Social Media And Influencers' Influences - Thursday Thoughts
The 21st century marks the beginning of the influencer industry. With more than One Billion people active on Facebook and 100 Million people using Instagram every month, social networking has completely turned the world of business and networking around and upside down. Being a nosy person myself, I find it inspiring and exciting watching both celebrities’ and friends’ lives online, but I struggle to justify and support the fact that I, along with a lot of the world, live life through a screen. Do people do things in their life just so they can show off to their friends on Facebook with a post? Does this give them a boost of self-confidence? Or do people cower from social media due to the endless comparisons they could find online?
The amount of times I scroll down Facebook and see the same people posting hourly updates on their lives; like seriously, I don’t need to know what you had for tea, or what you’ve bought from the supermarket. I feel like this must be down to the self-esteem boost that they get from having people ask questions/comment on their post and seem interested in what they are doing. Seeing the likes number rise, and the comments increase certainly encourages people to keep posting more and more. By hitting a certain amount of likes, it fulfils a person’s feeling of ‘popularity’. This seems quite ridiculous to me; the amount of interactions on social media definitely does not define your ‘popularity’ or the amount of ‘friends’ you actually have.
A 2015 study at Pennsylvania State University in University Park found that teens rather than adults are more likely to delete an Instagram post 12 hours after posting it due to the lack of likes and comments it gets compared to previous posts. I don’t know about you but this makes me so sad! Imagine how amazing it would be for everyone to work together and turn this situation round. It shouldn’t matter how many likes or comments you get on a post to give you a boost in your self-confidence. Over the years, this idea has been created and adopted by every teenager in the world. Documenting your life on social media should not be done as a necessity to feel worthy or popular, but it needs to get back to being enjoyable, fun and uplifting.
One thing that is difficult for living life online can be seeing photographs of people on Instagram who are pictured to have ‘perfect bodies’, ‘perfect partners’, a ‘perfect house’ or generally just a ‘perfect life’. It is pretty much humanely impossible to turn around after seeing these people and their photos, and not compare your own self to them and their personal branding image. And it is completely common to struggle with this and in fact I would class it as normal. Everyone has those days where you get up in the morning, look in the mirror, and hate your hair, your makeup doesn’t go right, your favourite outfit is in the wash and quite frankly, you just don’t feel happy with your appearance on that day. And vice versa on some days your hair goes right, you try a new makeup look and it looks great, you whack on your favourite outfit and SORTED…you feel like yourself today. But think about your morning routine, everyone can admit that the first thing they do in the morning is scroll through Instagram in bed. That can definitely have an effect on the way you may want to make yourself look on that day. Have you tried a makeup look you’ve seen on a post, tried it and well…it definitely doesn’t look like the model? Depressing stuff – seriously! I hate when that happens. It’s disappointing, demotivating and effects your self-esteem for the rest of the day when all you wanted to do was take inspiration from social media. It is so difficult to establish a solution to this demotivating problem because everyone has down days, and yes, social media can have a huge effect on this but I don’t think it can be blamed for everyone who feels like this. In my opinion, as a community online, a positive mind-set and self-confidence needs to be embraced in order to conquer the negative effects of social media on a person.
I do feel like social media can be empowering. Following fashion accounts is something I enjoy doing, where influencers tag their outfits and as the season changes, I get inspiration for the new season’s wardrobe. There are accounts on Facebook and Instagram for pretty much every interest going. I absolutely love that these exist; it personalises everyone’s feed and is an easy and quick way for the accounts to access their target audience. The community feel that is created when following accounts of your own interest should inspire positive thinking. The most special thing I find that comes out of these communities is how people can connect online through common interests, talk and build friendships. By following the same YouTuber, celebrity, or brand account, relationships between mutual followers can create such a positive network online which is so much more motivational, inspiring and it brings a group of people together.
Now the fact that being an influencer has become a job is pretty cool to me. The fact that people are using social media to start up their own business, create a strong and collective community and earn money whilst doing this is really inspirational to me! It can be tough going being an influencer; having to keep up with consistent posts, and I can’t imagine the amount of emails and private messages that will need keeping up with. I don’t think they get enough credit to be fair, this industry looks hard going. With the new #AD rules that Instagram and Facebook have implemented in the work, I think most influencers have actually got to the point of being so confused with the new and different rules and regulations that come with posting on social media platforms. The whole industry is becoming increasingly complicated. You can’t shoot down influencers; they run their own business and generate their very own revenue off their own personal brand. This should inspire people itself and it is most important for influencers to be a team. A lot of influencers that I follow emphasise that the products they advertise are only if they completely approve of the product or service so they are not misleading their viewers.
I feel like influencers have come together a lot more in the past year or so. These issues that have been upcoming in the past decade are being campaigned for and using hashtags is becoming more and more empowering with creating a sense of community and a sense of belonging. Social media and networking should no longer be about singling yourself out, but about a feeling of belonging in an online community full of unique individuals with common interests and positivity.
Thanks for reading! Keep smiling and have a great day! Liv xxx
