The emergence of social media influencers has given many ordinary people who are creatives an opportunity to make a living off of their talents and creativities. Their captivating content has harnessed a large cult following for them which makes their opinions about products ,events and even TV shows very popular. As a result, many companies and brands gravitate towards using influencers for the promotion of their products. This is all good and well for social media influencers but does it affect the functionality of the people who are traditionally trained to provide these services for brands or must everyone move with the times? Here are some of the ways in which Social Media influencers have ruined things.
PR Events
Have you noticed how expensive it is to get a ticket to one of those PR events hosted by brands such the upcoming Clicks Beauty Playground. These events are usually flooded with influencers who give the impression that they were invited for free. The cost of the free PR from influencers falls on the regular customer who is genuinely interested in purchasing the products that the brand is selling. The regular customers have to pay ridiculous prices for tickets while influencers are allegedly invited for free. How is that fair?. While this might get the brand exposure, it does not guarantee sales. Shouldn’t the buying customer receive this preferential treatment? Isn’t a hundred guaranteed sales better than millions of potential sales from online followers who might or might not buy ?
TV Shows Casting
There was once a time when TV show enthusiasts would stand in long queues waiting their turns to audition for judges in order to be selected to participate in shows such as MissSA,Tropica Island of treasures and many more. The hopefuls who were usually regular people or even people who have worked their whole lives ,studying, training and preparing for their opportunities to be selected based on merit to star in these shows. These days, people are judged based on how many likes their audition videos can harness online.However,social media likes and follows are not always an accurate measure of people’s capabilities, beauty and strength. For example, one might be the best candidate but might not be able to get the online popularity that they are being judged on.Should’nt hopefuls be given a fair chance to present themselves in front of the judges or are likes and follows all that matters for the TV shows to be more popular?
The Film Industry
Many veteran actors have come out and said they struggle to get casted for roles because many showrunners look at the number of social media following instead of experience. Is the casting of Social media influencers affecting the film industry? South Africa has many talented and trained actors who have come out and asked for donations because they cannot support themselves. Many of these actors ,more recently Carlo Radebe on MacG’ Podcast and Chill, have expressed that they are not getting jobs due to them not being social media savvy. Bear in mind that most of these actors are of a mature age and did not grow up in the Era of social media. While this is not the fault of Influencers personally, the show runners are more concerned with rallying a large audience rather than creating good quality films with actors who are trained and seasoned in the field. Is popularity more important than telling the stories in a good quality manner?
Influencers deserve to be commended for their ability to rally a number of followers behind them to support anything that they endorse. That in itself is a superpower. They deserve to make an income from their craft because content creation is not easy, if it was we would all be doing it. However, are there spaces that influencers should not be given preferential treatment over people who are trained ? If so, shouldn’t brands be called out for always seeking to save a quick buck by not paying professionals their due and opting for young social media influencers instead? Are influencers ruining things for professionals or is it the fault of brands for bringing influencers into these spaces?
