- Serena Gocke
- BBC News Arabic
The Iraqi woman, Jihan Hashem, is drinking her coffee in a café in Iraq, but she complains about her inability to enjoy moments of privacy in public places. For her six million followers, she is one of the stars in the world of social media.
Jihan admits that she is very happy with the attention of her followers, “Wherever I go, people get to know me and come to take a picture with me.”
But sometimes it may “go beyond liking and following to the point of bullying,” says Jihan.
Jihan, according to the media circulated expression, is one of the major influences in the social media market, originally a make-up artist, but she became a target for marketing the products of major brands.
Jihan belongs to the category of mega influencers or influencers and influencers who have more than one million followers, and she is the most sought-after category in commercial promotion, as an influencer in this category can receive one million dollars for one advertisement or promotion.
Rivulet
Influencers or influencers and content makers, are terms that have become popular in recent years, with the world heading to spend more time on social networking sites and relying on their sites in most of their affairs, ranging from entertainment and entertainment and obtaining news to financial transactions as well as shopping.
Duniyana: Impact or Frustration?
The influencer currently plays a large and important role in shaping public opinion and taste. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of influencers who specialize in various fields, including fashion, fashion, makeup, nutrition, science, and others. There is also a comprehensive influencer who may share a variety of content and does not prefer to limit himself to specific.
Not all of these people necessarily have practical or academic experience in their fields, but despite that, they enjoy a wide fan base of fans and followers on social networking sites, usually ranging from thousands of followers to several million.
Jihan
The psychology of influence
According to Dr Peter Andrews, lecturer at the University of Hull in Britain, throughout history, people have been influenced by one another. The concept of influencer is also not entirely new, as the term was merely an adjective applied to leaders and opinion makers in various disciplines.
As for why we follow and love one person over another, it goes back to the so-called “self-image” which makes us determine our value by comparing ourselves with others we aspire to be like, according to Dr. Andrews. These people “have the power of reference, in the sense that they are a reference and role model for us when thinking about what we aspire to become, which is what social media influencers usually have.”
Although the concept of the influencer is not new, the term has transformed from an adjective into a profession that may generate fantastic financial returns and a title that competes to attract the bearer of social media giants.
Giants race
Facebook announced last July that it had allocated one billion dollars to attract content makers and influencers to it, but Facebook was not a pioneer in this step that YouTube and Tik Tok took before by allocating competing amounts for the same purpose.
These platforms do not provide funds to support influencers as a donation. According to Dr. Andrews, these influencers make up about 75% of public content on social media platforms and without this content “sites will be limited to some conversations between people and sharing photos.”
The lack of content is a disaster for these sites that will lose their visitors little by little and therefore brands will not use them as platforms to promote their products, which means losing money coming through ads as well.
Social media is not the only one competing to attract influencers, different brands are also aware of the value of influencers and the profits they can make through them.
Although direct digital promotion on social networking sites may be more effective than traditional means, studies indicate that about 40% of people around the world use ad blockers while browsing the Internet. Herein lies the importance of the influencer according to Dr. Andrews, as people are the ones who seek after the influencer and look for him to view his content, and often they trust him and try to imitate him, and they do not try to avoid his ads as they do with direct promotions. In this way, “brands actually have more effective marketing and lower costs.”
But not all influencers are the same, some of them get huge sums of up to one million dollars in exchange for promoting a product, and some of them promote for free.
The percentage of profits that the influencer gets varies depending on the size and value of the company he promotes and the number of his followers. Influencers are usually divided into four types in terms of number:
Regardless of the money and profits that investors may make, the fame they have can sometimes be a double-edged sword. Jihan, for example, is subjected to “a lot of trouble and negative comments, in addition to cyberbullying.”
However, these matters are not the only tax that the influencer pays. According to the Kuwaiti, Ghadeer Al-Sultan, who has more than two million followers on Instagram, “Life has become a permanent job, and all this is to please people, but people are a goal that they do not realize.”
Ghadeer believes that her spontaneity and frankness are the reason people follow her, and many experts agree that the most prominent characteristic of influencers on social media is their closeness to people and their credibility, unlike other celebrities.
It seems that the influencer’s proximity to his followers and sharing the smallest details of his day with them actually pays off. When browsing the accounts of many Arab content creators, you may find videos with titles such as “I wore red for a whole day” or “I worked in a barbershop” or even “Youth YouTubers decided Marry Me” has thousands of views, comments, likes, etc.
Simple headlines and events that most people go through and may not give them any importance in real life, but these matters seem to have a different impact on the hearts of the pioneers of social networking sites when the influencer they follow shares them, and there is no doubt that the phenomenon of influencers imposed itself on an entire generation that sees Influencers are like stars and aspire to be like them. Once you type the word “influencer” on search engines, you will find an unlimited number of results that guide you to “7 steps to become an informant” and “how to become an informant on social media” and others.