Modern society is emersed in a world of marketing. There is not one hour, let alone one day, that we are able to live without encountering some form of marketing. In turn this makes us all the ultimate consumers, whether that be through billboards and classic television advertisions. Or ultimately the most effective nowadays, which is through social media that can be accessed at all times from the palm of hands.
"Influencers" are online presences that also claim to be "content creators" who are known to have large followings. They can build their following through many things, such as fitness, food, travelling, finance, home decor, or just because they are deemed generically beautiful. All in all, name a category and there will be an influencer for it. With the numbers of influencers growing, along with the hours that everyone spend on social media, it would be silly not to utilise this platform. Businesses have began to turn to these "influencers" as their latest marketing ploy.
Word of mouth is thought to be one of the best and most authentic avenues for marketing. It is usually the most reliable, as people will trust their friends or family who are providing them with the information. Thus, influencers who are relateable and loved by their followers, are able to utilise this "word-of-mouth" type of marketing and reach audiences of thousands. Influencers are paid large sums of money to formulate posts, videos and shoutouts to businesses. And with this comes the decrease in popularity of old-school advertisements as they become less and less effective when put against the power of the influencers.
From the masses, it is a no-brainer that you would trust the people that you follow and idolise. Unlike traditional celebrities, influencers often seem more relatable and down to earth. They produce vlogs and "a day in my life" to portray that their lives are normal and that we can relate to them. As we believe that we are on the same level as these influencers we often feel a closer connection and formulate higher levels of trust and respect for what they have to say. We perceive then to be more authentic and trustworthy, thus as businesses reach out to these influencers they can expect a spike in their sales.
Unfortunately, these influencers cannot always be trusted. As many are viewed to be more relatable, there also comes a catch that many of them are young, without a manager, and also have little credentials to support the responsibility of their large followings and influence. There was a wave of influencers promoting "skinny tea", as the online company approached beautiful, thin women promote this tea for a large sum of money. Without much research or actual use of the brand, everyone'se newsfeeds were full of this "skinny tea" and sales peaked. Until, people who truly utilised the product found the tea only kept to the promise of the name as it contained laxatives. Thus supporting the effectiveness of the new age marketing tactics, along with the need for skeptism towards these new online companies as many do not appeal to national product standards.
Overall, marketing tactics are ever changing due to the change in society and how people consume their content. As people turn away from television and radios and turn towards their laptops and phones, businesses need to adapt to stay in the game. To do this it is vital that they have influencers aboard to promote their products and appeal to the "word-of-mouth" and authentic product promotion and review towards consumers. While consumers need to understand that many of these influencers are being paid to promote products, and therefore need to be more vigillent to research the products and not blindly follow their favourite online influencers.
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