Image: Megan Crombie
Ciara Purton questions the price of influence
Social media is everywhere; it is virtually inescapable. Some brands try to take advantage of this for easy advertising and product promotion– but that doesn’t mean that these products are the best for you and your needs. So, in this time of constant marketing and deceptive brands, who can we turn to for honest reviews of products? Influencers! The modern career that helps both company and consumer! But with PR packages and brand deals, whose side are influencers really on?
Social media influencers have the job of testing out brands and products so that people can know exactly what they are about to buy, how it works, and the benefits or drawbacks of it. This can be extremely helpful to their audience and others who are unsure what products to purchase. They can save people time and money that could’ve been wasted on low quality products, promoted to them through social media and brief trends. Many of these influencers are even able to make profits from the interactions with and popularity of their videos, turning content creation into a career for them.
While in theory this sounds great, some influencers’ opinions and reviews of products can be swayed by companies for more positive feedback and promotion. Companies may financially compensate or give gifts (otherwise known as ‘PR packages’) in order for influencers to encourage others to purchase a brand’s product. ‘Paid Partnerships’ are especially prevalent between cosmetics brands and content creators on apps like TikTok and Instagram. This allows companies to potentially abuse content creators’ influence over what their audience buy, corrupting the integrity of the review.
There are many laws and guidelines surrounding paid partnerships between influencers and companies, such as the Advertising Standards Authority rules in the UK and the Federal Trade Commission guidelines in the USA. These laws require influencers to disclose to their audience any “material connection” between themselves and a brand they endorse. On apps like TikTok there may be a ‘Paid Partnership’ tag at the bottom of the video or ‘#ad’ in the description which you can look for to identify which influencers are being paid for their appraisals.
With all these laws on brand deals and sponsorships it would seem as though paid partnerships between influencers and companies are obvious, but this is not always the case. Some content creators are able to make paid partnerships less obvious by doing things like embedding the ‘#ad’ within a large group of tags in the video description and subtly mixing in advertising with their normal content. This may mislead viewers into believing an influencer is unbiased towards a brand and therefore is being completely honest in reviews, giving said influencer more power over what their followers buy.
At the end of the day, it’s not influencers themselves that’s the problem, it’s the honesty of some of them. Taking a brand deal does not make a content creator morally bad or aligned with capitalist companies, and I am not against paid partnerships: we all need to earn a living some way. However, brand deals where an influencer misleads and persuades people into deceptive purchases are entirely wrong and need to be prevented for the integrity of all influencer careers. An honest influencer works for the good of the people, and I believe that they can use their influence to benefit the world.
