Social Influencers: Who are They & How Do They Influence? - Essay Sample

Introduction

For the last decades, social media has experienced rapid growth. It was estimated that by January 2019, 45% of the total world's population was using social media. Social influencers are varied or are different in several ways, i.e., some are by the number of followers, the type of content, degree, or level of influence or by the niche in which they operate (Verspaget, 2020). This means that social influencers who seem to be low by one measure may be more influential in another category. Social influencers have created a world of their own. They have ended becoming celebrities in their way and right hence earning large contracts from corporations, organizations, and companies.

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Who is a Social Influencer?

In a nutshell, social media influencer is a social media user who has created credibility in a specific sector or industry. As per Glucksman (2017), social influencers represent third-party independent endorsers whose main idea is to shape the participants' attitudes through blogs, tweets, and other social networking sites such as Instagram and Face book and YouTube. Many of the social influencers have lived normal lives that make them more relatable to the consumers watching their contents daily. Social influencers are great contributors to the marketers who are on the verge of looking at marketing their products on digital platforms. Ideally, social influencers take pleasure in giving recommendations and advice on the products and services through their social posts that help individuals to efficiently and effectively market their products (Abidin, 2016). Their opinions and recommendations fully resonate with the consumers or their participants. Ambitiousness, productiveness, and smartness are some of the influencer characteristics that appeal to most of the audience. Due to their persuasive nature, organizations are using technologies to identify social influencers relevant to their brand. The success of social influencer depends on the number of times a post is shared, the number of followers, number of hits on a blog, number of subscriptions, and number of views, among others.

The Evolution of Social Influencers

In modern society, a social influencer is commonly used to create and increase brand awareness, more so influencer marketing. The concept of social influencing has been in existence since the 18th century. When there were no social media, people relied mostly on radios, televisions, and print ads for product and services recommendations in which influential people featured that necessitated the purchase of the commodity. One of the earliest social influencers dates back in 1760 in which a potter named Wedgwood, whose artwork was approved by the queen. This royal approval prompted people to flock into his business in the purchase of his products (Glucksman, 2017). Later in the 20th century, a silent film actor by the name Fatty Arbuckle became the first celebrity to endorse a product, i.e., Murad Cigarettes.

Today social influencer has significantly been influenced by the use of social media, which has entirely developed a new genre of celebrity. Many individuals have today found fame because of social media use and have become more productive and influential in endorsing products more than the stars. The first social influencer to be launched was the Friendster, which was created in 2002 and gained a million users by 2008. In late 2018, Instagram was launched and became the center of attention in which marketers spent a considerable percentage of their capital marketing their products. It was rated as the top medium social market influencer in the year 2019. Today social influencers are commonly used in digital marketing, especially in the world of commerce.

How Social Influencers' Make Money

Social media provides a platform in which social users make money or can earn a living. Social media influencing is a job just like any other employment; to some, it is a fulltime job opportunity that entails duties and responsibilities such as community engagement, creation of contents, photography, and many others. According to Carter (2013), social influencers can make money through e-products such as e-books, e-manuals, among others. E-products are relatively cheap and easy to produce and can widely and rapidly be distributed across any online platform. Digital /E-products give the social influencers and opportunity to create and develop something tangible that they can distribute to their social networks and sell to their audience hence making some money from it. Another way in which social influencers can make money from E-products is by co-creating content with specific brands and selling the brand through advertisement.

Social Influencers can make a living by being brand ambassadors. This is the most common mode of marketing and ad in the modern world. Companies or business organizations hire brand ambassadors for a long or short term basis and pay them a retainer. They can also make money through co-creating content with physical products and receiving a commission on every sale that is made. A social influencer can also make money through affiliate marketing; this means that a referral partner can get a percentage of a sale if the sale made is attributed to their content.

Comparison Between Traditional Celebrities and Social Influencers

In past businesses, marketers and organizations heavily relied on celebrity endorsements to increase their sales through raising brand awareness. Still, in modern society, the rise of social media use has helped companies discover that social influencer's collaboration is more effective in attracting the consumer's attention. In the modern society markets, companies and organizations are increasingly abandoning traditional celebrities in favor of social media influencers such as bloggers, vloggers, and Instagram personalities to market and endorse their products. Since the evolution of mass media, the notion of celebrities, and the admiration of media personalities have always been apparent because of their eloquence in the media mainstream (Nouri, 2018). It has made a significant impact on the beauty, fashion, and lifestyle habits of the overall population. The emergency of social media platforms such as blog sites, YouTube, Instagram, and Face book has emulated the tendency to higher levels. Even though traditional celebrities have had a significant impact on the society pop culture, the rise of social influencers has rapidly gained more influence and audience on the community's social pop culture than traditional celebrities.

Janssen (2020), found that social influencers are more credible product endorsers than traditional stars. This is because social influencers share user-oriented product reviews, personal experiences, and recommendations on their social networks. By this, I mean, social influencers create a content product that reflects an honest opinion contrary to celebrity endorsement in which consumers are well informed that the only aim is payment after the approval. Social influencers are authentic and credible in promoting products that reflect the real-life setting, which consequently increases the trustworthiness perception as opposed to traditional celebrities (Schouten & Verspaget, 2020). Social influencers are more receptive to young consumers in the digital age than traditional stars. Young people can highly trust a recommendation or an endorsement of a product from a social influencer than a celebrity. Therefore, consumers are more likely to buy a product endorsed by a social influencer such as a blogger than a personality.

Is Social Influencer a Sustainable Career?

A social influencer is a job opportunity, just like any other career. It can indeed be a real join, but it must be understood that it is not a walk in the park. Social influencers are just ordinary people who have established credibility in specific areas that have enabled them to earn a large following of audience. To many in the modern world, social media influencing has become a full-time job in which they make revenue by influencing others. One should understand that social media is not only posting videos, photos, or blogging but is a platform for earning a living. In the modern world, people with a million followers can make up to $10,000 in a single post depending on the social media platform, whereas those with a smaller number of the following can also make at least $ 60,000 per year (Haapasalmi, 2017). Therefore, for one to sustain social influence, social media is a competitive platform, and it takes a lot of work for an influencer to be in a position of being paid by brands. One must have a significantly large number of followers, good content creation that must add value to the followers. Yes, indeed, Social influencer is a viable and sustainable career, but it takes time, resilience, focus, integrity, discipline, and determination to start earning and becoming a paid influencer.

The Future of Social Influencing

For the past years, the social influencer has garnered a lot of interest more so the influencer marketing. Traditional celebrities can no longer give new brands the much-required publicity to the new generation. Hence organizations are finding new ways to market their products and reach the consumers effectively. Most modern brands are willing to invest more money in social influencers for their products. A study revealed that by 2022, 70% of marketers intend to raise their social influencer marketing budget ((Haapasalmi, 2017). It is therefore clear that the future of social influencer is bright, but it is bound to change with technological advancement, especially in social media platforms. In future influencer marketing may group influencers with whom they are associated with meaning that those influencers who possess the ability to transfer and conveying ideas between different groups with being more influential compared to others. The success of the future social influencer will rely on micro-influencers who have small numbers of followers but works in maintaining healthy and personal bonds with the consumers and their audience. The next social influencer lies on the In-House Influencer Programs that mainly focuses on creating a strong relationship with people rather than content distribution. The future social influencer will primarily rely on live content, meaning that social media influencers will achieve more and have a significant achievement through video content.

Conclusion

Social Influencers, especially influencer marketing, has significantly increased due to the rise of social media platforms. Through the creation of useful content, many followers' influencers have continued to earn a living through social influencers. There should be no fear of anyone wishing to join social influencers; they should understand that it is a job just like any other career; it all depends on individual interests and attitudes. From the discussion, it is evident that consumers have more trust in purchasing products through social influencers than traditional celebrities. The future of social influencers is bright and lies more opportunities. Still, it must be able to enhance feelings of wishful identification and similarity for it to more effective in endorsing a product in the future. The future will also substantially be dependent on technological changes.

References

Abidin, C., & Ots, M. (2016). Influencers tell all. blurring the lines, 153. https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1051578/FULLTEXT01.pdf#page=155

Carter, B. (2013). The like economy: How businesses make money with facebook. Que Publishing.

Freberg, K., Graham, K., McGaughey, K., & Freberg, L. A. (2011). Who are the social media influencers? A study of pu...