What Exactly Makes Someone an Influencer?
According to dictonary.com, an influencer is “a person or thing that influences”. However, this is definitely a staunch generalization or a large and diverse group of people. SocialChain has defined an influencer as “an individual that has a significant audience, who listens and makes decisions based on his/her opinions”. This seems to be a closer definition, at least in reference to social media influencers. However, influencers can be drawn from a variety of categories. These categories include but are not limited to: Fashion, food, journalism, industry experts, socialites, celebrities, photographers, travel writers, bloggers, musicians, academics. These individuals often have large follower numbers and these followers are the people that they “influence”. Typically, followers will see the influencer promote an item, whether that be wearing it, touting its efficiency, or some
other form of promotion, and they will see this product as something worth purchasing. However, follower count is not always the end all be all. Sometimes people have a lot of followers in numbers purely because they are famous or excellent at curating content, but these people may not necessarily believe in their campaigns. Therefore, analytics are valuable in seeing how much a particular influencer’s influence is actually worth.
