You may not be very clear about what the term influencer means, but after reading this post maybe you would not mind sharing this lifestyle. How about being paid for wearing exclusive clothes or for attending the most exclusive events? Being an influencer includes this and much more, but actually… What does it mean being an influencer?
An influencer could be considered as a person who has a certain level of credibility on a particular subject and who is also able to influence public decisions. He is an opinion leader, but he does not have to be a famous person, but rather an expert in the trends of the sector where he moves.
Where, when and why has influencers emerged?
Influencers’ boom appeared in the 2010s decade, occurring simultaneously with a period of social networks expansion. Their natural habitat is accurately social networks, besides blogs and video platforms like Youtube, where they collect thousands of followers who closely follow their lives.
Influencers were born in the convergence culture’s context. They are a good example about the migratory behaviour of media audiences, who would go almost everywhere in search of entertainment experience. They personify the new role of media consumers, characterized as an active agent, socially connected, who take part in knowledge and content creation.
Actually most of the top influencers came out of nowhere. They were ordinary citizens who immersed themselves in the web and discovered the wide world of possibilities that the new technologies and applications provide. Thus, they began to publish the first photos, videos and posts showing their daily routine, hobbies and preferences. What they surely did not imagine is the community of followers that would arise around them.
Influencer marketing
As brands began to fully realize the power behind social media and influencers for engaging followers "influencer marketing" appeared. In a market where consumers are increasingly looking for honesty and in which they expect brands' messages to become more sincere and close, the former brands’ ambassadors (famous people) have lost weight and relevance. In the new world of social networks, these famous people are beginning to be eclipsedby social media’s stars.
There are two types of marketing influencer: on the one hand, influencers who recommend certain brands, products or services because they use or identify with them and, on the other hand, the influencers who charge for sponsoring them. In the second type we can find influencers as Chiara Ferragni, Kristina Bazán, OliviaPalermo, Alexa Chung, Dulceida or Aimee Song that appear in magazine’s covers, star in the advertising campaigns of the most quoted brands and attend the most exclusive events. They are the ones who are getting rich thanks to new media and social networks. They are also who have forced the fashion industry to redefine its strategies (fashion is exactly the field in which influencers have acquired notoriety).
How have influencers really become rich?
1. Monetizing likes and visits of their blogs, vlogs and social networks (They are the Instagram’s queens). We could consider them “prosumers”, because they both consume media and produce content for it. Through the network they have the power to generate shared knowledge with their community of followers. When this fans or even casual observers click on the like or play button are generating benefits to the content’s creators because advertising agencies pay based on the number of views or likes.
2. Advertising brands. Brands pay astronomical amounts of money to these influencers for posting photos showing or recommending their creations and products. After this trend has become popular new applications have appeared that makes this task easier, such as 21buttons. This app allows to publish a picture with your daily outfit and to link each garment that you are wearing with the direct link to buy it on the brands’ websites.
3. Online sales of their products. Thanks to the fame acquired through the Internet many influencers have become entrepreneurs creating their own brands whose collections sell online or even writing their own books.
4. Other platforms. Media convergence allows that content provided by any one medium can now be provided in different ways. Old media coexist with the emerging media and influencers also appear on offline media such as television and printed magazines, mainly starting some advertisement.
Through blogs, social networks, video platforms or books, influencers have created a kind of storytelling of their personal lives, whose content is consumed by society as if it were a movie. Internet, new media and convergence have opened up to consumers a huge world of possibilities, but they also have provided influencers a job and a lifestyle.
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