An Influencer’s Influence

The influencer movement, and the effect it has had on consumer buying patterns, has completely changed the way society acts. Personally, I believe this is because it can be a very trustworthy channel, one in which we see many promotional interactions taking place. In an influencer’s sphere of influence, they have the ability to help strengthen the battered relationship between consumers and brands, because they have gained their followers trust.

This trust that exists between the consumer, influencer, and brand was put to the test at one point. Consumers started to pick up on the fact that companies were paying influencers large sums of money to promote their products/brands and even were telling the influencers exactly what to post (i.e. the Scott Disick debacle). Followers quickly started to recognize when a post happened organically and whether the influencer ACTUALLY believed and supported the brand, and when it wasn’t organic. . . they were not happy. That’s why the American FTC standards mandated any advertising through an influencer be transparent to their audience through a written disclosure (i.e. #ad) or a verbal disclosure (i.e. “thank you to [brand] for sponsoring this video).

As followers and consumers became more aware of the influencer marketing industry, they also became more critical of the type of products influencers would promote. Now, it is important for brands to pick influencers that reflect their values and their target audience, AND for influencers to pick brands that they believe in and ones that their followers would be interested in. (A study found that followers trust influencers more when they share the same values). I can not stress how important it is to have purposeful, meaningful, and truthful partnerships between influencers and brands in this expanding industry. Think about this. . . in the US alone the influencer economy is valued at $10 billion and is roughly $116 billion in China! AND IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET BIGGER!