Influencer Culture: How Influencers Become Successful
What can social media influencers do to stay relevant?
By Marisa Berger
As the world continues to change and technology continues to grow, the use of social media is increasing rapidly. Social media is used by people of all ages and is something that influences everyone’s daily lives. With the boom of social media, many different businesses are turning to it to advertise their products. Many businesses create their own social media accounts but they need to gain an audience for their accounts to be successful. Social media influencers have a huge impact on these businesses. A business will pay an influencer to advertise and promote their product on social media. These influencers usually have large followings on different social media platforms. Because of this, the influencers not only impact the world of digital marketing, they also are affecting societal trends and pop culture.
Influencers usually have a large amount of followers and a lot of other people see their posts. Not only do influencers have to work to gain their followers, they also need to put time and effort into their content to keep those followers. In order to gain followers, influencers need to first think about the audience they want to reach, what kind of content will interest that audience, and what will convince the audience to follow them (Pringle, 2023). If influencers are putting out content that people are interested in, they will start to gain followers.
Once an influencer gets that audience and followers, they need to be able to keep those people from unfollowing them and keep them interested in the content the influencer is putting out. An influencer needs to stick to their roots and remember why they started to gain their following. If they started to gain a following for their day job, they shouldn’t quit the job because many people may start to unfollow them because they don’t make that kind of content anymore. (Yasharoff, 2023).
If influencers start to stray away from what made them popular in the first place, they will most likely start to lose followers. The people who followed them because of their posts that boosted their popularity will most likely start to unfollow them because they are not interested in the new content the influencer is creating. “Creators who share only the most perfect aspects of their lives will continue to exist and even amass big followings. But their careers are ephemeral if they can’t find a way to connect authentically with followers” (Yasharoff, 2023).
Influencers need to create relatable content for their followers. The majority of people who follow influencers are just normal people who also have problems and stress in their lives. If an influencer seems too out of touch and only romanticizes their life, they will not be deemed relatable and people will start to unfollow them. In order to seem relatable to their audience, an influencer needs to look at the demographics of their audience (Pringle, 2023). If the majority of their audience is teenagers, they need to keep in mind that most of those people do not have much money, time to travel a lot, and more. If an influencer posts about buying a makeup product that is very expensive, their young audience probably will not be able to afford that product.
“Creators have to have an element of psychology in thinking: ‘How is this thumbnail going to land with my audience, will they stay engaged throughout this entire video, how can I creatively film this video or transitions?’” (Pringle, 2023). They need to be able to hook their audience in with an interesting start to a video or a good thumbnail. Influencers will then need to keep their audience engaged throughout the video by doing or saying things that their viewers are interested in. “’There’s a difference between having an audience and having an audience that’s engaged’” (Yasharoff, 2023). Influencers need to be able to keep their audience engaged. If they don’t, people may lose interest in their content and stop interacting with their posts. This may cause some influencers to lose followers. It is very important for an influencer to keep their audience engaged with whatever they post.
Sources
Pringle, E. (2023, January 21). $40k a post within three months of fame: Welcome to the world of the influencer, the most sought-after career which can 'vanish overnight'. Fortune. Retrieved February 26, 2024, from https://fortune.com/2023/01/21/is-it-difficult-to-be-an-influencer-youtuber-tiktoker-logan-paul-addison-rae-alix-earle/
Yasharoff, H. (2023, January 9). Everybody wants to influence the world: Inside the fame, money and evolution of influencers. USA Today. Retrieved February 26, 2024, from https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/entertainment/celebrities/2023/01/09/influencer-industry-inside-fame-money-tiktok-instagram-stars/10992895002/