From Internet Celebrities to influencers
With uproar of Internet celebrities they have cultivated an elite economic group that has turned their digital fame into a self-brand that resulted in a business. This is done by sustaining a sizeable audience through engaging personalised content. Influencers have a history from the mid-2000’s where young women were self modelling and selling used clothing on blog platforms. After blogshops started gaining a larger following, they then were able to make their own independent labels and exclusive designs. By the mid-2010s, several of these blogshops-turned-fashion retailers expanded into brick-and-mortar shops by first renting racks at aggregate fashion stores, running pop-up shops, renting large warehouses to double up as office spaces and fashion stores, and later leasing dedicated storefronts for their fashion lines. If your weren’t signed there were 3 categories, Influencers who were so in-demand and were able to negotiate (no brokers payment). Second category influencers who received free makeup for product reviews. Third category of influencers consists of up and coming influencers who haven’t generated a sustainable following yet. Most influencers make 2,000- 5,000 a month. Influencers are the outcome of the booming online industry we now have, it shows the “enduring power of internet celebrities to occupy space on the highly saturated internet, establish meaningful relationships with followers, and demonstrate the impact of young people’s creativity and innovation in digital spaces.
Has Fyre Festival burned influencers? They say that “Fyer was basically like Instagram coming to life”. The organisers had 10 of the worlds top supermodels sharing gorgeous promotional pictures and videos of themselves partying on an luxurious island to appeal to influencers. Kendall Jenner was paid $250,000 dollars for a post and a promise to her followers to get a discount. Many influencers were keen to document their experiences for free accommodation. However just like instagram the festival turned out completely different. The event never took place. The organiser, Billy McFarland, is now in prison for fraud.’ Even though the festival costed thousands of dollars for a ticket the event sold out, “its just shows how powerful influencers can be,”- Rhan Midha, managing director of the PMYB influencer agency. Werner Geyser found that “If anything [the Fyre Festival documentary] was showing utilising influencer marketing was part of its success in terms of marketing the event.” The number of Instagram posts using popular hashtags to denote advertising or promotion has risen from 1.1 million in 2016 to 3.1 million in 2018. They predict there will be 4.4 million officially promoted posts in 2019. The average return on investment in 2018 was $5.20 for every dollar spent on influencer marketing, according to a study of 2,000 campaigns. Instagram is the most popular platform for influencer campaigns, followed by Facebook and YouTube. The influencer market size has grown from $1.7bn in 2016 to $4.6bn in 2018 and is forecast to hit $6.5bn in 2019. This festival shows how instrumental influencers can be in marketing a product or event and can benefit many many companies.
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