The age of influence, not so innocent
Kellie Holt, Atomic 212’s head of content and creative media, looks at the changing face of influencers in the social media age, and why influencers have throughout human history played an important role in marketing.
The term ‘social influencer’ has become socially unacceptable.
It conjures visions of vacuous young things taking selfies of their filler-filled faces, spruiking products and doing, well, not much else.
Take Netflix’s recent reality show Dubai Bling. Set in Dubai, it follows the lives of the local (and imported) social elite in their pursuit of wealth, social status, and romance. The cast includes social influencer Farhana Bodi (2.1 million Instgram followers) aka “The Marketing Machine” as she is not-so-affectionately referred to by her fellow cashed-up cast members. She is a single mum, an entrepreneur and she hustles – very successfully I might add – putting her amongst Dubai’s social and financial elite.
