Can We Trust Influencers?
Do this instead of tricking your community
GM, I’m Shreya 👋
And this is Crypto Creatives. Every Thursday, you get one of the following:
Opportunities for creators in Web3
News about the Web3 Creator Economy
If you’re excited to be a part of the upgraded Creator Economy, welcome home!
SEC charged Kim Kardashian for unlawfully glorifying a crypto project on her social media following of 333M.
She settled the charges by paying $1.26 million in penalties, disgorgement, and interest.
The sponsored post that made her $250K was for Emax tokens by EthereumMax. She made it look like she invested in the tokens and didn’t mention that it was an ad.
The other times when buzzwords like crypto, money, and big names are not involved, we don’t even fret about such cams that happen online every day.
The worst part about these scams is the people involved — influencers. They are the ones we worship in our online universe and follow blindly.
But can we trust them?
“Don’t need a sponsor, nope, you’re the brand now.”
Justin Beiber was right about this one line in Intentions. We’re all becoming brands now.
If you haven’t already, log onto LinkedIn, and you’d know the meaning of personal branding. Every person online has a personal brand, even those who don’t post content.
Now, think about people who intentionally work on making themselves a brand. They’ve got a huge following, a community ready to fight for them, and a wide distribution channel to outsource their ideas and products.
Influencer brands have increased exponentially in the last few years.
With the money flowing in the creator market and the tools to build a brand quickly, many more influencers are starting their labels. They don’t realize that the community’s importance doesn’t change with their new and fancy designation.
Influencers affect our buying decisions
Last year, I used an Indian exchange to buy crypto. It had great reviews, and I had done my research but still contemplating the platform.
Seeing one of my favorite influencers talking about it in his videos gave me the validation I needed. I ended up downloading the app and spent a good chunk of my savings.
The crypto winter was gruesome for the company, and it halted its operations while customers like me are still wondering whether we’ll get their money back. I don’t blame anyone for the event. But I see the impact these influencers have on us. As a customer, my buying decisions should be based on my due diligence and not on an influencer I barely know.
Crypto scams aren’t the only ones where influencers are tricking us into investing in a project or token, but in every other industry, the issue is quite similar.
UNICEF ambassador and actress Priyanka Chopra was in the news last week for promoting her haircare brand while wearing hair extensions. Was it a nonchalant step or confidence? I don’t know.
I found it alarming that influencers don’t even try to act like they are in a serious business. I know it’s no different than a fitness influencer wearing fake abs to entice people.
Would they use the products they ask us to buy or even create?
We’ll never truly know.
What can you do instead?
The answer is simple — don’t trick your audience.
Your audience is a community that believes in you and supports you. Instead of tricking it into buying your subpar product or clicking on sketchy sponsored posts, try doing this
1. Build a long-term relationship
Play long-term games. This means building a long-term relationship with your community by building trust and providing more value. The more they trust you, the more they’ll contribute to your mission by spreading good words about you or believing in your products.
When you’re in a dilemma, question whether you want a One-time buy or a life-long relationship.
“Long-term players make each other rich.” — Naval Ravikant2. Become trustworthy
Don’t take thousands of dollars for posting a story of a brand you don’t trust and know is a scam. You can’t build the same trust again once it’s lost, especially when you’re a small creator and influencer.
Only promote products you’ve used and trust. This will create trust.
People will not buy your product because it’s good; they’ll buy it because they trust you.
"Trust is built and maintained by many small actions over time."
— Lolly Daskal3. Create network effects
When the community trust you, they share your work with their network, creating network effects that are more powerful than any marketing campaign.
Every user adds value to your product, and the increasing importance of connection increases without doing anything—user one values user 100 without any work from the network.
“Network effects can be powerful, but you’ll never reap them unless your product is valuable to its very first users when the network is necessarily small.” — Peter ThielParting Thoughts
Although it has become easier to trick people, it’s also gotten challenging with woke activism. Smart people aren’t getting enticed by your vivid ads and top-notch copywriting.
To build and succeed at anything today, you’ll need a community and its support.
And as consumers, we ensure that we only spend time and capital on genuine people who can be trusted.
PS: My heart goes out to all affected by the FTX collapse. Don’t be too hard on yourself; get a ledger if you haven't already.
What a joke to say-PS: My heart goes out to all affected by the FTX collapse. Don’t be too hard on yourself; get a ledger if you haven't already.😂😂😂
SBF and The Alameda also own Ledger.