podcast on influencers

Social media influencers are individuals who use their reputation to affect the public and society. They can represent organizations or themselves and have their own opinions. They have the power to convince their audience to buy products. Instagram is a prominent platform for influencers in India, as TikTok is banned. Influencers can have both positive and negative impacts on society, and their influence can sometimes be more effective than that of the organization they represent. I hope it's recording. Okay, yes. Hi, welcome. My name is Flores, and today we're going to be talking about social media influences. This is, I know, a big topic. And, you know, in our world today, social media influences are like, well, I say the lords and the kings of our time, if I may say that. So today we're going to be talking about social media influences and their role in today's world. So can they do more good than harm? And I am joined with two amazing people. I have Ellis with me and I have Priyanka with me. So going straight into it, Ellis, I'm going to ask you a question. So what is social media influences or who are social media influences? So in my point, I think that maybe Flores is someone who will use their reputation to affect the public and society. They can use their reputation to affect many aspects of the public. But in the political area, from what they represent for an organization, even they can represent for their own, for themselves. Yes. So now you're talking about self-persona, like a brand on yourself. So, for example, my name is Flores and I'm a brand for myself. And let's say I have 1 million followers. So would you say I'm an influencer because I have this certain amount of followers, right? And I'm influencing for like a brand, for like a shoe brand, for like Apple. Yes. You are a fashionista. Exactly. For a fashion brand as well. That's good. That's good. So apart from them, would you say they are, what would you classify as opinion leaders? Would you say social media influencers are also opinion leaders? Yes. Like they have their own opinions. Yes. Okay. They will have their own opinions or sometimes they will be picked by the organization to use their voice and raise that organization's reputation. Right. Yes. Sometimes it happens in that way. Okay. That's nice. Thank you so much. So Priyanka, I'll come to you. I'd like to also know from your own perspective or from your own ideology, who do you think social media influencers are or what are social media influencers or influencers in general, not limiting them to social media. Okay. Social media influencers are users on social media who have established creativity in a staffing industry. Right. Whether in politics, we can say that. Whether on social media also. For example, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, there are so many influencers that influence the public to gain their attention and to influence them for any brand, we can say that, and for anything. I think in the present scenario, social media influencers play an indispensable role. Okay. Because in everything, everything we see on social media and our teenage interests are made by the influencers also. If we launch any brand, these influencers make specific videos that attract us to purchase that thing. So I think, yeah. Okay. So you can say that to an extent, influencers have the ability to convince their audience to buy a product. Yes. So they have that kind of power. So for instance, an organization reaches out to an influencer from probably your country to tell them that they want to make this particular brand to your own audience. So do you, how would you, now I want you to like communicate with your audience. Let's say you have say an amount of followers on Instagram, for example, and a company has reached out to you as an influencer. So how would you communicate to your audience to tell them that, oh, guys, without telling them that, okay, I'm being paid, or just influence? I think the main source of the influence is social media. Yes. We can say YouTube, by running my own channel. Yeah, okay. By making videos to the internet public. Okay. Whether I have to purchase my brand, whether I am running an organization to make videos. And I need some celebrities also, because celebrities play an indispensable role. I agree with you. Because they are known personality. Yes. And people interact with them. And secondly, I can make some funny videos also by making cartoons and all over that. I think it is. So I am also influenced by that. So that's the social media. And moreover, in present time, we can see that Instagram is very important to make the reels on that. Because many of the, as TikTok is not banned in my country, as Spotify is banned in India. Oh, for real? Yeah. So that's why in our country, India, only Instagram is the source of our influences. That influences the public also. That's very interesting. Okay. So majority of your demographic, in terms of influences to their audience is through Instagram? Yes. Okay. And TikTok is banned. Oh, that's amazing. Is there a reason why that's banned in your country? Or it's just a law that needs to be banned or something? No, it's banned by our Prime Minister. Oh, okay. Because lots of public waste their precious time. Rather than their studies, they focus on TikTok. So our Prime Minister think that these type of social gadgets are disconnecting children with their studies also. Ah. So that's why they ban TikTok. Okay. So Instagram is also a social media platform. Yeah. And it's not like TikTok. There was an incident of one girl that's in India. Oh. She has so much following Instagram. Oh. As well on TikTok also. I think that's the reason. In India, about two, three years, the TikTok was banned. Yeah, that's crazy. That's also interesting at the same time. Okay. So just to reiterate what you guys have said in an essay to summarize, you know, I've heard, you know, mind-blowing definitions of what social media influencers and generally what influencers are. Are people, what I got from what you guys have said, are people who are on the Internet and they have a specific following, you know, probably on Instagram, in your case, Instagram, because it's very prominent in your country. Here in the UK, we use social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, and so on and so forth for influencers to get their voice out. So I have a question. Would you say that these influencers are on a positive side or on a good side? Do you think that they contribute to the society or do you think that influencers are a waste of time? I think both the sides are equal. So every time it's influenced, the public is on the better side and sometimes it's on the bad side. It's a negative aspect of it. Yeah. Okay, I do agree because with every good thing, there's a negative thing as well. Would you agree, Alice? Would you say it's the same thing or would you say it's more of the negative side than the positive side? I want to hear your views about it. Yeah, I also agree with the actor. That is always on both sides of the line. So on the positive side, I think that the influencers can use their reputation to have a good effect on the society and organization. But in controversies, they can have a positive influence on teenagers such as they may do some nonsense rant. Yeah. I do agree. They just have a bad influence. I do agree. Yeah. Yeah. I could also agree to what you guys have pointed out. It's a 50-50 kind of thing. Like I said before, with a positive aspect, there's also a negative aspect. And the positive aspect could be social media influencers as third-party stakeholders to the organizations. They can help to reach a wider audience. Also, then the negative part is we have kids on social media as well. And kids use social media platforms. And they get to see some things on social media platforms. And not necessarily just kids. Adults as well who necessarily purchase things that they're not quite sure of. But because they are influenced to, it goes bad to an extent. So we can relate that to an aspect of health. So it also has a negative aspect to it. I do agree. You wanted to say something? Yeah. I think that the public sees the influencer as more reliable than the organization. So in my point of view, I think that influencers maybe have more effects than the organization. An impact. An impact. Yeah. Than the organization themselves when they convey some messages. That's really nice. Thank you so much for sharing your opinions on influencers. I really hope our listeners enjoyed our talk today. So see you guys next time. Bye. Bye.