Under the mysterious influence of the almost famous
‘Influencers’ aren’t quite media, celebrities or socialites, but their social media hustle is real
“Who are they?” I heard someone ask at one of the many dos during an interminable gala season that just wrapped in Toronto.
“They’re called influencers,” came another voice in the din, responding to the query.
“Who do they influence?” the instigator asked back, turning her gaze once more to the specimens in question.
A circle that had formed collectively shrugged. “Maybe other influencers?” suggested someone else in a teeny, if hopeful, voice. Cue: more shrugging. As far as party pantomimes go, it struck me as a wry one, especially since influencers are by now a permanent feature of the social landscape in any big metropolis. Not quite media, a few tiers down from actual celebrities and cryptosocialites — though, at times, a hybrid of all three in what is an increasingly blurry zone — they’re part of what the Econo- mist has dubbed the “last frontier of a rapidly growing industry.” They get paid to tweet, Snapchat with an agenda, Instagram their shop windows and have, together, given rise to a whole “influencer economy,” if you will.
The hustle is real. And yet a shroud is falling on the whole racket now that Instagram has announced fresh rules for extra transparency when it comes to shilling. Coming on the heels of already well-etched rules that people must use specific hashtags for paid content (#ad and #sponsored), everybody’s favourite photo-sharing app is introducing a format that will insert a “paid partnership” sub-header for all brand arrangements.
“If you are compensated for posting in any way — whether monetary or swag — you must say you are compensated.” This from Heather Bell, an account director at the Canadian office of IZEA — an agency specializing in influencer and custom content — who concedes Canada has been the “wild wild west” when it comes to these standards.
After all, even the hashtag rules — put down a while back by the Federal Trade Commission in the States — were only formally introduced in this country last October by our equivalent, Advertising Standards Canada, and seem somewhat more sporadically enforced.
This sea-change affects not only social media but the entire ecosystem of fame and influence, both small and large.
Even a cursory look at various accounts of Toronto influencers reflects a mixed-nuts approach. Take party staples Cailli and Sam Beckerman, who have 168,000 Instagram followers and have turned their sister act into a marketing machine — and who are increasingly upfront about their corporate kiss-ups.
“There’s no wrong way to be a woman! And there’s no wrong way to be you!” started one recent Instagram post that tagged @aldo_shoes and was clearly labelled an #ad. “Share what makes you,” instructed another explicitly sponsored image for Secret Deodorant.
No secret, either: DJ-slash-professional-cutie Jay Strut once told a reporter, “everyone’s an influencer,” yet not everyone, like him, is recruited to rah-rah a CIBC Air Canada prepaid Visa card to his 57,700 followers (#ad).
In the wider celebrity-sphere, the Insta-tide has largely turned. See: cheeky lifestyle guru Chrissy Teigen, who gamely discloses her associations with everything from Oreo cookies to Tresemmé hair. Likewise: food darling Giada De Laurentiis, who’s on the make officially for Frangelica, or millennial heroine Lauren Conrad, who’s turned her years on the reality show The Hills into a kind of roving role as ambassador for a whole generation (a role that apparently even extends into laundry, as exemplified by a sponsored post that read, “When you treat your clothes well they’ll last longer. I care for my favourite pieces with @Downy”).
Because reality television provides for a bottomless well, party animals from shows like Vanderpump Rules are in the game, as are of course castoffs from The Bachelor. All the better if you married and stayed together, as in the case of “Sean and Catherine,” a Chris Harrison-made twosome who are sponsor-happy with Hello Fresh, the meal-kit service. (“Nothing better than getting easy-to-follow recipes and fresh ingredients right to our door, especially as new parents,” they posted recently.)
In the local celebrity currencyexchange, there’s no better embodiment of this sort of lifestyle-piggyback than Ben and Jessica Mulroney: “Toronto’s most polished power couple,” as a much-discussed profile of the duo calls them in the latest issue of Toronto Life. With Jessica’s outsize presence on Instagram, and brand sculpting that extends to “cool mom,” the daughter-in-law of the former prime minister is someone who’s had a bevy of brand associations, including Adidas.
So which came first: the lifestyle or the ad? It’s the inevitable chickenegg quandary when it comes to influence on social media. People who are thought to have a certain taste level (or are just genetically gifted) are sought out by brands; or does the brand association offer the halo of “taste?” For a people-watcher like me, it can be hard to tell the difference sometimes. A classic house of mirrors.
The power, though? Implicitly difficult to deny. In the same way we all have our own levers of exposure these days, a celebrity like Kate Hudson can literally stay “It” by staying ubiquitous on social media and by the synergistic coverage of her in the tabloids and, well, selling merch purely based off of that.
The new Instagram rules are muddied by the difference between a celebrity, who has a national advertising campaign (say Charlize Theron and Dior), and an “influencer” who is just doing a one-off post (a mid-tier influencer can make somewhere between $500 and $1,000 per picture in this country). The former isn’t typically putting #ad or #sponsored after their posts, Heather Bell explained. It’s just understood.
Hashtag confused yet?