intro to influencers

 1) What years did YouTube, Twitter and Instagram launch?

Youtube-2005

Twitter-2006

Instagram-2010

2) What is the definition of an influencer?

A person with the ability to influence buyers of a product or a service by promoting or reccomending items on social media or a person that influences another

3) Give an example of an influencer and how many followers they have. Try and add some additional information, brand associations or other statistics if you can.

Kylie Jenner-223 million followers on instagram and can earn up to $1 million per post.

4) How big is the influencer industry according to the article?

It is very big and earned $8 billion in 2019

5) What are the problems associated with being an influencer?

Influences may pay for followers so brands endorse them, and negotiating payment.

6) Why is it suggested that audiences actually like being sold products by influencers?

Its a sign of success and I think that audiences like seeing products reccomended to them as it makes them trust the product more

7) What representation of beauty is often found on Instagram or other influencer sites?

young, clear face, big lips, high cheekbones. 

8) What is YOUR opinion on influencers? Are they a positive or negative influence on our society and culture? Why?

I think that influencers are important as they provide entertainment and often audiences build personal relationships with them. Although some things influencers do many be fake and constructed it can make the audience want to lead a better life and be inspired. On the other hand the fakeness and not being able to tell what is real or edited can have a negative impact on mental health for example people comparing their lives to the fake lives of influencers. Influencers might also promote products that can better audiences lives but they may also promote products that they dont know much about or that are unsafe for money.

Grade 8/9 extension tasks

Read this Forbes article on how covid and TikTok have changed the influencer market in the last couple of years. What does this tell us about society and media culture - are we becoming more creative and independent or is this just another way to sell more products to more people?

I think tiktok has made becomming an influencer more accesable to people and lets people become famous for anything. It allows people to have full creative control over whatever they post and they dont have to adhere to any norms