Influencing the Influencer -- Will You Agree To Go On The Blockchain?
What makes a celebrity? Is it the glamorous clothes? The fancy cars? The number of their awards? Or, could it be their number of social media followers? In today’s day and age… it very well might be.
How many of us scroll our instagrams and dream over the trendy outfits and fabulous vacations we see on our feeds? GUILTY. Weirdly enough, it’s not always postings from reality tv stars or famous singers, is it? This, my friends, is no longer what we call the lifestyle of the rich and famous, but the lifestyle of the social media influencer.
Social media influencers, by definition, are basically a person who has established a credibility and has a super large following. I’m talking hundreds of thousands of likes and comments on every single picture. And I thought my hundred likes were impressive :/
Anyways, since they have that large of a network, they can reach a lot of people and tend to gain a lot of sponsorships. It’s like a walking ad for these companies without actually having to do all of the ad work. Think about it. If a place like Forever 21 wants to sell a new sundress, they need to hire models, shoot commercials, stage photoshoots, buy magazine space, send out email blasts, etc. All to get people’s attention for that one dress that probably is only worth $20. If Forever 21 could get a social media influencer to post a picture in the dress on Instagram, then Forever 21 gets all of the attention (considering that picture will be seen by 100K+ followers) and all they had to do was give a little incentive to the influencer. Win-win.
For a better idea, check out influencer’s like @theskinnyconfidential, @emmaleger, or @samanthafeher on Instagram. You’ll see what I mean real quick.
Also, social media influencers aren’t just fashion influencers! Even accounts surrounding fitness (@kayla_itsines) or tech (@codingblonde) can be considered social media influencers. It’s like the next wave of vine stars… but much more likely here to stay.
Let’s talk about the numbers.
First of all, did you know that in 2019, instagram influencer marketing was about $2 billion? In the next few years, it’s expected to be a $5-$10 billion dollar market. These ain't no cute mirror selfie pic of you and your dog we are talking about -- these numbers are HUGE. Which makes sense considering around 92% of consumers turn to people they “know” for a referral before buying or doing something. You better believe I’m going to check out every single picture on Instagram before buying that $20 dress to see how it reaaaally looks.
Okay, now bear with me, blockchain actually does have something to do with pretty people posting fashionable instagrams for money (sounds weird when you say it like that, but it’s not). Social media influencers may be a big part of the marketing of the future, but how can blockchain fuel that?
If you’re like me, your mind probably went straight to trust and authenticity. Since a lot of an influencer’s income comes from sponsorships, it can make followers a bit weary of how genuine their reviews are. Think about it. If this is your full time income and a skincare company is asking you to post about how much you love their new face wash, would you be willing to rave about it for $$$ even though it actually makes your break out? You just might be… and that can take away all the authenticity and beauty behind social media influencers.
Now, let’s play with the idea of a social media influencer culture in a blockchain world. An option? Cryptocurrency. Yep -- using crypto tokens to quite literally pay for the content you want. This was an idea proposed a little while back, but here is why it could be genius.
For Us: The Follower
By using blockchain technology, the transparency will be there. Reports have shown that something like 50% of interactions on a post tagged #ad are FAKE. This means there are people with multiple accounts, robots, and more that are leaving a lot of those comments, shares, and likes. If we use smart contracts, for example, every user would have to be properly identified. I know I personally always think that if an influencer has tons of comments and likes then I assume they are more popular and overall a better influencer to trust. You know what they say when you assume though...
Moving on, tokens can be helpful in a number of ways. A main example, however, is if followers purchased tokens for specific influencers or specific platforms (i.e an Instagram Token, perhaps). Then, they could access the audience data of any influencer on the platform. This means they could look into the authenticity, other followers, the companies themselves, and the influencers. With blockchain, us followers can safely purchase actual performance-based influencer services. Thank goodness because I’m going to be really upset if you rave about a skin care product and it turns me blue (Big Fat Liar, anyone??).
For Them: The Influencer
When it comes to a person’s living, we’ve got to take things seriously and blockchain is here to help us revamp the game. Let’s start with the problem surrounding influencers having to choose sponsorships, considering that’s one of the main ways they make money. With blockchain and the use of tokens, influencers would be receiving income from the tokens bought from their followers. That means there is less of a need to accept bad sponsorships because influencers are making more money in more ways!
Plus, there are already some blockchain based programs out there that allow all of the sales, relationships, followers, etc. to be tracked for each influencer. By using those blockchain programs, the third parties are being eliminated and so are the fees that the influencer would have to pay them. Yay for influencers having more power and authenticity!
