Miscellaneous Social Media "Influencers" - Love them or hate them.

[Pete Thomas]

Call them what you like (reviewers, shills etc).

Are you influenced by influencers?

 

[mizmar]

I follow everything you say...

 

[mizmar]

More seriously...

The Dearborn Independent probably started all this

 

[Jeanette]

Call them what you like (reviewers, shills etc).

Are you influenced by influencers?

Nope

 

[Colin the Bear]

The only influencer I know is Stephen Howard. His reviews are gold dust.

 

[Targa]

No

 

[GCinCT]

Not a fan of influencers at all.

 

[LostCircuits]

Worse than the Spanish Influenza

 

[mizmar]

Isn't a sponsored artist a form of influencer?

 

[eb424]

Are we talking all the saxophone teachers?

 

[Grumps]

Not for saxophone related stuff. Almost can't help coming across that sort of thing though if you're researching stuff online that you want to learn more about. Then again... if it's not a reviewer on camera, it's articles written by AI feeding off of AI. In paragraph form...

 

[LostCircuits]

Not for saxophone related stuff. Almost can't help coming across that sort of thing though if you're researching stuff online that you want to learn more about. Then again... if it's not a reviewer on camera, it's articles written by AI feeding off of AI. In paragraph form...

But which one is worse? Reviewers who get advertising money or AI? I can tell you that I've been battling reviewers who reviewed identical products from our company and then another one which was a major advertiser and just based on the name, the two products ended up on the opposite side of the scale- based on advertising money.

 

[Ghr9204]

I guess it depends on what context.

For products to include musically related, influencers can be good or bad. If it involves costly or semi-costly products, I step away. If I feel the same way several days or a week later, then I may consider.

This helps to separate emotion from logic.

If it is one of those, "If you don't buy now, it will never be offered at this price again!" - warning, step away.

If in doubt, it doesn't hurt to bounce it off a friend or acquaintance who is more experienced or older. That was when I was younger. Now that I am the older, like Yoda, I don't jump onto "bandwagons".

 

[Woodpad]

If it is one of those, "If you don't buy now, it will never be offered at this price again!" - warning, step away.

I increased that to all influences using negative emotions when not in a critical situation.

 

[Pete Thomas]

Isn't a sponsored artist a form of influencer?

Aka an endorser. In the old days an endorser was a performing artist who would generally be given items free or at a discount. I guess that’s a form of influencer because their endorsement might have some influence.

Maybe that’s very different to people who are good at making shouty videos but aren’t really pro players. Or maybe making money from the videos makes them/us professional.

 

[Nick Wyver]

No.

 

[Pete Thomas]

Reviewers who get advertising money or AI?

I’m not sure how relevant it is to compare reviewers with ai. Totally different things?

It’s odd though how you never rarely see a bad review when a someone is reviewing something they received free of charge,

 

[dexdex]

I admit that I appreciate Bob Reynolds’ vids. It is mostly about playing the horn. No hardware promotion.
The greatest turn-off lately are the portrait framed videos. Me and myself. A pity Benito and Adolf couldn’t take advantage of them…

 

[Pete Thomas]

Are we talking all the saxophone teachers?

Well of course technically you may be influenced by a saxophone teacher, but many don’t use social media etc. Influencer in this context is someone with social media, YouTube etc who markets stuff by hyping it online, in return for free stuff and monetised ads. Yes I suppose some may call themselves teachers.

Maybe someone can help with a better definition?

I follow everything you say...

Haha but I don’t think of myself as an influencer. If I am, maybe not a very good one. I have done a couple of videos with tips but not many channel followers or views, at least not enough to monetize with ads. Nor do I use the channel for reviewing/ recommending/ hyping of products which is probably how I define an influencer.

 

[Tenor Viol]

Most 'influencers' operate in spaces I'm not interested in. What I do see a lot of though is AI generated comment/reviews of various stuff. At present it's usually spotted due to endless repetition - ten minute videos that tell you the same thing in four different ways. It's disturbing to see comments which think that they're talking to a person when it's an AI bot.