If you spend any time on social media, you’ve seen them: Influencers. They have beautiful curated feeds, they have thousands if not millions of likes on their posts, they seem to have the perfect lives. If you pay closer attention to their feed or their stories you might notice that influencers are also recommending a lot of products that they “use every day”. But are they actually using these products? Are they even testing them before showcasing them to their impressionable fans? Today, I’ll look at influencers, how they can be a great tool for advertisers but also a huge risk to consumers.
If you think of social media influencers, who comes to mind? Answers will vary drastically depending on your interests but one of the most known social media influencers right now would be Kylie Jenner. She has 197 million followers on Instagram which puts her in the top 5 accounts on the platform.
As a business looking to advertise a product, an account like Jenner’s with almost 200 million followers is very enticing. With one post she can reach millions of potential buyers. You spend a certain amount of money and Kylie will share a story on her Instagram feed about how she loves your product and recommends it to everyone. This is amazing for businesses who don’t want to waste money on billboards or TV/Radio ads.
The downside
A few months ago, Kylie and her sister Kendall were seen promoting knock-off Apple AirPods to their fans on Instagram. This brings up many questions about intellectual property, advertising known copies, encouraging people to purchase knockoffs and more. These practices are where it becomes a slippery slope. What if these influencers approached about “health” products that they don’t even test out themselves?
DETOX TEAS
Odds are you have seen the posts on social media about detox teas and influencers swearing by them. Imagine recommending a product and making claims that are not proven scientifically to thousands or million of followers. Imagine endorsing a product that turns out to have negative health effects? Seems crazy right? But that is exactly what happened. A certain detox tea company was accused of not putting warnings on its products and having ingredients that lowered the effectiveness of birth control.
I mentioned at the beginning of this post that these influencers have perfect curated feeds (mainly Instagram here). This is another big issue in social media when it comes to influencers. They portrait a perfect life with clean houses, perfect bodies and skin, perfect kids, and the list keeps going. Imagine your teenage child seeing these edited, filter heavy pictures and believing that this is what they should be striving to look like or be. It is completely unrealistic and could potentially have some pretty negative effects on young impressionable kids (or adults really).
The takeaway
I think that social media is a wonderful tool to grow a business and get people involved. But I think that people need to be more alert when browsing social media. They need to question what they are seeing and why they are seeing it; be more analytical of the content put in front of them. I think that influencers need to be more transparent (they have started as they are supposed to indicated partnerships with businesses now). More transparent about showing their everyday lives, showing that they are normal and not the perfect person they portrait on social media. I also think they need to be more selective and analytical about the businesses they decide to do business with. Don’t recommend products you haven’t tried yourself, and don’t recommend products that could have adverse health risks.
What do you think about influencers in the social media world? Do you think they need to be more transparent? Let me know in the comments below!
FB: Influencers: Great tool or slippery slope? Do influencers need to change the way they do social media? https://algonquincollegesocialmedia.wordpress.com/?p=97500
Twitter: Influencers: Great tool or slippery slope? Check out the story here: https://tinyurl.com/yyqgwndp
Reference list
- The Top 20 Most Followed Instagram Accounts. (2018). Brandwatch. https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/top-most-instagram-followers/
- Kylie and Kendall Jenner reportedly promoted knock-off Apple AirPods on Instagram. (n.d.). Insider. Retrieved October 1, 2020, from https://www.insider.com/kylie-kendall-jenner-instagram-promoted-fake-apple-airpods-2020-7
- A Brief History of Instagram’s Trouble With ‘Weight-Loss Tea.’ (2020). Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/brief-history-instagram-fitness-tea-ftc-complaint/
Algonquin College Social Media Certificate Program 
If you’re asking my opinion, it might be different from anyone, I think influencers should cooldown on getting inappropriate, by the clothes they wear, the way they show their content, the way they look is making a huge negative effect on young people, maybe not too much in Canada but in my country Wow..
Influencers are the newest form of social media marketing. You’re more likely to purchase a product recommended by someone you trust than from an advertisement (most people know) are designed to target you. That being said, your blog post draws attention to some of the dangers of this kind of marketing.
I would think that as an influencer, you hold some responsibility with choosing what products/services to endorse. If proper research isn’t conducted by the Influencer, it could negatively affect their personal brand, as described in your examples above.