Social media influencers have never been more popular. Social media influencers and creators host popular game shows and late night talk shows, write books, travel the world on tour, create award winning podcasts, start lifestyle brands, and collaborate with brands to sell their own products. They have amassed huge followings and have created a living and career by posting about their life on varied social media platforms. Companies have started to hire them to be brand ambassadors, showcase products throughout their social media accounts, invite them to events hosted by the brand, and sending them free gifts and samples.
Creating Brand Awareness
There are many steps that businesses can take to create brand awareness and social media has made it easier than ever. Brands want to be what is trending and what better way to do that than hiring the people that create the trends.
72% of major brands are setting aside large portion of their marketing budget for influencers. Sponsored content and promoted posts from influencers can help create buzz for a company’s product by reaching directly to current and potential customers (Lipshultz Ch. 4).
For example, companies Honey and Seatgeek often sponsor videos of popular Youtubers like David Dobrik and Shane Dawson. Many of the videos that companies can sponsor can reach millions of views therefore reaching millions of potential customers and getting their name out there.
Knowing Your Audience
One thing businesses must do when creating their marketing plan is figuring out who their ideal customer is. This is important in making social media followers into customers for the brand.
Working with an influencer whose followers match a brand’s desired customer is a smart way of reaching people who will buy the products. Followers trust the influencers to only work with brands that they believe in and trust them to give truthful reviews of products.
On my own social media feeds, it does not take much scrolling to find a post from an influencer that is sponsored. I often look into the products that I see influencers I follow post about and sometimes purchase them.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BuyPzFfBypu/ 
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt4MhzgnYMB/ 
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bu6zqYeDeFq/
Power of the Influencer
Youtubers often post haul and review videos that showcase products from clothes, cat products, makeup, stationary, and everything in between. There are hundreds of thousands of videos like these with millions of views that can make or break a company.
Smaller influencers with 10,000 to 50,000 followers can make a few thousand dollars for posting sponsored content. An influencer with more than 1 million followers can make $100,000- $250,000.
The failed project, Fyre Festival, used the power of influencers to get the festival trending by having 63 influencers simultaneously post an orange square on Instagram with the caption #FyreFestival. Kendall Jenner made $250,000 for posting about, while the others made $20,000.
Watch Out for Scandals
The internet loves to call people out and companies and brands are no exception. Pepsi found themselves in hot water after airing their ad starring Kendall Jenner. It sparked outrage for using imagery of the Black Lives Matter movement to sell their soda.
Brands need to stay away from controversy. This means they need to distance themselves from controversial figures. Just recently, Youtuber and Social Media Influencer Olivia Jade was dropped from her sponsorships with TRESemmé and Sephora over the college admission scandal.
The Future of Marketing
Influencers have a lot of power. Brands have a lot of money. The future of marketing is looking to find help from influencers to work with brands to promote products to their followers. There have already been many successful campaigns between influencers and brands and there is no indication that it will be slowing down anytime soon.
Caro's Corner 
Caroline – I liked how you talked about a very current media scandal in your article. The Olivia Jade scandal was very bad and it would make sense that her sponsors dropped her because they do not want the bad publicity for their company. But this just makes you think if any other “influencers” who post sponsored media are genuine about it. I have always thought they are just doing it to get paid, but the younger generations might see it and interpret it as this influencer is genuine about the brand. From a business perspective I do think that it is smart for them to have these individuals post media with their products because it is known to have a large audience that will look at and interact with the post.
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