Today’s opinion is from Meg Krugel.
The personal is deeply political, this year more than ever before. In the weeks and days leading up to the 2020 November Presidential election, my social media feeds were ablaze with progressive posts supporting the candidacy of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. On Election Day, I remember feeling such a sense of disassociation anytime I’d stumble across an Instagram post that wasn’t election-related. Who has time to think about reorganizing pantry shelves on the precipice of such a huge turning point for our democracy and our world? Influencers, as it turns out.
As I assessed who was communicating about voting and the election, and who wasn’t – a pattern emerged. Lifestyle bloggers (also known as influencers – or a person with the ability to influence potential buyers of a product or service by recommending it on social media) were by and large the ones making off-topic posts about food, fashion, beauty, family, and home interiors on Election Day. Some owned up to ‘keeping quiet about who they voted for’ and some never mentioned that an Election was happening at all, perhaps due to the threat of losing a corporate sponsorship – and the income that comes with it. The truth is we don’t live in a world that’s this untouched by the outcome of the most consequential election in our lifetimes. The novel Coronavirus has ravaged our communities and death counts continue to skyrocket across the country; the long-overdue reckoning around racial justice has amplified the experiences of being Black in America in profound ways and called our attention to anti-racist practice; our economy is on the brink of collapse and our environment in the throes of massive climate change. Is it influencers making this decision to keep quiet amidst this upheaval, or the corporations who sponsor their content?
Over the last five years, influencer marketing has grown from an ancillary marketing tactic to a $5-10 billion dollar industry, according to Rochele Bailis’ report “The State of Influencer Marketing” done for MediaKix.1 If corporations really want to lean into their commitment to social responsibility, then they must acknowledge the role that their paid social media influencers have in representing the brand in authentic and resilient ways. This includes the freedom to express opinions that align with a brand’s social justice values, even if it means losing a few followers (and some revenue) in the process. It’s no different than we’d recommend to a brand in the process of building a more socially responsible way of advertising. It’s a two-way street, of course, and not just the responsibility of the influencer. Brands need to look beyond aesthetically pleasing Instagram feeds, and seek out diverse social justice messengers who can authentically carry the brand’s voice on issues of social responsibility in this digital space.1 Bailis, R. “The State of Influencer Marketing: 10 Influencer Marketing Statistics to Inform Where You Invest.” BigCommerce, November 15, 2020.
Since March of 2020, the Center for Media Engagement has been studying the role of influencers in the lead-up to the 2020 U.S. elections.2 According to the influencers interviewed in a report titled “Social Media Influencers and the 2020 Election,” there’s been a change in audience demand for clear communication from an influencer. The report notes that “the current influx of personally motivated political activism is causing ripple effects throughout the social media landscape, provoking and inspiring others, and, subsequently, establishing an expectation of political discourse.” (Goodwin, 8.) The idea that influencers must shy away from hard-hitting topics like race, climate and politics is done. BuzzFeed News reporter Stephanie McNeal conducted a recent survey about the importance of an influencer’s voice on issues of social responsibility from a follower’s point of view, and found that 81% of Instagram users notice when an influencer has ignored politics, the election, Black Lives Matter, or COVID-19. Of those surveyed, 58% said they unfollowed an account because of the omission.3
Socially responsible brands need to start building and strengthening these relationships immediately, to counter the influx of alt-right groups who are increasingly using influencers and well-packaged Instagram aesthetics to convey an entirely different message. Conspiracy theory groups like QAnon have successfully used mainstream influencers like fitness gurus and beauty bloggers to push radical theories about Donald Trump saving the world from a global child-trafficking ring run by ‘liberal elites.’ Innocuous hashtags like “#savethechildren” can lead followers to more radical conspiratorial content tagged with #thegreatawakening and #wwg1wga. A recent article by Kaitlyn Tiffany for The Atlantic noted the ingenuity in this tactic — “what’s startling about QAnon’s new presence there is the way it slips in: easily, and with little visible pushback from the influencers’ communities or from the platform that hosts them.”4
Now is the moment for socially responsible brands to counter the work of alt-right groups and reclaim space on social media platforms through the active voice of the influencers who push their product. Instagram, in particular, has a highly impressionable audience – 68% of its users regularly engage with brands (while just 32% of Facebook users do).5 Brands need to court influencers who are willing to take this risk and who can stand firmly for the values the brand holds dear. In the words of one influencer platform executive from the Center for Media Engagement report: “It’s become a place where influencers are expected to say something, and they are expected to be on the right side of history if they want to continue to operate their businesses.”22
Goodwin, A.M., Joseff, K., & Woolley, S. C. (2020, October). Social media influencers and the 2020 U.S. election: Paying ‘regular people’ for digital campaign communication.
Center for Media Engagement.https://mediaengagement.org/research/social-media-influencers-and-the-2020-election
3 McNeal, S. (2020, September). “The Era of Influencers Being Apolitical is Over.” BuzzFeed News. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemcneal/the-era-of-influencers-being-apolitical-online-is-over
4 Tiffany, K. “The Women Making Conspiracy Theories Beautiful: How the domestic aesthetics of Instagram repackage QAnon for the masses,” The Atlantic, Shadowland Project, August 18, 2020.
5 Atkins, C. (2020, October).
6 Business Benefits of Being on Instagram. Zimmer Communications.https://info.zimmercommunications.com/blog/6-business-benefits-to-being-on-instagram