Instagram influencers: Have we stopped believing? • Hacker News Board

Re: Instagram influencers: Have we stopped believing?

#71

Post by TeMPOraL » Sun, Aug 25, 2019, 9:34 PM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #52

wcunning wrote: post #10

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…

Exactly....the problem is not Instagram, the problem is what our culture has become. Our technology has helped accelerate that, but it isn't the root cause.

Indeed. Instagram was (is) just a place where people congregate on-line, with particular focus on the visual aspect. It's marketing that infected it, just like it does everything in our lives. If Instagram is to be blamed, it can only be blamed for not fighting back. Unfortunately, it's in their interest for this infection to take hold.

Re: Instagram influencers: Have we stopped believing?

#72

Post by TeMPOraL » Sun, Aug 25, 2019, 9:38 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #26

hiven wrote: 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…

> It’s highly ineffective Other than a click through and sale, it's hard for any advertising to prove effectiveness. Yet, there are still ads on TV and the radio. For many brands, small influencers are a cheap way (some free product and maybe some money) to keep product in front of people when thought of in aggregate.

> Other than a click through and sale, it's hard for any advertising to prove effectiveness.

Advertising industry has a vested interest in keeping things this way, and only maintain perception of effectiveness to milk customers.

Re: Instagram influencers: Have we stopped believing?

#73

Post by JasonFruit » Sun, Aug 25, 2019, 10:23 PM UTC

HNLurker2 wrote: post #22

Reedx wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

you mean parents forcefully making their children prodigies in teenis, chess etc. is bad? same goes with youtubers

Tennis, chess, violin, singing — these are at least skills that may be valuable later in life. "Instagram influencer" is a net negative for the kid's future. But, yes, I'd say parents making their children excel at anything by force are doing it wrong, and not setting them up for lifelong satisfaction.

Re: Instagram influencers: Have we stopped believing?

#74

Post by mancerayder » Sun, Aug 25, 2019, 11:05 PM UTC

I believe a huge fraction of Tinder profiles are in fact Instagram models attempting to attract followers so they can become influencers. I bet if you use a bot w/ their API and change your location around, say "I'm never on here, lol, IG me at __, lol " -- and you look like a model -- then you can gain hundreds, or perhaps thousands of followers easily.

Re: Instagram influencers: Have we stopped believing?

#75

Post by siruncledrew » Sun, Aug 25, 2019, 11:24 PM UTC

dumbfoundded wrote: post #61

goblin89 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would almost completely ignore follower count, it’s more of a red flag than anything. Blue checkmarks are similarly useless. If you are enticed by the supposed reach, perhaps the quickest first pass at validation would be to review the nature of interactions in comments and cross-check other networks they participate in. It may help to pick someone popular in your field whose reputation you would not question, and…

^ 100% this. I bootstrapped my business through Instagram influencers. You have to be extremely targetted around the audience. When judging if an influencer is worth working with, figure out who their audience is and the nature of that interaction. For example, Imagine I sell an awesome new cat toy for helping shy cats be more social. I don't want to find the cat pages with millions of followers. I want to find the c…

What cat toy do you sell? I have a cat, and would check it out.

Re: Instagram influencers: Have we stopped believing?

#76

Post by lowdose » Sun, Aug 25, 2019, 11:37 PM UTC

hiven wrote: 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…

For the most part you are right. But isn't this the normal outcome of a successful business model eventually attracting many imposters because they hear about pros making money.

Companies like Traackr offer saas services to analyze the social graph to make a massive impact with 30 real influencers. This service starts at $30k and they delivered for watch brands and telcos primetime media exposure to millions of potential customers without directly advertising.

If so many people are doing something it probably means some of them are actually making a ton of cash.

https://www.traackr.com/

Re: Instagram influencers: Have we stopped believing?

#77

Post by asdff » Mon, Aug 26, 2019, 2:03 AM UTC

hiven wrote: post #11

wcunning wrote: post #10

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.

Somehow I've grown blind to the ads on instagram. I know they are there, if I actively look for them I will find them, but if I close my eyes cannot picture the contents of any ad I've seen lately on on Instagram.

When I scroll through the feed it's like I've subconsciously trained myself to immediately scroll past and ignore sponsored posts, and immediately click past sponsored stories. I can't be the only one in this boat.

Re: Instagram influencers: Have we stopped believing?

#78

Post by asdff » Mon, Aug 26, 2019, 2:12 AM UTC

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #24

wcunning wrote: post #10

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…

I want to use Instagram as you describe but only if I could remove the like button. Its existence makes it feel like I’m pandering for likes about anything I post so I just uninstall the app. I want to share things with people with nothing expected in return.

Snapchat fills that role for me. Just fleeting moments or interesting things from the day to day. The impermanence is refreshing.

With pictures posted on social media, I came to realize that I had a certain audience in mind with each post. If I posted a picture of me hiking, I want my hiking friends to see it. So instead of dragging everyone else through my life, I just text my hiking pics to my hiking friends and get a lot more genuine and direct communication as a result.

Re: Instagram influencers: Have we stopped believing?

#79

Post by asdff » Mon, Aug 26, 2019, 2:16 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #72

matwood wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s highly ineffective Other than a click through and sale, it's hard for any advertising to prove effectiveness. Yet, there are still ads on TV and the radio. For many brands, small influencers are a cheap way (some free product and maybe some money) to keep product in front of people when thought of in aggregate.

> Other than a click through and sale, it's hard for any advertising to prove effectiveness. Advertising industry has a vested interest in keeping things this way, and only maintain perception of effectiveness to milk customers.

Then what happens when competing ad agency calls up your client and explains how bullshit your metrics are? Advertisers compete more than they collude, we don't have a cartel (yet).

Re: Instagram influencers: Have we stopped believing?

#80

Post by asdff » Mon, Aug 26, 2019, 2:25 AM UTC

thiscatis wrote: post #2

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.

Is it much different today than when we were ostracized as kids for not wearing abercrombie or having a razr? Teenagers have never not been materialistic and vain. They have nothing truly significant going on in their life to focus on yet, so they pick each other apart to stratify themselves.

At the reunion in 20 years, these people will be much more interested in who became the oncologist instead of who wore gucci slides in geometry and currently folds jeans at the gap.