The Impact of Social Media Influencers

Video by Jay Pugazhenthi/Audio by Hope Dos Santos/Written by Matt McCune/Produced by Daniel Ialeggio 

As time changes, businesses have to change with it in order to be successful. One way that businesses have changed in the last decade, is paying social media “influencers” to advertise their products. In 2010, a company would look at the traditional methods of advertising (radio commercials, tv commercials etc.) to get their message out about their product. But in 2019, companies are now investing in those with a certain amount of followers and a blue check mark next to their name on instagram. This is the new wave of marketing, and it’s more than likely here to stay. 

So, what’s the big deal? Why do we care how a company chooses to invest their marketing money? Well, the paying of these influencers has caused a stir. One of the concerns with an influencer promoting a product is the confusion between what is genuine or organic and what is not. When scrolling on your instagram feed, you are now bombarded with different product placements. How are we to know what is a paid advertisement and what is not? Companies and influencers will have to be discrete when advertising to their followers. The followers don’t know if this is a genuine endorsement of a product, or just someone looking for a quick cash grab. 

Furthermore, the sheer amount of people that influencers reach can cause problems down the line. For example, if a child sees someone he follows (and possibly looks up to) promoting a product, they will be more inclined to view it favourably. Children are easily impressionable, and with so many of them using social media at a young age, they can be influenced easily by just scrolling through an app on their phone or tablet. If their favourite Youtuber talks up a product, especially if it’s something related to kids, it can be dangerous. Just ask Jake Paul and other famous influencers about it. Their target audience is children and young teens (impressionable youth) and they set up an online gambling website and masked it through various techniques. Promoting gambling to minors was just one of the outcomes.

 Beyond that, some companies have tried promoting tobacco through influencer advertising. These huge tobacco companies used the influencers to skirt around the complex laws against advertising tobacco that have come into place over the last 20 years. Something like this can easily influence a younger demographic and is surely worth noting. 

After Metrolinx was seen paying influencers to promote their new subway line, this is something that can apply to all of us, especially at Seneca. Seneca is a largely commuter school, with thousands of students and staff using public transit everyday to get to campus. In January 2019 changes were made to the York U Go Transit line, with busses then being directed to the 407 Station instead of the school in order to help with traffic. This lead to an increase in cost and time for students getting to York University and Seneca College. If metrolinx were to hire an influencer to promote this new change as positive, many without a horse in the race would see it as positive for getting rid of the traffic in an area. However, this leads to certain voices being drowned out when a company is using bigger voices at their disposal. 

I spoke to one student, Rochelle Foo, who was directly affected by the change in the GO transit lines. “It was one of those things where, unless you were directly affected by it, you didn’t really know about it,” Rochelle said. She ended up taking part in protests that ultimately would not end up making metrolinx change back to the original route. 

“If they had influencers posting about the new changes, talking about how great it is then it would really be only showing one side of the story to people… their followers wouldn’t know how its affecting a whole other group of people,” Rochelle said. This is where we have to be careful in how we consume content from influencers.

To get a better understanding of the life of an influencer, Hope Dos Santos talked  with @calebdoesmakeup, a beauty influencer to see how becoming an influencer and the challenges he’s faced.

 

 

Many may think that the more followers you have, the more influence you have. This isn’t always the case. We sat down with Toronto based influencer @sashaexeter on her experiences and how attaching a number to someone doesn’t always work out.

 

The impact of influencers in 2019 cannot be understated. It’s important that companies, influencers and consumers work together to ensure that this relationship benefits everybody. It’s going to be here for a while, so get used to it.