The World of Influencers — can it even help you apply for immigration?
A large number of followers, self-traffic topics, considerable business value, and an extended industrial chain… The Influencer economy has become a window into the mobile internet era.
Not long ago, the Government of Canada announced a new version of the National Occupational Classification (NOC) for 2021 version 1.0, and influencers made their debut on the list as a brand new occupation. (Code 55109 — Other performers)
What are the influencer’s duties as defined by the Canadian government?
- Share ideas and advice on a broad range of topics.
- Create personal and branded content for social media or other digital platforms.
The Influencer economy is a kind of attention economy and a trust economy, and the influence and contagious power of influencer practitioners largely affect the consumption behaviour of users. An influencer is culturally, aesthetically and content diverse, with each of them influencing people in different areas.
Nowadays, I see many friends around me gaining more and more attention on social media and becoming what everyone calls influencers or celebrities. So what kind of person can become an influencer? Can I be one of them too?
With anticipation, we created a team in 2018 with friends who live in the French Alps and wanted to try it out — just how is an influencer made?
We wanted to get the support of our followers and have a strong “fan economy”, so the first thing we needed to do was to build a “belief system”. How could we use this psychology to create an influencer from scratch?
- Targeting the audience. We decided that our target audience is Chinese people who enjoy outdoor sports.
- Creating a persona. Position yourself. An extreme sports filming team founded in the French Alps, dedicated to sports and life in the snowy mountains, born from a desire to explore and promote the Alps.
- Building a belief. What makes influencers appealing is that they hold on to and believe in what their followers are happy to believe in and become belief leaders.
- Telling a story. If there is a good enough story, then the story will become a topic to spread before the followers, which is conducive to the spontaneous spread of influencers. Because the influencer is like brand communication, it is not necessarily the advertising that really contributes to the spread, but the word of mouth among users or followers. So our story was this: it is not just the experience of each member that attracts people, but also the unique way of life in the Alps of a group of extreme sports enthusiasts 10 thousand kilometres away from home.
- Creating up-to-date content. Since 2018, there has been a window of opportunity for the Chinese government to develop skiing and outdoor sports, with more and more Chinese people seeing skiing as a popular sport and the major French ski resorts wanting to use this opportunity to promote themselves. We have taken on our first non-advertising project: ‘Alpine 36’. Through visits to 36 different snow resorts in the Alpine region and in different seasons, we showed our followers a diverse and comprehensive Alpine also the many possibilities for fun. This is why it was also supported by the major Alpine snow resorts and tourist offices.
- A common enemy. The enemy here is not an individual. For example, our team was hostile to “negative lifestyles” and promoted the idea that “life is short, enjoy it in time”.
- A ritual. Reducing the distance between influencers and followers, and giving them a sense of involvement. For example, a T-shirt with a special design, an event held offline, etc.
While our team was gaining more and more attention in Europe, it was also making waves in the Chinese extreme scene, as the CCTV-9 “Extreme Players” team collaborated with us to follow our new and free extreme life in the Alps. The documentary, entitled “The 90s extreme sports team in the Alps”, was broadcast in January 2019.
As result, our team has also taken on a number of promotional projects. A promotional film was shot for Villages Nature Paris, the largest eco-tourism resort in Europe. From our initial explorations in 2018, all the way to today, the main team member has close to 1.5 million Chinese social media followers. He has advertised for Air Asia and others, held talks for Ermenegildo Zegna as an opinion leader, and his pictures have appeared in Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire…
The influencer economy is complex, and the Covid-19 pandemic has killed off many influencers, while at the same time fostering the growth of many of them.
The recession stands to remake the industry and in some ways force it to grow up. For influencers, massive followings alone won’t guarantee security. Those who can’t connect with their followers or prove their value to brands may find that their place in the industry grows precarious. Even influencers who can demonstrate that value will have to remain adaptive to a rapidly changing world.
Do you want a try?
About this article
This article has been written by a student on the Grenoble Ecole de Management’s Advanced Masters in Digital Strategy Management. As part of a content creation assignment, students are given the task of writing articles based on their digital interests and disseminate the articles online. Articles are marked but we make minimal changes to the content. Thanks for reading! James Barisic, Programme Director, MS DSM.
