While it was initially derided as not being all that valuable from any and all points of view, the influencer industry has grown by leaps and bounds and now represents around $13 billion in total value. Suffice it to say that becoming an influencer is a more or less solid career path for you to follow, but it also bears mentioning that this is a highly saturated market and if you want a piece of the pie then you will have your work cut out for you.
One thing to take note of is that there is no single prescribed path to success. Everyone approaches their status as an influencer differently, but the pandemic has created a lot of awareness about what the target market actually desires. The first thing that can be noted in this regard is that influencers no longer need to follow the trendy, airbrushed and visibly fake visual style that had become commonplace in the mid to late 2010s, and in fact doing so might make you less relatable than you need to be.
Keeping up a fake appearance of a life that is free of any and all troubles is no longer going to let you connect to your target market in an appreciable enough manner. The most important factor if you want to penetrate the Gen Z niche is relatability. That might be due to the reason that they have grown up with social media and are living examples of how harmful the depiction of fake picture perfect lifestyles can be on the average person.
In general, members of Gen Z or Zoomers as they are often colloquially called place a lot of value in realness and authenticity. 45% of Gen Z think that there is too much pressure to be perfect on social media which is a lot higher than the 33% of members of other generations that agree. What’s more is that 42% of Gen Z think that people should show who they truly are on social media, higher than the 36% that is the case with other generations that are out there.
Sharing one’s troubles and peeling back the veneer of living a perfect life can help influencers to actually have an influence on other people’s lives. 39% of people in Gen Z feel that sharing problems and obstacles makes someone a great deal more relatable, and this is also associated with avoiding the use of filters that can change your physical appearance and make it seem like you conform more or less entirely with the damaging stereotypes that society believes people should look like despite them being rather impractical and irrational.
20% of social media users from 7 different countries feel that the use of filters is not all that preferable for them. In fact, many Chinese influencers are changing beauty standards in their country by avoiding the use of filters entirely, and this is something that other influencers would do well to keep in mind. If you still want to use filters, many users agree that there should be some kind of a disclaimer that can inform your audience if you are doing so.
Norway has gone so far as to make it illegal for an influencer to use filters on their pictures without displaying a disclaimer that makes it clear that this is what they are actually doing. Undisclosed filters can create unrealistic beauty standards in the world, and that is something that is already having quite a negative impact on both young as well as old members of society. Trying to be genuine is something that all influencers should consider doing, and it has brought much success to those that have managed to try it out in the content they post online for the most part.
H/T: GWI.
Read next: Instagram Stories Performance Study: What Are the Best Instagram Stories Strategies for 2022 Based on the Analysis of 96K Instagram Stories
One thing to take note of is that there is no single prescribed path to success. Everyone approaches their status as an influencer differently, but the pandemic has created a lot of awareness about what the target market actually desires. The first thing that can be noted in this regard is that influencers no longer need to follow the trendy, airbrushed and visibly fake visual style that had become commonplace in the mid to late 2010s, and in fact doing so might make you less relatable than you need to be.
Keeping up a fake appearance of a life that is free of any and all troubles is no longer going to let you connect to your target market in an appreciable enough manner. The most important factor if you want to penetrate the Gen Z niche is relatability. That might be due to the reason that they have grown up with social media and are living examples of how harmful the depiction of fake picture perfect lifestyles can be on the average person.
In general, members of Gen Z or Zoomers as they are often colloquially called place a lot of value in realness and authenticity. 45% of Gen Z think that there is too much pressure to be perfect on social media which is a lot higher than the 33% of members of other generations that agree. What’s more is that 42% of Gen Z think that people should show who they truly are on social media, higher than the 36% that is the case with other generations that are out there.
Sharing one’s troubles and peeling back the veneer of living a perfect life can help influencers to actually have an influence on other people’s lives. 39% of people in Gen Z feel that sharing problems and obstacles makes someone a great deal more relatable, and this is also associated with avoiding the use of filters that can change your physical appearance and make it seem like you conform more or less entirely with the damaging stereotypes that society believes people should look like despite them being rather impractical and irrational.
20% of social media users from 7 different countries feel that the use of filters is not all that preferable for them. In fact, many Chinese influencers are changing beauty standards in their country by avoiding the use of filters entirely, and this is something that other influencers would do well to keep in mind. If you still want to use filters, many users agree that there should be some kind of a disclaimer that can inform your audience if you are doing so.
Norway has gone so far as to make it illegal for an influencer to use filters on their pictures without displaying a disclaimer that makes it clear that this is what they are actually doing. Undisclosed filters can create unrealistic beauty standards in the world, and that is something that is already having quite a negative impact on both young as well as old members of society. Trying to be genuine is something that all influencers should consider doing, and it has brought much success to those that have managed to try it out in the content they post online for the most part.
H/T: GWI.
Read next: Instagram Stories Performance Study: What Are the Best Instagram Stories Strategies for 2022 Based on the Analysis of 96K Instagram Stories
