#AD #SPONSORED: Have influencers lost their power by disclosing brand deals?

Akvile Puluikyte

The word influencer has become somewhat of a swear word in the world of communication. With so many social media ‘stars’ trying to influence us to buy everything from food to furniture, people are starting to see them as less trustworthy and less credible than before or at least view them in a more critical way.

Influencers and PR

Working through such platforms as Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat, influencers build their brand by creating relationships with their followers. Influencers use those relationships to persuade their followers to buy certain products. This is where PR comes in. PR professionals send influencers new products for free and in return those influencers promote it on their social media. For more famous influencers, companies have to pay a lot of money in order to get them to promote something. Either way, the point of this practice is that influencers promote a product in such a way that makes it look like they genuinely love it.             

Screenshot from Instagram @sydneyloveleigh

New laws and rules for influencers

Such promotion of products has caused many scandals, because influencers don’t show when they have been paid to promote something. Following the scandals and overall dissatisfaction with social media stars, new laws and rules have been created to inform influencers on how to show that they are advertising a product. Influencers are now required by law to disclose advertisements and they choose to do so with such hashtags as #ad or #sponsored. The most famous influencers have also updated their old posts in order to avoid scandals in the future, for example, Kylie Jenner has now updated her caption on the post where she promotes FitTea. 

Screenshots taken from here

The new requirement to disclose advertisements has become a challenge for PR professionals who work with influencers. Revealing that influencers have been paid to promote something makes people more aware of advertisements which can lead to them not wanting to purchase the advertised product.

Is this the end of influencers?

You might think that disclosing advertisements ruins the whole brand of influencers, but that is not true. In fact, a recent study by Dhanesh and Duthler (2019) shows quite surprising results of how people react to influencers that post sponsored content. The results of this research revealed that the awareness of paid endorsement actually strengthens the relationship between the influencer and their followers. So, when an influencer posts something that includes a brand deal and explicitly shows that it has been paid for, the followers appreciate it and start to see the influencer as more trustworthy. Therefore, rather than being angry at influencers for promoting products they were paid to promote, the followers see the disclosure of sponsors as an act of openness, honesty and transparency. 

Screenshot from @kimkardashian

What does that mean for communication professionals?

The same study also showed that when social media users recognize the endorsements, they are more likely to purchase those products. Surprisingly, a disclosure of advertisement doesn’t discourage people from purchasing a product – the followers tend to act the opposite way and buy the promoted products. This can also be explained by the trustworthy relationship the followers have with the influencers.

As we know, one of the main challenges the whole profession of PR faces is the lack of trust, so people prefer to know that something is being advertised to them instead of companies trying to hide such things. From Dhanesh and Duthler’s (2019) study we see that the requirement to disclose advertisements does not mean the end of the influencer. The brand of influencers is built on their relationship with the followers, so openness about paid deals just strengthens that relationship. This is also good news for the PR industry, meaning that it can still work with influencers, but now in a more ethical way, without having to lie to customers.   

Reference:

Dhanesh, G. S. & Duthler, G. (2019) Relationship management through social media influencers: Effects on followers’ awareness of paid endorsement. Public Relations Review, 45(3). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2019.03.002

About the author:

Akvile Puluikyte is an international student at the University of Amsterdam. She finished her Media, Communication and Cultural Studies bachelor at Newcastle University and is currently in the middle of her Masters’ in Communication Science with the specialization in Corporate Communication.