The Rise of the Influencer
It’s no secret that with the rise of the “social media influencer” many more lucrative and long term career opportunities have flourished for a wide variety of industries throughout the internet. Whether we are actively aware of it or not, many of social media’s top accounts subliminally (and at times blatantly) sell us products, brands and services on a near constant basis.
At times this is welcomed. At other times it becomes another piece of digital “noise” in our daily lives lambasting us with offers to spend our cold, hard cash on brands these influencers peddle to us.
The point of this article isn’t to fault anyone for accepting an endorsement deal. In fact, this is simply part of business and utilizing the power of social media. The growing issue, however, is not only the process of establishing a social following, but of most importantly doing it honestly, with real, established followers.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BtMODPMH4SH/?utm_source=ig_embed
Influencers Can Make BANK
One doesn’t have to dig deep to unearth some of the astonishingly high dollar endorsement offers and deals that established social media influencers are offered. For a simple post including or actively discussing a product or brand, these influencers can rake in thousands. In the case of top celebrities, these offers can even top hundreds of thousands, if not millions, for strategic and timely mention.
Rounding out some of the top grossing Instagram (IG) sponsored posts, we find that celebrities are grossing some incredibly lucrative sums for single product endorsements or mentions. Some of these include:
- Kylie Jenner — $1.2million per post
- Ariana Grande — $966,000 (£773,340) per post
- Cristiano Ronaldo — $975,000 (£780,487) per post
https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/49124484
There’s no denying there is money to be made as an established social media account. With this meteoric rise in cash allocated for social media endorsements, many users in more established markets have continued carving out their own niche of strategic consumers within their following and engagement list.
Creating an Established Following
So how does one create a following to start bringing in income? This is no simple task.
The reality of influencers is that not only does following SELL, so does PERCEPTION. In the colluded marketing of social sales:
Perception is Reality.
From the core, anyone looking to establish themselves as a social personality has to create engaging content and media that users first and foremost WANT to interact with. Many accounts have a base in media across a multitude of platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and more recently, TikTok.
This media can range from comedy, to tutorials or how-to’s, to political discussion and discourse. There are near endless possibilities for personalities to dive into niche markets and topics, with a wide range of avid fans, enthusiasts and consumers actively looking for this content.
Regardless of the content topic, the quality of the media truly can make or break an influencer. Without a famous background, many influencers make a name for themselves with media that has countless hours of production quality and work behind each post. What may be a simple 1 minute video may have days or weeks of planning, shooting, editing and production to create that “gem” that has a chance of going viral and bringing in the views.
Social Media Has Expanded
The average social media user used to only have a few key platforms to find the content they enjoyed. Now with advent of multitudes of various platforms, the diversity of posting has expanded substantially. While we have more options for finding content, this has posed an issue for influencers looking to establish a following: Building out followers across each platform both consistently and long term.
While users used to have to spend weeks, months or years slowly building a following, many have looked for options to kick start their following and gain a following much quicker. The dark side of social media following has continued to emerge: Fake Followers.
The internet is veritably PLAGUED with fake follow accounts with some estimates showing as much as 70–80% of some platforms being diluted with fake, duplicate and fraud accounts. While this is an issue for the platforms themselves and advertisers, it plays into the hand of influencers looking for a quick hand up into the PERCEPTION of a longstanding following.
In fact, one doesn’t have to look far to see the massive amounts of companies purporting to sell follows, likes, shares and engagement.
What one finds as they dig deeper into these “services” is that the Twitter “followers” these sites provide are almost all entirely fake, automated and duplicate accounts created for the sole purpose of “padding” the social following of accounts.
While this may temporarily add to the following of an account and give the perception that an account is popular, it becomes increasingly easy to investigate and call out these bad actors.
What you tend to find is a HUGE increase in following over a short period of time without a single engaging story to attach to, followed by massive bans of these accounts as increased security from the platforms identifies and bans them.
In fact, in 2018 Twitter further went on the offensive after coming under fire for years about not taking significant action regarding fake accounts. As The Washington Post reports:
The data obtained by The Post shows a steady flow of suspensions and spikes on particular days, such as Dec. 7, when 1.2 million accounts were suspended, nearly 50 percent higher than the average for that month. There was also a pronounced increase in mid-May, when Twitter suspended more than 13 million in a single week — 60 percent more than the pace in the rest of that month.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/49124484
Your Rolex May Be Fake; Your Followers Don’t Have to Be
In the current social media climate, purchasing fake followers and engaging in dubious activities can be damaging, if not death to a social media account long term. The good news, there ARE other options available that are verified, engaging and efficient!
Here at Latium we’re acutely aware of the issues with spam, fraud and duplicate accounts prevalent within the Internet at large. In fact, we’ve spearheaded development to combat these issues.
Our proprietary system, Proof of Human was created to SOLVE the issue of verified human tasking by ensuring a single, unduplicated, HUMAN account is attached to each profile created.
Through a simple process of creating a quick, 10 second facial video verification, users are documented and verified as a single account. The question remains:
What does this mean for influencers and internet media marketers?
Quite simply, this opens the door to incentivize real, human, verified users to like, comment, share and engage effectively with social media content. No longer are you left to the wiles of a dubious and potentially damaging “fake follower” service, as you are able to create offers to attract one, one hundred, or thousands of followers to interact with your social platforms in a safe, efficient and easy process.
With a verified Proof of Human freelancer, you are able to incentivize social media marketing and engagement, while falling safely within the realms of legitimate traffic.
How to Get Started
https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/49124484
So you’ve decided to become the next “big thing”; a social media sensation; a viral video star. Just how can Latium help you achieve that?
We’re glad you asked.
As an Employer within the Latium platform, you can easily choose a wide variety of cryptocurrency (and soon USD!) options to pay your verified users. In fact, while Latium already has a wide variety of crypto tokens available, the list of options will continue to expand.
From the Latium platform, you first can make a deposit of the token you wish to incentivize your new verified following with. From your Wallets page you can easily see all tokens supported, as well as easily deposit (or withdraw) as you prefer.
After depositing to the platform, you are ready to create a project to unveil to the army of Latium freelancers available and ready to work.
Depending on the level of engagement you wish to attract, you can hire a single, or multiple freelancers to like, comment, share and engage with your social media content.
Don’t know where to start on setting a budget? With our latest update you can allow freelancers to easily bid on projects for your set criteria, allowing a wide range of users across the globe to set pricing they feel relevant to the effort provided.
Utilizing the simple Latium project settings you can easily set a budget, a range of how many freelancers you’d like to hire, as well as optionally enable Proof of Human for an even more secure verification to each and every individual applicant. Ensuring every user is a single, verified, unduplicated human being continues to maintain a legitimate following to your social engagement as you seek to incentivize freelancers to complete the work.
After finishing the settings specific to your task, you can review, edit as needed, then post to the Latium platform to allow the Latium community of freelancers to get to work!
With your project funded and posted to the platform, freelancers with the time and skills necessary can complete your project, while earning crypto (and soon USD) for helping increase your social following.
It Doesn’t Stop Here
But it doesn’t stop here! Utilizing the advanced framework of the Latium platform, employers and freelancers alike can easily create and find projects that fit their specific skills, expertise and time available. From simple freetime, to certified skills and experience, any and all projects can easily be completed online utilizing the ever expanding Latium community.
Need a new Logo? A header image or banner? Digital marketing or advice? Latium can help with that. From simple projects, to advanced, skill based work, Latium is right there with you quite simply,
Getting it done.
Thank you for your interest in the the Latium platform. As always you can follow us on Twitter for the latest news, updates and developments as we progress.
