How rising stars come to fame on social media — and impact you
Many have heard that winning the lottery will completely alter your life within 24 hours. Similarly, accumulating millions of followers on social media platforms will have the same effect.
Alex Earle did just that during her senior year at the University of Miami. Through sharing her day-to-day life and advertising products she uses, this college girl gained four million followers within the span of a single month, giving her the title of an influencer.
“I’m not sure how she gained so many followers,” said sophomore Gigi Coleman. “It seems like she just became popular overnight.”
From the face of this story, it seems everyone could become an influencer, but this is far from reality. Many factors play into gaining popularity and accumulating followers. From relevant hashtags to a set posting schedule, teens around this world strive to gain this type of popularity. But how do you truly become an influencer?
According to the dictionary, the definition of influence is: “The capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something, or the effect itself.”
From this definition, it is evident that an influencer’s job is to change and shape the perspectives of their viewers. Due to this, it is extremely important to choose with caution who to follow.
Unfortunately, it seems that society values less of the neurological evidence and more of the surface level knowledge when choosing who to look up to.
In a Harvard Business Review article called “Harnessing the Science of Persuasion,” Robert B. Cialdini breaks down six principles of persuasion:
- Liking: “People like those who like them.”
- Reciprocity: “People repay in kind.”
- Social Proof: “People follow the lead of similar others.”
- Consistency: “People align with their clear commitments.”
- Authority: “People defer to experts.”
- Scarcity: “People want more of what they can have less of.”
Essentially he says that we are drawn to individuals who are similar to ourselves and have skills such as clarity and confidence. We are also drawn to those who have features we wish we had, like extreme good looks, fame or a glamorous lifestyle.
When following these principles it is important to be aware of a basic difference between good and bad influence, and to be aware when influence is neither good nor bad.
Typically good influence benefits both the influencer and the consumer. It will be evident when watching an influencer if they are “good” by seeing if their presence and actions positively affect the people around them. For example, parents teachers and coaches, can all be good influencers because we benefit from them.
On the other hand, bad influence is evident where only the influencer benefits. Oftentimes this can be seen through false advertising and marketing. We may make a bad decision, waste money or give priority to unimportant things — while the influencer makes money from gaining more followers and likes.
Unfortunately many are receptive to bad influences. Claire Segijn, associate professor at the Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota, credits this misfortune to a phenomenon called multiscreening.
“Multiscreening is a form of multitasking that involves multiple screen media that are combined,” Segjin wrote to The Talon in an email. “Information processing might be hindered by structural features (structural interference), such as trying to process information from sources that are presented in the same modality.
For example, Segjin pointed out that “visual-visual” multiscreening is very common.
“People cannot look at two things at the same time (e.g., TV and smartphone),” Segijn wrote. “When we look at the TV, we cannot process information from the smartphone screen that is only presented visually.”
When people are multitasking, they are more distracted and more vulnerable to fall under bad influence.
“When people are multitasking, they have less cognitive resources left to critically think and, for example, resist a persuasive message,” Segijn wrote. “This may make them potentially more vulnerable to influence/manipulation. Some research shows that when people are multitasking they are less likely to counter-argue the message, for example.”