An Influencers Influence
Written by: Emily Corke
Our society and culture today are mostly dependent upon the visual communications and conversations we create online. The conversation starters are seen on social media and online platforms that are known to us as Influencers. An influencer is a user who regularly generates posts and authentic content for a large and engaged audience that allows for them to have the credibility to amplify messages with the gained trust and value in their opinions. The power an Influencer and their content have on the internet create online communities, brings awareness, and has influences everywhere and anywhere. Influencers can be anything from celebrities, YouTubers, and bloggers to brand advocates and experts in their chosen specific category.
Historically, visual communication is very important because of the messages behind visuals such as images and videos that are essential for understanding perception. Every single person has their own perspective on just about anything and everything, influences however can alter that perspective. Influencers are usually sourced by brands for promoting products and services that align with certain values and the lifestyle of the influencer and their following. It can be assumed that because of language, environment, and external factors people create their own outlook on the world, either intentionally or unintentionally but eventually fall within a niche that can be influenced for marketing and profits.
A Visual Culture
Contemporary culture is a visual culture. It is dominated by visual imagery that can be purely for entertainment, journalism, communication, and aesthetics but also for seeking out various amounts of information and meaning. It is just as important to understand the diction and connotation of visual images as much as it is for them to be left for interpretation by the consumer. It is a thin line but also a boundary we created when visual imagery decided to dominate our culture. We are exposed to mass amounts of digital technology like the creation, distribution, and consumption of visual images, so it is important to understand how important and influential visual communication is. It is not only communicating a message or a meaning but an idea. “Visual communication is the process through which individuals in relationships, organizations, and cultures interpret and create visual messages in response to their environment, one another, and social structures.” Visual communication is important today since imagery has developed due to photography and film.
The development of photography and film has been represented in our culture through social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. Mostly photography is represented on Instagram and film is represented on TikTok, but both platforms are vessels for influencing in various styles and formats. Each platform is an outlet for users to communicate through the lens of their phone, making the majority of the content you see today, mobile. The power of an influencer is quite literally at their fingertips. Anyone can work and take steps in becoming an influencer either micro or macro. For example, the TikTok algorithm allows for anyone despite their prior following to reach a following large enough for effective influence, with the right amount of engagement and consistency. Visual images have also been studied to be used in cognitive development and the important insight into how the mind works. There is a relation in which we process certain images to our ways of thinking.
Sources
https://www.adglow.com/blog/the-power-of-social-media-influencers-infographic
https://socialfactor.com/blog/social-media-influencers/
“An Introduction to Visual Communication: From Cave Art to Second Life” by Susan Barnes
https://www.oneclub.org/awards/adcawards/-award/35180/control