Why Influence Even Matters (and why I’m not an influencer)

In January of this year, I made the decision that instead of pursuing the path of seeming least resistance, I’d stop promoting myself as just a blogger and get back to my roots as a photographer and writer. I decided that I would put more effort into getting my photos out there and trying to freelance more and be a real grownup for a change. I’ve been going through my folders, and thinking about why, after three years, it still makes me supremely uncomfortable to have received so much free stuff as a blogger. And why giving away so much free stuff is way more effective than just relying on slick, expensive ad campaigns.

I started blogging because I wanted to promote my photos and my writing. I saw that most people got attention by making themselves look like ‘fashionistas’, so I imitated and made fun of that. I literally started out as a parody and then realized that the game was even deeper than I had thought. I started taking it a little more seriously, once I found out that you could get free stuff, and even started a photo/interview project so that I could study bloggers up close and get information from them. I even interned at a pr company to find out what they do all day and how people, like myself, end up on lists.

I realized very quickly that even though I didn’t look, act, or think like a model my usefulness to the brands that invited me to events or put products in my hands was precisely because of my lack of model credentials. It was more powerful to have the product pop up on my social media or blogging outlets because it would show anyone that looked like me or related to people who look like me that this product was me approved. If I was seen to be using a bottle of beauty oil, it sends a signal to someone who may not see themselves as fashionable or whatever to buy the oil because I have it. It makes total sense. Instead of creating a fantasy around the product for thousands of dollars, the company can place it in a real live consumer’s hands and generate tons of weblinks, videos, and mentions.

The other thing is, if your sales are slumping and your target audience is drifting, giving away tons of stuff from stock that’s not selling is better than going out of business. Suddenly your products or clothing or shoes or whatever starts popping up seemingly everywhere and it may look to the uninitiated like you’ve started making sales. You may indeed make sales now, because the people you gifted are ‘influential’. Cheaper than the ads you paid for that don’t work, and you got rid of your backstock. You can intimately associate your product with real people all over the country (and world) in a way that building a set and hiring fake people to pretend to like something never can. For the price of postage, or throwing a party you become part of real, authentic content.

I guess, my feelings of discomfort come from how fickle the whole brand/blogger relationship can be. A running joke of mine is how I opened the email box and found a random invite, because that’s how it really works in my life. I randomly go to a party and meet someone and then they invite me somewhere else. I randomly accept a makeover and the brand asks if I want more stuff. Once I went to a product expo to meet a brand that I had been working with and someone else saw me and invited me to a clothing showroom and gave me a ton of free clothes and handbags. It seems awesome, and I really shouldn’t complain, but it also feels like I could be anybody and it wouldn’t matter to them. As long as they get the coverage or publicity, who cares. And my problem with the whole thing is that I care, about the effect of all of this unearned gifting on my soul.

I started out as someone who studied photography, and creative writing and English lit, in order to make a bit of something out of myself. I just really like writing about things and taking photos. If I got famous for anything, my dream was for it to be from shooting magazine covers or fine art images or writing provocative articles or entertaining books. I never saw myself as an internet rockstar or social media celebrity. I love the free stuff, because it saves money to get makeup, winter clothes, and towels for free. I just didn’t like the insecure and fragile self that I saw emerging as a result. I don’t want to feel badly about myself because I didn’t get invited to something or wasn’t on the list for a product launch. I don’t want to feel rejected because I didn’t get a car sent for me. I’m not famous, and it feels weird to be on the receiving end of treatment that I’ve done nothing to deserve.

The influencer things makes sense, just not for me. Somehow I feel diminished by it. I also get angry thinking about people wh0 work way harder than me paying a few hundred dollars for shoes I received free of charge. I still wear the shoes, don’t get me wrong, but it has felt weird. I can’t deny that blogging, and what little popularity I garnered from doing it, helped me out during a tough time in my life, but at this point it feels like a joke gone alarmingly stale. I got scared that I would get famous for it, and live the rest of my life as a whore to brands and pr companies, running from event to event in a freeloading frenzy. I have a self, I have a me that needed to be protected from disappearing. The only influence that I’ve ever really sought to have is over myself. The rest was just me pretending for rewards and free food.

I am super glad that I went through my little blogstar period, and definitely grateful that I got to have that feeling of entitlement, but I want whatever influence I have to come from really working for and achieving things. I want a real life with a real boyfriend who could care less about how many followers I have on instagram. I’d rather get paid to write and take photos, and I’d rather write for and about products or brands that I really care about who have good relationships with me. That’s just how I’m made. Influencer marketing does work, and is an empowering tool for bloggers who may otherwise never be important. If the time comes that I have a product to promote or sell, I’d definitely do an influencer campaign before even considering anything else…

As long as I don’t have to do any of the influencing myself.