
You speak about the wealth of SMI social capitol laying in the number of loyal followers they have, I agree with this but often think about the opportunity SMI have to loose loyal followers if they are perceived as being untruthful/ selling out to a paid promotion.
Once again this was a great review of the social capitol of SMIs and the power they have in the online realm, I really enjoyed reading!
Hannah 🙂
Hey Hannah,
Thank you so much for your comments! I am glad that you enjoyed the read and saw that the prevalence of it within your own life. It definitely is an interesting point to think about on the side of the consumer which is something that I didn’t discuss in my paper. In my opinion I think this allows for a lot more clarity for consumer purchases. Personally I follow SMIs that I know, like and trust who have similar lifestyles and habits to me. Usually after my following of them is prolonged over a few months I definitely notice I start to become affected by the products they promote and use and have bought them myself. In all of the cases within my life thus far I have been pleased with my purchases and appreciate the review or suggesting of the SMI I am following.
This definitely can be abused level of trust however and I think it comes down to a case by case basis with each SMI. However I think it provides clarity with the overly saturated market of products nowadays.
As well, it is possible we will become desensitized to this type of marketing in the future, however I think that is still a far while off. I have no idea what is next after that, I think it will come from watching the trends in the next couple years. What do you think?
It’s definitely an exciting time that we are living in with all the affordances of the advanced technology around us!
Thanks Hannah!
– Danielle
Hi Danielle thanks for getting back to me!
I agree, I think consumers deffinatly benefit by being provided clarity when purchasing products and again I have used these myself to gain clarity and most of the time have not been disappointed by the result! like you said by following SMI that you trust and share similar views with makes it a lot easier to navigate these waters.
With the idea of being desensitised I deffinatly think that for most products, especially the types of products someone like Sarah’s Day would be promoting, this is a long while off as you said.
On the other hand for some products I do think I see myself ignoring them/skipping over the sponsored content. This may just be a personal thing as the content is not in my interest though! A product that comes to mind when I think of this is the gaming app ‘best fiends’ who every now and then saturate the youtube market by using influencers to promote the game. I think its an interesting tactic to over saturate and it probably does work for them but personally I get tired of seeing content sponsored by them!
Who knows what we will see next but I am excited to find out!
– Hannah 🙂
Hi Danielle,
Thank you for sharing your paper – it was really well written and was easy to follow!
I’ve read a couple of the SMI papers now and one thing I’m not sure has been addressed by any is the level of behavior driving impact the SMI have on consumers. Your NPD reference was the closest answer to this question i have seen. Do you think SMI on YouTube have more influence than those on Instagram?
I’m was surprised by the statement at the start of your paper in reference to TV, newspapers and radio becoming quickly outdated. I’d love to know what research you read on this , everything i have reviewed of late still has TV as the number one media influence in Australia… I also thought we spent far more time watching TV than we did on the internet (according to media agencies anyway)!
The golden rule of brand building through advertising has always been build awareness and repetition to drive purchase… i wonder how many times we would need to be exposed to a brand promotion by an influencer to build recall awareness and trial and if its driving online sales or actual in-store sales? If you had any info on that i’d love to read it!!
Thanks again,
Jacinta
Hi Jacinta,
Thank you for feedback. You definitely brought up some areas where I could have presented a stronger argument – I appreciate you pointing that out. I definitely could have brought in some more factual information to get across my point.
With some research I have found, advertising online rose 22% from 2016-2017 and surpassed TV advertising revenue (Slefo, 2017). However in hindsight I should have provided that statement with attached reference as opposed to commenting on personal trends that I have seen happening.
Additionally, I have found some information that I think you would find interesting and would answer some of your questions. In regards to Influencer affiliation bringing real profits to brands Coresight Research found some excellent examples:
– “In 2016, a face palette collection launched by influencer and makeup tutor Jaclyn Hill for the Becca Cosmetics brand resulted in $1 million in sales in 90 minutes” (“Deep Dive,” 2018)
– “Forever 21 partners with small and micro-influencers, and almost 90% of the company’s Instagram posts feature influencers that have follower numbers in the thousands” (“Deep Dive,” 2018)
– “Four out of every five mobile web visits to Nordstrom.com coming from referral traffic are driven by influencer network ” (“Deep Dive,” 2018)
So I do believe that my statements have value and truth behind them. It will be interesting to see where the future of marketing goes with this!
Thanks Jacinta!
– Danielle
References:
Deep Dive: The Rise of Social Media Influencers and Their Brands. (2018, January 4). Retrieved May 24, 2018, from https://www.fungglobalretailtech.com/research/deep-dive-rise-social-media-influencers-brands/
Slefo, G., (2017, April 26). Desktop and Mobile Revenue Surpasses TV for the First Time. Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/digital/digital-ad-revenue-surpasses-tv-desktop-iab/308808/
Hi Danielle,
This is a really interesting topic to write on given the growing amount of social media accounts who are able to make a living off being a social media influencer. It has always intrigued me that someone can make money simply by influencing others. Do you think there are some brands that social media influencers don’t work for?
You mention paid partnerships and Sarah Stevenson’s failure to make it clear that some of her videos are paid partnerships. Do you think that social media influencers have a responsibility to their followers to make it very clear when something is paid? In reply to Hannahs comment there have been numerous SMIs that I have unfollowed because I am simply sick of all their paid promotion and it is too hard to tell what is real and what is fake anymore. I have to say I am a stickler for authentic content and will scream if I have to see one more post about a juice cleanse and SMI only tries for a day.
Thanks Danielle this was a really interesting read!
Perri
Hi Perri,
Thank you for reading it! It really is seeming like SMIs will collaborate on paid posts with almost any brands these days. I think that is one positive and negative sides of social media. There are so many niche influencers out there that align with the wide variety of brands that exist nowadays, however that is starting to lead to an over saturation of the market where authentic content is becoming more rare.
I think that influencers have a right to say if there promotions are paid, and now it is even against the law to do otherwise if you refer to Teresa’s reference in her comment. Nevertheless I think that is why it is important for users to follow Influencers that they know, like and trust to promote products or content they actually use and enjoy, not just for the sake of being paid.
I think we are going to see more of a trend like this moving forward to demand authenticity from Influencers with the repercussions of an unfollow like you referred to.
Thank you for you comment Perri!
Hi Danielle,
I agree with you completely! My initial thoughts were that there were definitely campaigns or causes that SMIs wouldn’t be suited for but the longer I think about it the more I realise even places like libraries and government departments that you would not expect to be able to leverage SMIs can. Interestingly I have recently attended another conference where the importance of having authentic content was discussed so it is safe to say that this is a pertinent issue that many people who use social media both personally and for business are thinking about.
Thanks for getting me to think more deeply about this!
Hey Danielle, I really enjoyed the content of your paper. Very relevant to this topic, we can not deny the importance o social media the digital influencer on advertising. Your example shows how the social is important to provide voice and participation to any user/consumer, I mean, In my opinion, some years ago you should need to be famous and appear on some mainstream media, as TV, to represent some product and be an advertiser. Nowadays, anyone can do this, you just need followers. Seems that we see the decentralisation of media on your example. Thank you for this!
Hi Nathalia,
I definitely agree with you. There seems to be a decentralization of media from the traditional forms. I believe that future trends of marketing will lead to heavily influencer based advertising to build trust with consumers.
However there is the issue of consumers growing to distrust the voice of the influencer from that over saturated market. Nevertheless, it is a fascinating time to be alive to see where this industry is headed!
Hi Danielle,
Your paper is fantastic and very well written, I found it very easy to understand, which is great!
I completely agree with your take on social media influencers and how companies must take advantage of this in order to successfully promote their products; as the current market is definitely dominated by social media and influencers.
I personally always look at online reviews and pay more attention to the opinions of influencers, especially the ones that are more relatable and ‘real’.
I’m a huge fan of Sarah’s Day and found your point about strong community ties being linked to intimacy and frequent communication so relatable; I think Sarah does this well as I always feel as though I know her personally, as she comes across so real and shares her everyday experiences. She has created such a successful brand for herself and her recommendations have influenced my opinions when buying products related to health and fitness, so I think you are completely right when you discuss how social networks are substantial part of our everyday lives and using Sarah’s Day as an example has definitely revealed the marketing techniques that are used on these sites. It was really interesting to see your section about the perks of partnership and how financially beneficial this can be for Sarah’s Day.
Another micro-celebrity who has created a successful and influential brand for themselves is Stephanie Claire-Smith. You may be interested in this as she has many partnerships with companies such as Clinique, Nike, Bondi Sands and has capitalised on her following by starting her own fitness community online and health brand ‘Keep It Cleaner’, have you ever looked into this? Steph is another great example of creating intimacy with her audience and this in turn has allowed people to trust her opinions even when they are sponsored posts. This raises the question of how ‘real’ do you think the opinions are of influencers such as Sarah and Steph? even if they mention a post is sponsored, they often argue they only post about the products/ services they love. Would be interesting to hear your thoughts on this and if you personally find their opinions always genuine
Throughly enjoyed your paper and hope to discuss further with you!
Thanks
Sherree (:
Hi Sherree,
Thank you for your comment. Yes I have actually started following Steph after reading a paper on here about here, which possibly could have been yours. Since I have only recently started following Steph and I can’t yet comment on her authenticity, however in the case of Sarah’s Day I have a strong level of trust on her recommendations. I think it definitely depends on the Influencer because some I have followed in the past I have found to be extremely inauthentic and fake. That is the beauty of social media though since we have the ability to chose who’s social capital we get to be a part of.
It would be interesting to see in the future if there is some type of SMI review webpage, where individuals can search for the product reviews of certain SMI to be able to make there decision.
Thank you for your comment Sheree!
Hi Danielle,
Yes that was most likely my paper as I do talk about Steph!
Here is the link to Steph’s ‘Keep It Cleaner’ if you are interested: https://www.facebook.com/keepitcleaner1/
It would be very interesting if there was a SMI review page.
Thanks heaps for the chat.
Sherree
Hi Danielle,
Your paper is fantastic and very well written, I found it very easy to understand, which is great!
I completely agree with your take on social media influencers and how companies must take advantage of this in order to successfully promote their products; as the current market is definitely dominated by social media and influencers.
I personally always look at online reviews and pay more attention to the opinions of influencers, especially the ones that are more relatable and ‘real’.
I’m a huge fan of Sarah’s Day and found your point about strong community ties being linked to intimacy and frequent communication so relatable; I think Sarah does this well as I always feel as though I know her personally, as she comes across so real and shares her everyday experiences. She has created such a successful brand for herself and her recommendations have influenced my opinions when buying products related to health and fitness, so I think you are completely right when you discuss how social networks are substantial part of our everyday lives and using Sarah’s Day as an example has definitely revealed the marketing techniques that are used on these sites. It was really interesting to see your section about the perks of partnership and how financially beneficial this can be for Sarah’s Day.
Another micro-celebrity who has created a successful and influential brand for themselves is Stephanie Claire-Smith. You may be interested in this as she has many partnerships with companies such as Clinique, Nike, Bondi Sands and has capitalised on her following by starting her own fitness community online and health brand ‘Keep It Cleaner’, have you ever looked into this? Here is the link to the Facebook page if you are interested https://www.facebook.com/keepitcleaner1/
Steph is another great example of creating intimacy with her audience and this in turn has allowed people to trust her opinions even when they are sponsored posts. This raises the question of how ‘real’ do you think the opinions are of influencers such as Sarah and Steph? even if they mention a post is sponsored, they often argue they only post about the products/ services they love. Would be interesting to hear your thoughts on this and if you personally find their opinions always genuine
Throughly enjoyed your paper and hope to discuss further with you!
Thanks
Sherree (: