Observing some icons of digital influence in Brazil became an invitation to wonder. Infamous credit card bills exposed, unusual tattoos on even more surprising body parts, happy families in photos while owing millions in taxes, fitness influencer married to Pagodeiro evicted over late rent.
Actors who were once at Globo and now gossip on social media are a category of their own in the influence hall, as are exdancers and stage hands on TV shows, perhaps second only to exreality show contestants.
Together, this group accumulates controversy in addition to many followers on Instagram. Recently, Gabi Brandt, 26, revealed in a live stream on social media that the bill for the month of June was R$377,000. The influencer later explained that she doesn’t spend it every month. It was not an isolated case, other influencers felt the same way. As columnist Fefito pointed out, influencers seem increasingly detached from reality.
Influencers are a slap in the face to Brazilians who are already so tired of being slapped. But this lack of sensitivity, and especially empathy, is just a symptom of a larger problem.
Influencers become irrelevant
The traditional digital influence, where the simple fact that a person had thousands of connections on a social network was enough to close deals and earn thousands of reais, is in crisis.
TikTok left the world of influence up in the air. If Instagram was ruled by the famous and minor celebrities, the highlight on TikTok is the content produced by millions of anonymous people.
We have left the era of connections and entered the era of interests. More and more people are consuming the topics that interest them and less the content that the people they are connected to are posting. As marketer and influencer Gary Vee said, TikTok is successful because it chose an interest chart and not a social chart like social media before the Chinese social network exploded.
User engagement on Instagram has dropped across the board. Overall app engagement has declined by about 44% since 2019, according to a new study by social media company Later, which analyzed roughly 81 million Instagram posts made between January 2019 and February 2022.
The drop in engagement picked up when Instagram launched Reels in August 2020. The shortform video feature should help Meta (which owns Instagram and Facebook) compete with TikTok. Last week, Instagram announced changes to speed up this process. But a day after Instagram announced the news, influencers Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian, who have a combined 686 million followers on the platform, launched a campaign against the change.
The sisters shared a message that read “Make Instagram Instagram Again” and complained that Zuckerberg’s network was “trying to be TikTok” instead of focusing on photo sharing.
For the sisters, who are not nearly as relevant on TikTok, an algorithm of interests and regardless of the number of followers implies a significant reduction in relevance.
TikTok and the influence of Anonymous
Instagram’s move comes in response to the flight of users and advertisers migrating to TikTok. Just a day after the change was announced, and following negative feedback from many users, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri posted a mea culpa on his Twitter profile, acknowledging that the platform’s move to video “still isn’t good.”
However, the executive emphasized that the changes are in response to the new way people are consuming content on social networks. Mosseri stated that the company “will continue to support photos,” but noted that he believes “more and more Instagram will move to video,” regardless of whether the company moves proactively in that direction.
“If you look at what people are sharing on Instagram, that’s shifting more and more to video over time,” he said. “If you look at what people are liking, consuming and watching on Instagram, even if we stop changing things, that is shifting more and more to video over time as well. So we have to lean on that shift.”
That said, the success of TikTok is forcing all social networks to copy it. And that formula puts big influencers like Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian on the back burner. It’s no different in Brazil.
TikTok has revolutionized the way we consume content but also the way content is produced. And a lot of what’s on Instagram doesn’t work on TikTok and won’t work on the new version of Instagram.
As a report by Fast Company’s Danica Lo notes, “the golden age of digital influencers seems to be over.
Appeal to get attention?
Influencers have not lost track, they are desperate. What worked until recently has been less and less effective in generating engagement and opinions on social media. The alternative becomes more and more attractive to the absurd.
You can argue that influencers are rich, but keep in mind that this crowd has also gotten used to spending big. Less profile reach means less money in the account. If it’s a problem for us anonymous humans, it’s even worse for influencers.
Nabbesque parties and lavish displays have become part of the formula for attracting the curious on the networks. A ridiculous boot or a torn branded tshirt bought for thousands of reais guaranteed influencer calls from entertainment sites to attract more followers. Outraged comments were the most effective at generating engagement. Now nobody reads comments on TikTok.
The formula has become so worn that the display has to become increasingly shocking to work, which obviously leads to hyperbole. And presence in the media is becoming increasingly important to compensate for the loss of reach within the platform itself.
It is also worth noting that for a part of the influencers who have invested in the creation of products and brands or who actually deliver something valuable and which, due to the fact that they have many followers, go beyond the notoriety, life goes on with a smaller one , but still loyal audience.
The Network Dilemma
The numbers show the size of the problem. Instagram is not an isolated case. YouTube has had its worst ad revenue result since the company released those numbers in 2019. Revenue rose just 4.8% year over year to $7.34 billion, compared to $7.52 billion according to analyst estimates.
A year ago, YouTube revenue was up 84%, and the only previous quarter to show singledigit growth was the second period of 2020, when sales grew just 5.8% as marketers scaled back spend in the first few weeks of the pandemic paused.
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said in announcing the results that the uncertainties in the economy are hurting advertisers’ investments in the platform. But Prabhakar Raghavan, Google’s senior vice president, said earlier this month that studies by the company showed nearly 40% of young people were increasingly turning to TikTok or Instagram for research. A problem for Google, which monetizes ads on maps and searches in addition to ads on YouTube. To counter TikTok, Google launched YouTube Shorts, its version of social networking videos similar to TikTok.
Twitter, which posted a R$1.5 billion loss last quarter and also saw revenue fall, will cut costs and close offices around the world.
What happens when everyone is an influencer?
Although it’s not a regulated profession, Brazil has more than 500,000 digital influencers, according to a survey by research firm Nielsen. More than trained dentists (374,000) and civil engineers (455,000). The contingent of influencers follows the number of doctors, which reaches 502,000.
Nothing indicates that this is likely to decrease as TikTok makes everyone an influencer. And if we’re all influencers, no one is influential enough to justify advertisers’ investment or their time in liking that person.
The war for attention has become even more challenging for content creators. In the deluge of information we are constantly bombarded with, a 26yearold girl paying a R$377,000 credit card bill in a polarized country where a large proportion of the population lives below the poverty line draws attention.
When Arthur Picoli said he was shocked by the bills issued by other personalities, he showed his bill of just R$85.18. Otherwise he used the same tricks as his colleagues. Because who thinks the former BBB is spending just that on the card?
Just as many Malhação heartthrobs have earned thousands of reais from proms and attending events, only to be forced to turn their backs when the fashion is out, something similar needs to happen with digital influencers.
The best will reinvent themselves and stay relevant, but much of it will just become a forgotten, painterly picture of the digital past. But before that, many will rely on increasingly awkward situations to try to garner attention and “close the accounts,” as they’re only famous for having many followers driven by sheer curiosity.