Lack of Trust in Influencers Defies Marketing Claims

Monday, November 4, 2019 - 13:31 by Mike Price

Although influencers on social media are being more widely used by brands looking to sell products to consumers via safe shopping online, it seems that this could be a waste of time in many cases, according to the results of a study conducted by YouGov.

Just four per cent of respondents to the survey said that they trusted influencers, while 41 per cent said that they had encountered some kind of inaccuracy in the content found on their social media feeds within the past 30 days.

In short, anyone who follows influencers is well aware that they are likely to have established deals with advertisers, making it harder to trust their posts overall.

The report also looked into overall levels of honesty on social media, with a quarter of those questioned saying that the content they shared online was representative of their day-to-day lives, without any overt embellishments or outright untruths.

Around a third said that they would be frustrated to find out that one of the people they know in their personal lives was being dishonest on social media, yet this amount of annoyance was much higher if the individual in question is a famous face. In short' this means people are much more willing to tolerate twisting the truth on social media so long as it comes from someone they have relationship with outside of the online sphere.

Marketers and retailers may need to rethink how they use influencers in light of this news, or at least reframe their campaigns to fit in with the fact that there will be a degree of scepticism baked into the target audience. Meanwhile' consumers look like they are now especially savvy about the tactics being used to sell to them via social media.