The price of Insta-fame
Joel Mackenzie
Source: https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10104413015393571
Embroiled in recent data security controversies, Facebook’s most recent round of changes will prioritise the experience of its users over the company’s bottom line, but with Mark Zuckerberg, there’s always a catch, writes Joel Mackenzie.
Two billion monthly active users aside, the thing that makes Facebook and its network of platforms so attractive to marketers is its ad targeting capabilities. After years of usage, Facebook has a pretty good idea of who you are, what you like, who you like and where you go, and its advertisers have access to all of this information.
Skeptics will tell you Zuckerberg’s announcement – which, by his own admission, will inevitably see a reduction in time spent on the platform – is a blatant push for businesses to increase their ad spend on Facebook. Certainly, that’ll be a strategy some businesses will look to implement to combat changes, but could there be something more at play?
Image: Users on rival social media platform Twitter react to Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement.
More likely says Jimmy Kelly, SEEK’s Senior Marketing Executive, the algorithm changes will see a shift in power away from businesses and back toward users as marketers become increasingly reliant on social media influencers.
“These particular channels have evolved so quickly” says Kelly, “and they’re not particularly well regulated.”
“From a distribution point of view, businesses won’t be able to compete with what Facebook is doing for its users and so the power will really be with the influencers to be able to dictate what they think they’re worth.”
The flow on from that, says SEEK’s top social man, is the way the industry defines who and what makes a social media influencer as status as an influencer becomes increasingly accessible.
“We’ve gone from a very singular view of who an influencer is to a very broad spectrum of who they are depending on what brands actually need.
“People who aren’t famous in the conventional sense but might have one or two million followers on Instagram became the people you’d traditionally go to.”
“That’s now shifted to people that have 10,000 or 20,000 followers but can create good quality content, are more niche and more genuine.”
The concept of social influencers is not new, rather it has developed from traditional word of mouth marketing strategies.
As a tool, word of mouth is considered the most effective form of marketing. In fact, according to Nielsen, 84% of consumers trust recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising and, (despite recent negative press), with over 3 billion social media users worldwide, marketers have turned to influencer marketing as a kind of ‘word of mouth 2.0’.
No longer just a hobby, countless people are leveraging their influence in online communities into a bona fide way of making a living, and it’s certainly not going away.
“I don’t think it’s going anywhere” said Visit Victoria’s Global Media and Consumer Communications Manager Zoe Shurgold.
“There’s a lot of talent agents that have now got influencers as one of their arms that and helping them make a career out of it.”
“I feel like if it was a trend it would have kind of gone away by now, but it seems to be only increasing in people’s marketing budgets and certainly something we’re seriously looking at how much investment we put in this space.”
Whether we like it or not, influencers are here to stay.
“Everybody understands that brand campaigns and those obvious marketing tactics don’t really get cut through anymore” continued Shurgold, “influencers are really where it’s at in terms of having that big impact.”
Audio: Zoe Shurgold talks about the birth of digital influencers, click above to listen.
To be clear, in the realm of social media, Facebook has no equal and is rapidly establishing an online monopoly, particularly when it comes to media buying.
Competing companies are regularly acquired – 66 since 2007 to be exact – and even unsuccessful acquisitions are having their features replicated on Facebook and its related platforms – think Instagram’s introductions of stories, live video and filters after unsuccessful acquisition attempts of Snapchat in 2013.
But Facebook haven’t had it all their own way. A 2016 report from theinformation.com suggested that passive use of their platforms is on the increase as personal posts from users decline. In essence, users are posting less, meaning the social media giant is learning less about you and seriously threatening Facebook’s two primary money makers: its news feed and ad targeting capabilities.
Renee Narcis is a travel blogger with an Instagram following that’s not insignificant. She’s far from a full-time traveler (or blogger) and while she doesn’t consider herself an influencer, says she’s noticed a significant drop in the amount of content being posted by a number of prominent travel influencers.
“I’ve definitely noticed some of the people I like to follow have really dropped off with the amount they’ve been posting.”
“With travel especially, that lifestyle of constantly travelling would be hard to maintain as your priorities in life change.”
“They’re not 21 anymore and it might just be a case of them getting a little bit older and wanting to settle down or whatever it is.”
But as one travel influencer falls away, there’s ten waiting to take their spot.
“Oh, there’s new ones popping up all the time. Whether I go looking for them or they show up in my feed I’m finding new ones to follow all the time.”
So that poses the question – as influencer status becomes more and more achievable, are Facebook simply using status as an influencer as a carrot to encourage more user generated content, simply so their ad targeting systems can learn more about you?
If this is just a strategy it would be a significant behavioral change Facebook is looking to influence, but it wouldn’t be the first time – can you imagine trying to explain our social media habits to the 2004 version of yourself?
Maybe it’s not and Zuckerberg is genuine in his attempts for his platforms to create more meaningful interactions and better experiences for users. Maybe he’s sacrificing advertising dollars for the benefit of the people that have made him the fourth richest man on the planet. But when you’re answerable to the shareholders of a trillion-dollar company, maybe not.
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