Nowadays, all generations are attached to social media in everyday life. Social media is a medium to online social interacting using the internet. Users can easily communicate, interact, share and exchange daily activities, news, fashion, food, experience in the form of written text, photos, even videos. Activities and content uploaded to social media by someone can influence the tastes of other users. There are many types of social media. In addition to the different types of platforms, the types of content contained in social media are also diverse. For instance, social networks such as Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and others.
In the rise of social media era, more and more territory are being unlocked, opportunity that never been there before are now on the market. Social media on itself is a booming market, we often see that back in the day social media platform like youtube, facebook, and instagram draw their profit from ads placement, but now this very concept can not only benefit the corporation but also it’s user—more often than not those who’s able to maximize their platform. These people are commonly known as influencer or social media influencer, their job is fluid and differ from one influencer to the other, so does their working hours and contract, but one thing for sure their massive social media following is a bountiful field that copperation seek to reach.
Awkarin seems to be the name on everyone's lips, it begs the question, who is Awkarin? And why is she so influential? Basically, she is an influencer, an entrepreneur, also a model and a singer. Her followers on instagram reached as many as 4,6 Millions people. She is one of the biggest instagram influencers in Indonesia. She can influence lots of people due to her massive followers. What makes her popular is because in the first place she used Instagram as her platform to share her daily life, fashion ideas, foods and about traveling. But, she’s been controversial back in a day. But, her controversy made all the media centered into her. It caused her followers gained much more. Not just followers that she got, she also began to get bashed because of that controversy.
A question arises from this how does Awkarin or other influencer for lack of a better word influenced a lot of people? Well, it can be simply answered by asking another question, have you ever once buy the same food as your friends because he bought it? Or have you gone to a place you’ve never been to before just because a bunch of your friends went there? If you’ve been in these kinds of situation before or something similar you have been influenced. You see influence is a subconscious thing that happens to you that’s why it works on so many people, it worked by manipulating your sense of belongingness and your biological need to stay as a social group. Influencers could manipulate you to do things because this very exact reason, when an influencer has a big enough group of followers a singular follower is forced to join in the action because if he/she doesn’t do it they’ll feel left out and feel like they don’t belong there. For example, if Awkarin launched merchandise a lot of followers will start buying the merchandise, it’ll start small let’s say around 100 people bought the merchandise, but slowly more and more individuals started buying the merchandise because they don’t want to feel left out and in the end there’ll be more and more people that bought the merchandise. This is how influencers get money quickly and this is why the market for this exist and is growing rapidly.
Most of us know people with power are people like the President, people in the parliament, the police, or even the army, basically people that are in the government. But do people know that power can exist in a non-government society? Influencer can also be considered as people with power judging by their popularity and their followers. Both categories have their own uniqueness because they use their power in a different way. For example, a government institution uses their power in a coercive kind of way such as the law that are made to govern the people, so if one breaks the law then punishment as stated in the law awaits. If that is the government, so what is the way of influencer to use their power? How does it affect our lives?
Influencer, hence its name, influences people particularly their followers to agree what they speak of. It is not binding nor coercive because no sanction will be given to those who disagree with them. An issue will be easier to comprehend by using an example, so here is an example. Raditya Dika, with almost 14 million followers on instagram is one of the most popular influencer and comedian in Indonesia. His talks can inspire a lot of people because of how popular he is and this influence us to become just like him. One example of influencing people is when he promotes a brand Without forcing his followers to buy the brand, they will buy the brand because he influences it and because he says that it is good therefore his influence comes to our mind to do what he suggests. Influencers affect our lives without us even realizing they influenced us in some ways.
So how do we as their followers react to this? There are motto that encourages us to be a smart social media user, so if an influencer influences us to do something or to have something as long as it is positive so why not? Of course there are things that need to be considered about our own personal stuff but besides that, it is up to our own choice. But what do we do if it is a negative thing? An example of negative thing is hating others and things like that. The first thing we need to do as a smart user and follower is to remind the influencer not to talk that way or not to act that way because influencers are role models for people so it isn’t wise to do such things. Secondly, we shouldn’t be influenced to do the same way and warn people not to aswell. By that way, as a smart follower community, we remind each other so that it could stay the way it should be, the normal and peaceful way because one negative thing happened in social media, there is no going backwards. But of course, it doesn’t always work the way we want to in reality. So stay smart, FOLKS!
Najlaa:Paragraph 1
Ky:Paragraph 2
Azlifah:Paragraph 3 & 5
Eca: Paragraph 4
Arya:Paragraph 6 & 7