Do you have that friend who keeps talking about their free stay in at some expensive place? Or a sponsored Trip to Thailand? Carry their super expensive Mark Cross bag here and there? Or take multiple pictures in their Calvins? One who has a Discount coupon with their name?
When it comes to being an ‘Influencer,’ it is a hot topic of discussion because everyone wants to be one, who doesn’t want to make money off by taking a few selfies and vacations? Gen Z is obsessed with it and here is a Quick guide to understanding the entire concept in depth.
Influencers are people who hold access to a specific demographic over a particular platform and use their platform to make money off by selling other people’s product.
The concept gets little confusing because there are no numbers specified which say- THAT MAKES YOU AN INFLUENCER.
People with 1K followers call themselves influencers and people with 1 Mil too call themselves influencers because at the end of the day they are being followed and have a set of people they can convince into buying a product or service.
With Kylie Jenner reaching a net worth of close to 1 Billion at the age of 21 by selling lip kits, I believe Gen Z with disrupting the way people look like Snapchat, Youtube, Instagram, etc.
A lot of Gen Z influencers were shot to fame with 9 Second video streaming platform like Lele Pons (21), David Dobrik (20), Dolan Twins (19), Liza Koshy (21), etc. and all currently have the net worth in Millions. After Vine was shut down — a lot of them moved to Youtube and started their career from scratch, and a lot were too busy living off on Vines fame and now are too late.
Gone are the days when you use to invest money on Shares and Bitcoins to make money, Up and Coming platforms can be a great market to tap. 2015 gave rise to multiple people’s video streaming career.
So, What makes one an influencer? Having a huge following is the essence more the following- more prominent the influencer. But being an influencer is much more than having followers- you need cannot be tone deaf when it comes to building an online image. People with a cleaner record attract more brands.
Now another question, Why are these influencers so hyped up? Because these ‘influencers’ are also ‘Tastemaker.’ Because of their massive social media addicted audience they can make or break a trend- which makes big brands go crazy on them.
Market research team got in touch with over 1400 ‘fangirls’ between age 13–24 and asked how much are they ready to pay to get noticed by their favorite influencer- 83% said 1$ or more while 32% said more than 50$
Great, Do you find the ‘concept’ of influencers fun? Looking for some inspiration? Here is a list of some prominent influencers with brands they have worked with:-
Jeffree Star (32)*- Jefree Cosmetics
* = They have built their brand and leveraged it for generating sales
Also, Companies which actively use small influencers for promotional and brand-related activities- Google, Spotify, Coca-Cola, Daniel Wellington, Audible, Netflix, Shein, CHRYSLER, StalkBuyLove, Kylie Cosmetics, Morphe Brushes, etc.
Now you probably must be super jealous of these 20-year-old millionaires, but a lot of big brands still prefer old school brand ambassadors because these influencers are hard to maintain. These are the problems in industry:-
1. Hard to find influencers, a lot of these so-called influencers buy likes, and followers which makes it hard for companies to trust someone completely.
2. Hard to negotiate with them: Influencers are usually young blood and don’t understand collaborating with specific brands, or they collaborate with everyone who comes on the way.
3. Controlling their image: These young blood are rebellious, their profession screams it out loud already which sometimes directly affects brand image.
But if you think having ‘fancy’ lifestyles comes with no cost, you are wrong- in case you don’t know to be a YouTuber/vlogger, etc. costs you your personal space and everything you do, you do it for views. Conclusion, I believe Influencer Marketing is an underrated opportunity which a lot of people are yet to discover and appreciate properly.
