Introduction

The digital world has witnessed exponential rise of “social media influencers who become famous through their digital content on social media. These influencers are increasingly playing a significant role in shaping our opinions, consumer’s interests and purchasing decisions and influence our notion of fashion, health, and music. 

What is Social Influence and Persuasion?

• Social influence is the process by which individuals adapt their opinion, revise their beliefs, or change their behaviour as a result of social interactions with others. 
  • An influencer is a person who has an audience that they entertain through a channel and who uses blogs, posts, tweets, and other methods on social media to impact the audience. Social media influencers are influential individuals who engage a large following to boost online engagement for endorsed products or services, often using a trusted audience.
  • Features: based on broader social norms, often unintentional and implicit, non-verbal, based on power, status, reputation, resources
  • Major types:-
    • Conformity: - Behaviour change designed to match the actions of others. E.g. selecting clothes to match what other people are wearing.
    • Compliance: - Behaviour change that occurs as a result of direct request. E.g. a child cleaning up his/her room as per parent’s request.
    • Obedience: - Change in behaviour in response to a direct order from an authority figure. E.g. signing of  a letter when asked by a teacher
• Persuasion on the other hand refers to efforts to change another person's beliefs, attitude, behaviour or preferences in receivers conforming to intentional efforts by a communicator.

• Features: mostly intentional, explicit and verbal, based on ideas of perceived friendship through similarities in language and interests
• Principles: reciprocity, consistency, social proof, authority, liking, scarcity, and unity.
• Techniques used: eye-catching photos and videos, interesting stories, social proof, and the promotion of positive social norms.

How Social Media and influencers are ushering progressive Social Influence and Persuasion? 

• Progressive social norms: Influencers through social media share uplifting and empowering content and also amplifies voice of marginalized communities. E.g. Black Lives Matter, Me-too Campaign
• Influencers as a new marketing channel: They enhance brand credibility, help in purchase intention through collaborations and cross-promotion.
• Promoting Inclusivity and Diversity: Influencers often champion inclusivity by representing diverse communities and challenging stereotypes
• Democratisation of information: E.g. news in regional languages, updates on twitter by government officials and leaders.
  • Karnataka Digital Advertising Guidelines – 2024 and Uttar Pradesh Digital Media Policy 2024 allows for advertisement to social media influencers to disseminate information of government policies and schemes.

Harmful impact of Social Media and influencers

• Spread of Misinformation and Disinformation: Influencers intentionally/unintentionally often spread misinformation. This may hampers the decision making process and has negative impact on democratic processes such as elections. 
• Mental Health Issues: Self comparisons with unrealistic beauty standards, distorted view of reality contributes to mental health issues such as depression and anxiety.
  •  Moreover, culture of Instagram and Youtube reels are leading to decreased attention span and productivity contributing leading to less self-esteem.
• Impact on children: Social media addiction, especially among teens, hinders productivity, physical health, and interpersonal relationship development.
• Radicalisation: Extremists often use social media platforms as weapons of mass persuasions to propagate radical ideologies among vulnerable individuals. E.g. online radicalisation by Islamic State.
• Threat to Branding: Influencers can use fear appeals and misleading content to sell irrelevant or defective products, posing a threat to reputable brands, potentially causing negative customer attitudes and severe reputational damage.

Steps to be taken

• Digital influencer marketing guidelines:  Proper endorsement guidelines in the form of “Endorsement Know-Hows” should be prescribed for influencers requiring clear, prominent, and hard-to-miss disclosures including terms such as "advertisement," "sponsored," "collaboration," or "paid promotion."
• Increased Awareness and Education: The psychological tactics used by influencers should be made aware to the consumers to take informed decisions.
  • The question of “whether influencers are truly experts?” should be raised through a critical thinking process.
• Anti-Radicalisation Narratives: Strategies to challenge extremist narratives include producing counter-contents, blocking or censoring extremist content, controlling information flow, and manipulating search engine results to control radicalization and extremism.
• Limited Screen time for Children and Teenagers: E.g. Swedish health authorities have issued new recommendations to restrict screen time for children and adolescents.