Someone who is unashamedly creating gorgeous and aspirational content – at least in the main feed of her Instagram profile – is former Miss South Africa Liesl Laurie. “I think it’s a personal thing, that’s who I am as a person. I’m a little bit of both, don’t forget I’m still ‘hood’.” Liesl grew up in Eldorado Park but didn’t let her start in life determine the scope of it.
I’ve always been that girl. My gran will tell you that. I like to position myself as that girl who can be a bit of both (aspirational and relatable) because it’s easy for me; it’s who I’ve always been.
I think if you’re just starting out, you could totally look towards someone like Nadia Jaftha, who was very authentic at one stage and then she became very Instaglam at one point and now she’s back at the relatable fun, family content. Sharing her grandfather and her mom alongside shots of her bringing the great fashion looks and full make-up ...
But don’t try and be Nadia – if you’re not funny it won’t work. If you’re great at make-up like Mbali Nkosi, for example, and you only post make-up looks, then that’s what your followers will be there for. She doesn’t need to be Nadia, because it’s not her thing.
So, how do you achieve this, practically? I read an interesting study on the “strategies that ... influencers employ in performing an authentic persona”, which was published by researchers at the University of Rotterdam in February 2020. In Selling Brands while Staying “Authentic”: The Professionalization of Instagram Influencers, the first generally employed tactic Delia Dumitrica and Loes van Driel outline is that Instagram influencers often address the audience in the caption, usually in the form of some sort of question to generate an authentic tone.
“Another strategy, which serves to develop a connection with the audience, is the sharing of snippets from the influencer’s backstage, everyday life to create a persona that the audience can relate to.” A homesick travel blogger is often more relatable or feels more accessible than an uninterrupted stream of envy-inducing destinations, for example.
And, finally, they mention Instagram Stories as a supplementary platform where many influencers share more behind-the-scenes context than their main feed typically includes. This is a way to balance what influencers in the study perceive to be essential ingredients for any influencer: both aspiration and authenticity. Not aspiration or authenticity, as Ridhima and I defined ourselves over dinner one night in Birmingham.
“By adding details from their everyday lives, influencers give the audience the impression that they know the person behind the feed.”
I would go further and add that if you’re sharing honest and compelling insights with your followers, the followers’ feeling that they are getting to know the influencer in the process will actually be true; it won’t be an impression. If it’s performative, the influencer – sooner or later – will risk slipping up and being found out. Building on integrity is far safer, more sustainable and more fun.
In fact, the same happens when we have strategy sessions in the radio and television industry. We have real and honest conversations around everyone’s on-air persona, what our roles are in relation to the team, and which parts of our personal lives we’ll share on air. Everything is not necessarily fair game, mainly because it is not necessarily useful to the listener or viewer. Focus on content, stories and conversations that are relatable enough for your follower to connect with. In radio, we strategically develop and position our stories, so that our content will transcend the distance (both literally and figuratively) between us and the listener, and the same is true for an influencer.
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CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT
What is your USP?
There is one simple departure point if you are trying to figure out how to stand out in an increasingly competitive and crowded influencer market. Your content needs to consistently reinforce your “unique selling point”, also known as a “unique selling proposition” or simply your “USP”. This is not something influencers came up with or even something we can credit traditional media with; it’s basically a concept as old as commerce itself and it is equally useful across all entrepreneurial pursuits.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines USP as “a feature of a product that makes it different from and better than other similar products”. Of course, you might not view being an influencer as a product, but when you are running a social media account to generate an income, I think this could be considered a production process and the product is your content.
Your USP is the area of overlap.
Maybe it would help if I illustrate this USP idea with an example or two. Before Apple made market-leading cell phones, they broke open the music industry with their MP3 player, the iPod. iPods were not the cheapest mobile music devices available at the time, but they were so innovative that they set a new standard and reinvented the market to a certain extent. Suddenly you could carry thousands of songs around with you on a small mobile device, while a CD Walkman could play only as much as could fit on a CD.
The same could be said for Apple’s subsequent foray into the cell phone market. Their major competitor in this market, Samsung, might not have been pipping Apple to the post in design terms from day one, but they are certainly perceived to be more affordable for similar technology (particularly of late). This is, essentially, Samsung’s USP.
Charles Revson, founder of the make-up giant
