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Luxury hotels are being inundated with requests from self-described influencers

theatlantic.com

171–180 of 278 posts

Re: Luxury hotels are being inundated with requests from self-described influencers

#171

Maybe I could become a chip industry influencer. Especially if I could wear a suitably chic factory floor bunny suit.

#metrology is awesome! #quadruplepatterning #FinFETastic!

I'm really happy that I don't work on consumer products.

Re: Luxury hotels are being inundated with requests from self-described influencers

#172
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think you vastly underestimate "influencers". Just replace that term with advertisers I think you are wrong, they are more rock stars or sports celebrities.

Both rock stars and sports stars have some underlying talent/reason that they have fans. What makes these “influencers” so influential? I think this is finally my “I’m getting too old” moment.

Influencers are like second-rate Kardashians: famous for being famous.

I have a relative doing something with restaurants. Made some iOS app/ website and put pictures, 1-2 line reviews there and on sites like FB, instagram etc. With about couple of months of effort, he was able to mooch off 1000s of restaurant meals along with dozen of friends and family members. His total vocabulary about food is 'amazing', 'awesome', 'tasty', 'yummy' when using with spellcheck of course.

Re: Luxury hotels are being inundated with requests from self-described influencers

#173
post #170

I use Instagram and other social media. But I just don't get how this works. Perhaps someone can give me and others an overview. I only see the posts from my friends, so how would posts from these "influencers" influence me or other's like me? Why would I follow some random person I don't even know? Really, I'm looking for some enlightenment here. I assume that I'm not the only one.

I'm in the same boat, but what I've found from talking with many people is that they use Instagram to discover places and get an inside look, with what they see on Instagram determining whether they go or not. This leads to reviews on Google like "they run a really good Instagram, but things don't measure up in-person" (I saw this exact review the other day).

Sounds like they just learned a good lesson about not trusting marketing. ;)

Re: Luxury hotels are being inundated with requests from self-described influencers

#174
post #170

I use Instagram and other social media. But I just don't get how this works. Perhaps someone can give me and others an overview. I only see the posts from my friends, so how would posts from these "influencers" influence me or other's like me? Why would I follow some random person I don't even know? Really, I'm looking for some enlightenment here. I assume that I'm not the only one.

I'm in the same boat, but what I've found from talking with many people is that they use Instagram to discover places and get an inside look, with what they see on Instagram determining whether they go or not. This leads to reviews on Google like "they run a really good Instagram, but things don't measure up in-person" (I saw this exact review the other day).

Ha. I just checked into a Marriott about an hour ago.

In the lobby, there was a giant touchscreen and one of the icons was "social media".

I tapped it, and it said "Our Instagram account is currently offline."

Re: Luxury hotels are being inundated with requests from self-described influencers

#175
post #17

I just want to know who the heck takes recommendations of 'influencers' seriously? Gullible teens with no money?

I mean... It happens within the software industry quite frequently. Look at Ryan Florence, the guy who thinks Github should remove "issues". He's revered like a god to some.

Or Mike Church, or Uncle Bob... pretty common, actually.

Re: Luxury hotels are being inundated with requests from self-described influencers

#176
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, completely off topic. I can't believe your username was available up until 2016, kinda jealous.

When I picked this one there were quite a few more 2 digit usernames available. I didn't even write a script, looked for them manually. Go grab em everyone :)

The one I wanted is gone ;)

Re: Luxury hotels are being inundated with requests from self-described influencers

#177
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, you are looking for a place to stay, who do you trust? The owners website, a booking website with a million properties? Or someone you know online, like their work, and recommend only a few places? You have to trust someone.

> Or someone you know online Following someone, and knowing them are different things. > like their work Which often is "selfies in different places" > and recommend only a few places? That they convinced to let them stay, visit, or eat for free...

All of those things are really subjective. A selfie is just a photo of the subject in situ, and it's often more genuine than stock/provided shots used in travel marketing.

Consider also that the alternatives are heeding the hotel itself or a booking engine or a travel agent. As was said, if you're going to be influenced by someone, why wouldn't it be someone whose veneer of life you'd at least tangentially followed, someone who might typically have similar interests to you (surfing, outdoors, fine dining, etc). It might be an imperfect filter of the products being offered, but at least there's a non-zero chance that they rejected poor offers or didn't write enthusiastically about the ones they didn't love.

I think it's short sighted to write off some of this.

Re: Luxury hotels are being inundated with requests from self-described influencers

#178

Sounds to me like this is a big opportunity for an intermediary to connect useful social media influencers with various brands.

https://fohr.co does this and is probably one of the first to do so (they started in ~2014, I think).

Re: Luxury hotels are being inundated with requests from self-described influencers

#179

"Influencer". From browsing the influencers in the article, the formula appears to be a) expensive clothes b) expensive hotels c) trailing photographer, d) regurgitation of corny "I am so cool" lines like "It takes cool people to do epic shit", "No one here gives a fuck". Do you think we could design an AI, maybe GANs and caption generation, to generate influencers like these? The hotels could pay the AI makers to us…

I think using AI itself sound tech influencer trend. This can be a customized old-school bullshit generator e.g.

http://www.bullshitgenerator.com/

Re: Luxury hotels are being inundated with requests from self-described influencers

#180

I use Instagram and other social media. But I just don't get how this works. Perhaps someone can give me and others an overview. I only see the posts from my friends, so how would posts from these "influencers" influence me or other's like me? Why would I follow some random person I don't even know? Really, I'm looking for some enlightenment here. I assume that I'm not the only one.

Many people browse the Explore tab more than their home feed. Even if they don't follow these people, they still may see the post and even without "liking" it it will up the posts "impressions" (business accounts can see these stats). Brands buy ads for exactly this reason. Influencers are the same.
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