Deinfluencers: the dark side of influencer marketing

All of us who are dedicated to online marketing are used to working with different types of influencers, people with a high capacity of prescription and an important community that supports them in their social profiles. They are usually open to collaborations with brands.

 

Unfortunately, we also know what can happen when networks are used to attack a brand. Angry customers or, simply, trolls looking to make noise and who do not care at all about generating an online reputation crisis.

 

Halfway between the two, the figure of the deinfluencer arises, which we are going to talk about at length in this post.

The first thing is to give shape to the definition: basically, these are social network users who make "honest reviews" of products and, therefore, do not hesitate to highlight the negative aspects of them. In fact, that honesty often translates into fairly direct attacks.

 

Obviously, there is no collaboration with brands, it is spontaneous. This is already the first difference with influencers as we know them. 

 

The second is that they do not necessarily have a huge community behind them. In many cases, their ability to influence might seem limited in scope, but that freshness and approachable tone have a lot of impact on the people they reach.

Social networks are changing their paradigm by leaps and bounds. If not, tell that to Meta, because while we see how Facebook is becoming more and more residual -despite still having a huge amount of users-, we also observe a tendency to reject certain attitudes and profiles on Instagram. This directly affects the perception that the general public has of influencers and their lifestyle, as they are figures especially linked to this network.

 

Why? It is difficult to determine a single reason, but it may be that certain accounts have abused promoted content, to the point of turning their timelines into showcases and, along the way, have lost interest for part of their audience.

 

At one point, this seduced millennials, but it has had the opposite effect on members of Generation Z, who respond in a completely different way to stimuli and use the networks in a different way.

 

Instagram is somewhat private and, in many cases, is used as nothing more than a chat system for sending private messages. However, there are other platforms that appeal to them much more.

 

Especially one that is fresh, direct, immediate, where people behave in a more natural way and that, in addition, has an algorithm that amplifies the reach and where being viral is much easier regardless of the number of followers you have.

 

Do you know which network I'm talking about? Of course TikTok is the ideal place to get your message across in a different way.

Many people have posted videos telling negative experiences with a product or service, but it is understood that the first deinfluencer is a TikTok user named Valeria Fride.

 

We can attribute this title to her for the simple reason that Many people have posted videos recounting negative experiences with a product or service, but it is understood that the first de-influencer is a TikTok user named Valeria Fride.

 

We can attribute this title to her for the simple reason that it was Valeria who was the first to use the hashtag #deinfluencing on the Chinese network. It all started with a review of a beauty product and a phrase: "Let me deinfluence you...".

 

The idea spread like wildfire, especially when it became a TikTok trend replicated by thousands of users.

Instead of being very strong personalities, the power of deinfluencers lies in the critical mass they have achieved. These reviews are multiplying out of control.

 

Nothing is exempt from going through their merciless analysis, but there are certain segments that are suffering more than others. Fashion and beauty in particular suffer frequently.

 

Is it an anti-consumerist ethical stance, a vindication of consumer rights, an opportunity to "settle accounts" with a brand with which we are dissatisfied? Or, on the contrary, is it simply a trendy type of content and that, like others before it, will eventually disappear?

 

Time will tell, but it makes a lot of sense to think that deinfluencers will consolidate as the dark side of influencers.