Can we chat about fashion Instagrammers/influencers..

[Cherrypie32]

..because I don’t have anyone in real life to carp about it to. So, I follow a few, am addicted to the stories/feeds of some but don’t always know why. The ‘high end’ ones, The Frugality, Dress Like A Mum, Emma Hill etc pop up but quite designer and high end for me. I like the ramblings of Does My Bum but I’m nothing like her body shape so don’t wear her clothes. There are a few more ‘high street’ ones I follow, Steal My Style, What Kathy Did, Forty not Frumpy and more but they tend to be repetitive. Is this because they are so heavily sponsored to flog something? At the moment they are all banging on bout All Saints leather bikers and maxi skirts. And they all copy each other so there’s not much new to look at. There are a few I follow with nowhere near the amount of followers that seem more creative and have different body shapes so I presume that they have more liberty to do this as aren’t under afflilate deals.
I don’t need advice to ‘unfollow’, I enjoy looking at it all, just interested in how it all works really.

Yes she’s great isnt she? I watched her kitchen vlog too (becoming a kitchen vlog connoisseur now ha) and she’s really down to earth.

I might actually start using insta again!

I’ve never heard of her and just thought how did she become so popular (not in a bad way) but if she’s a vlogger too it makes more sense

Pretty Pastel Please has a mini series discussing influencer payment and types of advertising on her YouTube channel, . She's based in Australia, but works in marketing, and is clear and open. She also discusses how rates are defined and what doesn't need to be disclosed, although she isn't UK based, their rules seem similar to ours.

She did a really insightful blog post a while ago about how she tried really hard to break into fashion blogging and how Mean Girls it was. She seems very open and uncontrived and seems proud of the work she has done with brands.

No,I don't expect these blogs to be ad free - but it would be good if people do what they say. Otherwise you are misleading people.

Unlike a couple of other bloggers with similarly large followings who appear to be still skirting round the rules and deleting and limiting comments on their posts 🤷🏼‍♀️

Wow, Emma Hill - she really does engage, with the easy and the not so easy. Good to see.

Agree there is probably a business based reason rather than ‘just doing it for you guys...’ for the return to the Gas & Air blog but at least she is adapting to changes in the air. Some of the influencers are blithely disregarding the new advice (or genuinely haven’t been gifted anything in posts - in which case I apologise, my cynicism is born out of being misled for years).

The gift cards has come as a shock to me too and I thought I was quite savy about what they were up to!

To be fair to MOD she did talk about the blog resurrection a while ago.

I would think that Celebs are ‘influencers’ to many and on any account that I’ve come across today they’re disclosing faff all. Emma Bunton, for example, wearing a jumper that’s she’s tagged as Tabitha Webb. Knowing how much TW likes to gift bloggers I’m pretty sure that this was gifted too. If I was a blogger I’d be a bit miffed that the transparency memo seems to have bypassed a lot of celebs or are they excluded from declaring things as gifts for some reason?

Yes, Superstar, I often wonder that when I see things tagged by the slebs. Can't they just say they liked something, bought it and were wearing it in a photograph.... very suspicious, though I guess they will all be anxious to clear up any confusion on the back of the recent ruling.

I don't follow Emma Bunton but yes, hashtag obsessed says to me hashtag freebie.

All those posts advertising kit and kin should be AD as well as it is her business. I can understand the frustration with bloggers. The reality celebs are just awful at disclosure and have literally millions of followers. Other celebs are just as bad, as are many sports people. I think CMA should have included people from a range of different industries, targeting perhaps the number one rubbish person in each different niche and fining them if they don't comply properly. Mario Falcone is still writing short captions and putting #sp and he was on the list, ffs.

@SuperstarDJ completely agree. If it’s gifted by the brand it should absolutely be declared. Celebs are more likely to be publicly reprimanded as well so they/she is skating on thin ice if it gets reported (I don’t follow any so won’t be doing so myself.

Personally I feel a little more aggrieved by the behaviour of the influencers though, whether this is fair is another matter. Emma Bunton/Holly Willoughby/AN Other Celeb have influence due to their fame which predates Insta and which is not attached to ‘being like us’. Reality stars are another matter but I absolutely have never followed or paid any interest to them. So my personal issue is with those influencers I personally feel let down and manipulated by.

He's obviously had to turn off comments on his protein AD so he must be getting a bit of grief. I'm sure someone will report him if he doesn't pull his socks up soon. Surely CMA are monitoring the ones on their list at least, or is this too logical a suggestion?

Well I suppose with your run of the mill influencer it feels more deceptive because of the way they wheedle into your consciousness. It feels like a mate letting you down in a way. I don't get that with Mario and his ridiculous tight trousers.

Maybe they’ve have advice they can get away with it or that the fine will be inconsequential... If not then it is sheer stupidity to taunt a regulator like that.

So if an influencer (Lulu) goes to a slap up lunch hosted by a skincare brand (tagged in stories) and mentions the products she'll be trying out for a few weeks is this not an ad?!!! Another hard day grafting over a free lunch getting free products but apparently too much of a faff to type #ad

Exactly @Templehead they like to behave like journalists when it suits them (press samples, PR trips etc) but thought they could opt out of the pesky ethics

This is Fleur De Forces summary of what she's going to do. She's not so keen on using #ad for everything, takes exception to the idea that if she's wesring a jumper that was gifted two years ago, it still has to be #ad. So she's proposing disclosure that's perfectly clear but may be a bit wordy.

She said on her Stories that she gets a cut from the sale of every single set of those Eyelure false lashes. I honestly didn't know that, I guess I assumed it had been a one off payment when they launched. But that's an amazing money spinner for her. I mean she is one of the richest British IGers by a fair margin, and this is why. She's very canny.

Some of them are being so petulant with their disclosures, lots of eye rolling and heavy sighs with cries of "I have to declare this as an ad now"...yes you do, because you're making money from promoting a product. It's ironic that they're actually drawing more attention to it, just mark it as an AD and get on with it, we don't need to hear you complaining every single time.

Another thing that's come out in all of this is the phrase "I make a tiny commission" [from purchasing from an affiliate link]....turns out that commission is around 5-7%. I don't consider that tiny? So some of these influencers with say around 100k followers, if only 100 people purchased something at say a modest £40 (and that's only 0.001% of their followers) they could be making nearly £300 per post.

Petulant, and borderline dishonest posts, from RVK whose disclosure has always been appalling.

Streams of affiliate links every few days with #ad hidden in white on a white background. She has been spoken to by the ASA, more than once I believe.

Quite recently she complained on stories that American and Australian influencers aren’t required to disclose as much as British influencers.

Apart from her content being quite repetitive and boring, I think the increased disclosure might be the beginning of the end of that particular gravy train.

Never heard of her before but what a load of bollocks! Up there with the petulant 'grammer last year telling us they were on a freebie holiday (3rd or 4th of the year) nobly conducting research for her followers.
Once again, from Sky news opinion piece yesterday:

"When they post, people watch, follow, like, share, copy, buy.

They are miracles of modern marketing.

They have smartly monetised their identities and promote products based on their personal connection to whatever is being sold."

The indignation & fury is quite scary really. They thought the Insta gravy train would run for ever with no enforced regulations, how very foolish.

I have been shocked over the last few days. They all know the rules now but the length they are going to, to still try to fool the viewer & not be transparent.

It's getting very embarrassing to watch & it is all to easy to spot. Why would you want to dupe your follower/customer? It seems such a bad business decision.