The Impact of Influencers on Consumers in the 21st Century

Influencer marketing has become an essential part of digital marketing strategies. This essay explores the impact of influencers on consumers in the 21st century and how companies can use influencer marketing to increase brand awareness and build customer base. It discusses good, bad, and ugly influencers and provides examples of successful and unsuccessful influencer marketing campaigns. The essay also emphasizes the importance of choosing the right influencer for your brand and complying with guidelines to protect the interest of consumers.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is the main marketing strategy used by the organization to promote
their brands. Influencer marketing is the social media marketing where the consumers are
influenced for the brand by social media influencers who have many followers. This strategy
works due to the trust build by the social influencer on the consumers. The brand recommended
by social influencer are blindly used by the consumers as they think it as a social proof from their
influencers. The people who are influenced by the influencer use those products and services that
are recommended by them. There are many factors that influence the customer behaviour.
Organizations take advantage of these factors to attract the customers towards their brands. They
use psychological factor as their weapon to influence the customers. Organization with the social
media influencer take advantage of the customer believe on the influencer to attract the
customers. Entities take disadvantage of the trust and believe of consumers on influencers to
promote their brands and build customer base.
Influencer marketing opens chances for the organization to raise their product awareness
in the market and to increase their brand value by boosting the sales. The organization who have
achieved success with influencer marketing has made it an essential part of its digital marketing
strategy (Ponirah, 2020). There are many areas where company can look for the influencer to
attract the customers. The increase in use of social media platform has increased the demand for
influencer marketing strategy. Influencer marketing is not just about finding someone with large
number of followers and entering into contract so that they can help company to build customer
base. There are Instagram, Tik tok, Facebook, you tube, blog, etc. influencers who can be hired
by the company to influence people. The growing importance of Instagram as the most used
social media channel has led companies to spend lot of money on influencers operating there. It
is not easy to use influencer marketing strategy.
Company needs to plan the strategy, choose appropriate influencer and fix the budget for
this strategy. There are many influencer marketing agencies who help company in implementing
this strategy (Childers, Lemon and Hoy, 2019). Organization can also build relationship with
influencer by their own without any agency. But there is a disadvantage of finding influencer
without the help of agency is that there is no guarantee that the influencer will be interested in
working with the brand. It would be beneficial for the company to work with agencies as they

know which influencer will understand the market and help the company in raising awareness
about the product in the market. There are many influencer marketing agencies in UK. Fanbytes
by Brainlabs is award-winning influencer marketing agency which influence the audience
through campaigns on Instagram, tiktok, snap chat and you tube.
There are mainly four types of influencer i.e. macro, middle tier, micro and nano and the
influencers can be good, bad and ugly. Good influencers are the one who are regular in tough
with their followers and interact with them. For example, you tube influencer would ask for any
recommendations from their audience about the type of content they want. By doing this they are
building a strong relationship with their followers. The company must analyse the influencer
before hiring them for promoting the brand. For instance, if the company is dealing with health
products then it can't hire an influencer who is already a promoter of cigarette. The bad
influencer is the one who over value themselves (Social media influencers, 2022). There may be
chance that their profile is underperforming, or they are buying the followers. Company that hire
this kind of influencer may get negative remarks from the customers. The ugly influencer are the
one who take the responsibility of promoting the brand but do not comply with the guidelines.
The industries which mostly implement influencer marketing strategies are fashion,
beauty, food, travel and luxury industries. Good fashion influencers in UK are Lillie Lexie,
Becca, Habiba Da Silva, etc. Beauty influencers in UK are Janet Amrani, Yamiko, Gulshan,
Becca Medlin, etc. Food influencers are Lillie Farrow, Emma, Gizzi Erskine, etc. These are
Instagram influencers with numerous followers who influence has build a strong relation with
their followers (Campbell and Farrell, 2020). The brands and products promoted by them are
used by their followers and this helps the company to increase their revenue. Ed Sheeran a
singing superstar and a good influencer has promoted a clothing brand and also had collaborated
with Heinz for promoting a ketchup. On the British National Ketchup Day he had promoted a
brand of ketchup with the name Edchup. He has chosen to promote the product of Heinz as he is
the big fan of the brand, and he has Heinz tomato logo tattoo on his arm.
The bad influence takes place when the company collaborate with wrong influencer for
influencing the customers. Collaboration with wrong influencer can result into huge loss for the
company as well as loss of loyal customers. The influencing marketing strategy of Pepsi went
wrong due to wrong advertisement. The company collaborated with Kendall Jenner the highest
paid female Instagram influencer. The company decided to create a commercial ad that can go

viral. Commercial ad of Pepsi went wrong as people thought that the company is saying that
significantly political problems can be resolved by drinking Pepsi. Company has to bear a huge
loss due to the failure of influencing marketing strategy. The promoting strategy can also go
wrong if the company do not select an appropriate influencer for the product.
Proactiv has collaborated with Kendall Jenner for promoting the product. Proactiv was
promoting a product which can treat the skin. Kendall in the advertisement claimed that the
product of Proactiv has helped to treat the skin. But there was an opinion by many people that
the product was not used by her. The company had to face loss as they chose wrong influencer
for promoting the product. Kendall Jenner was a bad influencer for Pepsi and Proactiv. Kim
Kardashian was hired by Diclegis pharmaceutical company to promote a drug for pregnant
women suffering from morning sickness. The commercial ad for the product went wrong as she
did not inform the consumers about the side effects of using the drug. This has impacted the
image of the influencer as everyone was criticizing her for promoting a product without
providing relevant information. This is the example of ugly influencing marketing strategy as the
influencer hired by the company was appropriate but the commercial ad did not provide full
information about the product.
The increase in technology and social media use has opened a wide scope for the
influencer marketing strategy. The marketing strategy of company has turned digital and
company is intending to increase the budget for influencer marketing. This strategy has given
positive response to the company as it has enables company to increase its revenue and build
strong customer base (Sweeney, Lawlor and Brady, 2022). For the success of influencer
marketing organization needs to collaborate with correct influencer who can influence the
consumers. It also needs to ensure that the commercial ad is not giving any wrong message to the
customers. The organization will collaborate with the influencers who possess the power to
influence the customers by different ideas. To ensure the success of influencer marketing
strategy organization needs to invest more time on evaluating the influencer. The company can
work with different agencies for hiring a good and appropriate influencer for the product. There
are many online platforms which can provide information about the influencer to the marketer.
The marketers are going to give more emphasis on micro influencers as the company has
realized that the success of influencer marketing campaign does not only depend upon the
number of followers. As there are many influencers who have fake followers so it is better for

the organization to emphasis more on micro influencer as they maintain personal bond with the
few followers. For instance, coca- cola company collaborated with micro influencer, Yannick
Merck to promote its drink. The company is also increasing in house influencer program for
future (Wang and et.al., 2021). In house influencer marketing program focuses on building a
strong relationship with people. The companies were unethically and immorally conducting
influencer marketing program resulting into bad reputation among people. The Federal Trade
Commission has imposed some guidelines for the protecting the interest of the consumers. The
guidelines have made it compulsory for the influencers to disclose their relationship with the
company whose products are being promoted by them.
Influencer marketing is the best promoting strategy for the organization as the consumers
buying decision depends upon their influencer's advice. It is the easy means for promoting the
brands and products of the organization as influencer has enabled the companies to get connected
with the customers and it is cost effective way of promotion. The development of technology and
social media has enabled company to stay connected with their customers with the help of
influencers. The company needs to identify the suitable influencer for their brand and combine it
with appropriate marketing campaign can enable company to reach the targeted customers and
build a strong relationship with both the influencer and the customers. There are many influencer
marketing agencies who can help the company by providing suitable influencer. These agencies
make the work of finding influencer easier ans enables the company to focus on other activities.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Campbell, C. and Farrell, J. R., 2020. More than meets the eye: The functional components
underlying influencer marketing. Business Horizons. 63(4). pp.469-479.
Childers, C. C., Lemon, L. L. and Hoy, M. G., 2019. # Sponsored# Ad: Agency perspective on
influencer marketing campaigns. Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising.
40(3). pp.258-274.
Ponirah, A., 2020. Influencer Marketing as a Marketing Strategy. Journal of Economicate
Studies. 4(1). pp.11-16.
Sweeney, E., Lawlor, M. A. and Brady, M., 2022. Teenagers’ moral advertising literacy in an
influencer marketing context. International Journal of Advertising. 41(1). pp.54-77.
Wang, S. and et.al., 2021. Discover Micro-Influencers for Brands via Better Understanding.
IEEE Transactions on Multimedia. 24. pp.2595-2605.
Online
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