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

theatlantic.com

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

#201

Post by ufmace »

jrnichols wrote: post #76
United857 wrote: post #67

Every reputable travel publication/blog I know of have strict editorial policies against accepting freebies/discounts/gifts in exchange for reviews/coverage. Those so-called "influencers" aren't really about serving their audience -- they strike me as just a scammy way to travel "for free".

The "influencers" reek of "I'm young, female, and attractive, and therefore i am worthy of attention and lavish gifts." Thing is, it works.

Apparently for many, it works in exactly the way you would think - see http://tagthesponsor.com/

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

#202

Post by forapurpose »

pessimizer wrote: post #91
forapurpose wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From another angle, I wonder why their readers trust the influencers when they are well-known to be bought and paid for.

Because the quality of the product or experience is irrelevant. The goal is to imitate the influencer, and to thereby also become someone who people want to imitate. If I can pattern myself 90% after someone that other people are imitating, those other people are virtually already 90% imitating me anyway, they just don't know it yet. If I can get them to remember my name, and a significant chunk to think that my 10%…

Very insightful; thanks.

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

#203

Post by toomanybeersies »

fraudsyndrome wrote: post #155
fredley wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is straight up Black Mirror (season 3, episode 1: Nosedive ) Obviously the whole point of that episode was to imagine Instagram in its darkest future, but it's scary how much of it is becoming real, and separately with the roll-out of social credit scores in China. Scary stuff. --- Hansen: So in terms of quality, you could use a punch up right there. Ideally, that's up votes from quality people. Lacie: Quality p…

> the roll-out of social credit scores in China The thing is, these all aren't enforced by governments, but through social media and organizations. The popular one sesame credit in China is from the Alibaba group, not the Chinese government. In the same vein, Instagram is it's own platform, people can determine how much they think "followers" are worth and businesses can use their own discretion to decide how much to…

Your credit score isn't enforced by the government either, but a poor score (for reasons that may be beyond your control) will still prevent you from getting loans or credit.

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

#204

Post by shostack »

mattbierner wrote: post #199
davidmurdoch wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still see influencer advertising in a better light than a brand's own ads. Influencers, especially the more popular ones, help inform consumers about a product/service/experience. The only thing an influencer has is their followers and most influencers really are careful to not advertise products that they don't believe in themselves.

I explicitly don’t trust influencers because all they have are their followers. They often have no credentials or real achievements or original thoughts, so why should I trust them? Especially given that their entire goal is to get people to follow and like them? I see this pattern a lot in coder twitter. The people with big follower counts that are always tweeting about their amazing coding and love of software deve…

Simply put, influencers who don't have credentials or achievements may not be the right influencers for your business.

Finding people who are well-respected in their space, actively create high-value content for their audiences, and can find ways to organically share a brands message are where the real value lies. Combined with trackable promotions, this can be very effective when executed properly.

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

#205

Post by tlrobinson »

21 wrote: post #34

I've seen something which I think is even more interesting. Second tier influencers (100k followers) paying expensive hotels and private plane trips of first tier influences (1 mil followers), so that they can appear on their feeds, and gain new followers.

Anna Delvrey tops them all, at least in ambition:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/my-misadventure-with...

TL;DR socialite of unknown authenticity (but definitely real confidence woman) scams a bank, luxury hotels and restaurants, private air charter company, and the author of that article out of several hundred thousand dollars. Did not get the $20M she was hoping for, though.

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

#206

Post by shostack »

Animats wrote: post #74
sorokod wrote: post #52

In "the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy" there is a story about a society that shipped out all its useless members (hairdressers and telephone sanitizers) off planet. If Douglas Adams was writing the book now he may have replaced sanitizers with influencers.

In "the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy" there is a story about a society that shipped out all its useless members (hairdressers and telephone sanitizers) off planet. Stanford is doing that with their new Redwood City "campus", an office park five miles from the main campus. No professors. No students. No researchers. No labs. All administrators. "Stanford units that will have at least some employees at Stanford Red…

Genuine question--what would make this not embarrassing for you? Is it the separation from the main campus? How they are segmenting orgs?

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

#207

Post by drb91 »

mayniac wrote: post #141
jrnichols wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "influencers" reek of "I'm young, female, and attractive, and therefore i am worthy of attention and lavish gifts." Thing is, it works.

To be fair on them, despite what their instagrams show it is a lot of work. My girlfriend follows Alexis Ren and showed me her workout routine, it's easily 3 hours a day. Which combined with reaching out to brands, dealing with advertisers, scheduling, photoshoots etc I could easily see it being a full time job. Plus the constant dieting on top of all that which I can't remember the details of, but I know is hugely r…

It seems a lot like managing your own modeling and PR business. I am not by any means saying that all influencers are attractive (or that it’s the source of their popularity when they are!) but the line between being an influencer and an “instagram model” seems very wide and grey.

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

#208

Post by razzimatazz »

duckduckno wrote: post #186

What hypothetical scenario do you guys think could possibly result in the termination of this trend? I think it would be interesting to figure out what could cause social media to die out in the future.

I can think of two directions we could go from where we are - perhaps Authorative Media: a return to the government telling us everything we need to know? Very dark, but a "government influencer" could still work..

And perhaps more positive - Truthful Media: Information generated by people, in the 'open source' way that you can fully trust. Hard to believe, but almost necessary. A blockchain of real information sources and trusted information processors (aka influencers), who give opinions that can be traced back to facts.

I think that perhaps glamour and fantasy will always win out - reality is boring and human nature wont get us to choose facts when fantasy gets our attention much more

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

#209

Post by ascorbic »

xapata wrote: post #39
Rjevski wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thoughts exactly. It seems to me that the target market of these “influencers” is teens with little to no money that spend hours looking at these “influencers” exactly because these pictures are as close as they’re gonna get to that luxury lifestyle. People who can actually afford this will just go on holidays by themselves with no thoughts about the “influencers” whatsoever, also because by the time you can affor…

Apparently the advertisers buying space in FT's "How to spend it" issues think at least someone cares.

While most readers of the FT wouldn't drop six figures on a watch, the people who would spend that are more likely to be FT readers than most, so it's the right place to reach them.

As for Instagram influencers: who are the people staying in these hotels? Sure, a lot of them are likely to be the sort who read the FT or the Economist, but a good chunk of them are going to be honeymooners, for example, who I'd imagine are exactly the sort who would look to Instagram for ideas. Likewise there are obviously people in their 20s who could afford to stay in these places, and not all of them spend their time on HN. I'd guess Instagram is as good a place as any to reach them.

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

#210

Post by mandelbrotwurst »

mattigames wrote: post #158
fraudsyndrome wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the roll-out of social credit scores in China The thing is, these all aren't enforced by governments, but through social media and organizations. The popular one sesame credit in China is from the Alibaba group, not the Chinese government. In the same vein, Instagram is it's own platform, people can determine how much they think "followers" are worth and businesses can use their own discretion to decide how much to…

Except that if the "social "companies keep growing and merging eventually they will have more power than governments and if you are not signed up you may as well don't exist.

Are you sure? The government will still have its monopoly on force and power to tax.
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