Travel 'Influencers' are back; a good thing or Mooches looking for freebies?

[Shade_Wilder]

 

An interesting article on "Travel Influencers" (link below) on CNN. 

And yes, I do think that labeling yourself an "Influencer" makes you sound like a pretentious tosser.

However, with the ever-growing trend of people getting their information from Social Media, it is hard to argue that all of them are just 'wanna-bees' exaggerating their own sense of self-worth; the fact that hotels, restaurants and the like do actually deal with them evidences that business owners believe there is value to them. Simply put, no business is ever going to give them freebies unless they thought that they would receive something in return.

Is this going to be an ever-growing line of work in the future? I would say 'yes'. I can't point to any empirical evidence to state with certainty that, despite it already huge popularity, Social Media is going to become ever more popular in the future, but every indicator that I can think of suggests it will. If you disagree, how would you explain the Kardashians? And, a question; would anyone under the age of 30 even consider booking a trip/hotel/event without going on Social Media to see the reviews? To the best of my knowledge, they would not.

Perhaps we should all just stop posting on Forums like this unless we are paid. 

Hmm... Food for thought.

PS. I noticed that Tim used to (and perhaps still does) refer to himself as an 'Influencer' rather than an 'Editor" in the comment section of the News Forum. Any comment, Tim?

PPS. Is there perhaps a better name than 'Influencer' so that people can monetize their Social Media following without sounding like a pretentious tosser?

PPPS. Is anyone here actually an 'Influencer'? If so, how much money do you make? How do you market your value-added benefit?

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/tourism-industry-influencers-return/index.html

 

 

[EdwardV]

58 minutes ago, Shade_Wilder said:

And yes, I do think that labeling yourself an "Influencer" makes you sound like a pretentious tosser

I almost spit up my soda on that one. Couldn’t have described them better if I had tried. 
 

 

[KaptainRob]

1 hour ago, EdwardV said:

Couldn’t have described them better if I had tried. 

It's yet another of those social media words with a new meaning, often abused and definitely over-used.  

I agree with the article in that the most successful and popular 'influencers' don't need to seek freebies and IMO it's the plethora of wannabe's who make them all look like pretentious tossers.

As a social media growth industry it can easily be manipulated to mislead or defraud the public as seen recently in Thailand with celebrity endorsements.

[Shade_Wilder]

2 hours ago, EdwardV said:

I almost spit up my soda on that one. Couldn’t have described them better if I had tried. 
 

 

I think that this is the root of the problem, especially here on this site; members of ThaigerTalk (myself included) are usually a tad older than the younger generation of Social Media users. "Influencer" is one of those new buzz words that is the equivalent of a hundred red flags to an angry bull. The key thing to remember, though, is that we on this site aren't really the target demographic for 'Influencers', and thus our reaction to the word doesn't matter much.

By the way, I had to self-censor about ten other descriptors of "Influencer" before I stumbled upon one what I thought the Mods would accept. And yes, most of them incorporated the idea of self-pleasuring. Nuff' said.

Notwithstanding the above, I find the concept fascinating. The idea first appeared to me just before the onset of Covid when two events occurred. I had some nieces come for a visit and spent some time preparing things for them to see and do; my list went flying out the window minutes after their arrival as their list of stuff (from 'Influencers') was far more comprehensive than mine, and I even ended up doing some of their activities. The other incident was my (older) sister visited and wanted to go to a certain restaurant. I knew the place and it was... fine, but nothing special at all. However, she had had some friends ('Influencers') tell her to go there and so we had to go.

The Economics of this does actually make sense. No, I doubt it'll really affect the large hotels or the chains, but if one has a small-ish/boutique hotel or business and one 'Influencer' can get an extra 20 customers to visit, then it certainly would be worth a free room or a free dinner. Further, it isn't just Travel; the concept of 'Influencers' is bleeding over into all aspects of our lives; I recently read a fascinating article on how Political Campaigns in the US are building 'Influencer Networks' as the most effective use of GOTV campaign funds, but sadly I have forgotten where I read it. Finally, it'll grow as this can be a 'Side Hustle', a job that can be done outside of one's main occupation for a little extra cash; utilizing targeted posting, it'd be quite simple to target, for example, one city block of restaurants (any Tiger members ever hear of an "E-Mail Blast"?) can be 'Influenced'. (Hey Mods! You re sitting in front of the computer every day already, so...)

What I don't understand are the means of measurement, and the Manager in me wants to know how these things can be valued; for example, does one 'Influencer' post have the value of a meal at a restaurant, and how does one know/measure that? Is there a chart? A conversion table? Something my old brain can look at and derive some sort of 'Value for Money' formula? How would one be able to know if an 'Influencer' was worth a freebie? How does one separate the proverbial 'wheat from the chaff'?

Any 'Influencers' out there that can give a (brief) description of the economics? Anyone out there willing to do the research to get the answers (I have questions, but no time for finding real answers)?

I think we slightly older people better get used to the idea of 'Influencers'; I suspect the idea and the profession are going to be around a lot longer than we are...

 

 

[TedG]

 

The Influencer Bubble - How Money Works

 

[Shade_Wilder]

11 hours ago, TedG said:

The Influencer Bubble - How Money Works

 

Thanks for the video; however, I found it less informative than I had hoped and still didn't address my basic questions.

The video essentially traces the advent of 'Influencer' marketing from a humble beginning to current forms with a few warnings for the future, but doesn't make a case that things will change much, doesn't delve into the basic mechanics and doesn't explore what will replace it. 

To oversimplify, it makes a case that at the beginning 'Influencer' marketing was a low-budget, authentic process but has been corrupted due to too much money. 

Fair play.

What hasn't?

That said, I didn't see anything that would make me think that 'Influencers' are going away anytime soon; yes, some will rise to the top and others will fall to the wayside due to lack of skill and/or scandal, but that is a normal 'weeding out process' in any industry. Most telling, in my view, was a lack of any real comment on what might replace it/them; like it or not (I don't), I suspect that we are going to be dealing with 'Influencers' for a long time to come due to a fragmented audience scattered across the Web.

However, my basic question(s) remain; how does a business, especially a small one in Thailand (for example) choose which 'Influencer' to hire? If it were television, one could look at the ratings agency reports to see how many people were watching on an average night and base a fair cost on that. Is the number of clicks on a post a viable metric to base costs on? Is a certain growth 'post mention' a more reasonable method to assess value for money? Are there independent measurers out there who could, like television ratings, inform how many views/how much traffic from a post or site?  if so, where are these numbers?

If, for example, I owned a small hotel in Patong, Phuket (I don't), how would I know if it was money well spent and helped my business?

I still think that 'Influencers' are/will continue to be a great tool for small(/smaller businesses, especially in tourism, as a 'personal' recommendation seems to be light-years ahead of some generic advertisement and much cheaper, but I am still lost on how one might evaluate effectiveness in order to figure out 'value for money'.

Anyone?

 

[Fanta]

3 minutes ago, Shade_Wilder said:

I am still lost on how one might evaluate effectiveness in order to figure out 'value for money'.

How do companies evaluate the impact of any sales and marketing expenditure? 
A neon sign vs a radio advert.. a flier in the mail vs a newspaper ad… a 30 second TV ad vs a post from an influencer with millions of followers…

Having the metrics in place to measure the return on investment in marketing is part of the decision making and evaluation process.

[TheDirtyDurian]

On 6/9/2022 at 2:48 AM, Shade_Wilder said:

Thanks for the video; however, I found it less informative than I had hoped and still didn't address my basic questions.

The video essentially traces the advent of 'Influencer' marketing from a humble beginning to current forms with a few warnings for the future, but doesn't make a case that things will change much, doesn't delve into the basic mechanics and doesn't explore what will replace it. 

To oversimplify, it makes a case that at the beginning 'Influencer' marketing was a low-budget, authentic process but has been corrupted due to too much money. 

Fair play.

What hasn't?

That said, I didn't see anything that would make me think that 'Influencers' are going away anytime soon; yes, some will rise to the top and others will fall to the wayside due to lack of skill and/or scandal, but that is a normal 'weeding out process' in any industry. Most telling, in my view, was a lack of any real comment on what might replace it/them; like it or not (I don't), I suspect that we are going to be dealing with 'Influencers' for a long time to come due to a fragmented audience scattered across the Web.

However, my basic question(s) remain; how does a business, especially a small one in Thailand (for example) choose which 'Influencer' to hire? If it were television, one could look at the ratings agency reports to see how many people were watching on an average night and base a fair cost on that. Is the number of clicks on a post a viable metric to base costs on? Is a certain growth 'post mention' a more reasonable method to assess value for money? Are there independent measurers out there who could, like television ratings, inform how many views/how much traffic from a post or site?  if so, where are these numbers?

If, for example, I owned a small hotel in Patong, Phuket (I don't), how would I know if it was money well spent and helped my business?

I still think that 'Influencers' are/will continue to be a great tool for small(/smaller businesses, especially in tourism, as a 'personal' recommendation seems to be light-years ahead of some generic advertisement and much cheaper, but I am still lost on how one might evaluate effectiveness in order to figure out 'value for money'.

Anyone?

Surely the business looks at the number of followers an influencer has, and average views, retweets, likes etc that any post by the influencer generates... the business makes a decision who to go with

And a payment is made that both parties are happy with. 

It's just another form of advertising really. Nothing new in that. 

If I want to advertise on national TV, I'm going to pay more than if I take a page in the local rag. It's the market reach that is key. And the same applies to influencers. 

[Fanta]

Influencers are just a new kind of celebrity. Does Kim Kardashian know anything about crypto? No. But she is paid the money to “recommend it to 1 million+ special friends” because of her online following. For lesser known influencers companies use promo codes to either calculate ROI or to pay the influencer their commission.