Tech Savvy
The title of the article is “The Hot College Gig: Online Brand Promoter” written by Claire Ballentine on August 31, 2018. This article caught my eye because I know a friend who is a brand promoter but I never really knew what the position really was about.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/31/technology/college-students-online-influencers.html
The article was about brands or companies paying college students to advertise specific products for that company using social media platforms. The article was saying that now, all of the action is online. As students return back to the Universities, they are constantly checking Instagram, Snapchat and other social media — so companies are turning to many students to promote products right alongside photos posted on their social media.
For some students, it is an easy way to make extra money or get free products. On the other hand, many people said that fulfilling their obligations to brands was harder than expected. It took time to create the images, at least 2 hours each week but she was paid with money and company products. Alot of people who get hired have to curate their Instagram a specific way to satisfy the brand. One woman in the article said that she takes her branding seriously for her own social media so she tries to work with photographers to get really high quality pictures to take for that company. For marketers, it is a simple way to reach young people — a supplement to their social media efforts. Although there is no comprehensive data for how many college students promote brands online, it is clear that the social media platform is a big business on campus.
Donna Wertalik, director of marketing for the university’s Pamplin College of Business stated, “We see so many brands that have it,” Ms. Wertalik said. “A lot of start-up brands will do it. They’ll look for students with credibility and influence to give them credibility and influence.” This tells us that specific companies are looking at instagram users and tracking how many followers you have and how popular you are on social media and choosing those users to promote their product.
This will impact the advertising industry because a lot of companies will try and target college students to pay them money. I feel like companies might be a little unethical / creepy by trying to stalk instagram users to see how many followers they have or how many likes they get on a picture in order to decide if the company wants that social media user to become a brand promoter.
But my question is, what happens if companies can no longer pay students the money they promised or the company doesn't follow through with what they promised to compensate the college student with??
I think this will positively impact the brand by bringing in more revenue for the company. Since a lot of college students or millennial know how to work social media and have a lot of social media tools and editing tools at their fingertips, it would be good for the company to hire more of the same types of college students so that the company can 1. get more positive word of mouth and 2. sell more of their product = $$. The only way I can see it having a negative effect is if someone doesn’t do a thorough job with what they post on social media, but then that company can just fire that college brand promoter.
This type of advertising might encourage other companies to kind of stalk people in a way, to find brand promoters in order to produce more sales. The company would have to recruit people in an ethical way in order for it to not be considered under the umbrella of “stalking.” I also think that if you have a lot of students promoting your brand, a lot of positions for adults or if there is already a brand promoter who is older in age, might go out of business because of how young and tech savvy millennial and Gen Z are.
I feel like this could benefit brands of all types! I can see these college students promoting all different types of companies which is really cool. But for right now I think the most practical companies that would benefit from college brand promoters would be retail stores.