Influencers overtaking journalists as news source: report

PARIS — TikTok influencers and celebrities are increasingly taking over from journalists as the main source of news for young people, according to a report published Wednesday by the Britain-based Reuters Institute.

The report found that 55 percent of TikTok and Snapchat users and 52 percent of Instagram users get their news from "personalities" -- compared to 33 to 42 percent who get it from mainstream media and journalists on those platforms, which are most popular among the young.

The figures were based on interviews with some 94,000 people across 46 countries, conducted for the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, part of Britain's University of Oxford.

"While mainstream journalists often lead conversations around news in Twitter and Facebook, they struggle to get attention in newer networks like Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok," the report said.

Lead author Nic Newman highlighted people like Britain's Matt Welland, who discusses current affairs and daily life on TikTok for his 2.8 million subscribers.

"Or it could be a celebrity like a footballer talking about a topical news event," he told AFP, such as footballer Marcus Rashford's 2020 campaign to get free school meals for children from poor families.

For young people, "news" is not just the traditional focus on politics and international relations, but "anything new that is happening in any walk of life: sports, entertainment, celebrity gossip, current affairs, culture, arts, technology..." he added.

'FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE'

Facebook remains the leading source of news among social networks worldwide, but its influence is dropping, with 28 percent saying they use it to get news, compared with 42 percent in 2016.

This likely reflects Facebook's shift away from news-sharing towards a focus on friends and family, as well as young people's preference for more video-based apps like TikTok and YouTube.

TikTok now reaches 44 percent of 18-24-year-olds, and 20 percent get their news from the app, up five percent on last year.

The biggest challenge for traditional news outlets is the falling number who go direct to their websites -- just 22 percent, down 10 points since 2018 -- rather than relying on social media links.

In his foreword, Reuters Institute director Rasmus Kleis Nielsen said this shift presented "a much more fundamental change" for the news industry than even the shift from paper to digital a generation ago.

"Legacy media... now face a continual transformation of digital as generations come of age who eschew direct discovery for all but the most appealing brands, (and) have little interest in many conventional news offers oriented towards older generations' habits, interests, and values," he said.

These new audiences are aware of the risks of relying on algorithms, with only 30 percent thinking this is a good way to get a balanced diet of news -- but that is still considered better than relying on journalists, who scored just 27 percent.

None of this is good news for media firms reliant on subscribers and ad revenue.

The report found that 39 percent of subscribers had canceled or renegotiated subscriptions, though the overall share of people paying for news across 20 countries surveyed remained stable compared with last year at 17 percent.

Agence France-Presse

'I selfie, therefore I am': Instagram 10 years on

#Foodporn, #nofilter and #TBT: Little known to the general public a decade ago, Instagram has weaved its way into the daily lives of a billion people, changing the way we eat, travel and consume.

On October 6, 2010 two Americans, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, launched Instagram as a social network dedicated to photo sharing. The novelty? The app offered filters to adjust brightness, contrast and color to create the perfect photo in an instant.

It had immediate success. The app was bought by Facebook two years after its launch, and by that time it had become the world's most popular platform for uploading endless streams of selfies.

Exhibitions, dinners, people on public transport or on vacation, every corner had become a backdrop for capturing a self-portrait for public consumption.

"We have entered the era of 'the internet reality' where one can only exist through what one publishes on social networks. I selfie, therefore I am," said Michael Stora, psychologist and president of the French research collective Observatory of Digital Worlds in Humanities (OMNSH).

Ten years on from its launch, Instagram has evolved far beyond selfies, as it redefines "experiences" and blurs the lines between reality and someone's carefully curated personal brand.

Virtual storefronts 

The app has become the preferred platform for luxury brands, particularly fast-fashion labels which have developed powerful digital marketing strategies to attract millions of users on the platform. 

A shopping function introduced last year has turned Instagram into an e-commerce site, allowing companies to use their profiles as virtual storefronts so users can shop and pay without ever leaving the app. 

It has also launched countless careers of digital "influencers" who churn out daily content to their loyal followers, striking endorsement deals along the way.

"They send me the product and I provide all the service around it... Brands no longer need to call on an advertising agency. We take care of everything," said Pauline Privez, a 36-year-old fashion and beauty influencer since 2009.

Instagram has also made luxury brands more accessible, as they are able to interact daily with users through their own accounts, said fashion historian Audrey Millet. 

"By freely publishing content they open up to everyone, shedding the image of snobbery that has been attached to them," Millet said. 

Travel guides 

The application has also revolutionized the dining experience.

Restaurateurs can count on carefully staged photos of their dishes, or moody shots within their cozy interiors to attract new clients. It is even possible to reserve a table at some restaurants directly through the app.

Instagram has become a place to search for inspiration in the kitchen, where anyone can access the recipes of famous chefs who have invested heavily in the platform, such as Jamie Oliver who is followed by 8.3 million people and posts new recipes daily.

Maelle Bourras, a Parisian in her 30s, follows "about 15 chefs" including Alain Passard, who has half a million subscribers, and Cyril Lignac, with 2.5 million.

"On weekends I try to reproduce some of their creations. It's free and accessible, and allows me to vary from the usual dishes," Bourras said.

Others use Instagram to choose their next vacation, and tourist offices rely heavily on content creators to promote their destinations.

Digital influencers like Privez publish their "experiences" and in return are paid, in addition to the free trips.

Privez, who has 140,000 subscribers, makes between six and seven "sponsored trips" per year, "not counting the two-day press trips," she said.

Around the world, museums and pop-up "experiences" are increasingly offering interactive installations solely for visitors to take selfies and post them on Instagram and other social media platforms.

Pressure for perfection 

Not all social media celebrities are in it for the money. Sylvain Hawawini, known as Dr Shawa Vet to his 107,000 followers, poses with animals in hundreds of photos from locations around the world, so that others can "discover landscapes or places still little known."

The insatiable quest for Instagram "likes" has made the platform addictive for some, and can have devastating effects, particularly for younger people, said psychologist Stora.

Instagram gives teenagers a false sense of reality and pressure for perfection "that they cannot live up to," he said.

Influencers can feel the pressure as well.

"I am forced to stay with it for my professional life, but in my personal life, I am becoming more and more detached from it," Privez said.

Agence France-Presse

Instagram wants its influencers to make more money

Instagram is beginning to roll out updates that will allow creators to make money directly on the platform, a change that could drastically alter the influencer moneymaking landscape.

The company announced several new features Wednesday, including ads on IGTV videos, digital badges that fans can purchase through Instagram Live, merchandise sales through Instagram Shopping and an expansion of Brand Collabs Manager, which facilitates sponsored campaigns between companies and creators.

These updates are in addition to the expanded Instagram Live shopping features announced last week.

Influencers are an asset to social platforms. They drive engagement, but platforms that hope to retain top creators must help them do one thing well: make money. Influencing is a career, after all, and if creators aren’t getting paid, they will eventually stop showing up for work.

Until now, Instagram has taken a relatively hands-off role in monetization. Influencers are free to negotiate their own brand deals, provided they don’t violate the platform’s terms of service.

But Instagram doesn’t pay creators directly or give them a percentage of sales achieved through the platform’s shopping feature, for instance. Influencers generally receive checks from brands that team up with them, rather than from Instagram, which hosts their content.

According to a February report in Digiday, some influencers have been skeptical about Instagram’s IGTV feature, which they think bears too many similarities to YouTube and TikTok, without the benefits of those platforms.

On YouTube, creators can run ads on videos and receive monthly payments from the platform. And on TikTok, livestreaming creators can earn thousands of dollars in digital gifts. Instagram influencers have consequently pursued audiences on other platforms where their revenue streams may be more stable.

With its new monetization features, Instagram hopes to convince creators that its platform can support their work both functionally and financially. Ads from brands including Sephora, Ikea, Puma and other test partners will begin appearing in IGTV videos next week, with 55 percent of the ad revenue going to the creator (a cut that’s comparable to YouTube).

“Creators already put an incredible amount of effort into their content, and it’s crucial that they can make money from that content in order to fuel their work in the future,” said Justin Osofsky, the chief operating officer of Instagram. 

With the introduction of badges, creators will be able to make money through Instagram Live, which has seen more engagement since widespread stay-at-home orders were put in place (the company reported a 70 percent increase in views from February to March).

The badges will appear as little hearts next to a user’s comments on a livestream and will cost 99 cents to $4.99. For now, creators will receive 100 percent of the money made from badges, although Instagram could roll out a revenue-sharing agreement after the test phase is over, likely in 2021.

“There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to monetization, so we’re focused on building a suite of tools that can support the different needs and ambitions of creators in the long term,” Osofsky wrote in an email.

Over the last 2 years, influencers have sought more direct forms of monetization, primarily through merchandise sales; the expansion of Instagram’s shopping features is aimed at addressing that revenue stream. And while brand deals will also be easier to find with the expansion of Instagram’s Brand Collab Manager, those agreements will likely become more complex. 

c.2020 The New York Times Company