Yahoo Finance Aldi influencer exposes 'joke' behind malined industry
Don't get me wrong, I admire their hustle, but there's a clear reason why we've stopped trusting social media influencers, writes Lollie Barr.
I was deep in a mammoth doom scroll on Instagram. In between reels, yet another hyped-up content creator gave me another “honest review” about some life-changing product they were flogging, including a viral black bodysuit that erased love handles.
It felt like I was watching a shopping channel, the influencers’ affluent lifestyle providing the backdrop. Yet rather than shop the link in the bio as instructed, I doom-scrolled past them, feeling as if I was in some consumer overwhelm.
However, it appears I’m not the only one suffering from influencer fatigue. A recent survey by leading software research site Capterra reveals a stark truth: only 18 per cent of Australian online shoppers trust reviews posted by social media influencers.
Talking up the product's benefits rather than flaws makes good business sense. Otherwise, your career as a brand ambassador or a hype girl/guy to whatever free product you’ve received would be o.v.er.
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Even Sydney-based influencer Annie Keverian who posts on Instagram under Sydlifeofus and reviews family travel and theatre and has paid partnerships with brands like Aldi, says she is cynical.
“Influencers will say anything for a freebie and fame," Keverian told Yahoo Finance. "It’s become a joke, like raving about one face cream one day and another the next."
“As a micro-influencer, I get offered a lot of contra collaboration and cheap stuff. Recently, I got offered some furniture. It looked good, but I went to their factory, and it was rubbish.
"I visited a new restaurant because influencers raved about it after a free meal. The food was terrible.
"I pride myself on my honesty, but I've had people tell me that I’d better make it better than it was."
Leading advertising and behavioural science expert Dan Monheit of Hardhat told Yahoo Finance that shoppers knew this.
“Although presented as impartial, objective, honest recommendations, we all know that paid posts involve some sort of quid pro quo," Monheit said.
"The marketing world would stop spinning if people started writing bad reviews about products they'd been paid to review!
"Instead, reviewers often look for ways to highlight a particular attribute or spin products as 'best for' so they're still telling the truth, just not the whole truth. The result is a healthy scepticism for paid comments.”
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Don't get me wrong, I admire the hustle
It comes down to influencer authenticity. Even though people love to put influencers down, I am generally a fan of the majority of content creators I follow, otherwise, I wouldn’t be following them.
I admire their style, creativity, confidence, entrepreneurship, tenacity, and hustle to make a living for themselves, even if they are capitalising on their followers' compulsive buying habits to fund it.
Social media is now a multi-billion marketing machine.
“The industry has matured. Creators have agents, and they have rate cards, and there's a lot more rigour in how influencers are chosen, remunerated and managed,” said Monheit.
“This has definitely shaved off some of the authenticity because it's not as authentic. It’s not all bad.
"It means that influencers are getting paid properly, and brands have frameworks to use them properly. But the flip side is that influencers don’t have the same level of trust as from the industry's early days.”
And sitting behind it all are the big tech companies that have enslaved our attention to the degree they can sell us wholesale to the marketing industry 24/7.
Interestingly, though, the Capterra study indicates we’ve cottoned on, with 62 per cent of participants considering user reviews vital and 59 per cent trusting genuine user reviews and review websites.
Now, let me check if that black body suit really gets rid of love handles. BRB.
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