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The Rise of Influencers

Blog Draft: The Rise of Influencers

Due to the rise of social media, mass communication has transformed into a showcase of culture via pictures and videos. The spread of culture today is influenced by the media people interact with daily on several platforms. Influencers are to blame for the rapid changes in style and cultural norms such as vernacular. Influencers work with businesses and brands by promoting items or services in sponsored social media posts. Essentially, influencers offer promotions to their audiences in exchange for money and/or free items from a business. Marketing tactics, such as influencers in social media, hold the power to transform societies by determining what is “in” and what is “out.”

Basically anyone could become an influencer because there are endless brands and businesses looking for marketing opportunities. With that said, all it takes to become an influencer is a heavy following and a professional feed presentation. An influencer’s social media feed must reflect the brand or business they choose to work for. Therefore, choosing a niche is essential to starting a career as an influencer as well as quality photographs of the product or service the influencer is endorsing. Niches are important because they link accounts together to form whole communities on social platforms. Interacting with promotional posts lead to suggestive content of the same niche.

Businesses prefer to hire influencers rather than spending money on billboards or commercials because it is more efficient to market their campaigns. Using the influencers to market their brand reaches more people and accounts by serving different audiences. These business opportunities may also be used in advertisements and are based on the agreements between the influencer and the business. The more followers an influencer account has indicates how much they are worth to businesses. For example, Kylie Jenner is the most famous influencer and partnership with her account is worth over $1 million dollars per sponsored Instagram post solely due to her follower count. (Conklin) The traction the influencers bring in led to brand deals with businesses, in which an influencer would market new items every time the brand releases new collections or items for a large sum.

For these reasons, my friend’s Instagram jewelry business thrived after she partnered with influencers. She used influencers to grow her brand within months and she went from fifty followers to thousands by offering free items to new influencers starting out, since we all cannot afford Kylie Jenner. Influencers brought her business loads of daily interactions and visitors to her page.

In recent years, the app Instagram has grown from just another social media application to a platform owned by FaceBook and ranked as the third most used social media platform according to 99Firms blog. The social media app has transformed into a place for businesses to showcase their work and gain supporters and clients. One of the most popular users of the platform happens to be Instagram influencers. It has also become a product of commodification by including an “explore page” that is modified to fit the users needs as they continue to navigate through the app. (Mosco) It uses and collects data from the person's account to fill out their explore page with new content within their communities. Through the Instagram explore page it is easy to see trending posts from both  local and worldwide perspectives. Popular and trending items within the users circle end up on this page therefore, it is suggesting a personalized culture per social media user.

Instagram influencers were the blueprint for other influencer opportunities across platforms like YouTube, Twitter, and now TikTok. Brand deals are becoming new ways to start a blogging career via social media rather than developing a website. It is free to post and simple to earn money as a social media influencer. The job also comes with perks such as invitations, a higher follower count, and paid flights to the business’s social gatherings and release parties. Recently, the most downloaded app TikTok sent their verified Black accounts to a gathering in Los Angeles with all expenses paid during black history month. These bonuses keep influencers in the mix with others and give them content to post as well as promotion on the business’ end.

Essentially, influencers have transformed the way we see blogs and interact with advertisements. Social media is a place for creating and building culture, it has the power to reach people all over the world. Baran wrote, “Logically, then, the most powerful voices in the forum have the most power to shape our definitions and understandings.” Influencers with certain niches can transform their communities by introducing new products or services to their followers on multiple platforms. This is called audience fragmentation in which niche marketing and targeting is used to find suitable audiences. (Baran)

One of the most vast ways influencers have altered social media culture is by sharing their day-to-day lives via social media. It has become a product of the rise of influencers because they are expected to have consistent content and interaction with their followers. It is the rejuvenated version of blogging. Stories are an easy way to share a piece of an influencer's life. Many platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat have options to post stories rather than posts which last twenty-four hours. Celebrities such as Chantel Jefferies and Kylie Jenner use their stories to promote items in addition to full posts on various platforms.

"How Many People Use Instagram? (15 Faqs Answered For 2020)". 99Firms.Com, 2020, https://99firms.com/blog/how-many-people-use-instagram/#gref.

Conklin, Audrey. "Top 5 Highest Paid Social Media Influencers". Fox Business, 2020, https://www.foxbusiness.com/money/5-highest-paid-social-influencers.

Baran, Stanley J. “Mass Communication, Culture, and Media Literacy.” In Introduction to Mass

Communication: Media Literacy and Culture. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2015. Pp. 17-18.

Baran, Stanley J. “Convergence and the Reshaping of Mass Communication.” In Introduction to Mass Communication: Media Literacy and Culture. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2015. Pp. 36-37.

Mosco, Vincent. “The Body and Culture.” In Becoming Digital: Toward a Post-Internet Society. Bingley, UK: Emerald House Publishing, 2017. Pg.101-102