The Rise of Influencer Marketing

    

    When I say the word “influencer” what comes to mind? Maybe a teenager standing in front of a camera getting paid tons of money to brag about this company sending them free merchandise? Or maybe a 20-something-year-old who has risen to fame because they took one picture with an actor and now has brand deals with all these different companies? It doesn’t matter what you think of, the overall connotation of the word “influencer” is negative, but why? And why do companies continue to use influencers in their content strategy if there is such a negative connotation around it? 

The word influencer is a more recent term added to our everyday vocabulary. Influencers themselves are still a newer idea to begin with. An influencer is someone who carries influence over others and in the case of social media, this entails a person with a big platform whose followers will listen to and do every little thing they say. If the influencer said that red wasn’t cool anymore, their followers would promptly set fire to everything red they owned. These influencers have people wrapped around their fingers. So why is there a negative connotation around them? In the relatively brief period during which being an influencer has evolved into an attainable career, there have been unexpected backlash, scandals, and unforeseen events that have degraded the overall concept of influencers. From parents exploiting their kids to teenagers doing absolutely nothing but making more money than my college tuition costs, a wide range of scenarios have occurred. Whenever a negative event surfaces involving an influencer, it adversely impacts the overall integrity of the career as a whole. 

If there’s such a negative stigma around being an influencer then why do companies continue to use them in their content strategies? Instagram has been proven to be a very effective platform for influencers, they can share pictures and videos, interact with their fans, etc. From a marketing standpoint, this is perfect. Signing an influencer with a big enough platform can boost the exposure and engagement of a brand within hours. By using the influence the influencer has, a brand can gain more attention and business than it would have by posting organic content. And, both parties can benefit from this because while the brand boosts its exposure the influencer is receiving some sort of compensation, most likely free product from the brand itself. All sorts of brands and businesses use influencers to gain traction in the market and it works, for the most part. The only thing brands have to worry about is if the influencer they’ve hired does something stupid but that's never happened before. 

Long story short, brands use influencers on successful platforms like Instagram to help promote their product because it’s an affordable and effective way to boost exposure and gain new customers. The brands don’t have to do much marketing themselves and they know that there will always be an audience of potential consumers waiting to buy their products just because someone said they should. Without all the bad connotations around influencers, it’s honestly a pretty genius idea, businesses get all of the glory without actually having to do the work themselves.