Influencing the Influencer

A few blog posts ago I wrote about influencers.  In that post I focused on influencers who came into the limelight, but who initially did not have huge following on social media.  It took some specific action or sequence of actions to happen for them to go viral and in that time they became famous almost overnight.   In this post, I want to talk about how people are very heavily seeking that limelight and wanting to have a big break of some sort and how they are able to do this with very little financial cost or risks, but with persistence and constant creativity of new content are able to become a true influencer through social media.

Lovely MiMi is an example of someone who wanted to become famous through social media, but it wasn’t until she realized that you must be as unique a version of yourself as possible before the world will want to know who you are.  That exact sentiment is that influencers who come from being regular folks simply find their niche.  They find that group of people who want to find someone who is unique enough to make them watch, and then they put in work.  They must grind to put in the time to work on post after post and keep the following fresh with new post.  If they don’t they will die.  No one will watch if there is nothing left to watch.

Whoa Susannah and Nichole Walters are two more examples of people who took advantage of the opportunity of people wanting to see their level of unique enough to make them a sensation through social media.  And then they are constantly creating more and more content in order to keep people engaged.

 

Augmented-Reality and Face Filters

In today’s social media lifestyle a new trend has taken over and will only intensify in the next few years – augmented realty.  With younger people, the more popular social media platforms, such as Instagram and Snapchat, allows for an augmented reality in the form of stickers and face filters.  These filters allow for someone to take a picture, augment that picture, and post it for the public to see.  Instagram stated that the dog ear filter was it’s most popular filter in 2017 and the expectation is that trend will only continue to grow in 2018.

This particular trend can help to perpetuate the facade that “life is perfect”, a trend of an augmented reality that so many people fall into on social media.  By literally augmenting actual pictures, people are able to change what they look like, the feeling or atmosphere of the picture, and hide realistic human traits.

Many times the use of filters is thought to be lighthearted and simply to add fun to a photo, but it can quickly become an addition the same way that other trends on social media have become to so many others. Eventually, the trend will likely end with time and we will be looking back trying to figure out why this trend even existed.

An Influencer is Still an Influencer by Any Other Name

 

While there are many, many different influencers on social media today, the question becomes how did they get to the level of influence that they have and was it deliberate or unintentional?  The answer is both.  And it seems almost impossible to track and understand how and why some people (especially non-famous people) gain a following and others do not. That “it factor” –  what makes some random person on the internet have the “it factor?”  For that matter, what makes anyone who doesn’t have a immediately obvious  “talent” become famous?  It is quite obvious how someone who initially is famous and already has a following via some other type of media can become a social media influencer, but I want to focus on those singular people who launch a Vlog or Blog and magically they attract enough of an audience to officially have an noticeable amount of influence.

Being able to influence means more than just be popular or going viral.  When I was trying to think of a time that I decided to actually do something based off of something that someone said on social media, I remembered the Patti’s Pies guy.  There was a review that went viral a few years ago where a young man, James Wright Chanel, did a review of Patti LaBelle’s Sweet Potato Pie.  It was all over my Facebook feed, but it made me want to actually get in my car and go try one of Pattie’s pies.

  Not only was it hilarious, but it made me follow him, just because I thought it was entertaining to watch him online.  He actually had the opportunity to meet Patty Labelle and he sort of became this spokesperson of her pies, simply by being himself online.

Here is James talking about becoming an influencer.

  A more recent influencer is Kaylen Allen, who since becoming an social media influencer has be discovered by Ellen and has been on her show several times.  He initially was simply reviewing food recipes, but the way in which he did it is what made him noticeable and captured an audience.  I remember seeing him and thinking I wanted to follow him, simply because he was entertaining to me and I thought I would enjoy watching him online.

Here is when Ellen discovered Kaylen.

These are the types of internet influencer’s that I enjoy on my feeds.  I find them to be truly authentic and captivating. I think I am the type of person whom they can influence.  I just happen to see these people on my timeline when I am at home, not taking myself too seriously.  Because I find them to be original and just being themselves, I think I would take some sort of non-serious directive, like purchasing a $5 pie, just because I feel like its coming from an authentic place.   To these two and every influencer out there like them, keep being you and keep becoming a social media influencer!