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forms of media promotion, such as television, newspaper, radio and magazine advertising are quickly becoming outdated.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

Goldhaber, M.H. (1997). The Attention Economy and the Net. First Monday. 2 (4-7), April. Available: http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/519/440

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.

Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: where old and new media collide. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

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.

Keeley, B. (2007). OECD insights human capital: how what you know shapes your life. Paris: OECD

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

Koput, K. W. (2010). Social capital : an introduction to managing networks. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Langlois, G., (2016) Social Networking and the Production of the Self. Meaning in the Age of Social Media, 26(4), 131-145. doi:10.1057/9781137356611.0008

Marwick, A. E. (2015). Instafame: Luxury Selfies in the Attention Economy. Public Culture, 27(1 75), 137–160. http://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-2798379 [Available via Reading List]

Marwick, A.E., (2016). You may know me from YouTube: (micro-) celebrity in social media. In: P.D. Marshall and S. Redmond, eds. A companion to celebrity. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 333–350.

More, J. S., & Lingam, C. (2017). A SI model for social media influencer maximization. Applied Computing and Informatics. doi:10.1016/j.aci.2017.11.001

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

Stevenson, S. [@sarahs_day]. (2017, October 5). [Photograph of @loving_earth products]. Retrieved from https://www.instagram.com/p/BZ3Fa5yHmik/?taken-by=sarahs_day

Stevenson, S. [@sarahs_day]. (2018a, February 22). [Photograph of Sarah’s day holding Tropeka Products]. Retrieved from https://www.instagram.com/p/BffAYrdHicD/?taken-by=sarahs_day

Stevenson, S. [@sarahs_day]. (2018b, February 27). [Photograph of Sarah’s Day and White Fox Boutique Collaboration]. Retrieved from https://www.instagram.com/p/BfrQMM3n-M2/?taken-by=sarahs_day

Stevenson, S. [@sarahs_day]. (2018c, May 5). [Photograph of Sarah’s Day Instagram Account]. Retrieved from https://www.instagram.com/sarahs_day/

Thayne, M. (2012). Friends Like Mine: The Production of Socialised Subjectivity in the Attention Economy. Culture Machine, 13, 1-23. Retrieved October 31, 2017.