Early morning question about influencers?

[Paco Dennis]

A big teaser was Russell Brand. He became quite famous and had millions of followers. Then some sexual allegations came, and he got black listed. Now guess what has happened? He met Jesus. Now he is back promoting his new life in Christ. A born influencer and a born again influencer.

 

[dilettante]

You lost me with Third Reich.

This was the first extensive use of professional psychologists to engineer the educational experience to directly influence the population from an early age.

It was pioneering work in instilling "right thinking" about culture, politics, and social responsibilities.

 

[CallMeKate]

Just found this... it explains the differences:

"The terms "teaching influencer" and "paid influencer" refer to different roles and motivations in the realm of social media and content creation:

Teaching Influencer
Role: A teaching influencer focuses on educating their audience about a specific topic or skill
They create content that is informative, instructional, and designed to help their followers learn something new

Motivation: Their primary motivation is to share knowledge and expertise, often driven by a passion for the subject matter and a desire to help others.

Content: Examples include tutorials, how-to guides, educational videos, and workshops.

Paid Influencer
Role: A paid influencer is someone who is compensated by brands or companies to promote products, services, or messages to their audience

Motivation: Their motivation is often financial, as they are paid to create content that highlights or endorses the brand's offerings.

Content: Examples include sponsored posts, product reviews, brand mentions, and promotional videos.

In summary, while teaching influencers aim to educate and provide value through their content, paid influencers focus on promoting brands in exchange for compensation. Both types of influencers can be valuable for different purposes, depending on the goals of the content creator and the brand."

 

[Paco Dennis]

Was Ron Popeil an influencer?

 

[Paco Dennis]

So either your paid to suggest stuff to people, or you spontaneously suggest something to somebody for free.?

 

[Jules]

For years I’ve read blogs. Some are entertaining and have large followings. They’re entrepreneurs who have to spend many hours to get remuneration from businesses, creating content and often many dollars for their backend infrastructure. For them, these blogs are a business. Of those that attempt this, I imagine there aren’t many who are successful.

Some bloggers with lots of readers just like to write about their life. There’s nothing but satisfaction in it for them.

It seems to me that influencers are mainly young and use video to sell themselves. They are the product. There’s big money to be made.

 

[Nathan]

Do you watch any influencers? Why are you interested in them? Do you gain/learn anything of value?What exactly is an influencer? Do these people actually make a living peddling their opinions or am I misunderstanding influencers?

We're basically from the same generation and grew up without the internet so our career choices were becoming a doctor, nurse, lawyer, teacher, homemaker. Becoming an influencer was not an option. The only people who could be called influencers back then were movie stars and some rock musicians.


What do you think?

When Googling "influencer" the term marketing pops up as well.

They used to be call "pitch-men" but quite simply an influencer is just ad spokesperson, pitchman or a shill for some product or service.

My favorite pitchman / influencer was Billy Mays(RIP Billy):

 

[Alizerine]

Just found this... it explains the differences:

"The terms "teaching influencer" and "paid influencer" refer to different roles and motivations in the realm of social media and content creation:

Teaching Influencer
Role: A teaching influencer focuses on educating their audience about a specific topic or skill
They create content that is informative, instructional, and designed to help their followers learn something new

Motivation: Their primary motivation is to share knowledge and expertise, often driven by a passion for the subject matter and a desire to help others.

Content: Examples include tutorials, how-to guides, educational videos, and workshops.

Paid Influencer
Role: A paid influencer is someone who is compensated by brands or companies to promote products, services, or messages to their audience

Motivation: Their motivation is often financial, as they are paid to create content that highlights or endorses the brand's offerings.

Content: Examples include sponsored posts, product reviews, brand mentions, and promotional videos.

In summary, while teaching influencers aim to educate and provide value through their content, paid influencers focus on promoting brands in exchange for compensation. Both types of influencers can be valuable for different purposes, depending on the goals of the content creator and the brand."

Thank you!

 

[HermitHogan]

I think of influencers as being someone who sets trends, as in fashion or behavior. Not someone who does interviews or makes how-to videos.

 

[KSav]

Maybe technically Martha is/was an "influencer"... but I've thought of people like her as more of a teacher... showing us how to do things better or differently. I think of influencers as YouTube/Instagram, etc. people who have channels where sponsors send them free things or even pay them to promote the product. Not very different from sports personalities peddling certain brands and being paid big bucks to do so whether or not they ever actually used the product.

I agree. Martha Stewart actually had a career based on skills. Some of today's "influencers" seem to be little more than young people posting photos of their restaurant meals or their clothing on TikTok and other such platforms. They don't seem to have much substance.

What worries me is that some young people seem to be completely under their thrall and don't do a lot of thinking for themselves.

 

[chic]

When I was a kid in the sixties, Jack LaLane was an influencer to me. But he had knowledge about nutrition and fitness so he had something I found important to really share. Still, he was selling/pitching himself.

 

[chic]

I agree. Martha Stewart actually had a career based on skills. Some of today's "influencers" seem to be little more than young people posting photos of their restaurant meals or their clothing on TikTok and other such platforms. They don't seem to have much substance.

What worries me is that some young people seem to be completely under their thrall and don't do a lot of thinking for themselves.

They're sort of in a cult with these people, (influencers) and that is scary.