Ok. I've been reading this thread for the past few days and I've been really intrigued so I'll give my 2 cents. This might turn out to be a long post but I'll try to be concise. 6 months ago I was introduced to the world of influencers when my partner started reviewing restaurants in our metropolitan city and wherever we travelled. He was always posting about restaurants anyway so he figured why not do it better and perhaps get invited to other restaurants. His following quickly grew and he was trending at the top on TikTok for several months when it came to restaurants and food category. Fast forward a few months and then he started getting invites (COLLABS) from restaurants to eat for free in exchange for a positive post. As his following grew, the invites that came with free food now came with money. Fast forward again and now he is an ambassador for 3 brands, getting more invites than he can attend and he's now friends with a lot of food influencers in our city. Sometimes I attend their parties and I've gotten to know some of them. Currently, I edit the contents he puts out on IG and TikTok. That being said here's what I learned about the influencers and their world. Whether it's luxury shopping, food/retaurants, parenting, baby item reviews, watch reviews , make up...influencers and how they operate is pretty much the same. I hope that this post can answer some of the original poster's questions and maybe some of you that are watching this thread. Some of you may have already answered this so forgive me if I repeat the same info.
1. In the world of Hermes, influencers are not like you and me who just love Hermes and find joy in the quality and design of the products. Influencers are PAID ADVERTISERS. This is their job. They are not like the Mistikats, Docrides and Chincacs of this forum who has a deep knowledge of Hermes. They are also not seasoned collectors. They flex these items to make their followers want the items because that's their job. How much they charge a brand for a post or a mention and what free stuff they get depends on their popularity. This is prearranged before they post a product. Smaller influencers or those just starting out are doing this for free in hopes that they are reached out to by brands for a collaboration (Collab).
2. Brands or the marketing team that represents them will work with multiple influencers and work with them in succession so they can keep advertising and get their product in the feeds all the time at different platforms i.e. IG, FB, TikTok, Youtube. This is why it seems like all these influencers are coming out with SOs and Mini Kellys like they were falling out of the sky. My H home boutique gets 1-2 Mini Kellys a month. Some months none. How are they getting a hold of them. Well, it's easy for them because they are getting them from the brand's marketing team to advertise them. Do they get to keep them? Do they pay for them? Well that all depends on their collab agreement.
3. I've been to an influencer party and most influencers are very nice, polite and engaging. I guess they have to be because what they want most is followers. Each influencer has something about them...what I mean is some are very good looking, some are super funny, some create great visuals and some have great bodies. Whatever their asset is, that's what they use to gain more followers.
4. For an influencer, what they want most are views and more followers. It promotes their own brands and allows for more collabs and earning. For a brand, what they care about are shares of the post, engagement of audience and tagging another person in the comments. This reaches to more people and the product/brand gets more exposure.
5. Almost everything about their post is staged. You know when they are dong a video and then the doorbell rings and a package is delivered and viola....it's from Dior...a gift. Well, that's totally staged. The contents might seem like a surprise, but that gift has been agreed upon and it's the product that the brand wants to promote or what the influencer would like to have. It is never a surprise. Let's dress for a party and try on some clothes? They start the video in their undies to attract the thirsty potential followers and end the video with a great looking outfit. the final OOTD has already been determined. C'mon now. And the clothes? That didn't come from their closet...it was given to them to advertise.
6. Most influencers of a certain category know each other. The fashion vloggers know each other and the foodies know each other. They all talk to each other and like I mentioned, they have parties. Paris Fashion Week would probably be the biggest party of them all. Those that are better friends will promote each other and will comment on each other's videos or post.
7. Bigtime influencers don't post anything unless they are getting paid for it or getting something out of it. Ever wonder why influencers always post a story at the gym? Well, it's a requirement for their free membership. They get to bring another person in to do the filming.
8. As nice as influencers are, they kind of think of themselves as quasi-celebrities and they kind of expect to be pampered. Shocking right? lol. In a way, the number of followers is equivalent to POWER and the influencers know that.
9. Money. Influencers make a lot of money not necessarily from the social media platforms paying them, but from the products they introduce and their endorsements. When they give a promo code to use for let's say 10% discount...they usually make 10% of the product's sale if their promo code is used. This is also a way for companies to see how effective an endorser or influencer is. So if you're wondering if they can afford H items...well, some absolutely can. However, there are also low level influencers out there searching for collabs that are trying to seem big time. It's not uncommon for them to send mass emails to brands and marketers to solicit any collabs.
10. Ever wonder why influencer videos drop on certain days and times? Well that's because the platform analytics tell them that posting on certain days and certain times will get more views. Most influencers will post in different platforms because each platform user has a certain majority demographics....like IG has more women above 30 and TikTok has more scrollers below age 30.
11. Giveaways. They are usually not coming from the influencers pockets. Those are coming from the brand.
12. If they are doing a paid collab, the influencer will never talk negatively about a product. Otherwise, brand and marketers will not use them in the future. So you can never truly trust their reviews. They will never/rarely say that one product is above all others because that limits them for future collabs.
Anyway, this post is already too long. Maybe I'll share some more in the future, but I hope this helps some understand the influencers. I read somewhere on this thread that it's hard not to be a little jealous of them. My answer to that? Don't be jealous. It might look like a flex, but they are working. Plus, it's not a level playing field because they are paid advertisers. Do they skip the pre-spend for a QB? Probably. But that's on Hermes and their marketing team. Also, to get to a 100k followers takes a lot of time and effort. It can take years to get that many followers.
The vast majority of brand spend these days is digital/social/influencer with some rare exceptions - the pharmaceutical business for instance is limited in most countries in how they can use anything social. Ofc some categories remain tv-heavy (automotive, beverage) but that's not relevant to Hermès.