The digital native generations, especially Gen-Z, are big on online and social media. That, in a way, could be said as a birth right of theirs as they started with these platforms since Day 1 of their birth.
World Economic Forum estimates that Gen Z spends (average) 2 hours and 55 minutes per day on social media, “more than any other generation.”
Close to three hours ‘a day’ is a ‘big disbursement’.
Even Gan Z’s TV watching habits have ‘digital’ written all over…According to research by YouGov, 69% of Gen Z watch TV-but streaming services are what they consume. Only 12% consume cable / satellite TV.
These numbers make it a little surprise that this generation to be the one connecting closest with influencers.
According to Morning Consult Influencer Report, nearly two-thirds of Gen Z follow influencers and 50% say that they trust influencer recommendations.
“Influencer marketing… is a marketing strategy that has been successfully used by thousands of businesses and brands and has experienced continued growth over the past decade… . As they are viewed by their followers as trustworthy experts in their field, they can effectively impact their audience’s purchasing decisions.”- Jacinda Santora writing in influencermarketinghub.com
Despite the claim of ‘handbooks for influencer marketing and engagement’, this is a sector that has no real handbook to follow unlike many other online engagement and content strategies. The reason is that the influencer industry uses both traditional media and high tech, digital approaches. Influencer industry is where these two divergent domains meet and collaborate –for results, and big bucks.
For instance, when filming influencer videos, rules of traditional filming of the subject such as lighting and editing are adopted. When the finished content is distributed on platforms, modern, digital engagement methods and metrics such as likes and subscriptions are counted. Therefore, this is an industry that combines multiple handbooks-or an industry with no definitive handbook at all! Still, it is one of the most prolific sectors of growth. This influencer market which was at US $1.7 billion in 2016, is now estimated to grow to an eye popping US$16.4 billion industry by this year’s end (influencermarketinghub.com). This is an almost 10-fold increase, within a mere six-year period.
Thus, is it any surprise that Gen Z is a driving force of influencer industry?
When the popular and controversial YouTube creator PewDiePie (Real name: Felix Kjellberg) teamed up with some horror film makers and created an attractive video series, little did he envision he would experience runaway success. The series of videos where he faced challenges in Parisian catacombs reportedly received “double the views as the movie’s trailer”. In November 2019, Variety magazine conducted a survey and found that PewDiePie was most popular influencer (62%) among Gen Z (Elon Musk came fourth at 57%).
That is not to say influencers can publish any free-for-all content and get away with it.
A quick ‘Track Back’ to PewDiePie;
Being a controversial influencer, he ends up publishing anti-Semitic rhetoric in one of his videos that featured two Sri Lankan boys holding a racist placard / display against the Jews- and dancing. This video led to high controversy and PewDiePie’s “business deals were dropped by Maker Studios and YouTube” (Variety). This incident became a headline disaster in the annals of influencer industry, and being studied even today to understand ‘how not to do things in this industry.’
What lies behind such unpredictability in one of the fastest growing online sectors today?
