OSP: Introduction to influencers

Introduction to OSP: Influencers blog tasks Read this article in The Week magazine on the rise of social media influencers and answer the following questions:

 1) What years did YouTube, Twitter and Instagram launch? YouTube in 2005, Twitter in 2006, and in 2010, Instagram

 2) What is the definition of an influencer? 

A influencer is a person who has the power to affect others purchasing decisions due to their authority, knowledge or relationships with their audience, which typically on social media

 3) Give an example of an influencer and how many followers they have. Try and add some additional information, brand associations or other statistics if you can.

Dhar Mann is a social media influencer and entrepreneur who has over 145 million followers around all platforms like YouTube and Instagram. Also, the main Dhar Mann studios channel has over 26 millions subscribers, TikTok has over 16 million followers, also has 39 million followers on his official page and has over 5 million followers on Instagram. His popularity and fame made him exposed to big business around the world and made collabs with famous people.

 4) How big is the influencer industry according to the article? 

By the end of 2019, the influencer marketing industry was worth some $8bn a year. One recent report by Insider Intelligence predicted that it would grow to $15bn globally by the end of 2022. The tech consultant Signal Fire thinks that “the creator economy” – built by those who post and monetise content online – employs more than 50 million people, and is the fastest-growing sector for small businesses in the world.

 5) What are the problems associated with being an influencer? 

There are the endless hours spent preparing for photo shoots, arranging photographers, changing outfits in cramped “pop-up tents”, editing photos and thinking up envy-inducing captions and hashtags would can be stressful which can make the influencer feel overwhelmed about the demand of his media. Demanding clients often force them to endlessly re-shoot photos or videos until they come out just right. There’s the pressure of always seeking to increase your follower count to drive up revenues which can be a serious problem to the society.

 6) Why is it suggested that audiences actually like being sold products by influencers?

They would develop a sense of trust which creates a pure relationship making recommendations feel more authentic than other traditional ads.

 7) What representation of beauty is often found on Instagram or other influencer sites? 

The representation of beauty is "Instagram Face".

 8) What is YOUR opinion on influencers? Are they a positive or negative influence on our society and culture? Why?

Influencers for me have a 50/50% influence because usually the media they release tend to relate to my situation a lot and my interest are commonly the same as the influencers views. However, there is a negative effect that influencers might own which is fake media and gossip. This is because,, all they want is to grow in fame and just gain peoples hearts and in the end receive the money to buy their desires things for their own satisfaction.