To wonder what on earth has happened to Stacey Solomon’s instagram?!

[Dabralor]

Hello.
I will preface this by saying that I do like Stacey, SYLO is a brilliant show.
However. Her instagram has become completely extraordinary recently - it’s constant selling for Amazon. One day it’s random Christmas decs, the next day it’s Oura rings. She was trying to flog a jetwash earlier this week!
She used to do crafty bits and easy recipes and show us lots of pics of her ducks and nice kitchen. But now it’s just incessant flogging of crap!

Each thing she shills seems to follow a certain pattern:

1. here’s a thing she’s doing using an item while chatting. Item is front and centre but never mentioned.
2. shortly after comes an update ‘so many of you are asking….here’s the amazon link
3. she then tells us to keep it in our baskets for reasons, I don’t know.

Last night she was wittering on about making an Amazon storefront to load all her tat onto, whatever that is.

The formula is incessant. She can’t be short of money so why the change in direction and obsession with Amazon, I wonder? Aibu that it never used to be this blatantly sales-y?

The ultimate aim of 'influencers' is to make as much money as possible. It's their job. That's why it's absolute nonsense to listen to a word they say.

Just unfollow. It's up to her what she posts and up to you who you follow. Simple.

How do people not know this? Y tubers advertising everything get paid, that's why they dream of being influencers. It's better than working and you get free stuff that gets better the more success you have

Only true if being an influencer is their main job - they're in the advertising business, basically. Lots of others (all the people I follow, and even most of the groups or 'pages') are there to share specific expertise or to promote their own work.

I follow some academics who've got full-time jobs and publish books, some authors and artists keeping themselves and their work visible, some people who are very passionate about an interest, even some politicians. If they promote anything it will be directly relevant to the work - and they rarely promote much beyond their own work.

Obviously an influencer whose entire feed revolves around what they 'consume' has set themselves up as an advertising vehicle. They can still be worth following if they happen to be selling a lifestyle that appeals to you or they entertain you well.

Another one here who loves duckduckgo. Stops all the crappy adverts; brilliant 👏

I wouldn't call an academic (or a personal trainer or makeup artist for that matter) sharing knowledge and skills on social media an "influencer" though. Those are just social media pages for a business. Influencers are literally so named because they use their fanbase to influence purchases.

she needs every penny she can get to keep all those
kids alive

give generously people. Poor stacy

Im not very SM savvy and dont have Instagram but is there a charity affiliated link that I can click?
I'd quite like to divert a few pounds from Amazon's profits to a hospice.

But does it cost you the same either way? I think how it works is:

Stacey sends traffic to Amazon via her Insta. You buy stuff while there and she gets commission from Amazon. Commissions to influencers are part of Amazon’s operating costs.

To maintain their profits, Amazon pass on some or all of this operating cost along with the costs of running and marketing the website etc to Amazon sellers. Sellers pay Amazon commission to use the platform to get their goods widely seen and get sales.

When sellers are listing on Amazon they set their selling price based on the cost of the goods AND what they will need to pay Amazon fur using the site. So they increase the price slightly because Amazon charges them a little bit more because Amazon needs to pay all the influencers a commission. You don’t see it in the selling prices but the commission influencers get is built into the price of everything you see on Amazon as one of the operating costs.

What Stacey is doing is the modern day equivalent of walking round the high st wearing a sandwich board advertising a shop you might not have gone into on today’s shopping trip to the high st. But she convinces you to go in and you buy something. At the end of every day she goes to the shop keeper and gets paid by him. He knows he has to pay her every day for marketing his shop so adds a tiny margin to the price of some of his goods so she can be paid without his profit margin taking too much of a hit.

I have never thought about it, but i had an email from ebay, this is what they are going to be doing from. January so it seems to be the way forward. Now, how to get with the programme

She was pretty transparent about it a few weeks ago. She went on an Amazon funded trip for their affiliate programme and talked about it. Every single influencer I follow is doing it, is very obvious as they all write ‘ad’ in the corner of the post.

Does she use the hashtag #aff or something similar when she does this? Influencers are required to make affiliate links just as clear as adverts - here's the guidance from the Advertising Standards Authority: https://www.asa.org.uk/advice-online/affiliate-marketing.html#social. Lots of them have been rapped on the knuckles for not being clear around this.

the commission influencers get is built into the price of everything you see on Amazon as one of the operating costs.

You're right, of course, @Choux but as you also say, businesses have to advertise. Whether they do that by paying Stacey Solomon to wear a sandwich board (😂), paying her to make Instagram posts or paying millions to an ad agency for TV advertisements, the advertising is a business cost. Businesses pass their costs on to customers. One that didn't would soon be an ex-business!

For those of you who are having your minds blown by someone earning commission from selling you something on socials are you not aware that happens in shops in real life? Ever bought a car from a dealer? They earn commission as just one example…
They take the time to create the content and earn from your choice to click and buy why is that grifting? They build their social audience through other content to the point they get noticed and companies want them to advertise their goods. Providing they make it clear this is an affiliate link what’s the issue?

I'm amazed at the shock and naivety all over this thread.

These people are advertisers. They are paid by companies to to sell their stuff to people, just like celebrities sold washing-up liquid and car insurance on telly in the old days. They are on social media as a way to make money.

Is this really a surprise to you? Did you think they were posting on Instagram for the pleasure of sharing their lives with you, their close friends?

The naivety on this thread is breathtaking. How do people not understand that influencers get paid by, um, “influencing” other people to buy shit?

This isn’t a new thing it’s been going on for decades, albeit in different kinds of media.

SS may be “relatable”: that just makes her even more useful to marketers. She’s not doing this for fun.

Some of you need to educate yourselves about how advertising/marketing/social media works.

Also, Brave blocks adverts etc.Great for watching YouTube videos without being interrupted every six seconds.

Even if you didn’t buy it and just added it to basket!!

For clarity, I am not unduly shocked that an influencer gets paid to advertise me something.
I am shocked that they also benefit if I buy a completely unrelated product within 24 hours on the same huge platform.
For further clarity It makes no difference to me that they earn money from me buying stuff. I just didn't understand the concept.

Does mumsnet still use affiliate links? I remember a kerfuffle a while back but I'm not interested enough to search back. They even helpfully automatically converted mentions of specific shops to links sometimes.

Course it does...the fee she earns gets passed back to the customer as increased prices. As a retail accountant, if marketing costs increase and we need to maintain our margins, prices go up. This also fuels inflation.

Honestly, @Nightow, I strongly doubt that the marketing cost per unit sold via influencers comes anywhere near the costs of traditional advertising. With this method, the business only pays for promotion that results in a sale. Normal advertising costs what it costs (a huge amount!) regardless of units sold.

I don't dislike her, she can be endearing. But I have unfollowed her because of this, and also the incessant excessive adoration of her perfect kids ..... I know, I know...... It's become too much s part of her brand. But it's just a bit much.

I dunno - the money is going to jeff bezos if it doesn’t go to an influencer, and rather even a morsel of it stays within the UK economy so I’d rather Stacey get a cut and reduce Amazon’s big corporate profits ever so slightly when I make my purchases.

The ways of the world will always come as a shock to some.