Influencers and Consumer Trust: Does Branded Content Get in the Way?

Photo credit: Autumn Goodman

I’ve always loved beauty content, especially the kind where an influencer shares her secrets for a mane full of poppin’ curls.

My journey with online hair content started about 15 years ago when I came across the blog of an anonymous woman’s hair journey. She never showed her face but regularly posted photo updates of her hair growth and detailed her haircare routine. Years later, I switched from blogs to YouTube where I found advice videos and reviews for all of my hair woes. The content was in-depth and it was entertaining seeing familiar faces again and again. Eventually, I followed these same influencers on Instagram where they continued to focus on hair but also offered a glimpse into their personal lives.

But as the influencers became more real to me, I started to notice more intentional product placements. As a consumer, this often causes me to pause. Which posts are “real” content and which are branded content? When it’s the latter kind, how much trust can I put in what an influencer is telling me?

What consumers need to know about branded content

From reviews to how-to tutorials to inspirational posts, online influencers regularly create interesting and compelling content that helps them grow audiences in the thousands or even millions. These large fanbases, however, aren’t necessarily the end game. Often influencers want to monetize their efforts, and so they partner with brands to make that happen. 

A relationship with a brand might begin with a product review and eventually grow into a strategic partnership. According to Search Engine Journal, brands pay nano-influencers (those with 500 to 5,000 followers) an average of $315 per YouTube video and power influencers (those with 30,00o to 500,000) an average of $782 per YouTube video. On Instagram, nano-influencers and power influences make an average of $114 and $775, respectively, for videos that appear in their timeline. (Consider this the next time your favorite influencer adds #ad or #sponsored to their posts.)

That’s not the only money-making opportunity for influencers. They can also make money on YouTube from the advertisements served on their content.  Further, through referral links posted to their video descriptions, posts or bios, they can earn a commission on products sold (this is known as affiliate marketing.)

Note that two out of these three payment methods incentivize influencers to create content that will paint a product or service in a positive light.

How influencers can maintain followers’ trust

If influencers are getting paid by brands, does it mean they’re intentionally deceiving their followers? Probably not. But creating videos, photos, posts, and stories takes time, creative hardships, and money. It’s understandable if an influencer wants to be rewarded for these investments. But there are ways influencers can make sure they stay true to their fan bases and keep their trust. 

For one, influencer’s can be transparent when content is of the marketing kind. Usually, influencers mark this content with hashtag like #ad or #sponsored. But these disclaimers are often buried in the description text and can be easily ignored. Sometimes they’re not included at all. With clearer, consistent markers, followers can be better informed.

There are a couple of ways these clearer markers could be implemented. If left to the responsibility of the influencer, he or she could include the indicator in the content itself where it would be more obvious to users. Or platforms like Youtube, Instagram, and Facebook could give influencers access to ad portals, where they could mark such content as promotional. In either approach, the platform would have a responsibility to enforce these labels. 

Another way to keep followers’ trust is by incentivizing influencers in a new way. What if influencers were paid by the platforms and fans? This would mean that platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and Tik Tok would pay influencers directly to produce and post content; and we followers would pay in the form of a subscription.

But are these platforms ready to go there? And are we consumers ready to reach into our pockets? Until that happens, consumers might consider some of the intentions behind the content.

Our role as consumers

Despite an influencer having a connections to brands, I still feel compelled to follow them. Their content, sponsored or not, helps me discover products and services that I may not have known existed. And at the end of the day, I’m still likely to put my trust in an influencer I’m familiar with over a brand entity. But as consumers, we could all dig deeper. 

If you see an influencer share a post about a product or service, consider their context for creating it, and if it seems appropriate, conduct further research. Reddit threads, social media comments, or review sections on ecommerce sites are places where you could find more information. Also, don’t forget about good old fashioned word-of-mouth. Personal and professional networks can be a solid way to get additional information about the products and services influencers are plugging.