Social Media InfluencersSocial media influencers are content creators that can support UK and global brands products and services.
Social media influencers are digital creators that post content on video streaming websites like TikTok and YouTube, but why, what is the benefit in investing time into creating videos online?
They can range from children to the elderly, as long as they have a mobile phone, videos can be uploaded to video streaming websites within seconds in the hope they go viral.
It is the latest in the form of internet marketing and certainly will not be the last form of digital marketing as technology continues to evolve.
Social media influencing is about promoting brands through the various social media platforms.
If an individual has a large following their ‘channel’ then brands can request their products/services are marketed to that following. This works particularly well for global brands, since followers are global. They could be in China, USA, France, UK, anywhere in the world that has access to the internet.
Social media influencing needs a marketing company to bring the brand and the influencer together and you guessed it, there are not lots of marketing companies that do just that. Collecting influencers as ‘clients’ and approaching brands/having brands come to them, to see if a deal can be done.
Social media really started with Facebook in 2004 , but there were social media websites prior to Facebook such as Friends Re-United and Classmates back in 1995.
There was no roadmap with social media, it evolved naturally as Mark Zuckerburg and others trialed different things to see what people liked and disliked. Those of us who remember Facebook in the early days (before smartphones) will remember how is has changed and most likely will continue to change and adapt.
Smartphones have been what has really birthed social media. In the old days, you had to manually connect your ‘new’ digital camera to your computer (most likely a desktop computer) and upload pictures into the library.
Without smartphones, there would be no social media influencers, we truly live in a digital mobile world that has radically changed the world of marketing.
Social media marketing works so effectively because it is subtle, it does not stand out as marketing or advertising in the same way as TV advertising does.
90% of social media influencers make posts that are just posts, not sponsored posts that are promoting a brand. This is because followers enjoy the videos of the influencer because they can relate to them or feel a connection even though they have never met in person.
This is one of the powerful things about social media is that people feel connected to the content creators, they know their voice, they enjoy their personality. Content creation really is an art the more you look at it, and it is something that is not learned but a natural skill that people have recognised and turned into a full time career.
Pretty much any national brand can use social media influencers, from cosmetics brands to food products, pet care products, pet food, clothing brands, car companies, the list goes on.
Many companies have their own TikTok account, not necessarily using influencers on their account, but certainly recognising the power of social media platforms. Here are a few you may have heard of:
Hello Fresh partnered with a content creator called Sevda who is well known for preparing meals for her family. She started by using the account SevdaElla, preparing lunch box’s for her daughter Ella and quickly went viral amassing 1.7M followers. She is now pretty much a full time content creator & brand ambassador.
The list of social media influencers is huge, globally there are millions from countries ranging from Australia and China going west through Europe and ending at the USA.
Here are a few social media influencers you may have heard of:
These are just some of the household names we would have heard of in the UK, but as influencers amass more and more followers, many get media and TV coverage escalating their success.
All the above ‘celebrities’ naturally collect followers as they are names we know and can relate to, whether we like them or not.
There are positives and negatives when it comes to being a social media.
The positives is that it is not a 9-5 job, you can create content at your own leisure. If you go on holiday you have a great chance to post new and unique content in every country you visit. Certainly brands will sponsor your holiday if they can get their brand recognised throughout your holiday.
You are creating content based on your own interests, be it fashion, cooking, exercise etc.
The negatives are hate comments.
All social media influencers have to deal with hate comments, no matter how nice they are they are always going to get haters, which emotionally can be challenging to deal with.
In the early days of social media influencing, many influencers did not respond to comments, questions or hate.
Now that content creation has settled in a little, many now recognise that interacting with followers is important to keeping the wheels turning.
Responding to comments, saying thank you to positive comments, answering questions is all part and parcel of keeping the audience engaged.
Since the lockdown periods of 2020, social media influencers is a new career, how long before it turns up as a school lesson option or a GCSE?
Many people that were on furlough took to TikTok and posted videos of them doing ‘stuff’. Here are a few examples of UK influencers that started in lockdown and are pretty much now full time creators:
In 4 short years, social media has birthed social media influencers that have been able to carve out a new career in creating digital content but like copywriters & content creation for websites.
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