Confessions of an Instagram Influencer by Chafkin (2016)

Max Chafkin’s article “Confession of an Instagram Influencer” found on Bloomberg deeply covers how most social media firms are utilizing internet to change and influence people’s perception. The article clearly demonstrates how these companies are striving to use social media sites and their marketing skills to attract other companies to advertise with them. The author concentrates on the issue of social media influencers and how they use other social media users to share and spread some messages. Through the article, the author attempts to cover the requirements and the guidance to follow in order to become an influencer. Thus, the main objectives of the article was to establish how hard or easy it can be to become an influencer and how an influencer convinces companies and corporates to pay them so that they can promote their products or services on social media.

Chafkin (2016)
1. What is the paper’s reference in the IEEE style?
M. Chafkin, “Confessions of an Instagram Influencer”, Bloomberg.com, 2016. [Online].
Available: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-11-30/confessions-of-an-instagram-
influencer. [Accessed: 08-Apr-2017].
2. How did you find the paper? If applicable, write a list of the search terms you used.
In the effort to find the relevant link to the Bloomberg site, several keywords were used on the
search engines to access content from the website. Some of the key words and terms used
include Impact of Social Media and Role of Social Media.
3. Was the paper peer-reviewed? Explain how you found out.
This article was picked from Bloomberg but it has not been reviewed. The article is from an
online magazine written and published under the news section of Bloomberg Business Week
Magazine.
4. Does the author(s) work in a university or a government-funded research institute? If so,
which university or research institute? If not, where do they work?
The writer of the article is Max Chafkin. Max does not work in any university or government-
funded research institute. However, the author is one of the most experienced writers currently
working with Bloomberg Business Week in the USA.

5. What does this tell you about their expertise? Are they an expert in the topic area?
By having deep analysis of the article, one can tell that the author is undeniably a well
knowledgeable and proficient writer. Max Chafkin’s articles are certainly educative and
informative impacting much on humanity and that can be realized by reading his articles.
6. What was the paper about?
Max Chafkin’s article “Confession of an Instagram Influencer” found on Bloomberg deeply
covers how most social media firms are utilizing internet to change and influence people’s
perception. The article clearly demonstrates how these companies are striving to use social media
sites and their marketing skills to attract other companies to advertise with them. The author
concentrates on the issue of social media influencers and how they use other social media users
to share and spread some messages. Through the article, the author attempts to cover the
requirements and the guidance to follow in order to become an influencer. Thus, the main
objectives of the article was to establish how hard or easy it can be to become an influencer and
how an influencer convinces companies and corporates to pay them so that they can promote
their products or services on social media.
7. Is this paper similar to other papers you have read for this assignment? If so, which papers and
why?
While researching on this assignment, I was able to come across other articles that are similar to
Max Chafkin’s. For instance, the article by Alan Yuhas “Smoke and Mirrors: How Trump
manipulates the media and opponents” is the same as the article on Bloomberg. Both article
highlights the aspect of using social media to change peoples’ perceptions.

8. Is this paper different to other papers you have read for this assignment? If so, which papers
and why?
My research for the assignment was definitely broad and touching on all points of social media
usage. Hence, there were some articles that have totally different messages from that of Max
Chafkin on Bloomberg. One of the articles looked at how legislators in California are striving to
introduce new bills aimed at helping the general public to differentiate between truthful and fake
news found online.
9. What do these similarities and differences suggest? What are your observations? Do you have
any new ideas? Do you have any conclusions?
The similarities of the two articles visibly suggests that popular people and businesses are
utilizing social media to change the perceptions of human beings. On the other hand, the
differences between the two articles is that one focuses on how to caution people about the
authenticity of the information obtained from social media.
My observation is that social media has become a powerful tool used by people as well as
corporates to promote and market themselves online without incurring much costs.
In conclusion, people and corporates should strive to observe ethics by posting the right
information that is not misleading to people online.
10. How do you envisage this reading contributing to your group’s research paper?
The reading of this article would definitely provide a huge contribution to the group’s research
paper since our article also focuses on understanding how social media is used to convince and
influence people to believe on certain things. The group’s paper is also outlined to ensure that
people are informed on how to successfully avoid being victims of fake news.