IIn a departure from its usual content, TikTok beauty influencers are “not impressing” the audience what not to buy, Offering unusually critical product reviews, many are directing their criticism at products they believe have been heavily promoted by other influencers on the platform.
The recent interest in de-influencing began with a controversy over a product recommendation. the audience accused TikTok beauty influencer Mikayla Nogueira secretly wears false eyelashes to exaggerate the effects of mascara, which she was paid to promote. The video and its response sparked widespread debate about the authenticity of influencers, leading to a flood of “de-influencing” posts.
While the term “de-influencing” is a relatively new addition to the vocabulary of influencers, this strategy has been around for years. one in recent studyWe explore why people lose trust in influencers they greatly respect, and what influencers do to regain that trust.
We studied influencers who became famous as “beauty gurus” on YouTube. Our participants (followers of these gurus) explained that in the early days of YouTube, vloggers offered unbiased product reviews, often being “brutally honest” about products they didn’t like. These critical reviews were the key to the early popularity of many vloggers. As one participant put it, the material “saved us a lot of money”.
As vloggers grew in popularity, the world of influencer marketing was born. Brands take advantage of the trusted guru role by paying or incentivizing them to promote products to their loyal followers.
This new influential role exemplified what we call researchers”.role conflict, Followers expect honest, unbiased recommendations from their favorite gurus, while brands expect influencers to positively portray their products. These expectations clashed, creating mistrust among followers. Our participants said they doubted the integrity and credibility of beauty vloggers when they were paid to promote products to their followers.
This mistrust was well founded. Our analysis of the YouTube channels of prominent vloggers revealed that after adopting an influencer role, they avoided talking critically about brands, perhaps because they did not want to jeopardize existing or potential brand collaborations. Influencers primarily focused on brands they liked, rather than those they didn’t. Critical reviews telling their followers which products should not be purchased have become few and far between.
Many of our participants reported unfollowing or avoiding content from influencers they no longer trust to be honest. Such feedback can jeopardize the success of influencers, as follower engagement is vital to their careers.
rebuilding trust
We found that YouTube beauty vloggers quickly recognized the need to respond to this growing sense of mistrust. We observed them using the “role preference” strategy as a way of proving their authenticity. This meant prioritizing their “guru” role over the “influencer” role and demonstrating this to their followers.
They did this by providing more honest and critical product reviews. Vloggers created videos titled “Disappointing Product” and “Worst Purchase”, or simply integrated negative reviews into their wider content. Many issued negative reviews of products “gifted” to them by the brand’s PR teams, or of brands they had previously collaborated with.
With these critical reviews, influencers show followers that they value their relationship with the audience as much as the brand. And it worked. The followers we spoke to said this behavior encouraged them to be more confident in future product recommendations. This trust is critical to maintaining the trusted guru role that makes vloggers so attractive to brands in the first place.
The end of dominant culture?
It should come as no surprise that the conversation about influencers and trust is starting to take off on TikTok. The platform’s algorithms, which present an endless stream of personalized short video content to users on “pages for you”, combined with trend driven nature of the stage, that means TikTokers are particularly guilty of publicizing the latest “must have” beauty products. The endless deluge of product recommendations can be overwhelming for users, and leave those affected by dwindling bank balances.
Influencers on competitive platforms like YouTube learned long ago that they needed to prioritize roles in order to maintain audience trust. The popularity of the de-influencing trend shows that TikTok influencers are now learning this lesson.
some commentators as the death of the effector and so effected as the death of the effector. But our research suggests the opposite. D-influencing is a form of influencing that many consumers are more receptive to, especially in the current economic climate.
Rather than representing the demise of influencers, de-influencing is an opportunity for them to re-establish their original “guru” role and gain trust through transparency and authenticity. It’s a strategy they use to protect their influential role — and future income.
is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing, Cardiff University, is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing, Lancaster University, and Professor of Marketing at Cardiff University.
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