Social Media Influencers

Is becoming an Instagram influencer the new dream job?

By Emilyn Mohebbi

May 1, 2019

Story Highlights

• Social media has become a diverse world where people can express themselves, connect through similar interests, and even make an income. Each platform showcases something unique about the human behind that profile.
•  Businesses are now using Instagram as a marketing tool to grow their clientele, to promote their brand, and to engage with their clients. According to PR Newswire (PDF), “77% of U.S. small businesses use social media for key business functions.” 
• A single hashtag on social media is a powerful tool when used correctly in the social media world, as some local social media influencers note in this article.

Social Media Influencers in San Diego

Meet Karol Martin

SAN DIEGO — Karol Martin, known as @karol_priscilla on Instagram, started out as a blogger, and now is considered an influencer. 

With almost 60,000 followers, Martin uses her platform to, “not only inspire people, but to connect to people, and I want to break the mold that life is perfect,” Martin said. 

She uses her website/blog, YouTube channel, and Instagram account to connect with her followers. 

According to Martin, her influencer career started in 2015 on Instagram. Martin is a professional model and a single mom, who uses her platform to share fitness videos and tips, parenting tips as a single mother, and posts about her reality and day-to-day life. 

“For people, I am an influencer, but influencing isn’t my main goal,” Martin said. “I’d rather just relate to people. I try to be as genuine as I can with people. I’m still a human being, and I have insecurities. I have life problems, and I also have feelings just like anyone else. I’m not just some photoshopped chick that you see online.”

Meet Kaptan Kaster

Professional tennis player Kaptan Kaster (@kaptankaster) has nearly 17,000 followers, and uses his social media platform to, “inspire people through their health journey through fitness and sports, but is also not afraid to bring comedy and humor to people’s lives through my creative content,” Kaster said. 

Kaster is well known for his Bird Box tennis challenge, which received over 100,000 views as of January 2019. 

“I started posting consistently to my Instagram profile in October 2016 just as a hobby when I was traveling for one of my tennis tournaments, and I wanted to record my journey,” Kaster said.

Kaster wanted to create a social media presence that showcased what he is passionate about. He says the only way his page can be unique and branded to him is by being honest to his followers. 

“Originally, I tried to start a modeling page in France, but then it turned into what defines who I am which isn’t high fashion,” Kaster said. “I wanted to record what I was actually doing.” 

Kaster and Martin both use social media to promote their personal brands, but social media is also being used to promote local businesses. According to PR Newswire, “77% of U.S. small businesses use social media for key business functions.” 

Social Media Marketing for Businesses

S3 Coffee Bar owner, Claudia Kwong opened her café in Grantville, a neighborhood in San Diego, Calif., about two years ago with the mindset of creating pretty drinks and showcasing them through pictures on social media. 

Their Instagram handle (@s3coffeebar) currently has close to 13,000 followers. 

“I’ve always known that Instagram is very important because a picture is worth a thousand words,” Kwong said. “We wanted to create a brand for our business and this was the cheapest way to create a brand for a small business like us.” 

The name S3 comes from the three sisters in the family—“S” for sisters, and “3” for the three of them, with a tagline of “Smell, sip, and savor.” The three sisters share the role of photographing what goes on in the coffee shop and running the business Instagram account, according to Kwong. 

“We created the Rainbow Latte because clients wanted to see more visual stuff and unique drinks,” Kwong said. “The greatest feeling as a business owner is constantly seeing people take out their cameras or phones, and taking pictures because our products are being looked at as a work of art. It’s more than just a drink.” 

“I have clients who drive all the way down from Fallbrook, Calif., and Los Angeles, Calif. just to try our drinks, and that is all thanks to social media,” Kwong said. “All because they saw a friend post a really pretty picture of their drink. It’s pretty and it’s delicious. We try to focus on that. We come up with drinks that are very aesthetically pleasing and delicious at the same time.”

Kaster, Kwong, and Martin are unique in their approach to using social media platforms, however, they do share in common the power of the hashtag. 

The Power of a #Hashtag

Hash-tagging on Instagram categorizes topics into a folder. Hashtags allow one to corner a space of the social media world and use it as a way to meet new people and for marketing purposes as well. 

“Hashtags are definitely a huge way to reach people that aren’t following you,” Kaster said. “Sometimes Instagram favors you in the hashtags. So one day you might get 20,000 impressions off of one hashtag, and another day you might only get 1,000 or 2,000. I use hashtags for every post, always. You can use 30 per post. Any more than that your hashtags will disappear from your post.”

Hashtags can also drive business. 

“We use hashtags like no tomorrow,” Kwong said. “Every time I post I think of hashtags that are related to my post and that is how I come up with them. I don’t have a preset of hashtags that I use every time because each post is unique. The only four that I repeat are, #S3CoffeeBar, #S3, #SanDiego, and #Café.”

According to FirstPage Marketing, “It is important to understand that most businesses use hashtags in order to boost engagement (increase the number of likes and comments on posts). This is common practice as, on average, social media posts that use hashtags are known to get more engagement than posts that do not.”

FirstPage Marketing also states that hashtags can help a business measure the performance of their posts through social media metrics/analytics. “Hashtags are important because, when used properly, they can positively impact a business’s social KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Businesses using social media can benefit by tracking specific hashtags related to their industry, and targeting audiences based off of the types of hashtags they are using.”

Social media has transitioned over the years from simplicity, to a world that offers so much, such as the opportunity of making an income from it.

How do Bloggers and Influencers Make an Income?

Social media has become a place not only to become known, but also to make some money.

Martin says the process of deciding her pay rate differs per job. She says it also depends how many posts the companies expect the influencer to post. Some companies just want one post on their page, while others want a post on their Instagram story, along with video. 

“If a brand comes to me with a budget, and they want to offer X amount of dollars, I’ll either work with them or deny however much they’re offering, or sometimes I’ll even ask them to give more,” Martin said. 

Getting paid through work on social media comes in many different forms. Such as exchange for products or dinners, giftcards, direct deposit, checks, and sometimes even through Venmo.

“There’s no Instagram Pay yet, maybe there will be in the future, I wouldn’t be surprised,” Kaster said. “The form of payment varies per brand and company.” 

Social media users were asked a few questions on their thoughts on the new trend of social media bloggers and influencers.

How Much do Social Media Influencers “Influence” Society?

Based on an informal online survey conducted between April 13, 2019 and April 23, 2019, 104 respondents shared their perceptions on feelings about how influential Instagram bloggers and influencers really are. The results were inputted into an infographic.

When participants were asked if they know what an Instagram blogger/influencer is, 97 percent of the participants said they knew what an Instagram blogger/influencer was, and 3 percent said they did not know.

Since Instagram bloggers and influencers are getting paid to promote products, participants were asked if they are influenced to go and purchase a product after seeing a social media blogger/influencer post about it. The survey results showed that 63 percent said they are influenced by the posts on social media, and 37 percent said they are not.

The reporter wanted to find out if the opinions of bloggers/influencers on social media are really trustworthy. More than half of the participants with a total of 51.9 percent felt “neutral” when answering this question.

Participants were also asked if a blogger/influencer has to have a verified account (blue check mark) for them to be trustworthy. The survey results show that 59 percent said that a blogger/influencer does not have to have a verified account to be trusty worthy, and 41 percent said they have to.

Now that people are making an income as social media bloggers and influencers, the reporter wanted to find out how many people would consider becoming one. More participants said they wouldn’t want to become an influencer, with a total of 60 percent answering “no”, and 40 percent said they would become one.

Instagram is growing by adding new features that are beneficial to bloggers and influencers.

Instagram Tools are Evolving

A new feature on Instagram is the “Try Instagram Business Tools” option. This option allows a user to turn their platform into a business or brand. It allows one to add their email to their profile, view analytics on their posts, and add a title under their name.

“I highly recommend turning an Instagram profile into a business to everyone,” Kaster said. “Becoming a business account doesn’t cost anything, and also you get to put your email under your bio, and that’s how a lot of the times brands contact you, through your email.” 

Kaster says this feature is crucial so that you can study your profiles analytics to see what you can improve on, and also to see the best times your followers are being interactive.  He also says it is beneficial for the fact that you can put a direct link to your email address so that companies can easily get in contact. 

To run an Instagram page successfully, it is far more complex than people may think. What is it that makes a page unique and drives people to it? You have to test things out through trial and error. Find out the best times and days to post. What type of content is most popular and that is receiving the most feedback. Come up with a certain theme to stick with to keep the page consistent and flowing. A lot of thought comes with the design process, and coming up with the creative content.

“If your content is really good it’s going to get good engagement,” Kaster said. “But you do see trends of certain days that are better. Weekdays for me have tended to be better than weekends, because I think more people are doing things on the weekends. But it totally depends on your followers and where they’re from, and what season it is too. There is a lot of different factors.” 

A way to figure out what your followers like to see most is through analytics. 

“Data analysis is huge for Instagram,” Kaster said. “Businesses have used analytics to know who their audience is, and when they’re awake and active on Instagram. You could post the same picture on two separate days and two separate times, and it could get completely different engagement just because you posted on a bad day or at a bad time. You have to look at your analytics and see, and let the data tell you what’s going on with your followers.”