Is De-Influencing A Trend That Will Take 2023 By Storm?
So the newest buzzword or trend on target that I see popping up everywhere is the term de-influencing. Several websites have covered de-influencing including this one, this one and this. At the moment, de-influencing is something that is just getting started on the internet and has a few meanings. The thing about the influencing industry is that it is very multi-faceted, and now more than ever, people can enter it from different angles and at different points in their journey.
To understand de-influencing, it is helpful to look at where influence has been and where it wants to go. Influencing has emerged in various iterations in the past. First, influencing was a very niche thing, something reserved for celebrities and celebrity-adjacent people. It was something relegated to commercials, ads, and highly sought-after magazine printouts.
Influence started to evolve in the 2000s and morphed into the current reality that we know and love now. Influencing became something that anyone could do with the rise of social media, YouTube, and Instagram. Something reserved for the creme of the crop could be something that a college kid could do for extra money, something a mom could do to support her family, etc. Influencing as an industry, though, seemed to attract a certain phenotype and aesthetic. It typically attracted people who were already into beauty, aesthetics, fashion, wellness, and fitness.
People have used influencing and social media as a launching pad into more lucrative careers, but many have made influencing a career in and of itself. People have been able to secure high-paying brand deals and sponsorships. People have also been able to make money off of using YouTube's AdSense programs. Influencing has evolved and become a stable and growing multibillion-dollar industry. It has also opened up significantly. Now people with modest followings can make a ton of money. Brands are seeking out creators and influencers with niche communities and loyal audiences, as it can promote more products. Instead of just one-off deals and seasonal partnerships, brands are entering long-term partnerships with influencers who have shown results.
Influencing is complex. Always evolving and devolving. It is not as linear as people may make it out to be.
With all this growth, it would seem like the emerging field of influencing would be shining brightly? Yes and no. It’s more complicated than we realize. Influencing as an industry, in my opinion, will not be going anywhere. It is too big a force and valuable to brands, companies, content creators, and influencers alike. If anything, it will continue to grow at a steady pace. However, its future might look different from what we are used to. It might shift and shape into something that we are just starting to see the seeds of now, but only time will tell for that. And de-influencing in all its shapes and forms might play into that.
Right now, the emergence of de-influencing has taken over corners of the internet. De-influencing has many definitions, but I’ll focus on a few here. One version of de-influencing is the concept of, instead of talking about products that you love or that have been continuously sponsored by brand deals, actually talking about popular products that didn’t work for you or were actually more hype than what they were worth or valued. This tends to be focused on a lot of trendy products that pop up on our feed over and over again, like Glossier or Olaplex.
These are products that once were the darlings of the beauty, makeup, or fashion industries, but that have now been placed under more scrutiny and whose ingredients or components are now called into question. The traditional advertising budget for these products was high, and many people who wanted that coin took on the task of influencing and promoting these types of products or similar products to their audiences. These products tended to be very shiny, have great packaging, have a cool or fun name, and come in nice or colorful boxes.
The de-influencing trend in this vein is questioning these products and whether or not they were worth the hype in the first place. The products themselves were more questionable. The product may not have been as organic as they claim it was. There might have been some formula changes that led to the product not working as well as it used to. The product might also be perfectly fine, but not worth the insane markup and cost to the customer. Especially when the customer could find a similar product that was more affordable.
In some ways, this version of de-influencing is about giving agency back. It is about influencers trying to be more honest and real about the products they are sharing. It is about unveiling and pulling back the lid on some of these products that are constantly being promoted in the public eye. It is also going against the grain of many claims that one product is one size fits all and has to work on everyone. For some people, a makeup brand might work perfectly, but for others, it might be the worst thing for their face. It is unrealistic that one company or brand would have critical acclaim and absolutely no pushback, and this trend takes that into account. These previously hyped-up products might not be worth the hype, and this is the influencer paying penance for being part of the promotion, which most did because how can you say no to a sizeable or life-changing check? It can also lead to people sharing products and brands that actually work for more people but whose brands don’t have the budget to promote themselves or go viral as big names.
We have to ask ourselves: What do we want the future of influencing to look like, and what is the role of current influencing in that future?
De-influencing also brings into question what the role of the influencer will be in the future. Is it just to promote products and a certain lifestyle? Is it just to learn a script, consume things, and regurgitate them back? In another vein, de-influencing might refer to the loosening grip that influencers might start to have on society. We already see that with macro and mega influencers having to increasingly share space with micro and nano influencers, but now things might get more niche and interesting.
Some people are saying the need for traditional influencers might go obsolete completely, and brands will have to deal with promoting and spreading their products the good ol' fashion way- through word of mouth. In this scenario, cultivating community becomes more important than ever. More people, especially younger generations, are becoming skeptical of what influencers have to sell and the reasons behind their sales. They are turning to more personalized recommendations from friends, family, and other members of their community.
On the flip side, younger folks are also becoming more reliant on internet systems like AI and personalized online quizzes to make recommendations for them. It also doesn’t help that big-name influencers are getting caught fudging the truth on whether or not a product actually works, or that more people are realizing that the influencers promoting certain products might not actually be using them themselves.
So where does that leave us? If anything, the de-influencing and restructuring of how we are influenced is paramount in these times. Still, influencers of all sizes probably won't be going anywhere because, in general, people still like to buy things, hear about product recommendations, and discover new items that they wouldn’t have heard about before. The shift though would be for influencers to be more transparent and honest about the products they do like and that they do use. Most people aren’t just going to buy an item just because it was mentioned once or because one popular influencer used it. Influencers also have to prepare for not being the only driving force in a conversation, but just a small piece of it. More people are going to crowdsource recommendations and information and may not be heavily influenced by one person’s opinion or reaction anymore. That might take some time to get used to, but it might lead to more authenticity in the influencer community.
There will also have to be a shift toward more community-based building and sustaining that community in the long run. Too many people see their community as solely fans or an audience and have little to no engagement with them. Before that might have worked, but now people aren’t afraid to call out influencers for treating their community less than ideal. Influencers will have to be up for the task of actually engaging in community-building and community interaction, though that might be costly in time and resources. Ultimately, influencers will have to get ready for a new reality and try their best to cement their place in it or be de-influenced in the process.