Ignorance Is Bliss When You Are An Influencer

It's the wild west of wellness marketing out there y'all.

Wellness products are everywhere, and influencers are very willing to peddle out these products on their socials to their loyal followers. Wellness brands are hiring influencers to market their products at a rapid rate. But are these influencers receiving proper guidance from the brands that hire them?

You see these influencers all over the internet. From YouTube to Instagram, they are ready to show you the latest diet tea or collagen powder that they are "currently using" to maintain their flat stomach or glowing skin. They flash their pearly white smile as they tell you that "research shows" that the product is awesome and defiantly delivers results. They go on to say that this product is "better for you" than other similar products that are on the market. You are left feeling just as uninformed about the product as you were when you first started listening to the influencer. In fact, you feel a bit suspicious that you just heard an ad and not an honest review or opinion of the person who was just gushing over the product.

Influencers have a more powerful role in marketing these days. According to Business Insider, "brands are set to spend up to $15 billion on influencer marketing by 2022, based on Mediakix data." Why? because this form of marketing is cheap. Way cheaper than conventional advertising. Most influencers are compensated through affiliate commissions. That means that they earn a small percentage of the sales that are generated whenever a customer makes a purchase using the influencer's unique link or code. Oh, and usually they get a free product out of it.

Federal and state-level regulation prohibit businesses from making false claims in their advertising, but these regulations don't really apply to influencers. However, due to the many recent scandals, brands, consumers and the government agencies are calling for change.

Here are a few examples of recent scandals:

• Belle Gibson- In 2015, the wellness guru was attacked by the press for claiming to cure multiple cancers with natural remedies. She was also fined in 2017 for fraudulently claiming to donate proceeds from her wellness app to charity.
• Michelle Lewin- She faced backlash for posting an Instagram story with Base Carbs Crush pills, which are appetite suppressants and "carb blockers." Lewin has ties to the company. Fans and nutritionists called her out for promoting something that makes unrealistic and risky claims
• Sugar Bear Hair- A year ago you couldn't get on Instagram without seeing someone talk about how amazing these gummy supplements were. However, several clinicians and labs accused the brand of making over-the-top health claims and framed influencers-many of who are celebrities-in a negative light. Hello Khole Kardashian! 

Since this is a fairly new problem, little research has been conducted on the topic. An April 2019 study, conducted in the U.K. by the university of Glasgow, surveyed the blogs and feeds of nine popular weight-management influencers and found that only one had provided readers with accurate and credible information. Think of all of the misinformation out there. It's overwhelming and scary.

Last year, detox tea was literally everywhere and being shilled by a ton of influencers and even celebrities. Detox tea brands were claiming that there product "detoxed" your body and helped you to achieve weight loss resulting in a flat stomach. In reality, detox tea is nothing more than a laxative tea that gives you cramps and diarrhea. So hot you guys.

In June 2019, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal went after the detox tea industry. He requested that the Federal Trade Commission investigate detox tea brands like Flat Tummy Co. and Lyfe Tea, that use influencers and celebrities to market their brands while spreading potentially false claims. While the FTC cant punish offenders, they can set regulations, conduct legal investigations and recommend action if it finds a business to be in violation. Influencers however are mostly exempt from this threat. In 2017, the FTC sent emails to over 90 influencers to stress the importance of disclosing posts that are sponsored and advocating for full disclosure by using the hashtag #ad and stating that the content has been sponsored or paid for. The FTC's email campaign sparked interest with the media but had little to no effect on influencer practices.

When brands search for influencers to market their products, they are primarily just looking for someone who is on brand. Not someone who is knowledgeable about the product or even the industry.

I have spent a large part of my freelance career creating content for brands in the beauty industry. I'm going to share with you how brands typically approach influencers.

You are contacted by a brand about a specific product usually through email or direct message. Most of the time the brand aligns with your current niche but sometimes they are way off and is something you are unfamiliar with. The brand gives a brief overview of their product and specific guidelines on how to post and talking points to mention. They usually request that all content be sent to them after creation so that they can make sure that you included everything they wanted you to and that it aligns with their vision and marketing goals. There truly doesn't need to be any knowledge on the influencers end. Just a willingness to create content based on the information that you were given. You basically try out a product and speak to your experience but while using the brand's talking points. Sometimes, you don't even get to try the product before producing content. It's shady at best.

As a result, some brands are starting to take action. Brands like Seed, a line of prebiotic/probiotic capsules that launched in 2018, are taking the step necessary to ensure that their influenmcers are being held accountable and are transparent. Seed requires all potential influencers to participate in what they call "Seed University," a one-hour course, complete with a final exam. Influencers must take the course and test before they can have access to affiliate links and codes. Brands like Care/of, a vitamin and supplement brand, require influencers to take the same personal quiz that customers take to determine their personalized vitamin regime. Influencers are also sent extra reading material that regular customers do not get, and Care/of grants them access to the brand's staff nutritionists, medical director and scientific advisory board.

Most blogger that I have interacted with think that brands should have more requirements to make the bloggers do more research so that they know what they are talking about. Most agree that bloggers should already be doing their own research anyway. Personally, I have always done my own research because I feel icky creating content that is false or heavily padded with brand content. I have worked with brands in the past who have sent me hefty amounts of literature to pour over or require phone call meetings so that they could address any questions I might have. Also, I would never write about something that I have never used. A lot of the products that I was writing about were skincare-related. I would not write about a product unless I had used it for a consecutive three months and had heavily researched not only the product, but the brand. If you ask me, there just isn't any other way to do it in an honest way.

While some brands are starting to wake up and require more from the influencers that they hire, this is hardly the norm. In 2017, former health writer and communications consultant Sarah Greenidge, founded WellSpoken, a U.K. based organization that is dedicated to transparency and education among brands, influencers and consumers. She was inspired to start WellSpoken after witnessing how lawless wellness content was compared to the strict restrictions placed on health and medical brands. In early 2019, WellSpoken launched an international initiative called "The Register of Health and Wellness Influencers." The goal of the initiative is to vet brand ambassadors, connect brands with appropriate influencers and increase influencer education. In order to be added to the register, influencers must pay a $120.00 joining fee and provide professional documentation like a degree or certification, and complete an online training course. Greenidge hopes that more brands will look to the register in the future when hiring influencers. She is also working to get "health and wellness influencers" registered as a legally binding term in the U.K. and other countries so that unless someone registers with her organization, they cannot be paid for creating and sharing health and wellness content or products on behalf of a brand.

Brands are slowly starting to realize that they cannot rely on social media platforms to change so they must look to the next person in line which is the influencer. Brands must start vetting their influencers and arming them with the knowledge necessary to talk openly and honestly about a brand or product. In this age of misinformation, it can be difficult to weed out the nonsense to get to the truth. And this misinformation is dangerous to everyone but especially to young impressionable girls. They worship these influencers and hang on their every word. They want to be just like them. And what better way to achieve that goal than to use exactly what they are saying that they use. If influencers are promoting a detox tea for example, and they are saying that the tea has helped them to get a flat stomach, their more impressionable followers will buy the product expecting those very same results. Little do they know that they will be frustrated when the product ultimately doesn't work the way it was promoted. They might wonder what is wrong with them that is preventing the product from working, unaware that the product is actually garbage that truly doesn't work. Or worse, they could make themselves sick using the products or experience adverse side effects from taking something without having adequate knowledge about it beforehand.

Honestly, I am surprised that influencer culture still exists. I mean doesn't everyone at this point know that it's all a bit bullshit? I know that whenever I see an influencer promoting something I automatically assume that they are being paid by the brand and that everything they say should be taken with a grain of salt. If I'm interested in the product, the influencers lack of actual knowledge always inspires me to research the brand and the product.

What do you think? Do you believe influencers? Do you think the culture needs to change? Are you also surprised that influencers are still a thing? Do you have a brand horror story as either an influencer or a customer who believed an influencer? Let me know at inconvenient.relative@gmail.com and if I get enough stories I will share them in a future post.