Fakeness in the Social Media Influencer Community

I have fallen off the face of the earth — me, explaining my break from  social media to blogger buddy, Claudia of Miles and Smiles.

Don’t get me wrong. I never completely fell off the grid. On my blog’s Instagram account, I still occasionally scrolled through my feed and skimmed people’s stories. I am also a freelance social media manager, so I can never fully be off it 😪. However, sometime during the second half of 2018, I started to be turned off by how superficial and meaningless social media (read: Instagram) is has become.

I feel like every few posts I see is sponsored, even if it’s not. I’m a blogger myself, so I understand the need to “get that bread”, but damn. If I wanted to see so many ads, I would turn on my TV. James Nord, CEO of Fohr, expresses my feelings pretty well:

There have been a few instances where I have seen people whine about the algorithm hating them. Good news(?), the algorithm doesn’t favor or disfavor particular people 😅 It’s just the way it is. It can be tempting, but don’t try to counteract this by using third-party apps to artificially grow your audience! Instagram is catching up to it. Instagram is looking to “increase transparency on the platform for users and advertisers alike”. I’m not sure if anyone I am following is guilty of this, but the fact this is common practice speaks volumes about the priorities and values of some individuals on the platform. I, personally, do not share the same priorities or values.

I have felt like I am not getting anything of substance out of these sites, particularly Instagram (in most cases). Sometimes I find and save a new product I might buy someday. And its nice to creep on what my friends and connections are doing. But what else? I can’t think of any. Too many captions sound like afterthoughts or sales pitches nower days. The same thing can be said for some of the comments I read — like did y’all just hit copy and paste… yeesh. I’m not trying to shade anyone here. I am just thinking out loud. And honestly, I don’t have a solution. I am not here to tell people what to do. I just want to say I will make a conscious effort to inspire and engage with people on my IG.

One last thing, it seriously sucks that influencers who have no business teaching digital marketing taking advantage of their impressionable followers. Word to the wise, seek out social media managers or third-party sites like HubSpot, Later and 21Ninety to learn more about digital marketing/social media. Influencers more often than not will only be able to tell you how they personally grew their account but not why it grew and what the best social media growth practices are. If they can’t tell you the whys and whats, then the information they give you is useless.

If you’re thinking “is this article meant to inform me or just a form of venting?” Here is your answer.

via GIPHY