Leave Influencers Alone
By Eliza Wilson
Apologies for the title reference to Chris Crocker’s 2007 YouTube hit ‘Leave Britney Alone.’ It probably has many of you triggered, but it has relevance to this article, I assure you. Influencer culture gains a lot of media attention. Recently we’ve seen Instafamous influencers come under scrutiny for sharing their contradictory behaviours and messages on Instagram. It can be confusing at times for their following, especially when followers are left unsure of what behaviours they should be engaging in.
I personally follow an array of Instagram influencers. I find them useful in keeping up with trends and products. However, it is easy to recognise the clear distinction between some of their behaviours and the lifestyles and brands that they promote. Unlike some, this isn’t something that bothers me.
As a public health student I came across an article last year about the “Girls make your move” campaign. In this campaign, the Australian Department of Health was using Instagram influencers to help promote its public health message. Basically, the campaign was about encouraging girls to get out and be active. Though, like always, critics started to hit back about the content from the influencers that were used in this campaign. People were scrolling back to these influencers old content, in which they would pose for pictures and engage in drinking and partying. Critics believed that these influencers were sending contradictory messages to their following about this healthy lifestyle campaign.
A similar controversy caught the attention of media outlets last year when fitness guru and influencer Tammy Hembrow collapsed at Kylie Jenner’s birthday party. Hembrow, who is well known for promoting a healthy lifestyle attended Jenner’s party and reportedly collapsed after drinking too much. She later revealed that the collapse was due to exhaustion and jet lag, while also stating that she probably should not have been drinking in her state. This also sparked a similar media frenzy about whether she too was sending mixed messages to her following about her ‘healthy lifestyle.’
These cases beg the question: should influencers be judged so harshly when their personal lives merge and interfere with businesses and lifestyles they promote? Or, is it up to marketers to choose the right fit for their brand?
Media scholar Crystal Abidin identifies influencers as micro-celebrities who “attract and maintain a sizeable following… through highly engaging and personalised content…” They are used in mainstream social media as a form of marketing for businesses and brands.
For many influencers, this form of promotion has garnered new modes of work life and social movements. According to Abindin this is a result of the ever changing approaches to culture, society and economies. Perhaps these changes can make it difficult for people to keep up with the messages that influencers are sharing on their social media accounts. For many influencers, this is problematic. It is proving difficult for them to balance working for companies to promote their messages, while trying to remain authentic and as ‘human’ as possible for their following.
Authenticity is an important factor to maintain for many social media influencers. Just like celebrities, influencers garner a sizeable following. As Khamis, Ang and Welling explain in the Journal of Celebrity Studies, influencers benefit from having to maintain a public image.
When the public image that these micro-celebrities becomes compromised due to lack of alignment with brands that don’t fit their public image, they can understandably become unreliable. Khamis, Ang and Welling also explain in their journal article that a major factor of influencer authenticity relates to how ‘real’ their narrative is for their audience. It is also dependent on how ‘real’ their branding is. These factors are in relation to how they are perceived by their audience.
Basically, in their article the researchers say that influencer authenticity in the hands of the influencers themselves. Influencers, or micro-celebrities as they often get referred to should know who their audience are and how they will perceive their public image.
While it may be easy to judge influencers for behaviours that they engage in, companies using these micro-celebrities should take responsibility as well. According to a paper by Shan Yan, the credibility of an influencer relates to their trustworthiness and the way they are able to share familiarity with the brand they endorse. Ultimately, brands seek out influencers who they believe will best represent their image.
A lot of the time influencers get paid or receive free products to endorse brands that reach out to them. Brand judgement is influential for choosing people who they think can best do that based on the following and influence they have across their social media accounts. On the contrary, it is not always the brands who seek out particular influencers. During my experience as a marketing intern, the brand that I was working with received many enquiries from influencers themselves wanting to collaborate with them. During this time the company would have to evaluate the social media account of the influencer and determine if they were the best fit to collaborate with.
Influencers have to maintain their personal and professional lives across their platforms to the best of their ability. Sometimes messages can become confusing for their following. Whilst it is important for them to be responsible for maintaining their authenticity through their personal image, I believe that people should be less critical towards what can be conflicting content on their socials. Instead of ultimately putting the blame on them with regard to their image, perhaps brands should look more closely into who they choose to represent them.
