Influencers in Social Media
Introduction to Social Media
Social media are websites and applications that allow people to share content and communicate with other users worldwide. Sixdegrees.com is often recognized as the very first social media site. Founded in 1996, Sixdegrees consisted of features such as friends lists, school affiliations, and personal profiles. In the past years, the use of social media has rapidly become more prevalent throughout the U.S.
Because of the massive influence of social media, people around the world have used it as a platform to become celebrities. So far, over 79% of people in the U.S. have a social media profile, while in 2008, just 10% of the U.S. population had a profile. These numbers are fascinating when you take into consideration the population of the U.S. who don’t even have access to the internet.
Social media has had a significant influence on your life. It is a way for people to express themselves behind a screen, so mob mentality has become much more occurrent. Many people want to be famous off social media and make a living off of other people. While it may seem far-fetched, the idea may not be as crazy as you first might think. The rate at which some people have grown is simply astonishing. Many platforms grow these influencers, including Instagram, Snapchat, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, and recently, TikTok. Each one of these platforms has countless content creators with millions of followers.
Types of Influencers
There are two common kinds of influencers: celebrity and micro. While the two play out a similar essential capacity, the former can reach many spectators over various statistic segments. At the same time, the latter has a considerably more restricted degree. These influencers are commonly sunk into a specific specialty, similar to beauty, travel, or food. Be that as it may, there are “lifestyle” influencers whose brands may crossover into these other sections.
Why Social Influencers Exist
Social media is based on these two important notions. One is authenticity. Authenticity comes from someone posting something relatable to many people and witnessing it in their own lives. Another way authenticity is born from original content. Something that this is the first time anyone else has recorded doing.
The second concept that social media is based on is reached. Reach is how many people react or have an impression of your posted content. It can be negative or positive reactions. The more people see your content, the more influence you will have over your audience. All marketing teams will take advantage of authenticity and well-reaching posts, so they hire social media influencers. Social media influencers help organizations sell their products. They also use their platforms to sell their products like music, makeup, clothing, etc.
One big reason social media influencers exist is because of the creation of Instagram. Their reach and self-made authenticity make them a pleasing marketing strategy for big and small companies alike.
The Importance of Social Media for Marketing
Despite old people complaining about “children nowadays” times are changing. Also, it’s not simply housing costs and educational costs. Marketing is feeling the impacts similarly as intensely.
It takes no persuading to demonstrate why social media is fundamental to any fruitful advertising effort. However, we’ll do it anyway. This gathering of internet-based life showcasing details is stuffed with intriguing data; however, here are the absolute best:
● 70% of the U.S. populace has a profile on at least one social media site. Social media can associate your business with a tremendous part of the populace. Commonly, advertising on social media comes at a lower cost than different promotion types, such as paper, TV, and radio, compared with the spectators your advertisements can reach.
● More than 50 million private companies interface with their clients using Facebook Pages. Chances are, your opposition is, as of now, on Facebook. Your business must have a Facebook page if you wish to compete. Also, with two billion active month-to-month clients, your chances of contacting the right group of spectators are cosmic.
● Instagram generally makes $595 million in phone ad income annually and is expected to reach nearly $7 billion in advertisement income before the current year’s over!
● 96% of small business owners have used social media to market their small companies.
Based on such data, we can quickly see how important social media is to companies in marketing. Also, why do social media agencies exist? Since most of the world is on it, it is foolish not to advertise your business on at least some social media pages and to hire people with a high following to promote your products and services.
Different Types of Social Media
There are many different types of social media. For example, there are social networks, media sharing networks, discussion forums, blogging and publishing networks, and many others.
A social network is a social media that connects people. Some examples of these sites are Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin. The whole reason for social media and these platforms’ existence is to connect with others worldwide.
The other type of social media is media-sharing networks. These types of platforms exist to find and share photos, videos, live videos, and different kinds of media with people across the globe. This type of social media is the most used by social media influencers because these types have a much further reach for their posts. Some examples of this type of social media are Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat. These sites are invaluable from a marketing viewpoint for businesses because people are on these sites way more often than others. So then, they advertise their business on Instagram and Snapchat. The more people see it, the more sales these certain businesses will achieve.
Social networks and media-sharing networks are different because most social networks contain text. Media-sharing networks use photos and videos. You can also add fillers to your pictures on Snapchat and now Instagram. As well as captions for your photos and videos on Instagram. Nowadays, the line between social networks and media-sharing networks is blurring because platforms like Facebook and Twitter are adding live video and multimedia services to their sites to become more current in the social media world.
Influencers on YouTube
The most influential and oldest platform out of the bunch is YouTube. YouTube was created in 2005 and has maintained its status as the biggest video-sharing platform for over 14 years. Over the years, most creators have lost traction and popularity, and it is rare to see an influencer maintain fans for a long time. There have also been many trends in the history of YouTube which have sparked some people’s careers. However, trends cannot support a channel for that long, as trends often come and go. To maintain traction, creators must adapt to the people’s interests and ensure that their content appeals to as many people as possible.
Pewdiepie
An example of a creator who has maintained traction and influence for a very long time is Felix Kjellberg, better known as Pewdiepie. Pewdiepie started his YouTube channel in 2010 and primarily made Let’s Play videos on random video games he would play. At the time, watching other people play video games had never been done before, so Pewdiepie had to blueprint a path to fame for himself. Pewdiepie uploaded videos daily, and while his videos didn’t immediately become big, he slowly gained followers as time passed. In July 2012, Pewdiepie garnered a following of one million people. However, some people criticized his content because he used vulgar language in inappropriate jokes. As he continued to grow, he recognized that he might have to alter his content slightly to maintain a living. For Pewdiepie, YouTube wasn’t something he could do on the side; editing videos daily took too much time to balance with school. As a result, he decided to drop out of college and pursue his passion, which would eventually prove to be the right decision.
Pewdiepie would become the most subscribed channel on February 18, 2013. He was officially the most significant influencer on YouTube. With millions of fans came millions of haters. The news media constantly watched his actions, which got Pewdiepie in trouble. Many people called him out because of his use of rape jokes. With his massive following, it was a given that he couldn’t make rape jokes anymore, so he vowed to become a better influence. He also expanded to different types of content, such as vlogs and comedies. Pewdiepie has over 100 million subscribers and has become one of the biggest influencers on the planet. Whenever he played a game, the sales of that game skyrocketed, and whenever he spoke about the controversy, it was always well-received by most of the users on the platform. Pewdiepie has made his content much more kid-friendly and has recently avoided controversy. Millions of people love to watch him talk about some of his favorite things, which is why his words hold so much influence.
Ricegum
An example of an influencer who could have maintained influence is Ricegum. Ricegum is a YouTuber who created his career by making diss tracks for other people. This would start a diss track trend on YouTube, and soon enough, many other huge creators, even Pewdiepie, would create diss tracks. He would expand his content slightly outside of diss tracks, but it all was based on criticizing other creators.
At this point in his career, he had much influence. In August 2017 alone, he had gained over a million subscribers and was one of the fastest-growing YouTube channels of his time. However, his content would only survive in the short run. After a while, people started questioning Ricegum’s personality. The people he attacked were always younger than him, and he started attacking people for petty things. Ricegum failed to make a change in his character, and so he began to lose fans. His words are rarely taken seriously, and he is losing subscribers. In September 2019, he lost over 100,000 subscribers.
Difference between YouTube influencers
The difference between YouTube influencers who last and those who don’t last is their ability to change and adapt their content. The difference is incredible if you look at a video from 2012 Pewdiepie and the current Pewdiepie. He grew as a person and a creator, so his words have maintained much influence. When you look at the 2016 Ricegum and current Ricegum, it’s easy to tell that his character hasn’t changed significantly. The same type of content gets stale very quickly, so it is essential for creators also to have good character if they want to last.
Different Types of Influencers in Social Media
We discussed what a social media influencer is. Now, let’s talk about social media influencers who have paved the way to become famous just off social media.
Kylie Jenner
The first person we will be discussing is Kylie Jenner. This 22-year-old has 151 million followers on Instagram, 6.72 million subscribers on YouTube, and 22 million followers on Facebook. As one of the Kardashian sisters, fame is nothing new to her. However, how she has used social media to promote her makeup collection is astonishing. She spams her Instagram story daily with different types of makeup she sells. Her makeup Business is called Kylie Cosmetics and was founded in 2015. In just four years, this business has become one of the most well-known cosmetic occupations in the world. Recently, she sold half her company for 600 million dollars. Social media is a massive part of why this is possible. She advertises her products daily, and with her current reach, it’s no wonder she was able to have such a massive success in her company.
Zendaya
Zendaya has 63 million followers on Instagram and 16 million followers on Twitter. She is a very well-known actor. She started her career on the Disney sitcom Shake It Up. She has her Television show, Euphoria, and has been in both Spider-man movies. Zendaya is also a model and a fashion icon. She has been on the cover of Vogue and Glamour multiple times. Throughout all this success in her life, she continuously used social media to promote herself as an actor, model, and fashion icon. Through her work, she has inspired many young people to feel great in their skin and has promoted equality for colored people worldwide. Using Instagram and Twitter, she has been able to throw herself into success and inspire people to feel good about themselves.
Yara Shahidi has 4.2 million followers on Instagram and 421.2 thousand followers on Twitter. Yara is an actress. She starred in the ABC sitcom Black-ish, then went on to create a spinoff of that show called Grown-ish, where the audience follows her journey as a college student and the struggles that come with it in this day and age. She is also a model on Teen Vogue, Essence, and many other magazine covers. Yara isn’t just a model, actress, or even a college student at Harvard University. She is also an activist. She has created a campaign to persuade young people to vote at 18 because our votes matter.
The campaign is called Eighteenx18. She uses her social media to promote her shows, modeling, and, last but never least, her activist campaign.
Expanding to Other Platforms
Influencers are rarely ever restricted to one platform, so often, influencers will create accounts on different platforms to increase traction and fan interaction. These are sites like Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and Facebook. Across Facebook, there are 1.6 billion daily users, 1 billion on Instagram, 210 million on Snapchat, and 126 million on Twitter. It would be a wasted opportunity not to grow your influence across different sites. While many influencers will use these apps as secondary media, some grow their profiles primarily on these apps. A lot of these profiles are just meme pages. Meme pages are accounts that either repost or create funny content and share it with their audience. While they don’t hold a lot of influence, companies will pay them to post their products and gain a lot of traction.
Many music artists use social media to communicate with fans other than meme pages. Of course, music platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Pandora are where all the music goes. Artists can’t use those platforms to speak to the audience. It would be bizarre for influencers to let their audience know about having a kid through music, but they can easily do that with apps like Instagram and Twitter. At least, that is what Beyonce did. These platforms are also great for promoting music because of the vast number of daily views it gets. Twitter or Instagram will do most announcements for new albums.
TikTok: The New Craze
With many platforms already established as the leading social media, TikTok, formally known as Musical.ly, has found its way into that conversation. TikTok was initially launched in 2014 as Musical.ly and was a lip-syncing app that allowed users to create videos with many different audios. When it first launched, it was very popular but had lost popularity after a while. However, when Musical.ly was rebranded into TikTok in August 2018, it grew to over 500 million users. TikTok is reminiscent of a past app called Vine, where people would make six-second videos for the world to see. Like Vine, some people have gotten famous off of TikTok and become influential in the teen world. One creator, @Tmdad14, found himself with over 1.2 million fans after uploading videos of himself adding his twists to popular dances. I see his influence around my friends, as I see them trying to do his dances often. TikTok has solidified itself as a big influence in teen culture worldwide.
Takeaway
While many people argue that social media isn’t good and that there are too many bad people who get famous too quickly, oftentimes times, the ones who last the longest are the ones with good character. Of course, social media has some bad sides, but that’s the same with everything else. There will always be some questionable celebrities, and there will always be some questionable social media influencers. Overall, web design and SEO agencies will continue to utilize social media to promote websites for themselves and their clients.
