Navigating The Influencer Landscape by Lucia Given and Sarah Maletta
For LEAP II, we decided to explore influencers and their trustworthiness or lack thereof, when it comes to product recommendation and lifestyle choices that they are promoting. Influencers are essentially paid to market products, and we both felt like the trustworthiness and reliability of influencers is important for them to successfully fill this role. We immediately agreed that influencers have a lot of power, and we actually found a source that showed that their ability to sell products was seen by the public as more influential than the actual brands who create the products. Influencers have the power to sway consumer decisions, so their reliability is crucial. Influencers who are seen as reliable are more likely to produce credible content and are more likely to maintain authority and authenticity in the eyes of their consumers. Influencers who are known to promote products that are known to be poor are likely going to seem less credible to their audience and will probably get less revenue from their brand deals. Due to this, an unreliable influencer will likely be a far less successful and popular influencer in the long run.
This project was a collaborative effort and required us to work with one other classmate. In deciding the topic and then coming up with the form of media we’d be creating, we found that having a partner to figure these details out with made the process far more achievable. We came to the decision that we’d be discussing influencers in the form of a podcast, as it seemed like a great way to have an open discussion while still answering the important questions. We both figured that in order to have a successful podcast, we would need to come up with at least a rough outline of a script to keep us on track and to make sure that we got through all the questions we needed to answer. Although at first the idea of a podcast in which we had to discuss our topics and answer questions for the entire 8–12 minute window required did seem slightly daunting, the process of recording ended up being nearly seamless, as both of us were able to contribute lots of ideas and voice our thoughts on each topic we went over. We actually ended up running over the time limit because we had so many different topics that we felt we needed to cover. We decided that it would be easiest to meet in person, despite this being an asynchronous course, for the sake of recording the podcast and coming up with the script. Once we met in person and began the project and prepping for the podcast, dividing the work proved to be relatively simple for us, and we each took care of different aspects of creating our rough script. We found that in discussing influencers we trusted and which we didn’t, we had pretty similar views. We both agreed that Alix Earle was a fairly trustworthy and authentic influencer, and that Michaela Nogueria was not. We each suggested ideas for which influencers to include anecdotes about, and which scandals we should cover in discussing certain disgraced influencers. The outline of the script, which included each topic we had decided to discuss and the order in which we would discuss them, turned out to be an extremely helpful tool.
We think that collaboration turned out to be the key to a creative, well-thought-out, and thorough breakdown of influencers and whether they are always to be trusted. Moreover, working in pairs promotes accountability. Each partner in this project felt a sense of responsibility towards the other, motivating each other to contribute actively and stay committed to the task at hand. We found that this shared responsibility not only improves the quality of work, but gives a sense of accomplishment, as the success of the project is a joint achievement. Ultimately, the power of pairs lies in the synergy created, leading to enhanced creativity, a wealth of ideas, and successful collaboration and partnership. We also found that brainstorming with a partner helped with creativity and unique ideas that we may not have found individually.
Overall, we both found this project to have its challenges, such as getting the ball rolling when it was first assigned. We also had to get over the first awkward introductions before being able to work together properly, along with finding a meeting time and location that worked for both of us. However, it was a really enjoyable project once we were able to dive into the content, find sources, and create an interesting way of relaying the information that we researched and found.
Works Cited
The alix earle scholarship: Miami Herbert Business School: University of Miami. Miami Herbert Business School | University of Miami. (n.d.). https://www.herbert.miami.edu/undergraduate/alix-earle-scholarship.html
Bluestone, G. (2023, July 13). James Charles Would Like to Be Un-Canceled, Please. Cosmopolitan. https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/celebs/a44535376/james-charles-interview-2023/
Cambridge University. (2024). Influencer | definition in the Cambridge english dictionary. Cambridge Dictionary. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/influencer
Chugh, S. (2023, October 27). What is Social Media influencers’ impact on society? do they matter? Emeritus Online Courses. https://emeritus.org/blog/social-media-influencers-impact-on-society/
Deyo, J. (2023, February 23). 81% of consumers embraced influencer marketing in the past year, study finds. Marketing Dive. https://www.marketingdive.com/news/influencer-marketing-success-matter-study-2023/643310/#:~:text=As%20consumer%20interest%20in%20authentic,coming%20directly%20from%20a%20brand.
Diaz, A. (2023, January 13). Alix Earle has nearly 6m TikTok followers. she reveals her one piece of advice for Success. TODAY.com. https://www.today.com/popculture/who-is-alix-earle-rcna65669
Suciu, P. (2021, December 10). Can we trust social media influencers?. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/petersuciu/2019/12/20/can-we-trust-social-media-influencers/?sh=6a62cdca63e8
Weekman, K. (2023, January 27). People are so worked up about Mikayla Nogueira’s mascara scandal that even Jeffree star is getting involved. BuzzFeed News. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kelseyweekman/mikayla-nogueira-mascara-beauty-influencer-drama
