How Social Media Influencers Are Reshaping Marketing
Social media influencers are rapidly changing how services and products are marketed and promoted. And some of these influencers don't even exist.
Digital influencers have become a major force in the world of online content creation. They have a huge reach and volume of viewers. On average, the top 1% of influencers have over 1 million followers. Using social media, they can spurt emotive clips and images to an audience with a size cap of four billion active users. With that kind of outreach, influencers are the perfect vessel for advertisers to use as promoters. These individuals, often known as "social media stars" or "content creators," use platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram to share their talents and passions with a wide audience. While the actual value of these influencers is baffling to many, the premise of using a personality for promotion is as old as marketing itself. According to a recent study, influencer marketing worth is expected to exceed over $15 billion industry by 2023, with companies spending an average of $10,000 per influencer campaign. Two YouTubers, MrBeast and Pewdiepie, each with over 110 million subscribers, have a bigger viewerbase than most media sources combined. Some of their videos are even on track to reach a billion views within the next five years.
The massive popularity of these stars is largely due to Gen-Z, the first generation to have grown up with the internet and social media, and they have embraced these platforms as a way to express themselves and connect with others. As a result, Gen-Z have become a major force in the world of digital influencers, with many young people building large followings on these platforms and using them to promote products, causes, and ideas. In recent years, the rise of digital influencers has coincided with the growth of e-commerce, as many influencers have started to use their platforms to promote and sell products to their followers.
One peculiar development in the world of digital influencers is the rise of AI-generated streamers. These are virtual influencers who are created by algorithms and use advanced technology to produce content and interact with their audience. Some examples of AI-generated streamers include Miquela, a virtual influencer with over 1.5 million Instagram followers, and Kizuna AI, a popular Japanese virtual streamer who has over 3 million YouTube subscribers.
China has also become a major player in the world of digital influencer e-commerce. Many Chinese influencers, who are known as "wang hong" in Mandarin, have built large followings on platforms like Weibo and Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok). These influencers often use their platforms to promote and sell products, and some have even launched their own successful e-commerce businesses. Government officials make use of this vast sea of personalities to spread their ideology and influence public opinion. Meanwhile, in the U.S, the Military is also attempting to leverage influencers for recruitment outreach.
One trend that has emerged in recent years in China is the use of digital influencers to promote mutual funds. In the past, mutual fund companies relied on traditional forms of advertising, such as TV commercials and print ads, to reach potential investors. However, with the rise of digital influencers, many mutual fund companies have started to use these individuals to promote their products to a younger and more tech-savvy audience. Some influencers have even started their own mutual fund companies, using their platforms to educate their followers about investing and finance. In the West, a big trend is the rise of crypcurrency influencers, who leverage their large followings in order to market and sell certain cryptocurrencies. Often this is laced with questionable financial advice.
But why are influencers so effective at outreach, branding and promotion? A few themes link these hyper-popular content creators together. They understand how to keep attention, how to condense multiple emotions into just a few seconds of content, and how to leverage social proof. Social proof is the strongest form of persuasion. Our brains can only take in so much data. Since we’re always bombarded with information, a way we automatically filter some of it out is by seeing how many other people are attending to it too. The more people paying attention, the more important it seems to us. In Donald Trump’s 2017 campaign, virtually all of his speeches invoked social proof, and he ended up winning the presidency. Not to mention, aggrevating his followers to the point where they stormed Capitol Hill in 2021. Social proof can be dangerous, but in some ways, social proof is necessary. In a hostile environment, if you saw group of people running away from something, there’s a good chance your life depends on running away from it too.
The world of digital influencers is constantly evolving, and it will be interesting to see how these individuals continue to shape the world of online content creation and e-commerce in the future. Personalities will be diving drive supply and demand in developed countries on an unprecedented scale.