Jules Lund hits out at ‘lazy journalists’ and says influencers have ‘more integrity’ than mass media
Jules Lund, media personality and founder of influencer platform Tribe, has swung out at “lazy journalists” who stereotype and sensationalise influencers.
“The only time I see unappealing influencers is in articles where lazy journalists have just picked photos trying to make out like every influencer looks like a Kardashian,” Lund said in the two-minute video posted to LinkedIn, which he “may regret” posting.
“And the hypocrisy. You know why they use sensationalist images and dramatic headlines, these journos? For engagement. For clickbait. To be shared, to be liked. Exactly what they’re accusing these influencers of caring about.”
Lund’s self-described “rant” was in response to an article from UK journalist Tom Hoggins, titled ‘Sorry, but Instagram hiding ‘likes’ won’t end annoying influencer posts‘.
“It’s like me subscribing to this journalist’s weekly newsletter and then abusing him for being in my inbox, or walking into a cafe with my family and then just sitting amongst a group of teenagers listening and then just going ’Can you guys shut up?’ You know what it comes down to? Insecurity. There was a time when authors found journalists annoying. And when journalists found bloggers annoying. And when bloggers found influencers annoying. Just be happy for people.
“These influencers are creatively expressing their passions and expertise to people who follow them. Likeminded, enjoy their content. There’s more integrity in that than most of the mass media channels combined, and trust me, I’ve worked for most of them.
“I can’t even have my daughters watch the news because of disaster porn, or watch reality TV because it’s putrid. Yeah, like a girl promoting her favourite cold-pressed juice is gonna ruin culture. Take a look in the mirror.”
Instagram removed likes for Australian users yesterday, in a move Lund agrees with, saying that likes are “an unnecessary scorecard”.
“[Influencers are] still being assessed, judged, and scored, it’s just that other people aren’t seeing the vote,” he said.
Lund: ‘Just be happy for people’
“An influencer’s value is based on the amount of engagement they can create around their eye-catching content. They only need to prove that value to the brands. This doesn’t change that whatsoever. All this changes is they are no longer proving the return on investment to other influencers or other users, keeping in mind that those users don’t care about that anyway.”
He went on to say that likes are “one of the most insignificant of all metrics”.
“The real metrics sit behind the surface. And those metrics are impressions, it also breaks down not just who liked it or who was impressed, but it shows their age, their gender and their location,” he explained.
“Now all of these rich insights is what a brand wants. Just getting some likes isn’t what they’re paying for.”
Lund launched Tribe in 2015 as a way to connect brands with influencers who already use their products. The result is a platform that allows companies like Facebook, Unilever and Mars to post a brief for influencers, who buy the product (if they don’t already own it), create the content and upload it for consideration, competing with other submissions. The content creator sets the price, Tribe adds a 30% service fee, and if the brand likes the content, it buys it. There’s no obligation for brands to approve (and therefore pay for) any of the hundreds of submissions influencers send in.
Tribe says more than $250,000 worth of branded content is generated per day by its network of 50,000 influencers, translating into 20,000 pieces of content per month.
In March, Tribe launched into the US off the back of a $10.5m capital raise, and in May, former Unilever CEO Keith Weed joined as an investor.
Brittney Rigby was Mumbrella's deputy managing editor - news and analysis. She left Mumbrella in April 2021.
Linkedin
Jules you’re my idol – i agree too much FAKE NEWS
User ID not verified.
I don’t watch the news, either. There’s nothing there that I need to know.
User ID not verified.
An influencers impact is inversely proportional to the IQ (or lack of IQ) of the audience they are influencing.
User ID not verified.
The impact of an influencer is inversely proportional to the IQ (or lack of IQ) of the audience they are influencing.
User ID not verified.
But doesn’t everyone want to see who has the biggest butt – which appears EVERY DAY on a certain ‘news’ site?
User ID not verified.
Can’t believe he’s still getting away with it
User ID not verified.
Not all influencers are created equal. An attractive person wearing not much clothing is a very different type of influencer to say – a guitarits doing free online lessons (and yes they are both in positions to influence purchasing decisions). “Influencer” is basicalyy too broad a term a lot of the ime.
Similarly “journalist’ can describe a writer of vapid click bait, a foreign correspondent, a long form writer, or a racist trying to influence elections. It too has become a broad term (journalists should really unionise for a number of reasons, but one of them in particular should be protecting the term “jounalist”).
So yeah, jounralists or influencers claiming they are not quite as bad as the other one. Who? Which infulencer? Which outlet’s journalists?
User ID not verified.
Uh, you know that impressions don’t mean that everyone who saw the post was impressed, right Jules? Seems like Mr Lund is getting a little defensive as influencers start to lose their influence…
User ID not verified.
So true Jules.
You do have to laugh at all these media outlets decrying the state of media, when they’ve been one of the driving forces in cheapening it.
I understand why (money), but don’t act all sanctimonious when someone parks their tank on your lawn for ad dollars. You sound pathetic.
User ID not verified.
Dont bite the hand that feeds you Henry!
User ID not verified.
line writes “journalists should really unionise” … so you presumably haven’t heard of the MEAA?
User ID not verified.
Not sure how media is feeding me. I work for clients, not rebates.
User ID not verified.
MEAA doesn’t have broad membership and lacks the power to do the kind of things necessary like enforcing professional standards/motivating broad involvement in industrial action/protecting journalism’s reputation. Actually perhaps professional body would be a better term. Journalism really needs something like other professions have (law soceity, medical board, nurses board etc).
User ID not verified.
Influencers suck just as much as journalists.
Journalists suck just as much as influencers.
User ID not verified.
Hahahah what?
Influencer sets up fake scenario with their fake persona, to do nothing more than flog a product and yet they have more ‘more integrity’ than mass media.
nah mate.
User ID not verified.
Great report. Actually, I have not read it. But I have been staring into Jules’ blue eyes all morning.
User ID not verified.
you live for clickbait
User ID not verified.
Jules makes some valid points…. BUT. The concept of integrity doesn’t exactly spring to mind when I think about Tribe influencers.
We stopped using Tribe a year ago when we realised the majority of influencers on the platform are promoting a different product in almost every post.
You can’t really call this ‘creative expression of passion of expertise’.
(and yes, I work in PR, so – you know – I leave my integrity at the door on a daily basis)
User ID not verified.
line – there’s actually a lot of evidence out there to say that influencers don’t actually have influence. It can all be explained by a phenomenon called ‘homophily’ which was brought to marketers attention all the way back in 2014 by the IPA in their #SocialWorks report and that has been duly ignored ever since. It is not too broad a term. It is an incorrect and misleading term.
User ID not verified.
The one misstep is in this quote
“Yeah, like a girl promoting her favorite cold-pressed juice is gonna ruin culture. Take a look in the mirror.”
I think we have gone beyond the point of being able to able to say that social media, influencers, and the “look at me” culture hasn’t had a negative impact on a generation of young people.
Jonathan Haidt who is in Sydney next week, (i think), is one of many who have done extensive research on the impact that social media has by gamifying likes and creating stylised images of perfect lives. It has massive negative consequences.
I’m all for Jules and anyone else making money from social media.
Lets just not pretend that it doesn’t have any negative impact on culture.
#lookatme
User ID not verified.
Influencer: low grade paid word of mouth channel where any integrity that might exist is as rented as the time you get the influencer for. So kinda like celebrity endorsement, only without the celebrity.
User ID not verified.
The use of American spelling just proves the point… 🙂
User ID not verified.
Makes some very solid points. It’s not influencers per se, but the cultural points by which influencers are judged and measured.
User ID not verified.
Do you mean Tori Spelling?
User ID not verified.
Celebrity endorsements aren’t new. For the anyone new at this game; a brand or agency pays someone to plug something and then pays a publisher to reach their audience.
Some folk can’t see past the term ‘influencer’ – which is really shorthand for digital content publishers that have built an audience, for better or worse, by producing content this audience will pause to look at.
It’s no use stomping your feet and saying I’m not interested in investing in some chemical lip inflation because some tight faced bare chested try hard from maffs is promoting it. Suprise suprise you probably aren’t the target audience. You probably only read Cosmo for the ads too.
It’s humorous to read all the instant influencer bashing. Attack the digital publishing model rather than the ones on the platforms.
User ID not verified.
*Goal is to take money away from traditional advertising channels and funnel into a newer channel for self profit by paying individuals less”. Sounds like someone’s feeling the heat of their meaningless business model being questioned. And this from a former ‘presenter’ who was paid for being told what to say. Integrity?! Isn’t it ALL just media anyway?
User ID not verified.