Influencers Are Being Paid Big Sums To Pitch Products and Thrash Rivals on Instagram and YouTube (wired.com) 124
"Influencers" are being paid big sums to pitch products on Instagram and YouTube. If you're trying to grow a product on social media, you either fork over cash or pay in another way. This is the murky world of influencing, reports Wired. Brands will pay influencers to position products on their desks, behind them, or anywhere else they can subtly appear on screen. Payouts increase if an influencer tags a brand in a post or includes a link, but silent endorsements are often preferred. An excerpt from the report: The suggestions started early. Months before Lashify had officially launched, one of her investors, who had ties to the cosmetics industry, pulled her aside. He told her to prepare to pay influencers to speak positively about her lashes on YouTube and Instagram. She thought he was being dramatic. He wasn't. Lotti recalls the investor saying that if she wanted Lashify to succeed, quality didn't matter, nor did customer satisfaction -- only influencers. And they didn't come cheap. She was told to expect to shell out $50,000 to $70,000 per influencer just to make her company's name known, an insane amount for a new startup. There was no way around it; that's just how things worked.
Note (Score:2)
(the same brands are also paying people to say this isn't happening)
The hell you say! (Score:5, Funny)
Next you'll be telling me that celebrities doing product endorsements aren't genuinely enthusiastic about the products and are just doing it for money.
My faith in the purity of ad content is shaken to the core.
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Re:The hell you say! (Score:5, Insightful)
Celebrities also used to do this more subtle endorsement where they'd be paid to use products publicly without running commercials.
I think we're splitting hairs where we're willing to say a celebrity's compensated public use of a product doesn't classify as commercial; although subtlety is an important component of advertising, since we all think we're too smart to be influenced by advertising.
Influencers is an interesting tag, and speaking for myself and me only, I've also never quite understood why people who can act in movies are somehow qualified to make important contributions with their opinions that suggest preference for candidates and political positions.
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The fact that you call any of those frauds "successes" just shows how completely dishonest and lacking intellectual capacity the Republican party embodied here by yourself has allowed itself to degrade to.
I wonder how you'll spin Federal prison for fraud, collusion, conspiracy and more? Good luck with the indictments next week, traitor. Not to mention "peace on the Korean peninsula" lol you retarded GOP liars crack me up.
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Which one is false?
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- tax reform, including finally fixing the highest business tax rate in the world
The US had the third highest business taxes worldwide ON PAPER, but anyone not a lying sack of shit (unlike you) knows that's not even remotely close to the actual rate businesses are taxed. I get it, stupid fucking idiots like you can't think passed the 5 second sound bite of your hyper-partisan political fuckery, but the EFFECTIVE TAX RATE is what they actu
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Yeah, we had the highest tax rate and now our tax rates are competitive. Previous leaders failed for decades to solve it, now it's solved.
(Even Obama acknowledged it was a problem, BTW. But here you are, pretending it never existed.)
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- 2 Supreme Court justices and dozens of lower court judges
https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/24... [cnn.com]
When you place party above country, like the GOP regularly does, unprecedented things can happen. Those things don't tend to be good for the country. Mitch McConnell should be considered an insurgent undermining the US. Worthless shits like you might like living in a banana republic, but you are as much an enemy of this country as anyone else trying to destroy its government and people.
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More judges coming.
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- defeat ISIS
You are a complete fucking idiot. Really, there's little else to say about you. Because Trump says so doesn't mean shit, except to you guys on your knees sucking him off daily.
https://www.dni.gov/files/docu... [dni.gov]
"ISIS and al-Qa‘ida and their respective networks will be persistent threats, as will groups not subordinate to them, such as the Haqqani Taliban Network."
"ISIS core has started and probably will maintain a robust insurgency in Iraq and Syria as part of a long term strategy to ultimatel
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So yeah, ISIS is defeated. Thanks for elaborating it for people. In 2019 maybe the last 1-2% will get cleaned up and you can complain that ISIS still has 3 guys left, so defeating them doesn't count as an accomplishment.
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Obamacare individual mandate gone
No one liked the mandate, but do remember, the mandate was part of the REPUBLICAN plan that was adopted in Massachusetts and latter nation wide. It was the most hated part of the ACA... but a part that REPUBLICANS felt was needed in the original plan because, heaven forbid, this country ever does anything to actually help people.
https://www.heritage.org/socia... [heritage.org]
"No, because although more revenue would be lost on more expensive plans, the revenue loss on low- c ost plans for healthy Americans would be
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Peace on the Korean Peninsula
Seriously, we're back to just pointing out you're spending too much time sucking Trump off to be anything more than a complete fucking idiot when it comes to reality.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world... [bbc.com]
https://www.newsweek.com/north... [newsweek.com]
https://www.independent.co.uk/... [independent.co.uk]
That is not what peace looks like, except maybe to a sociopath or some worthless piece of shit that's never served.
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Does being relentlessly negative make you happy? It doesn’t seem to. Does it help anyone? Do you hope to convince others to be as negative and unhappy as yourself?
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...the detriment of the planet.
But I don't believe in those sorts of stories about the future.
Things have been getting better for people for hundreds of years. Knowledge leads forward and problems get solved.
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Specially when it's others doing the work. Party on!!!
What work? Did you invent blue LEDs or a practical fusion power reactor or something like that? If not, I'm doing about as much as you are.
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More happiness from the cheer squad.
You can quit the cult of rage and denial any time, you know. You don't have to join up with any alternative philosophy either. You can just chill, skip the hours of being trolled by the news media, and focus on improving your life and (if you want) helping the individual people around you.
Your friends and family will like you better. Even the very bitter fellow cult followers you probably socialize with will secretly enjoy your company more.
Re:The hell you say! (Score:5, Interesting)
I've also never quite understood why people who can act in movies are somehow qualified to make important contributions with their opinions that suggest preference for candidates and political positions.
(Frowning.) Really? OK then, let's watch some TV. (Movies are OK but TV have more airtime; movies have more emotional action and excitement.) What's on? Doctor shows, lawyer shows, cops, news, comedies, "Reality" (HA!), and others. Let's take a doctor show. I'd use Doctor Kildare but most of y'all wouldn't know him. Let's take Grey's Anatomy. Confession: I hadn't seen ANY of them. Zero. But I can tell you what some of the shows are about: standard doctor prototypes.
...
Doctor fights against unknown disease and cures it, or not and learns a lesson. Doctor fights against differing opinions and is finally proven right. Doctor fights hospital / insurance for dying patient and eventually wins. Caring nurses accidentally provide clues to save patents. And on, and on. Same for cop shows and the rest. Make it interesting, have some personal conflict appear to the main / supporting characters, all that.
THE POINT BEING: You now have a relationship with the characters on the screen. You like the nice caring ones who buck the system in order to save the day. If they flub their lines they'll redo the take, so they're always "perfect." Sometimes you disagree with their choices, but be assured there won't be many of those times or they wouldn't be loved. But they'll be SOME conflict.
Now that relationship is *two* sided, both ways. The show keeps coming on and you keep watching it, and watch the characters interact and perhaps grow a little. But not much or you couldn't miss random shows and pick up where you left off. The on-screen characters will never turn YOU off because they can't. It's their JOB to keep you watching and interested; they couldn't turn off your TV if they wanted too. Oh, and those conflicts? Adrenaline to get you excited and aroused. Not like *THAT*, but just a slight hit that you'll want more and come back NEXT WEEK for the adventures of
So you have your favorite characters you like and who "like you" since they keep on speaking to you, telling you about their lives and so on. And then you see "Doctor John" aka Real Life Actor, and your sub-brain says, "That's a friend, a good guy, trying to do the right thing. I better listen to what they're saying." And you do, and maybe you like it or maybe you don't. But you're going to disassociate the news with the person with all of the OTHER information coming in, and eventually just remember someone said something, and "oh yeah that was a smart guy and maybe there's something to that, and I'm smart too so that's probably right" and quit thinking about it because someone's already done the idea-chewing and processing for you, so all you have to do is remember and occasionally regurgitate it.
If you stop and consider the facts maybe you'll agree or not. But there's initial your starting point, the opposing view(s) now have a larger hill to climb. THAT is how Famous Media Stars influence people -- not when you're actively paying attention, but when you're NOT.
Psst -- and remember, the actors are just coughing up lines some writer somewhere else wrote. They're not THINKING that at all (well, Method Acting), just hitting marks and cues and talking emotionally when needed.
Lassie! Calm down, what's up? Little Timmy fell down a well? What, again? I know, let's run to the house and both have a nice steak supper and let him think about the choices he's made recently. And then we'll go to bed and if we remember, go pick him up on the way back from the store so he can help carry things. And if he's not alive, well then that's just More For Us!
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It's because they're _actors_ (Score:3)
E.D. and squandered breadcrumbs of power (Score:3)
You're not reading enough Jordan Peterson. What women want (from their male romantic partners) is competence. Women generally favour a particular competence signal: societal attention / societal approval (if the attention signal is large
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For ... 40 years at least, everything you watch is an advertisement.
TV shows. Every product on that show, is an advertisement. Every single one.
See a fridge with labeling still on it? Paid. See cereal on the shelves of a character's apartment? Paid.
If no one pays? You'll see a bag of chips, or cereal with a made up name.
*Nothing* is free. Everything is paid. Look at Seinfeld, an older show surely, but well known. Recall the snapple episode? The Junior Mints with Kramer and the operation? *PAID*
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Next you'll be telling me that celebrities doing product endorsements aren't genuinely enthusiastic about the products and are just doing it for money.
My faith in the purity of ad content is shaken to the core.
Wait. You mean Catheter Cowboy might not be cathing? That's ... so disturbing!
And what if its politics? (Score:2, Insightful)
And what if the influencers are there to deceive voters during elections? What if the money is foreign even? Or sourced from criminal funds for criminal purposes?
Someone paid James Edward O'Keefe III, aka Project Veritas to make fake that fake Acorn video and pay off the lawsuits he lost as a result. This is no small amount.
If you look at FACT, a money laundering front for conservative causes, that's funding everything from fake videos, to astroturfing to "Judicial Crisis Network'... promoting Brett Kavanau
You're absolutely right! (Score:1)
Sounds like extortion (Score:5, Insightful)
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Also sounds pretty much like a scam. Making the victim afraid is part of that.
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and that is an rico law issue
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it will all forever be murky precisely because a hit piece can also be true but that it takes a hit piece to remind/inform the public because the press fucking sucks.
Audience (Score:2)
It's not that your product will be trashed, usually it will just languish in obscurity for a long time and won't have the "hyper growth" venture backers demand. Don't want to deal with it? Then don't get venture backers, and try to grow organically.
It is a longer, more difficult path for sure - but it is the path ALMOST EVERY BUSINESS used to have to take before the web existed because television commercials were the only way to reach a national audience, and they were, as a result, very expensive and prett
This is news? (Score:2)
I was under the impression that this is what influencers do all the time?
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Some have standards, but as usual most do not and will do anything for money. All the more well known certainly will do most things if the pay is right.
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Ban all adverting and products from the internet.
Not possible because some ads, and that is mainly what the issue is here, take the form of product placement. Eg, some expert photographer on Youtube is demonstrating composition and exposure. He uses a camera and it is inevitable that you will see or recognise the brand, especially if you have been thinking about buying a camera. So you might conclude that this is the brand you should use, even if the Youtube guy never mentions the brand name.
Here is my own bit of product placement. You rarely or never
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/|\ Found the Pentax shill!
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But I admitted it :-)
I can’t believe it (Score:5, Funny)
I am sitting here on my amazingly comfortable B&B Italia sofa, casually reading Slashdot while I enjoy a delicious Jimmy Johns sandwich with a Diet Cherry Pepsi. But I have to say - I simply can’t believe anyone would behave this unethically. From the tip of my Stetson hat to the heels of my Doc Martin shoes, I am 100% convinced that people, left to their own devices, will only recommend products they use and love.
- Typed on my 12.9” iPad Pro
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"Diet Cherry Pepsi"? Urgh. At least have some minimal standards!
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Wow. Not sure what your problem with Pepsi is. I absolutely LOVE all their...
Wait, just got an important email, I’ll finish my thought in a moment. Oh wow, they’ve offered THAT much huh?
Like I was saying - Ginger Lime Diet Coke is to DIE for! I guzzle this stuff by the gallon... I simply cannot get enough of those delicious Coka-Cola products!!
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...Like I was saying - Ginger Lime Diet Coke is to DIE for! I guzzle this stuff by the gallon... I simply cannot get enough of those delicious Coka-Cola products!!
What a super-great personal tribute and totally non-commercial testimonial. I've got to try some of that. Lately I've been guzzling the Grande Curried Squirrel Brain Machiatto at Starbucks with their Haggis & Honey scones.
You make me feel like I missed my calling (Score:2)
I'd be especially good at the part about trashing bad products. Only problem is I'd probably forget and trash my sponsor's products, too.
Oh, wait. First I'd have to get to the influencer point where more than a few trolls are interested in my babblings.
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Doc Martin [wikipedia.org] shoes are very different from Doc Martens. Both are British, but one of these are fictional.
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I am sitting here on my amazingly comfortable B&B Italia sofa,... while I enjoy a delicious Jimmy Johns sandwich with a Diet Cherry Pepsi.
Excellent! Meanwhile I am typing on a pre-used PC sitting on a chair I bought years ago from a shop near London, drinking a glass of tap water and eating a sandwich I made myself. Email me if you want details of how to acquire this stuff for yourself.
Of course (Score:1)
They promoted Beto and he was a know nothing with a drunk driving record. And illiterates who spend most of their time on YouTube and instagram voted for him. He will be presidential material for the undereducated class.
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I doubt it has much to do with education. People are just generally stupid and still have a tribal mind-set.
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[Spockesque eyebrow raise]
I think there is a way around it (Score:5, Interesting)
She was told to expect to shell out $50,000 to $70,000 per influencer just to make her company's name known, an insane amount for a new startup. There was no way around it
At that kind of rate, knowing you would need at least a few "influencers", what I would do instead is build up my own cadre on influencers - find some kids just starting out YouTube with some makeup sense and make them offers for recording gear and a lot of makeup and vastly less cash.
The idea that you need to pay a series of influencers $80k each comes off as really seeming like a scam. Sure at the top level the elite of YouTube are truly influencers - but at the mid tier where you would pay $80k? I don't think so.
Read this great summary of someone that tried to use middle-tier YouTube celebs to drive sales [candyjapan.com]. It did not work at all. Granted it was a different field but the approach seemed sound given the assumption that YouTube videos really influence people.
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that was a great link. thank you
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She was told to expect to shell out $50,000 to $70,000 per influencer just to make her company's name known, an insane amount for a new startup. There was no way around it
At that kind of rate, knowing you would need at least a few "influencers", what I would do instead is build up my own cadre on influencers - find some kids just starting out YouTube with some makeup sense and make them offers for recording gear and a lot of makeup and vastly less cash.
The idea that you need to pay a series of influencers $80k each comes off as really seeming like a scam. Sure at the top level the elite of YouTube are truly influencers - but at the mid tier where you would pay $80k? I don't think so.
Let me clarify how this works from the investor standpoint.
Buy a top-tier influencer = Get top-tier results.
Buy a Kardashian = Get Kardashian results.
Buy "some kids just starting out on YouTube" = Get...amateur results. At best.
You really think investors have time to be waiting around for some unknown Narcissist with A Dream to strike it lucky playing the YouTube lottery in order to get a product off the ground, trying to target a consumer attention span that's shorter than a squirrel on crack?
I don't th
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Interesting article! In reading through it, however, I can't help but wonder what might have happened had he had aimed a bit higher, such as 10K-100K subscribers, rather than 1K-10K?
I actually co-host a Let's Play [wikipedia.org] channel that has about 2.1K subscribers and 1.1 million views, so we'd seemingly be exactly the sort of channel this seller might have targeted. But our channel is nothing more than a fun excuse a few college friends use to keep in touch after we moved apart. Even if we were inclined to respond to
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Those are all really interesting points, I was not too familiar with the YouTube monetary ecosystem myself as I've never tried to sell or even offer videos there - to me it did seem odd he got absolutely no results from the effort, maybe like you say targeting a level above with more serious players would have had better results.
I honestly thought targeting cosplayers (or more realistically cosplay watchers) was a great idea, I would have thought even just the stylistic aspect would have meshed well with c
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In terms of monetization, the helpful rule of thumb I heard several years ago was that it takes about 1 million views per month to make a comfortable living on YouTube. That number may no longer be accurate, but once you recognize that it's likely still something on that order of magnitude, you start to realize just how many people on YouTube are nothing more than hobbyists or part-timers. An entry level full-timer working 40 hours per week would need to be skilled enough to match our channel's monthly outp
"quality doesn't matter"... (Score:3)
...Lotti recalls the investor saying that if she wanted Lashify to succeed, quality didn't matter, nor did customer satisfaction -- only influencers. And they didn't come cheap. She was told to expect to shell out $50,000 to $70,000 per influencer just to make her company's name known, an insane amount for a new startup. There was no way around it; that's just how things worked.
Welcome to the gig economy. By day, Lyft driver. By night, paid shill for Infowars, Walmart and Monsanto.
Keats Redux (Score:3)
carpetbagger (Score:3)