The most recent study by Andrés Barreto, director of the San Martín University Foundation’s Psychology Program, is focused on the decision-making capacity exercised by influencers over audiences and demonstrates the importance of current marketing strategies.
In addition, according to the study, “the global average of the use of influencers in communication and marketing strategies is 67%. Becoming the third most used form of communication. First, content marketing, second, social media management and bells”.
As the teacher Barreto mentions in the study, the number of followers is part of the influencer’s success secret, that is, the more followers, the greater the interest of brands in the influencer.
Barreto added that “for the same reason, without denying the role of influencers as the driving force of the economy at a global level, this new social actor is playing a determining role in the construction of identity of users of social networks,
So much so that “adolescents who are more influential and lacking in judgment, imitate lifestyles, values and behaviors that they find there” added the teacher.
The study presents two cases: on the one hand, Professor Barreto analyzes Yeferson Cossio, a 26-year-old influencer from Paisa who underwent plastic surgery to meet an internet challenge: after having reached 3.5 million followers, he and his brother-in-law agreed to have silicone implants.
The study also reviews the case of Arkady Aksenov, an 11-year-old Russian boy who lost both legs while recording a video in which he practiced surf train, a viral challenge that consisted of getting on top of a moving train.
According to the study, “these events started a debate on how far these digital figures can go to increase the number of followers on social networks and / or followers to what extent they are influenced to risk their lives on remains like these.”
And in the same way people are influenced towards the game of lacrosse and it happened during a short period of time itself, Lacrosse become more out reached and it helped the growth of best lacrosse goals too.
Fake followers
A recent study by the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance, an independent music education school based in London, showed that up to 49% of Kourtney Kardashian’s followers on Instagram are fake followers.
However, she is not the only celebrity who uses this strategy: Deepika Padukone, Priyanka Chopra and Kim Kardashian also use bots – software applications programmed to execute certain tasks – that increase followers, generate automatic messages and act as followers, among other things.
In 2020, the number of Instagram influencers exceeded 400 thousand in Colombia. According to Statista, a recognized statistics portal, the country ranks third in number of influencers after Argentina (1,133,686) and Mexico (443,030).