An influencer is anyone with influence. So anyone with a good following can be identified as an influencer, as long as they are cashing in on it. Influencer marketing is huge. This is because people value the power of word-of-mouth. What this means is that people respect the opinions of others and are more prone to listen to their opinions and base their decision to buy a product or service on that.

 

The Power of Influencers

The power of influencer marketing is seen more on social media. An influencer endorses a product by telling his or her followers that the product is good or that they like the product a lot. This encourages their followers to go for the product, or to at least consider it.

 

 

 

Influencer Marketing

I’ve been hearing a lot of talk going around about the term – influencer marketing. Some believe that being paid to use your influencer status to influence your readers means that you are probably telling white lies about a product just because there is money involved. Others believe that there are honest influencers who only choose to use their influencer status to promote products that they believe in.

Building a committed readership takes a lot of work. It has taken me 5 years to get Fashion and Style Police to where it is today. I remember the long hours I put in to make sure that my blog was in front of as many readers as possible. Although it’s a little easier today, as I have made a name for myself, but I still have to put in a lot effort to keep the clicks coming.

 

Blogging and Influencing

Blogging is not just writing words for people to read or posting photos for people to see. It’s about building trust in the heart of your readers. And it takes a lot of time and effort to build that trust. Your readers trust what you share on your blog. You can imagine how they will feel if they found out that everything you wrote on your blog post was biased because you were paid to talk about a product or service.

Some of these influencer/bloggers have a way of separating content that was paid for from posts that were not. Such bloggers mark such posts as ‘Collaborative Posts’. But then again, how can you be sure that there aren’t hidden promoted posts that were not marked or disclosed?

The fate of such bloggers is a bit shaky there. There are some readers who don’t really mind such posts but there are some readers who really do mind them. If you’re a regular reader of blogs like me then you will definitely understand the sensitivity here.

 

 

Going Forward

I believe every reader is entitled to know the truth. I always make I disclose on here when they has been a partnership of some sort with a brand. It makes life easier for everyone involved. I sleep better at night too!

We base a lot of our decisions about products and services from people who have tried them before. If the bloggers we rely on tell us half-truths because they were paid to write nice things about a product or service then we run the risk of being misled all our lives.

What do you think of influencer marketing in general? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below. If you enjoyed reading this post, please share on your social media platforms. Thanking you.