Confessions of an Instagram Influencer
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
She follows a few people around the world who are artists or collectors on IG. She pointed out to me that when she started following some of them more than a year ago, they had a few hundred followers, and were posting general stuff, but which all felt heartfelt and 'in the moment'. I think 'genuine' was the word my wife used. Kids doing silly things. Artwork in various stages of completion, etc.
But now, she has noticed a couple of them have rocketed to over hundreds of thousands of followers, and their posts have changed to become quite soulless and fake. Obviously they have been engaged by a marketing or promotional company that sanitises and sets up their posts for them.
All of a sudden, an artist who was formerly struggling to raise a family and make meaningful work is announcing (and posting photos) that they are in [insert brand name here] health spa having a weekend pampering. Continuous shots of not the art or kids, but of bath products, massage companies, drink companies etc. all heavily hashtagged. Following up a few days later are pictures of the kids, but this time around a brand new laptop with the manufacturers name and laptop model hashtagged to the hilt.
As @sAbakumoff pointed out here - this is "Black Mirror" Season 3 Episode 1 come to life. I have nothing against someone doing promotional work to earn money to live, but I do have a problem with people portraying a totally fake and unrealistic life as a reality.
We are just seeing magazines starting to push back against "Generation Photoshop" and go back to 'real' shots of people again (Pirelli 2017 calendar a case in point), but are we now going to replace Photoshop with 'posed reality'? I know a lot of us do that to a certain extent on social media anyway, but not for discounts or monetary compensation, usually.
However, when I follow people on social media, I am expecting something that is a little more 1 to 1, and a lot more real. I am interested in programming, guitars, aviation etc. and follow people with the same passions.
If I have to do extra detective whenever someone posted a picture of some guitar gear, in order to find out whether they posted it because they were really inspired by it, or whether they were paid by a manufacturer to do it, then it really renders the interaction meaningless, and I would rather do without it.
I'll never pay to go see a live music performance if I know the players are just miming to backing tracks. I go to experience the actual process, pain and joy of someone working hard to create music. The odd mistake and off key note all ADD to the performance for me, not detract. It reminds me that we are all not perfect, but we still try to reach out to each other to connect.
If we are all just living in a plastic world now, where we have to question every interaction to ascertain whether it is real or not, then I am not sure I want to participate in that world anymore.
People are often worried about being too self-centred, but they really should be worried about being too "others-centred".
I stopped using social media because we probably do have to question every interaction - unless you physically know the person.
I have spent time over the past few years in marketing and nothing in that world is genuine. I bet most people on all the social networks with a significant following are trying to sell something at some point. This isn't meant to be cynical, just realistic. And with (what I've read) 20%+ fake accounts on facebook - what do you think most of those are for? They're not to propel society and humanity forward.
I'm ok not being an easy 'influencer' via likes or follows. I prefer to influence and engage with colleagues and friends is the slow, real world. At the end of the day, I don't have any guilt that I've potentially ripped anyone off and when my head hits the pillow, I don't feel compelled to be checking my phone.
There are ways to not be a luddite and have meaningful relationships through technology helping. But technology being the only driver, in my mind, is just not real.
And I actually build technology every day, so I don't say any of this lightly. My biggest challenge in the coming years is to help my kids find balance when they reach that point of wanting a phone. I am not looking forward to that because the odds are stacked against 'the old guy'..
Going forward 'technology-life' balance would be the biggest challenge faced by millennials and the future generations.
Perhaps a kindred soul on HN knows of someone/group working on reaching children in a very authentic way like Mr. Rogers and crew did.
Or ask your favorite search engine about FTC influencer marketing.
____
"Simulacra are copies that depict things that either had no original to begin with, or that no longer have an original.
Baudrillard believed that society has become so saturated with these simulacra and our lives so saturated with the constructs of society that all meaning was being rendered meaningless by being infinitely mutable."
See Metamodernism and present day echo chambers.
"Where the real world changes into simple images, the simple images become real beings and effective motivations of hypnotic behavior."
http://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2013/january/la-civiliza...
Knowing the real nature of life and your fellow human beings may have some undesired side effects. It may need a greatness of mind for not stopping to love them. Be careful what you wish for.
Sometimes it is better letting people to show a fake and unrealistic picture and acting the fool letting they think you belive what you see.
Everyone seem to spot those ad-sponsored social network objects/constructs though so I don't know if things are that bad.
They are simply responding to what people want to see. If people wanted to see real life then that's what people would give them.
People want inspiration and to feel like they are associating (by liking and commenting) with people they aspire to be like. That's nothing new, that's basic human behavior.
Does the movie, TV, music and magazine industry have something to answer for when a person is famous for just being famous, whereas people who do meaningful, life changing/saving work are just glossed over?
One could argue that what Lady Gaga and Truman Capote did for the LGBT movement was/is meaningful perhaps contextually moreso than what you or I might consider the more meaningful work of eg. Margaret Hamilton.
I agree that there is such a hierarchy but it's not uniformly agreed upon.
These days the vast majority of the "fitness model"-type accounts exist solely to sell their diet/workout plans, along with supplements. Sometimes this is subtle, but mostly it is not.
I adblock. I pirate. I don't use Facebook or other social networking sites.
I don't want advertising in my life. It's propaganda. It shits in your head.
If there's anybody reading this who works in those industries: you thought Generation X was cynical?
The entire purpose of life is to market.
You get up in the morning and brush your teeth so that you're more marketable than the slob that doesn't.
Everything you do can be traced back to marketing. The more people understand that, the better off they will be at handling life.
Maybe my target market isn't slavish devotees of a vapid consumerist culture who assert their identity with commercial brands?
An audience built around silicon valley's capitalist culture...
I understand your sentiment, but I believe that's a toxic worldview.
>An audience built around silicon valley's capitalist culture...
I am criticising consumerism, not capitalism.
Not if you ask a businessman or a politician. Boosting the supply side is how you get to a robust economy according to them.
It would be disingenuous to pretend the two aren't highly interrelated, but we are still discussing two separate phenomena.
The distinction, I think, can be summarised by "build a better mousetrap". I'll try the new product and mention it to my friends. Soon everyone is buying the new mousetrap. That's competition at work.
You don't need a multi-million ad campaign carrying an implicit, or perhaps explicit, message of "if you don't buy <new mousetrap> your wife will leave you/women won't find you attractive/<insert any other insecurity>".
Consumerism is the encouragement of consumption by encouraging vanity and appealing to emotional insecurities. Fundamentally I object to the application of psychological science to the manipulation of society in order to extract profit by causing psychological distress.
There is a distinction between promotion and advertising.
I also use toothpaste, and other products,that my wife chose and came to the realization that even though I might not be directly marketed to, I am still reached by a so-called influencer, who has way more power then some random instagram person or ad.
I wouldn't be surprised to find more Marketing dollars are spent on advertising to women (probably, no proof, just an assumption). Since if they can target the person who purchases for the family, the company adds multiple consumers, regardless if they realize it or not.
To me, that's an interesting introspective and your comment did contribute.
Thanks.
In fact you are posting here because you seek to influence, which is great! That's what we're here for.
Desire to influence = Marketing.
And so are bots, mind. :-)
Speak for yourself.
The sun doesn't give off free energy to market itself to anyone, and even the the most succesful whore will end up dead. The main difference will be having been a whore.
I've also had interesting conversations saying the purpose is not sex but power. We do stuff the way we do because that might get us more power.
Sociology is really interesting.
Those who go around proclaiming everything to be only about sex or only about money or only about power wish to make it so.
Of course natural selection is true, and we ultimately strive to pass on our genes but the mechanisms we've developed that motivate/enable us to do so are absurdly complex and admit much more than mere power games and peacock strutting.
― Oscar Wilde
Off to create a Facebook account, back in a moment.
[ I wish this had been explained to me back in 2008 when it first came out and I couldn't see any use for it. ]
You can be a marketer or you can be yourself and I know which one I want to be.
You can't escape the marketing.
Or as a famous Danish artist once said "I paint to get pussy"
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map%E2%80%93territory_relation
I'd guess there are people who would "rent" access to their active social media accounts to a company operating a bot capable of writing subtle "recommendation"-style comments. Sort of a merger of blog-comment-spam-bots and paid "influencer" posts.
Well... Hopefully :-/
I'm gratified that you thought it was a bona fide comment. I've never actually watched Bill Hicks.
We are increasingly living in a world of fiction. Previously it was mainly fed through television. You'd grow up on television series, and as a young man/woman you'd try to be cool like them, dress like them, talk like them. You build your world view around "influential" portrayals.
Nowadays, we haven't freed ourself from media controlled television at all. It's actually worse, because now advertising is blurring the lines even more between real people and fiction. We eat and breathe fiction, then we live our own life trying to resemble it.
Nothing is new there. But what's new for me is I started to recognize that fiction in and of itself is probably as detrimental to our society as fear is. It's well known that fear drives self centered way of life and when we are in survival mode, we just don't make good choices and we lack compassion.
Lately I'm thinking that fiction, on a collective scale, is just as bad as fear. It keeps us unconscious. Just like fear it dissociates us from what we are, and from one another. It's really detrimental to us as individuals, and as a society. Unlike fear, it isn't immediately felt in the stomach.. so there is no sense of urgency.. And yet it is there... one just looks at the world to see the massive disconnect in our life on a day to day basis. I guess fear and fiction are best friends. Fear drives us to dissociate, and fiction provides the perfect happy place to dissociate.
John Berger, Ways of Seeing
"But where is this other way of life?"
You consider these thoughts dark or cynical. Why? Humans have built an amazing civilization with a global economy and messaging travel across the globe in milliseconds. We did all this as fallible meat bags believing in dreams and telling each other mostly false stories. That is a great story as well. ;)
I think there is a distinction that can be made, which happens to be echoed by an intuitive sense that we have. We all dislike self centered people. Why is that? What is it about it that makes us uncomfortable? And why do we not like lies? Why do we resent when people posture? Why do we feel uneasy when someone makes a fake smile? Or when someone tries to convince us and you can feel their motive is self centered?
We all have in us a drive towards authenticity, genuineness, truth, whatever you want to call it.
What's dark or cynical about that?
On the science side, there is recent research looking into the "default mode network" that highlights how it appears to be the source of our self-related ruminating thoughts. In fact it appears that 90% of our thoughts in any given day are about "me", or some made up collectives which we use to extend our identity.
This amazing civilization we have built is not built with the self-referential type of fiction. It was built with our abstract thinking, and language capacities. (which is a practical type of thinking or narrative)
True, humanity is not going to drop their stories in a day. But I wouldn't lump fiction and abstract thinking together as "fiction". One is obvious fiction, which is based on identities, which in turn is based on our sense of survival; The other is of a more practical nature.
This is another big debate altogether and I genuinely have no interest in debating that. Just threw it out there because it sounds like you lump together things that are very different from one another.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/logical-take/201512/in-...
I swear if I could compare it to my timeline from a month, or 3 months ago, it'd be the same.
Turns out, even though a picture is worth a thousand words, we keep writing the same sh#$% over and over!
I don't think this is a problem - I believe in the power of the internet democratizing revenue opportunities and disrupting outdated media channels.
(Bias disclaimer: I run a startup that helps brands find Instagram influencers to work with - won't plug it here but it's in my profile).
But if I open a random influencer agency website, I can read something like this: "Influencers drive trust". The message here seems to be: Yes, trust is super valuable - and now the price is finally dropping! But is it really?
DHH suggested a book in an interview with Tim Ferriss[0]. I read what DHH says often and trust his taste - is this bad? I don't think so. Obviously DHH wasn't paid to talk about this book, but it wouldn't matter either way to me; a lot of his influence comes from the fact that I know he wouldn't willingly shill for something he doesn't believe in.
[0] http://fourhourworkweek.com/2016/10/27/david-heinemeier-hans...
When someone is financially incentivized to push something, but discloses that, you have to take it with a grain of salt. When they don't disclose it, you can't trust a word out of their mouth. Full stop.
Or just write bullshit copy. It doesn't matter to them, as long as it attracts customer.
It's actually fun to watch how ad/marketing sector is stewing in its own bullshit - as the sector subdivides and specializes, each component has to employ the same "tried and true" bullshit tactics to attract customers within the sector.
I didn't realize just how realistic that Black Mirror episode was.
All this social media advertisement seems like one big fraud to me - from profile farms to click frauds, has any of the people buying the ads actually attempted to verify the actual increase in sales? Or maybe it just looks good in powerpoints when showing to the clients where the money is spent.
Yeah it's fraud up and down the feed, and it looks great in spreadsheets. IG provides metrics on profile views and website clicks, that's one way to measure engagement as bots will usually skip that.
She publishes all her "songs" on Youtube for free, and lives off sponsored content on Instagram and media appearances.
Is she lazy and getting "free-money"? no.
Is she talented? also no.
The only drawback is that she might be investing a good part of her career in something that may prove prone to inflation and whim.
If you have a sizeable following, you have the option to sell your soul to one or many companies who will then organise your social media flow for you, suggesting what to post, when to post, and what to hashtag. All for a fee or discounts on their products.
At least when you see a racing driver's suit plastered with sponsor logos, you know they've paid him/her or the team for the privilege of doing so. Nowadays it is not so obvious, but rather the inference is that it is all natural and common and 'real'.
It wouldn't be popular. People crave escapism.
The very fact that you're satirising exactly that is what defeats the purpose.
Related: Black Mirror, S01E02 - Fifteen Million Merits.
There are many many people who feel guilty because their life could be more successful. It's a very hard thing to unroot out of your mind, but laughing about it is a huge relief.
When your favourite media personality is gushing about some product it's really easy to forget it's an advert and they're being paid for it. I know that's what makes it great for marketing purposes, but it feels seriously dishonest and (to me) represents a decline in our standards.
Idk who enjoys following what's essentially just an ad? You can get glossy ad pics in a magazine?
In some literary critique sense, it does not so much seem hollow as it seems like authentic expression of our time. The fact that people authentically believe in success in social media does not invalidate their dreams.
TL;DR:
How to get Instagram followers:
- photo quality is very important, pay for a professional
- submit 3 posts a day, try to make them interesting, but that's only medium important
- pay for bot to like and comment on posts with similar hash tags, so their owners can see your profile and hopefully follow
- use offshore friend farm to boost numbers. They don't outright say it, but the last service had to be that. One day his followers surged for a couple of hours then stopped.
Here is my recipe for a golden (if ephemeral) business opportunity:
* Live in a country with low costs of living, in a city with a historical city centre (backdrops! texture!)
* Have access to professional photography equipment
* Have access to a bunch of attractive, but cheap (hence the locality, think Odessa, Bratislava, or Baku) generic looking models
* Compose a team of decent writers and photographers
* Create 'inspired', 'authentic' Instagram profiles for each model, provide content
* Profit?
Don't forget to tag each post #bohemian. Guaranteed hit.
Advertisers who aren't savvy about analytics will continue to prop up the cottage industry of fraudulent eyeball providers.
It's a lame game though. Instagram is a crap platform anything other then mindless scrolling and gaming likes.
>exp: Went from 0-2k followers in a week
That and slamming #tfb, #followback, #f4f into the tag orgy helps. Enjoy 50-200 likes and 15-30 follows/post.
It's bad enough I use Facebook, but the Instagrams of our time are just ridiculous.