by MIKE CHAIKEN
CTFashionMag.com
Betty White speaks in warm and neighborly tones about the virtues of Kodak’s new color camera.
That’s how Kodak encouraged consumers to buy a camera in 1964 – star power.
Today, a social influencer may have more power over your consumer choices.
Pitch persons on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter might not be a celebrity. She may be your neighbor or your friend. The most effective social influencers can make you believe that they are just like you – even though you’ve never met them.
Social media influencers, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, had become the fastest growing segment of the economy, said David Cadden, a professor of entrepreneurship at Quinnipiac University.
Companies in 2015 spent $500 million in marketing with influencers, according to MediaKix. In 2020, prior to the current economic meltdown, it was projected that $10 billion will have been spent on influencers – an increase of 19900% in five years
While promoting products, influencers use social media sites to tout the virtues of products whose manufacturers pay for their services. The influencers also pepper their social media account with posts about their everyday life, such as what they ate for dinner, where they went on vacation, and what they did at the club the night before. This adds to the illusion that they are like you. The most effective influencers also open up a conversation with their followers through comments below their posts and with live video feeds.
“I would say being an influencer is a lifestyle,” said Cydneyanne Hall, a 19-year-old influencer from Florida with 16,000 followers on Instagram. “I create content for my fans and promote brands I am passionate about,” said Hall, who has used her role as an influencer to launch her own online boutique.
Using influencers for marketing is not a new concept, said University of Connecticut marketing professor Nicholas Lurie.
Celebrities like Betty White (1.4 million followers on Instagram) or Michael Jordan (12.7 million followers on Instagram) are just some of a multitude of examples that dot the history of mass media.
However, Lurie said, platforms like Instagram and YouTube have grown in marketing importance in recent years.
“Consumers – particularly young ones – have moved to using these platforms as primary sources for entertainment, information, and social connectivity,” said Lurie.
Naugatuck’s Skylar Gallo, 19, said she regularly checks out what social influencers are doing when she goes on line.
“I follow them for new ideas, new style trends, keeping up to date, new beauty products, brands, etc.,” said Gallo. “With influencers, you can find people (who are) a similar age, gender, style, career, etc. to get more specific advice or recommendations from.”
The ability to target specific demographics has been one of the key reasons for the growing importance of social influencers.
Social influencer marketing is paying off big in retail, according to a Harris Poll released in September. In the survey, commissioned by Nerdwallet, 60 percent of the parents said their children wanted to buy clothes they saw touted by influencers.
The rising importance of social influencers has been swift.
In 2014, a Gallup poll reported 34% of those surveyed still said social media had no influence on their shopping. The survey showed social media initiatives were the least effective form of marketing.
Now some children won’t wear clothes they haven’t seen on Instagram.
All of this influencing began with a certain reality television family.
The stars of “Keeping with the Kardashians,” in particular Kim Kardashian (161 million followers on Instagram) and her sister Kylie Jenner (164 million Instagram followers), demonstrated there is a way to monetize fame on social media to promote products and services, said Cadden.
Additionally, millennials have proven to be a generation ripe for the picking for businesses looking to take advantage of the marketing power of social media.
Millennials have grown up with platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook, as well as newer platforms like TikTok and Snapchat, said Cadden.
Social influencers play straight into the preferences, and suspicions, of millennials, said Cadden.
Millennials are wary of experts, said Cadden. As consumers, millennials are drawn to the aesthetics of a product and whether the person touting the product would be a good friend, he said.
Julia Salvia (http://www.instagram.com/beautybyjulia, http://www.youtube.com/juliasalvia) is a social influencer. Salvia, who has two business degrees from Quinnipiac University, had also been making a living with her YouTube channel (32,700 subscribers) and her Instagram account, [at]beautybyJulia (89,000 followers), where she pitches beauty tips and beauty products.
Salvia has had her YouTube channel since she was a high school senior. But the effort was for fun, not profit. That changed after she enrolled at the QU Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. As part of the program, students were required to go through the steps of launching a business. Salvia pitched the idea of turning her YouTube channel into a business.
“I built (the brand over the next four years) but I didn’t think it would be viable,” said Salvia.
Despite her two business degrees, Salvia said she had to figure out how to be a successful social influencer on her own. The academic world has been slow to prepare students for a career in the social influencer business sector, she said.
Recognizing the absence of expertise in the expanding field of social influencing, QU ended up bringing in Alexa Curtis of Mansfield (16,500 Instagram followers), the brains behind LifeUnfilteredWithAlexa.com, as a guest speaker. LifeUnfilteredWithAlexa is a blog that addresses topics of concern to teens and adults such as how to combat bullying, time management, and how to get people to pay their bills when you’re in business.
“I run a brand based on myself and my own experiences,” said Curtis.
Like Salvia, Curtis had been able to make a living – and hire a staff – with the brand she has built.
Kim Motola, the CEO of Maniglovz of Purchase N.Y., has used influencers and believes it has benefited her company, which makes gloves that can be worn after a fresh manicure without ruining the work.
The response to an influencer’s post can be lightning quick, said Motola. If the post connects with the influencer’s followers, orders come in “within the minute,” said Motola.
The personable demeanor of an influencer will be key to a successful post of a product, said Matthew Mileo of the New York City-based skincare line Mileo “If people are genuinely excited about your product and want the world to know, that kind of authenticity will come through their posting and others will be interested.”
Millennials may have been pioneers in the social influencer universe, but the ambition and success of influencers is trickling down to younger ages.
A Harris Poll survey last year revealed that today’s children are three times more likely to aspire to be a YouTuber (29%) than an astronaut (11%).
Lexie Hayden of New York City is 12. But she already has 100,000 followers on Instagram. She now uses her influence on social media to promote clothing, boutiques and movies. She has flown around the country to model in products she promotes. Her mother Adele reported that a jeweler even has named a new piece of jewelry after her daughter to win her influencer badge of approval.
“I’m a model and once I got on Instagram, the companies started calling me,” said Lexia Hayden. Getting gifts from businesses wanting to use her influencer status has made the job exciting for the tween.
However, the world of social influencers may be in for a change, courtesy of the platforms that helped manufacture that world.
In some countries, Instagram has been hiding the “likes” on posts, the same likes that help drive the algorithms determining an influencer’s value to a company. The platform has said the change is intended to put the attention on the posts and not how many “likes” a post has received.
The move will have an impact on the influencer economy, said Cadden. But it won’t be its death knell, he said.
Cadden said the change at Instagram likely will set the stage for an evolution that will require yet another algorithm (developed by third party firms catering to influencers and the companies that depend on them) to monetize the power of influencers in a new social media order.