Instagrammers and Influencers

[scotx]

New thread to follow on from this one

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/style_and_beauty/3462129-Can-we-chat-about-fashion-Instagrammers-influencers?msgid=84590932

@ThreeFourFive yes they are. As they have been breaking the law for a while (not just since the CMA guidance came out - that was just ‘guidance’ on how to apply the laws set out in 2008 no doubt due to the widespread lack of adherence) they should probably go back over their posts as well and edit to declare relationships. I would (because I would be scared of consequences).

Sarah Clark has put a new blog post on Little Spree regarding the guidelines. I feel it’s a little disingenuous of bloggers (not singling her out here) to pretend this is a new thing. If they were really honest with themselves surely they could see it from their followers point of view. It’s not a nice feeling to be misled.

It feels a bit like being treat as a child if an ‘influencer’ says ‘but I only show what I really love/I would have bought it anyway’. If there was full transparency from the beginning we as followers could have made informed choices.

I do really like Little Spree as I’m more interested in kid’s clothes than fashion for me and she has great taste and is successful in her own right. But I have always taken recommendations with a pinch of salt though and assumed lots was given rather than purchased. I also understand she is from a fashion background and this has always been the done thing but I think there needs to be a bit more accountability on Instagram.

So much is not declared. Mother Pukka has been to a Lego Movie screening which she marked as Ad. DLAM has been at same screening- no #ad etc.

Can you post the link to the little spree post? I can’t find it?

littlespree.com/gifts/the-new-rules/?cn-reloaded=1

Really like Little Spree but unless I am being clueless (which is possible) I can’t find anything on her TKMaxx blog post saying she is using affiliate links. Annoyingly I clicked on a rug and went via restyle me (which means Aff links). The bag of stuff I had waiting for me now she gets credit for... doesn’t seem fair. Happy to give monetary credit for the rug had I bought it but not the stuff I found by myself (which takes bloody hours!)

I read the blog and that's exactly why I didn't click on any of the pictures! The whole thing is an advert. That's exactly the kind of shady behaviour the CMA guidance is supposed to be eradicating.

Mario f is the pits. Reading gs response to a mnetter on this thread makes knee wonder who the fuck follows him. Yes vacuous and vile.

I used to follow gettingsstuffdone but then the whole thing became a massive ad and until last recently there was little transparency in stories. I also felt that when she felt she was going too crazy with the free stuff she put up a charity post to glance things out. The problem is tat if your sell yourself too much the genuine convent becomes lost in all the crap. Like someone said above... The generation game...You walk away with holidays and £10k but also a knife set and a glass trinket.

I don’t mind affiliate links as long as they are fully explained. If somebody has done the work of finding nice things I don’t mind them getting some money but it should be more upfront that that is what is happening I agree. Only when you click does the restyle me link come up.

If it was a percentage of sales of that item I wouldn’t mind at all, but I buy a lot from Next and because I am nosy when there is something on children’s pyjamas for instance that says ‘these are nice, and these and these and these’ where ‘these’ is just link with no mention of the shop I will click through. Then when I’m shopping at Next for something completely unrelated which I would be buying anyway I don’t think it’s fair for somebody to be earning a percentage.

Thanks for that. Not sure why I couldn’t find it. Very long winded explanation.

It's interesting that affiliate links bother people so much. It doesn't cost me anything so I never really give them much thought.

I don't think I click on them much, but where I do I suppose I consider it fair enough to give some £ to an influencer if I enjoy articles/videos they create for free.

Well after reading this thread I've deleted the app. I've not come across a page that doesn't do ads. I skip tv so I dint have to see ads do why am I looking at these people's pages full of them?

WearsMyMoney has managed to hide the word ‘ad’ in a long line of text on her instagram caption, but at least she mentions the affiliate links.

On her blog she disclosed the affiliate links at the very end. I, and the CMA, want to know it is affiliate marketing BEFORE I click. The blog should also disclose at the beginning that it is advertising.

I used to really like her Instagram and blog, but I am starting to feel she is treating her followers with contempt.

It might be ‘a small 6% commission’ from the affiliate links, but it’s obviously worth her while, along with the gifts and events, because she isn’t writing the blog from the goodness of her heart!

@wouldyoulikeabagwiththat
Is that true about tkmaxx? I just always assumed that branded stuff was dead stock, not that it was specially made for tkmaxx. Makes sense why it is always such a disappointing shopping experience though.

They get a lot of sale leftovers and overstocks, but yes, a lot is stuff made especially for them under TK Maxx imaginary brands or ‘special production’ by brands capitalising on their goodwill. Despatches covered it a few years back and then Super Shoppers did a segment too maybe two years ago. Both talked about the RRP and the mythical 60% off, which was difficult to verify as often the products in TK Maxx had never been sold in the brands own outlets etc

www.watfordobserver.co.uk/news/14902663.does-tk-maxx-mislead-shoppers-over-discounts-for-designer-goods-retailer-accused-of-inflating-prices-on-tags/

I am bothered a lot less by affiliate marketing (and ads/gifts/samples/press trips) if I am told up front so that as a consumer I know it isn’t necessarily a product or service the influencer personally recommends, but advertising created to generate income.

In my mind, affiliate links are to advertising what a National Enquirer headline is to journalism. I suspect they didn't start out that way, but the prevalence of lazy influencers out to make a quick buck has given them a bad name.

Affiliate links only bother me in that they are often not or poorly declared and relate to an entire basket rather than an item.

I am happy to reward for recommendations and content when it is done properly - I fact I have often deliberately bought on my phone rather than laptop so certain Instagrammers get rewarded.

In all honesty I would prefer brands who gave me a pop up with affiliate links which gave me the choice of remunerating the person who linked me (at a slightly higher rate - say 5 or 6%) or receiving a 2% discount personally.

In the not too distant future I would imagine there will be a pop up for consent of some form on affiliate links. Seems strange to me there isn’t already given how widespread it is. Really it is the Wild West out there

Interesting article @NotTheQueen, thanks. I've only ever bought one thing from tkmaxx and I had buyer's remorse almost as soon as l left the till. Interested to see on the tkmaxx website that their sister company is homesense, one of the interiors bloggers' favourite stores. So is that tkmaxx blog post a paid advert as well as having a zillion undisclosed affiliate links in it as well? I actually can't see a single item on the Little Spree insta which is marked as an AD and yet her blog post says she always discloses them?

I don’t think I encounter them as I never swipe up or click to go somewhere from a third party, I think!

My big bugbear has always been using children as content to earn ££ as they are sitting ducks and the whole letthembelittle stuff is such a farce

But putting AD on every image with children in gifted stuff rather than tagging the brand should focus the mind

Emily Jane Johnston (who used to be Fashion Foie Gras) was the Queen of Lazy Influencers. Thirty items on instagram stories daily, all with undisclosed affiliate links, plus blog posts such as ‘Two Hundred White Dresses for Summer!!!’ all with undisclosed affiliate links.

I see she is still tagging brands but not disclosing gifts or partnerships. No way did she buy all the items tagged in her last Instagram square. She’s not only lazy, but desperate to perpetuate the myth that she is independently wealthy and able to support a luxurious life style in London.

#AD #AD #AD #AD #AD #AD #AD #AD #AD #AD #AD

I noticed that the Fashion Foie Gras lady was the worst of the bunch when the M&S shoe release came out. She slid a //sponsored right at the end of her long caption, just as you lost the will to live and gave up reading. I thought it interesting that the brand had clearly told them all to post their shoe pictures at the same time and yet hadn't given the same guidance on how to disclose it (or if they did, some wilfully chose to ignore it)

I was surprised M&S chose more than one influencer who had been mentioned on the ASA website as a complaint!

I think the principle of affiliate links is fine, somebody earning commission from passing along recommended products that they want to share and I do accept that it takes a bit of work to get the links, edit posts etc. However, like so many other aspects of influencer marketing, they started to push it and the concept was devalued. What started as way to reward the effort that went into researching and writing genuine recommendations became a free for all for posting as many swipe up links as possible.

Firstly they stopped telling you where the item was from so "this jumper is from Next, click here if you'd like to buy it" became "so many questions about where my jumper is from.....click here". So you had to click on a link just to find out where it was from and of course that meant you'd activated the link. Sneaky. Knowing where it's from in advance removes the incentive to click on the link. If you know where it's from you can just go direct to the site yourself. So they figured out that if they withhold the shop name, there's more chance of a click.

Secondly, they pushed the boundaries by not just linking one product, but several in a row, often under the guise of something being out of stock, or showing similar styles of a product. Again a sneaky way to put more links in front of you in the hope that you click on one of them and get that cookie on on your device.

Thirdly we started to get affiliate links for items that they hadn't even purchased themselves. The dressing room try on posts began to get popular but there was often no evidence that they loved the product so much that they actually bought it! Sorry you want to earn money from me just by trying something on in a changing room that you didn't even buy yourself. Don't think so.

And none of this even takes into account the fact that a large proportion of followers still don't know what affiliate links are, how they work and that influencers are earning hard cash from them. And it's still far too commonplace to see #AF #AFF #AL #AFFLINK etc which is not adequate disclosure.

Yeah I've got a lot to say about affiliate links!

Perhaps we should be writing to the brands themselves to encourage their influencers to toe the line. If the CEO/PR team started getting letters, tweets, insta tags about it they may be stricter with who and how they promote.

@scotx 👏

I agree with all of that @scotx