How Influencers Work

Hi again, no this blog will not just be about self-liberating rants… We want to educate! What better way to do this than to spill the beans on well… just about anyone with a checkmark next to their name. Our American founder George has had to work with several influencers over his past, and the brain numbing process that follows. So firstly, every influencer overvalues themselves in the worst way. Normally if an influencer doesn’t reach out to work with a company first, that company may reach out to potentially “collab” on a project. What follows is borderline comical:

  1. Influencer will send over a “Media kit” with their audience (yeah you) demographics and engagement rates (Like & Comment!) and a super inflated service rate
  2. After the marketing team or whoever is done “auditing” the numbers and laughing about paying someone money (sometimes cash) to post a picture, the real offer comes out (Grand scheme it’s not a lot)
  3. After some back and forth, (this stage can take months depending on you know who) normally the terms are finalized and a contract or invoice is written up
  4. Finally, the execution. The influencer will then carry out their services listed and collect a payment, leaving marketers to analyze and wonder if the investment will pay off
  5. The classic delete, some influencers work very hard for you to not know that they’re an influencer. This often looks like, seeing a picture then it getting deleted after a couple of days… because why would someone with 500k followers delete a post with over 100k likes?

Now what you should know by step:

  1. These demographics and numbers are often faked. Influencers can do this by many means but a notorious one is by joining a “Pod”. These pods consist of maybe 10-30 influencers within the same industry and coordinate posts and audience trends to better optimize their engagement (not a lot of people comment)
  2. Most marketers have no idea of what the numbers or analytics mean, and when you pay someone to miraculously deliver you sales… it’ll make you laugh in worry. Also, yes influencers are people too and will accept any type of payment whether its cash, a check or even Paypal.
  3. This is a very interesting part. If you follow a lot of people without ever hearing their voice, how do you know when it’s them actually talking? Now, not all influencers are diabolical and some actually initially clarify that they speak in their own right regardless of the outcome! That’s actually not entirely true, think about the last time you watched or read a normal review that was actually negative. Right?! Most influencers allow companies and entities to create whatever message they would like to pass on to you.. As if it was the person you’re following saying it themselves 
  4. As they post their most likely 2 week in advance scheduled post (Just about ZERO people work day to day) we just sit back and watch the numbers come in
  5. This one is the sad truth, and frankly one of the main reasons George started this store. An influencer can no longer actually influence you if you know that they’re just an arm of a company, like a salesman talking to you in a store. So what they’ll do (time is wide-ranging) is delete the sponsored content as a way to help people forget and give confidence to new users. 

I’ll leave you with this old timely saying; “People will forget what you said, the things that you did. But, they’ll never forget the way you made them feel.”