We pore over what they eat, what they wear, what they do and who they do it with, but what do influencers really do for a living… and how do they do it?
We pore over what they eat, what they wear, what they do and who they do it with, but what do influencers really do for a living… and how do they do it?
A whopping $4,000 for two Instagram updates and a blog post? Welcome to the business of being an influencer – where a little bit of personality, a dash of good taste and a lot of media-savvy can earn you big bucks and Insta-fame. But if you think all you’d need to earn $4,000 per campaign is a DSLR camera and a personalised domain name, you’d be wrong. With those two things, you’re just a blogger, which puts you one step above any random netizen with a Tumblr account. But… blogger, influencer, what’s the difference, right? While a lot of us use these two terms interchangeably, a blogger is someone who runs a blog – an online journal, basically. An influencer, as the name suggests, is a person with influence; someone who can affect the thoughts, opinions, tastes and buying habits of her audience. Usually, an influencer will maintain a blog as a way of connecting to her followers, but not all bloggers are necessarily influencers. Perhaps the most important distinction between the two is this – “blogger” is a term that evolved out of the Internet, and is a convenient catchall phrase that describes a new wave of diarists who emerged as the World Wide Web gained mainstream popularity. On the other hand, the term “influencer” has its genesis in the marketing industry. The idea of influencer marketing actually pre-dates the Internet by several decades, but the advent of social media also heralded the rise of a new category of Insta-famous people – those who don’t fit the mould of traditional celebrities, but whose popularity on social media sites could easily be tapped into by brands whose target audiences align with that particular person’s following. And, ta-da, in a few short years, a rich new marketing vehicle arrived – the influencer.
“I am what most people would describe as a ‘girl next door’, maybe just a more vocal one. I lead a life very similar to anyone else who is a university undergrad, except maybe I have one too many priorities to juggle! And perhaps it is this kind of ordinariness and relatability that gained me a following.”
From blogger to influencer
It’s no coincidence that as the marketing industry adapted to the changing digital landscape, people who were once The Business ofInfluence Images 123RF.com Text Kit Chua. bloggers became influencers. In doing so, what was once considered as a hobby evolved into a bona fide career, and a pretty lucrative one, to boot. So when you think of the term “influencer”, the first thing you think of should be dollars and cents, not well-curated Instagram feeds. Why? Simply because there are plenty of people who are massively popular online, but not all of them are looking to monetise that popularity. For those who are, the term “influencer” is the most convenient way of marketing themselves to brands, collaborators and other prospective clients. But what do influencers really have to offer? It’s easy to dismiss them as pretty girls who take pretty pictures, and coast on their looks to make a dime. But there’s actually more to it than that. Xin Lin, an NUS student who has over 30,000 followers on Instagram, is currently signed to Nuffnang’s stable of influencers, and has worked with brands like Starhub, NIVEA and Orchard Central. She attributes her success on social media to “the willingness and openness to share my thoughts and life on social media.” In the age of reality TV and oversharing, that sounds pretty frivolous, but if you think about it, it’s not. Because the real job of an influencer isn’t actually to peddle the latest beauty product, fashion label or fruit juice (even though that’s how they end up making money). Ultimately, what influencers really sell – to both their clients and the people that follow them – are their personal brands. Their brands include their names, their faces, their histories, their personalities, the stories they tell and the connections they have with their followers. And if you were going to make money from all of those things – if you were going to put a price on brand “you” – how much would you charge? The correct answer: as highly as you possibly could. At least, that’s what I think.
The real me
So what makes a person a brand? Being an influencer is a pretty surreal occupation, especially when you consider that, as an influencer, in many ways, being “you” is your profession. And like any other job, there are key performance indicators of how well you can be you. The most obvious method? Looking at the statistics – the number of followers, likes and comments. But in the age of web bots and bought followers, those numbers are often met with distrust. The key standard by which influencers are measured is actually a lot less tangible than the number of followers they have. Instead, an influencer’s perceived value has a lot to do with one of the buzzwords of the new millennium – authenticity. “Authenticity and sharing their stories are the essence of what makes their influence,” concurs Selina Heng, the Regional Manager of Talent and Community at Netccentric, which is the parent company of Nuffnang – a leading blog advertising company in Singapore that represents familiar names such as Xiaxue, Bong Qiu Qiu and Lian Meiting. Authenticity also ties into the idea of “engagement”, which is a key metric that Nuffnang uses to assess its influencers and their reach. (They also have a secret internal formula to calculate engagement, which was not shared with me.) In the context of social media, engagement can mean “the quality of the comments or the conversion from online engagement to purchase, which is difficult and timeconsuming to measure,” explains Selina.
To illustrate the concept of engagement, Selina cites a follower who asked to know more details about an experience that was posted on an influencer’s feed as an example of a high-quality engagement. On the other hand, someone who responds with the heart-eyes emoji and tags a friend offers only a low-quality engagement, she says. “The number of followers, likes and comments can easily be bought,” continues Selina, “But building relationships and the engagements that comes out of that cannot be fabricated.” So it all comes down to one thing – being real. After all, nothing invites the ire of the Internet’s trolls and lurkers like someone getting caught for being fake. “Being authentic to my personal brand is a top priority,” agrees Nicole Wong, who isn’t just an influencer, but also serves as a content curator and stylist. “It takes a lot of work to build a brand and it is never worth it to waste it all over money,” she continues. “With the right client, you can easily create quality content as you truly believe in their product or brand. Similarly, the client will come to you if they believe in your style and taste.”
“Being an influencer is just another label that society created to identify people easily. I do not see myself as one as I wear multiple hats and do not like to be defined by a single label. I never “joined” the industry per se, because I never thought that it would become a viable career path, and I would never have believed I would reach where I am today, if you told me this would happen years ago. I’m just very blessed that things have turned out the way they have and am enjoying the ride while continuing to pursue my other path, which is to be a product stylist.”
The price of influence
Which brings us to the other thing – when you’re an influencer, being real also means getting paid, because authenticity is the premium that today’s brands are paying influencers top dollar for. “In my experience, a good social media influencer who has created a wealth of content that is interesting, engaging and reliable, can bring a personal touch that is missing sometimes in traditional media,” says a marketing executive from a beauty brand, who works directly with bloggers and influencers on a regular basis. “These people, we imagine, are like you and me,” she adds, “The power of social media influencers is the valuable trust that their fans have in them. This comes from the influencers being honest, sincere and authentic about what they are promoting. [So] if done right and depending on the objective, their personal touch and endorsement could mean more than a flashy TV commercial.” How much is this personal touch worth? If you’re talking about monetary value, well, it partly depends on the level of influence a social media personality commands, but often times, there’s no fixed rate, either. “A lot of it depends on negotiation between the brand and the blogger or their agent,” explains the marketing executive. “An A-lister like Xiaxue can command between $2,000 and $4,000 for a blog post, depending on negotiations with her agency. Instagram posts could be around $500 to $800, and the rate decreases for every lower-tier blogger.”
Because you’re worth it
As to whether influencers are truly worth the rates they are paid – the answer to that seems to be subjective. “The right influencer working with the right brand will be absolutely worth every penny,” affirms the marketing executive. A digital manager at a media and advertising agency, however, disagrees: “Influencers aren’t particularly worth the amount that they’re paid, especially if they are merely touting products that we already are giving them,” says the manager, who hires influencers based on the needs of her clients. “If they’re required to put in a public appearance for events and so on, or required to showcase a particular skill-set – like take a series of photos, or craft a song – then, yes.” “But if the sole purpose of the influencer is her appearance and her claim that a product works great, it will only be worth it for us if they are tied to the brand and not going around claiming every product is great every other week,” she adds. “So if we engage with the influencer on a long-term basis, as sort of an ambassador, it would make it worth it. It really depends on what the brand is, and what you want them to do.” Even the marketing executive agrees that when it comes to working with influencers, it’s important to differentiate between real quality from the fluff: “There are a growing number of social media influencers who are ‘pretty faces’ but do not have much to offer their fans or the brands they work with,” she concedes.
“One such social media influencer I worked with is a fashion guru in her 20s who was popular for her OOTDs. However, she didn’t create a strong connection with her fans and her content wasn’t unique enough. When we asked consumers for feedback on the posts she created, they couldn’t remember it, and the worst was when we created an event together, only one fan showed up to meet with her.” Despite the misses and the flops, however, influencers aren’t going away any time soon. So long as there’s social media to expose us to the lives of those we either relate to or aspire to emulate, the simple truth is that we’ll continue to like and follow the influencers who inspire us, while the brands continue to pay them. Maybe one day, we’ll see the death of the influencer, just as VJs were once the coolest kids on the block but now barely register on the cultural radar. But for now, the influencer class is here to stay. And we’ll just keep on double-tapping, one $4,000 post at a time.
