Yeah, fair enough. I can only echo the sentiment that red carpet celebrities maintain a disturbing level of privilege, immunity, and indifference.

Exercise self-control, so your dollar supports your priorities, not influencers’ goals. Don’t buy a product that an influencer recommends without researching alternatives first.

Practicing Media Literacy—
Purchases should reflect your priorities (traction). If they don’t, you may be letting advertisers/influencers affect you adversely. Follow influencers who produce value as well as ads. Look for native ads among posts.

Unfinished Claim – “Ford is better for you.” – (Better than what?)
Unique Claim – “There’s no other mascara like it” – (Of course there isn’t)
People who receive exceptional or above-average results must disclose that.

FTC Rules to Protect Online Users—
All paid promotions must be clearly labele #ad, #sponsoredpost, “presented by”. Spokespeople cannot make claims unsupported by evidence, but these are flimsy:
Weasel Claim – “GE leaves your dishes virtually spotless.” – (Virtually)

The goal is to make ads that mimic regular content.
Native Ads—
• Paid ads that match the look and feel of unpaid content
• Intended to trick audiences (it works)
• Up to 75% of audiences can’t identify ads

2. Authenticity – Influencers are genuine and make audiences feel they’re getting to know them.
3. Interactivity – Influencers ask for input/feedback; makes it feel like a real relationship. The first form of advertising that’s a two-way process with the consumer.

Less expensive, but match products with
companies to “stay on-brand”.
Halo Influencer Traits that Companies Want—
1. Confidence – Influencers trust themselves, which assures audiences. Confidence manifests through both words and actions.

Can/will sell (just about) anything.
Influencers—
Built influence using non-mass media channels: vlogs, vine, insta, snap. Macro Influencers: >100k Followers. Micro Influencers: <100k Followers. Reach niche audiences: gamers, fitness,
celeb, fashion.

Companies take advantage of the halo effect: Celebrity/Influencer endorsements in In-Bound Marketing. Links celebrity/influencer’s positive traits to the brand’s positive traits.
Celebrities—
Built influence using mass media
channels: high-grossing films, TV Music. Reach mass audiences.

Influencers
The Halo Effect & The Horn Effect—
A cognitive bias where your impression of one attribute influences other, unrelated attributes: “He’s attractive, so he must be nice”, She lied, so she must be unlikeable.”
These allow us to make instant, automatic judgements (but they are often wrong).

That intro class was a revelation—the professor held a doctorate in communication and consulted on city surveillance projects. Here are my notes from that lecture:

Celebrities can peddle just about any product with their widely established appeal, but influencers must stay “on-brand” for their loyal fans. The two identities may someday converge as traditional media evolves (fades) in this digital world, but I can’t provide authoritative insight on that.

I know this one! They taught us that exact distinction between celebrity and influencer ads in my college media literacy class; it boils down to background and sphere of influence. Traditionally, celebrities hail from mass media (film, TV, music), vs influencers who generally fill an audience niche.

That’s rad—Sam’s Town made the list! Unfortunately always stuck in the shadow of Hot Fuss. Great list

Yes! Especially Reddit if you’re still there