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Instagram influencers: Have we stopped believing?

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Re: Instagram influencers: Have we stopped believing?

#11
post #5

There was a shop that said to influencers they could get a discount only after 30 people used their specific influencer promo code. None of them did (or could do) it. It’s highly ineffective and for the most part it’s just some entitled person with an inflated ego demanding freebies. Madness to think businesses can really believe they are of any real substance or significance. Instagram more and more has become a ces…

I hesitate to defend a Facebook property, but here goes anyway... My Instagram feed is 100% welding, machining and a small smattering of woodworking. Literally any project I post gets universally positive feedback, with the occasional constructive suggestion. If I ask for help on a project, I get advice in at most a few hours from someone with 40 years more experience than I have. Contrast this to the forum community…

Completely agree. I do however think the way the instagram app works you are guided down a path littered with product sales pages, advertising and general mundane materialism. I think at its core this culture is good for their business model.

Re: Instagram influencers: Have we stopped believing?

#12
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hesitate to defend a Facebook property, but here goes anyway... My Instagram feed is 100% welding, machining and a small smattering of woodworking. Literally any project I post gets universally positive feedback, with the occasional constructive suggestion. If I ask for help on a project, I get advice in at most a few hours from someone with 40 years more experience than I have. Contrast this to the forum community…

Completely agree. I do however think the way the instagram app works you are guided down a path littered with product sales pages, advertising and general mundane materialism. I think at its core this culture is good for their business model.

Without hawking other items, they’re mostly just making instagram money. I’m not saying it’s good, but the it’s the expected behavior for this incentive structure.

Re: Instagram influencers: Have we stopped believing?

#13

Just a mirror for the attention craving 24h breaking news cycle society where the biggest fear for most teenagers and adults is irrelevance and being normal.

Yet, most of them are pretty scared to actually do something not normal.

It is mostly about looking interesting and individual, not beeing individual.

Re: Instagram influencers: Have we stopped believing?

#15
post #5

There was a shop that said to influencers they could get a discount only after 30 people used their specific influencer promo code. None of them did (or could do) it. It’s highly ineffective and for the most part it’s just some entitled person with an inflated ego demanding freebies. Madness to think businesses can really believe they are of any real substance or significance. Instagram more and more has become a ces…

I hesitate to defend a Facebook property, but here goes anyway... My Instagram feed is 100% welding, machining and a small smattering of woodworking. Literally any project I post gets universally positive feedback, with the occasional constructive suggestion. If I ask for help on a project, I get advice in at most a few hours from someone with 40 years more experience than I have. Contrast this to the forum community…

Same here. I only follow woodworkers and immediately unfollow anyone who gets outside the line of what i want in my feed. It has allowed me to find interesting niches in the hobby and connect with people with 10x the skill who like teaching and talking about technique, but it takes a pretty brutal type of curating to keep the influencers & garbage out.

Re: Instagram influencers: Have we stopped believing?

#16
post #5

There was a shop that said to influencers they could get a discount only after 30 people used their specific influencer promo code. None of them did (or could do) it. It’s highly ineffective and for the most part it’s just some entitled person with an inflated ego demanding freebies. Madness to think businesses can really believe they are of any real substance or significance. Instagram more and more has become a ces…

>used their specific influencer promo code.

This is like the difference between old web advertising pay per click and new web advertising pay per impression. Getting someone to use a code is an order of magnitude harder to get than a click through.

If you think you are going to get more than just an impression, you're delusional. And most impressions are fake.

Re: Instagram influencers: Have we stopped believing?

#17
The whole Instagram influencer phenomenon can be obnoxious and sometimes kind of sad... but it's been a kind of godsend to athletes from niche sports that can gather a sizable Instagram audience but make very little money. And the main athletes I have in mind are figure skaters. Even if they win Olympics or the World Championships they can't make much money. But they can gather a sizable Instagram audience which make them attractive to brands. I'm sure this applies to a lot of Olympic sports where fame is fleeting.

Re: Instagram influencers: Have we stopped believing?

#18
post #5

There was a shop that said to influencers they could get a discount only after 30 people used their specific influencer promo code. None of them did (or could do) it. It’s highly ineffective and for the most part it’s just some entitled person with an inflated ego demanding freebies. Madness to think businesses can really believe they are of any real substance or significance. Instagram more and more has become a ces…

Even worse are the kid influencers on YouTube. Kids advertising to other kids. And parents trying to turn their own kids into influencers.

The whole thing is just gross.

Re: Instagram influencers: Have we stopped believing?

#19
> Influencers also get a harder time than celebrities in terms of their credibility, Ms Tasker says.

> "I think there's an unfair sense that influencers have no talent beyond content creation, so we hold them to much higher standards in their work.

> "In my experience, celebs are far worse for disclosing brand partnerships and misleading audiences, but aren't held to account by their followers in the same way."

I just realized that this has always been the basis of my inability to understand why 'influencers' are even a thing.

It's like deciding to buy a car based on which car show model is most appealing, and then making other decisions based on which brand of water they drink or which bandages they use to cover their scraped knee after they've fallen down while jogging. Seriously, what other talent is involved? And why would I make a decision based on that?

As for celebrities, at least some of them have some level of skill in acting or music or sports. I guess this is just the disruption of the celebrity print magazine market, like People or Tiger Beat.

Re: Instagram influencers: Have we stopped believing?

#20
post #5

There was a shop that said to influencers they could get a discount only after 30 people used their specific influencer promo code. None of them did (or could do) it. It’s highly ineffective and for the most part it’s just some entitled person with an inflated ego demanding freebies. Madness to think businesses can really believe they are of any real substance or significance. Instagram more and more has become a ces…

I hesitate to defend a Facebook property, but here goes anyway... My Instagram feed is 100% welding, machining and a small smattering of woodworking. Literally any project I post gets universally positive feedback, with the occasional constructive suggestion. If I ask for help on a project, I get advice in at most a few hours from someone with 40 years more experience than I have. Contrast this to the forum community…

What's your ig account so i can see what you follow? (presumebly not being privatE)
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