Everyone has heard about influencers — bloggers, journalists, or other digital activists who can inspire, convince and change people’s opinions on a particular issue. But unfluencers are something relatively new. These are bloggers whose promotion posts and content as a whole have an opposite impact — anger and rejection.
And no, this is not a spelling mistake, though Google still doesn’t get it.
Who are unfluencers?
Unlike influencers, unfluencers are bloggers that make the audience feel annoyed and frustrated. Influencers have a distinctive point of view, clear values, and typically are experts or professionals in some area. They can deliver their content which their audiences response to. Their advice and recommendations are valuable not because they have a large following, but because their views really mean something, seem to be unique and consistent.
Unfluencers have a vast following as well, but they simply post their selfies, ads, food, dozens of Stories, and tag every brand they wear in a picture. In other words, their content is not refined and has not much of a value.
Why do users get annoyed?
Generally, it’s pretty challenging to distinguish un- and influencers since this is very judgemental. The same blogger can be an influencer for one part of an audience and a hate-watched object for the other. So we’re not going to give any names as examples but everyone who wastes just an hour a day on Instagram can surely name such personal unfluencers. But why they annoy people, you wonder.
They spam their followings’ feed with similar posts. And by spam, literally, too many photos and videos of the same content a day are implied — selfies, food, locations, clothes, pets, etc.
They promote too much. Almost every post of such a blogger is a native ad, and people don’t believe that an influencer actually uses the advertised product. And even if they do believe, the rejection to buy arises. Simply put, these bloggers are not at all sincere, and the reason for it partly is the influencer marketing development. Blogging seems to be an effortless and promising way of getting rich, so many teenagers and young people want to become influencers and earn money by selling ads. They don’t focus on the background of the content they make.
They do not inspire or educate. It’s often unclear what such bloggers really think, and it’s hard to estimate their values, views, and life perception. So there’s nothing they can give to their audience apart from promotion and fancy images.
What does it mean for marketers?
Brands interact with multiple influencers on a regular basis. Now, most of the advertisers thoroughly check the blogger they’re going to work with, i.e., analyze their engagement rate, account statistics, and audience. Though it’s still vital for brands to be on the lookout before the partnering. Now not only are ER and followers counts should be kept in mind, but also a blog relevance and a voice of an influencer.
Marketers should now focus on analyzing the comments under bloggers’ posts, their reaction to both negative and positive feedback, interaction with people, and content uniqueness.
Bloggers from their side should also take a careful and critical look at what they’re creating. People are flooded with content. Any beautiful or brilliant post will tire out if upcoming publications will duplicate millions of others.