Influencer Marketing: The Growth of New Kid on The Blog
In the world of convergence, the shifts of media also influence the way people proceed meanings of a message. As it makes media expand to variety of platforms and also support us to produce and consume message through more varies medium. These changes is one of the factors that drives how media industries produce their content.
Many articles about media convergence discuss about this same matters; the prosumers. There are two concerns that I oftenly found in the discussion. It’s either consider prosumer as efficacy of media empowerment or as a threat to the media industry. The industry can’t deny that producing content has become more tricky, since they are not only competing with their fellow media but also their empowered consumers.
Advertising industry is the one that I will put my glances today, and here is why.
After blogging (red: making content in blog) became popular, many people that are not coming from media or entertainment industry develop a way to become a public figure. Many people grind their way to the top from their blogs. Raditya Dika is a very successful public figure that came from the bloggers world.
When social media attacks, we got faster lane to grind our way to the top. We can play a producer rule in our social media platform and once we made content that rich in qualities or sensational people will talk about you. The vlogging trend is also trending at 2010 after people get easier access to produce video. And that’s how the term influencer pop out to the surface.
Christie Dennehy-Neil from Internet Advertising Bureau UK said that influencer itself doesn’t have a significant meaning. You might become one if you have an authentic voice that your audience trust. This audience trust they gained can make an influencer play the advertisers role. They can simply promoting brands and set their own marketing strategy which could be more suitable and engaging to their audience (or we can say, market).
As we can see here, brands are finding new ways of marketing. It is, at some point, come in handy. Influencers already have segmented audience based on what their content mostly talked about, so brands will benefits less troubles on setting their target audiences. Influencer also has unique and creative content-making, some of them even has a signature style. This could be another advantage for the brand, because they don’t have to think about how the message will be delivered alone.
Although influencer industry is now growing rapidly each day, there will always be critique. Influencer industry had no reason to avoid critiques just like how other industries had their critiques. Dan Eyre, a Social Media and Content Manager from UNiDAYS, declared that one of the biggest challenges of digital advertising is the practice of influencer marketing. He claimed that not all brand who practice this kind of marketing are doing it transparently. It would makes the advertising regulators harder to make brands accountable for their action.
The growing of an industry is sometimes inevitable. As a newcomer, influencer marketing was built upon traditional advertiser doubts. Many people might seen this industry as an easy fresh money, but to make a quality content independently might not be an easy peasy job as well. This industry is one of the prove that the power that individuals have combined is sometimes more powerful than mass-aimed power.
Source: https://www.fatmedia.co.uk/blog/when-does-influencer-become-advertiser-why-should-you-care-qplusa/
1. Federman, M. (2004) What is the Meaning of the Medium is the Message?
2. Jenkins, H. (2006). Worship at the altar of convergence”: A new paradigm for understanding media change. In H. Jenkins, Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide (pp 1-24). New York: New York University Press.
-Agnes Alvionita, 1606825644
