Influencer Bullsh*t

Hi everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of Sniffing Out The Bullshit. I have decided to talk about the world of influencers. Now, I don't know about you, but I really hate the term influencers. I mean, as soon as someone calls me an influencer, I get kind of offended. I don't know, I mean, it's got a bit of a dodgy reputation, that name. Some people love it. Some people dream about becoming an influencer. And other people just do not like it. Now, I get called a LinkedIn influencer, which I think is actually becoming a LinkedIn influencer, you know, because it's trendy to merge two words, just because I get an attraction on my LinkedIn. I would definitely not call myself an influencer. In fact, I go very much against the grain on LinkedIn. You've probably heard the episode on the LinkedIn algorithm bullshit. And if you haven't, I suggest you tune into that. Actually, it's got some quite useful advice on how to rank on LinkedIn. But the term influencer has got some murky kind of meaning around it. So I guess I want to talk about what that means to you. I feel like influencers have always been around. You know, think about even when you're at school and someone came in with something cool and then you wanted it, you were being influenced because your friend has it and they maybe were one of the cool kids and so therefore you needed to have it. Or anything you saw on TV and someone that you admired had something. They were influencing you to purchase that item or to like a certain thing, to be a certain way. That was influence. It isn't a new term, it isn't a new kind of concept. However, now, because of social media, because of the fact that this has actually even become a job, like an actual career as an influencer, or UGC Creator, which we're gonna cover in a minute, all these sort of things are actually viable careers now, which is kind of insane. All these things like Twitch streamers, and they just didn't exist several years ago. And now it's like a whole new thing that mainly, obviously Gen Z kind of want to aspire to be. So I guess what does it really mean? And what responsibility do you have as an influencer? And is it only bad? Because at the moment, I'm portraying it as slightly bad things to do.

But I always wonder the question, if your parent and your kid turns to you and says, I really want to be an influencer when I grow up, how would you feel? Back in the day, people go, oh, people want their kids to be a doctor, a nurse, a vet. These are all the things that I wanted to do when I was younger. Although actually, I turned to my parents and I really want to be a hairdresser. But that was what I probably wanted to do more than anything else. I wanted to be a hairdresser. And it's funny because I love hairdressing still. I think it's super creative. They're artists. And I'm just not very good at hair. I can never do it. But it's no wonder I ended up in a creative sector, because I do believe that people like hairdressers, makeup artists are literally artists, and makeup artists are called artists. But there's some level of creativity to them. I ended up in medicine first, because I do find medicine fascinating too, which is probably why I said doctor, nurse and vet, because they're all medical. Influencer is a real kind of thing. I've heard young kids say I want to be a YouTuber. That's what they want to do. They aspire to people like MrBeast, or Jimmy Donaldson, or whatever you want to call him. And it's crazy. But I think, actually, since I brought up MrBeast, I'm going to bring him up because this guy is quite phenomenal. If you ever watch an interview with him or read about him other than his videos, you will know that this guy works his absolute butt off since he was a teenager. I mean, I don't know many teenagers who have that much resilience and determination to do something. He wanted to be the best YouTuber in the world, and he didn't want to stop until he was. And he put out video after video after video for like 10 years, pretty much, with no one watching it. Like, I don't know anyone who could handle that much rejection, could deal with the fact that their posts don't do well. They're putting in all that time every single day to get what feels like zero results. And then one day he just blew up. To the world, he's known as an overnight success, but people forget about those 10 years prior to that. And they just see him as this ridiculous overnight success, and they all think, oh, I'm going to put a few YouTube videos out, and that's what's going to happen to me. And I think this is the problem with influencers at the moment. So I think that, you know, obviously, with the likes of people like that, he is actually doing some great stuff in the world. He's actually influencing people for good. He's always trying to speak up on certain issues, he's trying to do good things.

And do you know why? I actually think he's kind of a cool guy, like in that sense, like he's worked his butt off. He is really like making an effort. He always wants to be the best. He's got some good values and some good ethics. So actually, if kids are aspiring to be like Mr. Beast, there could be a lot of worked people out there that they could be aspiring to be. And he's got great work ethic. I know that most agencies would snap their fingers to have someone like Mr. Beast in their team. He works that hard to achieve those results. But the reality is is that most people don't think like that. A lot of people out there trying to do YouTube channels and are just failing because they'll release a few videos. No one will watch them like, oh, there's no point then. I'm making all this effort for absolutely nothing. But what they don't get is that there is no reward at the very beginning. You have to truly love what you do, otherwise there's no point doing it. You have to believe in your stuff too. Like obviously, if you're just putting out videos, you think there's no point, but you don't truly believe that the world needs to see your videos. He did. He truly believed that his videos were worth seeing and they were different and they were better than everyone else's, which is why he kept doing it, because eventually people will see it and then people would love it and then look where he is now. So, for me, he's a fantastic influencer, and there are lots of others out there, so obviously it's not all bad. I scroll through Instagram and I totally follow a bunch of influencers and I totally listen to their opinion and buy half the products that they are advertising, so it works. I am a victim of influence myself, and they may be different to other influencers. They are the same as LinkedIn or other channels where there are entrepreneurial influencers. I totally get influenced by what they say or the book recommendations or courses to learn or something like that. It doesn't have to be the same sort of products. So influencer is definitely not bad, and I think it's such a powerful industry. And as an agency, we would use influencers ourselves to work with our clients because it absolutely does work. What is so important, though, is that you need to make sure that your brand's values align with the influencer's values.

Because I've worked with some brands and it's so frustrating because they're like, oh, we know someone who's got 2.7 million followers. I'm like, fantastic, tell me more about them. Oh, I don't know anything about them. They're just, you know, some person. And like, their influencer that they've picked are so far aligned with their brand values, it makes absolutely no sense. So when they're like, oh, but it's fine, like, you know, 2.7 million, only a couple people need to buy stuff and then we'll get something coming in. But no one on that person's page gives a crap about their products because it doesn't even make sense that they're posting about it. So no one's suddenly just going to buy it because even the influencer doesn't believe in the products and doesn't have any connection to the product. So it makes no sense. You're just giving away money. And I see this so, so often. Honestly, like, I've had infuriating calls in the last couple of weeks with brands who are like, you know, really high end lifestyle brands and, you know, they want to be working with really classy people in lovely homes and they're going with influencers who are like, got kids as their followers, who, you know, only attract that sort of audience. And that just makes no sense, but they've got a lot of followers and they'll do it for cheap. It makes no sense to me. So that is one thing you have to absolutely do. Now, say if you don't care about influencing, you say if you don't care about hiring anyone, but you're actually just like on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, wherever you are, you know, looking at a lot of these influences and you're wondering like how to maybe post like them or whether their products are good and what to believe, because unfortunately there's a lot of bullshit out there. Now, a lot of people on social media are desperately trying to be these influencers and they're trying to look like they're successful. The problem is, is that you will see the majority of these people who post all day every day and they don't really get much traction, but then they decide that either they're gonna buy a bunch of followers and they're going to act like they've been successful, and then they're gonna start selling courses on how to be successful on social media. And that's the big thing that they do. They don't know how to do it themselves. They've never made any money off it themselves.

They're claiming that they're getting brand deal after brand deal, but they're not. Like, the clearest thing to sniff out the bullshit with all those brand deal ones are have a look at what they're doing. So lots of these influencers post their videos and their reels with brands that they admire, but oh yeah, they're trying to act like they have partnerships with them. But never have they tagged a paid partnership in there with the label. And never have they put like, sometimes they put a hashtag ad just to try and look like it is, but they've never had a paid partnership and the brand doesn't actually share it. The brand doesn't collaborate with them either. Now, if you're a brand and you want to pay an influencer, you're going to share that stuff to your profile. Check to see if it's real. It's not. And what they're doing is they're trying to pretend that they've landed all these big deals that you get jealous and you're like, oh my God, they're amazing content creators. They've landed all these deals and then I must learn from them how they do it. Boom, they'll sell you your course, you waste your money and that's what happens. That is the bullshit that is around this sort of industry. So this is the stuff you need to look out for. Check to see if the brand actually has worked with them and let's see if they're legit. Because I've been going through recently and just checking some of the stuff that's trending on Instagram. And the thing at the moment is these aesthetic reels. And these keep changing what they look like, whether it's the darker kind of ones with a lower exposure kind of videos, or now it's just, you know, everyone's in beige. Everyone seems to own everything in beige. And they all seem to have these aesthetic breakfasts. They all make their coffee in the same way. And, you know, they just, they do the same thing. They all wake up in their beds alone, no partners, no kids, nothing. They stretch in the morning, they tie back their hair, they open the curtains and they go make their breakfast. Or sometimes they go in the shower and we get to see what products they use as well. Like every single reel is exactly the same. And there's like hundreds of them doing all the same thing with showing off their product. They open their cabinet door and they have like 5,000 products in there. You know, all that they have. I don't know if they're gonna use them because that seems like a lot of stuff. They're using a lot of products. And you know, I just think, are there all those brands working with them? Probably not.

Are they wanting them to work with them? Probably yes. And you know, they've got all these products and they're just showing that's what their day is. And they all seem to be doing yoga in the morning, going to get their breakfast, and they don't seem to have jobs. I think that's what they do. They're content creators. And they've often moved to LA or some big city, and they're showing off what their new apartment looks like, and their new apartment looks dead. Like there's nothing in it. It is so boring. But this is what aesthetic wheels look like. And to be fair, if you think about it, all these people I can see on the comments going, oh, you have the best life. And you're sitting there jealous of these people, but think about it. They wake up every morning alone in a boring apartment which doesn't even look lived in, they can't be comfortable in. They have the same thing every single day, and they're making videos of it because they're not actually enjoying and experiencing life in the moment. And they go out and they don't really do anything. And that's all you see every day. To me, that is not something to be jealous of. And I see all these people getting super duper like up in their heads and worrying about their mental health because they don't have the life that these people have. Sure, you can admire the fact that they've all got banging figures, which they do. So, you know, set a fitness goal. That's what I'm trying to do. I totally admire the fact that they're in such great shape. Yes, but I don't admire the fact that they are, they don't have partners, they don't have kids, they don't have any sort of form of life for the looks of it. It looks quite lonely. Like, I don't have kids yet, but I live at home with my fiancee and my adorable puppy, and I love waking up every morning next to them. I love the fact that I roll over, I don't stretch and tie back my hair. I roll over, have a cuddle, play with my dog, and get in the shower. And I don't need to take a video of it because I don't need to document that part of my life. And like, fine, it's part of a vlog, and I get it, which is great, and there is definitely room for that. And vlogging is nice to see what goes on behind closed doors of someone's life. But if it's the same stuff every day, and that's what they look like, don't sit there and think, oh, I want that life, because everyone is portraying something that isn't quite there.

And I see also the other thing, a way to people get money, and this is what they do. So they're trying to make money by landing brand deals like this. The other way is that they're trying to do affiliate marketing. And lots of people are not hiding it because you're not supposed to. You're supposed to say, okay, I'm earning some money from these affiliate links. So they are consistently recommending products. The problem is this is really encouraging. People are just buy, buy, buy. All it is is buying, and they don't care that other people are getting into debt because of their influence, which is again, a little bit irresponsible. Now, I see there are some accounts who are just doing videos every single day of new products to buy. They are wasting food every day, just because it looks pretty to do. They don't even eat it. They are buying all these things, consistently having hundreds and hundreds of products that actually I've seen people now lashing out against them. Every day they're going, why do you waste so much stuff? This is not good. The world is in poverty, and you're sitting here just like throwing out food. And people are lashing out back against it. So you'll start to realise these sort of things, and I would call it out, because it's not right. And people are doing this for the sake of aesthetic rules, because it looks nice. But all it's doing is creating waste and encouraging people to buy things they don't even want to be buying. And this is how UGC works. And I think there's a lot of people wanting to become UGC creators. And so UGC does a user-generated content. And the idea is that they want to land a deal with typically a hotel, for example. They'll get a free stay. And all they need to do is create content around it. So what they're doing is they're constantly creating content for brands, hoping that one brand will see their stuff, love what they're doing, and then land them a deal. And now there's this whole trend of people going, oh, how I make 10,000 pounds a day becoming a UGC creator. They're not, they're not doing that at all. And you'll see even some people put screenshots of money that they're making, and all they're just throwing out money, and throwing out numbers anywhere. That's the trend as well at the moment. They just throw out money about how much money they make on social media. It's not true. And they are taking all these videos, and they're hoping to land deals, but they're not.

They're pretending that they already are. So you can do the same. If you really want to be a UGC creator, you can do it. You can go out there and create content. Go think about the brands that you really, really want to work with. Carve out a bit of a niche so it makes sense for your profile. Talk about that stuff all the time. Evolve yourself around that stuff. So, for example, if it's beauty skincare, do your skincare routine. Do talk about it. Explain what you like and what type of brands you want to work with and what type your skin is like. Then go ahead and do that. And show the ones you're using because a brand will might see that, and they'll be like, oh, can I send you some products? And you could do some stuff. And sure, you could build it up. That way. However, the ones who are doing the stuff, for example, even hotels, I know people who have said that they've got this free trip and they've got these free holidays and they're bragging about how they've been paid to go around the world. I know for a fact that they paid to stay in those hotels. This is how low it's gotten now and how much the bullshit is out there. They will pay thousands and thousands of pounds to stay in a stunning hotel. They will pay a photographer, videographer to follow them around and invest like 10K into this amazing trip to create all this gorgeous content because they think it will land them future deals and make them feel special. So anyone could do that. And it just portrays this image of this lifestyle that they don't actually have and they're actually quite miserable and they're actually losing money. But sometimes it pays off. That's an investment. And again, just like you pay to go to college or university because you want your future to look good and you pay those fees and the hope that you'll earn a big job later and it'll pay off. That's the same. And fine if you want to do that and that's your way of doing it, but don't lie. Don't bullshit your followers. Your loyal followers were there supporting you and saying that that's the life that you need and then try to milk money off them later by selling courses on how to do this. So what I would recommend, if you do want to become a content creator, then you follow people you know have done it properly or you just research people who

don't have an agenda and are not selling you stuff. There's a lot of free material out there. You do not need to be paying for courses like this. Now, I think one of the other things I think, you know, gets me is the fact that all these content creators act like it's super easy. Now, I've seen so many ads in the last couple of weeks going, social media manager is the easiest job you can set up. And I'm like, okay, well, it technically is easy to set up. You just need a computer and a wifi connection, then you can do your job. But it's like, it's not easy to actually do. And there are thousands of these sort of things, which is like, oh, five simple ways to do this. All you need to do this is you skyrocket your social media. And TikTok and Instagram is killing marketing agencies, honestly. I cannot tell you the number of people we have hired over the last couple of years, who have come on board, lied about their qualifications, said that they want to become a digital marketer, and they want to work with brands. And we do B2C and B2B. And for those who don't know, B2B is business to business, and B2C is business to customer. So a lot of the stuff on Instagram you'll see is business to customer, but we do a lot of work with business to business stuff as well, which is very different. But we do do B2C stuff. And we have so many people come to us who claim they want to do digital marketing. And then when we actually want them to do real digital marketing and which is, digital marketing is all about analysing data because that's the beauty about digital marketing. You've got data to back up your strategies. So we ask them to analyse data. We ask them to go through strategy. You know, we ask them to keep on top of like trends, not audio trends or dancing trends, but you know, what's going on in the industry. That sort of stuff is real marketing and reacting to that, and writing about it, a lot of writing. Now, the ones that we get decide that they don't want to do writing. All they want to do are TikTok videos. They think that social media is where it's at. You create one post and you go viral. And that's genuinely what people think because of the way that people have portrayed it.

And there were so many videos and content online going, oh, social media is so easy. And then they make it out like it's really easy. And don't get me wrong, when I watch them, I'm like, God, it looks easy for what they do, but I know full well it's not. And it takes hours and hours and hours. And they spent years creating videos as well that weren't being seen by anyone either. And all they've done now is gone on to teaching it because they can't do it themselves. If they had to build up their own brand, they wouldn't be able to. So instead they teach it because that's what the trend is. That will gain you traction if you're consistently teaching it. So the problem is, with influencers, you are ruining the perception of everyone else out there. People are looking at your stuff and they assume that social media is easy, UGC is easy, like I can just post a couple of things, earn loads of money, get rich, have this gorgeous lifestyle where I was traveling the world, eating gorgeous fruit that looks all pretty and arranged nicely, doing this and that and getting paid to do it, and there's no work involved. Take a couple of pictures and that's it. But the reality is so the opposite. They're spending day in and day out. They don't even get to have a holiday most of the time for spending content. And it's really hard work. You're gonna have to put in years of work for absolutely nothing before you can actually achieve those benefits. There are absolutely people out there who do live that lifestyle and they're loving it. But at the same time, there are people who are doing that, but also still broke because yes, you can get free trips, but you can't always get paid for it. So where do you get the money coming from? It's really hard. And you're working nonstop and no guaranteed income. So I'd say that before you want to become an influencer, you need to really think about it, what the reality is and whether you can live like that, whether you can put that much effort in for zero return for such a long time, because that's the reality of what you're going to do. And if you do want to decide that you want to get a normal job, paid job, because you want the security of doing that, then I suggest that you get your head down and do that job and not expect to become an influencer and still get paid a full-time salary because that's having your cake and eating it. And most of the time, you just don't get that luxury. So influencers, you do have a reputation, not a reputation, you do have a responsibility.

You have a reputation, but you have a responsibility too. And you have a responsibility to all those people you are influencing to be real, to be authentic, to be true. Like you cannot portray this image and of what it supposedly is. I mean, you're gonna say, oh, it's marketing, that's what it is. No, it's not. There's a difference between marketing and lying, and you need to be realistic. Show the balance, show the amazing stuff. Yeah, like when it's good, it's absolutely fantastic. But also show the hard work and effort that you put in day in and day out, because actually your content is incredible. And the stuff that you do, the good ones, takes so long, and actually how you come up with content every single day is hard work. So show it off, show off what the amazing stuff you can do and do everyone else a favour to show how difficult it is. So that's my rant today on influences and the bullshit that goes alongside with it, but also a reality check of, you know, to check who's real, who's not, who's bullshitting, who's actually a good content creator, and you know, a bit of advice if you do want to become a content creator. And to those who do want to do it, good luck. It's bloody hard, but you know, if you love what you do, then I'm sure you'll be able to put the effort into it. And that's it for today's Sniffing Out The Bullshit, and hopefully I'll see you next week for another episode.