Most people use social media as a
way to make connections with people across the world including but not limited
to family and friends. Other people may use it as a personal scrapbook to
display important ideas and things people feel like represent them. But, one of
the biggest uses of social media is for business and advertisement. Social
media has become a crucial asset for companies to use to spread information. In
job applications, it has becoming increasingly popular to require some sort of
online skill like social media, which directly increased the amount of social
media jobs specifically. These jobs can be taken from an individual just like
you or I, or celebrities of all kinds can become online sponsors.
From an individual standpoint,
people are hired to do essentially all of the social media work for a business.
It’s a tedious 24/7 on the clock type of job. One example of this is corporate sponsors
is that people will apply to become brand ambassadors, where they agree to post
regularly representing a company. Most of these positions are not paid but are
in exchange for discounts on their products which only increases their sales. However,
some people may be paid for this position. My childhood best friend is an
example of a social media specialist. She is in charge of the Instagram,
Twitter, Website, and Facebook for a local boutique called Mackenzie’s. She has the responsibility for the daily posts
on each platform and well as creating a Friday morning promotional video each
week. I can remember on multiple occasions of us having our girl’s night she
had to be stuck to her phone just in case someone contacted the boutique
online. While she was a lover of social media and spent a lot of time and
effort on her own posts she began to dread her job. While she was only making a
few bucks an hour, some people can make thousands on a single post.
Celebrities can also be assigned to
this vital job our marketplace thrives on. For years, celebrities have been a
huge advertisement move whether it be through magazines, television, or movies;
social media is only adding another layer to this business. We can discuss Yoga
Girl as our example for this. Yoga Girl was a regular Instagramer who would
post about her daily yoga sessions as well as some of the more “real” experiences
of life. After she grew in popularity, the company Philosophy contacted her to
start a new collection called Take a Deep Breathe. This was a smart move to
make for the company. They would pay Yoga Girl a significant amount of money to
post presenting the new collection and "virality" would do the rest of the work
for them almost like an exploited labor force. However, most people are happy
to do this free work like the brand ambassadors. Like we discussed, our society
today has a gift effect. We as people do not give gifts for other people, but
for ourselves because we expect some repercussions in return. Dr. Vrooman stated
that, “Free is too expensive” because as a society we will expect something in
return whether it be material or monetary or not. Yoga girl received backlash
for her affiliations, but she was simply was trying to make more money for her
content just like many other online celebrities. Another popular platform where
ads are used is YouTube. It seems like before every video now and ad pops up.
YouTubers will place these ads there to generate more revenue for there videos
each time it is watched as well as sponsoring a company. Companies can also sponsor
vloggers directly to mention them in their video to influence their own personal
followers because if an individual admires someone they will be more influenced
to buy the product they like. Sponsored YouTube videos can vary from a full out
Let’s Play of an entire game or just a simple drop of the brand name. People do
not necessarily have a choice in the ads they see, but they are given ads that
are similar to the things they look up on a daily basis. For example, if I am
looking up cute dogs all day, it is likely I will receive an advertisement for
dog food. While people don’t have a choice to what ads they see they do have
the choice to repost the ad in which society may not understand the intention
of the post. The may think you are reviewing the product because you enjoy it
or you make simply feeding into the “spreadability” of the ad. This all feeds
into trends and that jazz, but we’ve already discussed that. Celebrities carry
great weight in the marketing world because the business world relies so
heavily on them.
Business has been changed forever with
their new methods of advertisement which use their own audience to advertise
for free for them. Its minimal effort and minimal expenses. Almost anyone can
be apparent of the marketing industry if they have a smart phone and an imagination.
Jenkins, Henry, et al. Spreadable
Media. New York University,
2013.
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