If you look up bios of certain individuals on social media in Ghana, you’ll likely see the word/phrase “Influencer” or “Brand Influencer “ there.
But are most of these personalities actually influencers?
By definition, an influencer is a person with the ability to influence potential buyers of a product or service by promoting or recommending the items on social media.
Most “influencers” in Ghana tend to have followers of about 5,000 and upwards and have worked with brands in the past. Usually, they post about a product and list its qualities or do a video showing off the product.
But are most Ghana personalities really “influencing” anything or are they being exploited for their mass following by brands and companies?
The State of Influencers
Influencer marketing is still in its infancy, especially on the African continent. The US seems to have a more mature market when it comes to influencer marketing. According to Statista, influencer marketing spending in the US is about $4.14 Billion. But not much data exists for the African market, especially Ghana.
Companies and brands reach out to influencers from YouTubers, TikTok, and Instagram to hire them to help sell their products and services. Most of these followers tend to have a high following and brands hope that some of those followers could turn into buyers.
But is influencer marketing as effective in Ghana? Are Ghanaian influencers increasing value for companies when they post their products and services?
Genuine Following Or Paid Bots?
In 2021, the TV network HBO debuted a documentary called “ Fake Famous “ where they took a social media users and turned them into “influencers”.
The show went behind the scenes to show how easy it was to boost a user’s follower count by “buying” followers (usually bots) and showing how to maintain a lifestyle that showed off a great (but fake) lifestyle.
The experiment proved to be a success as those selected for the show became “influencers” over time. Brands and companies sent them “swag” or free gifts to promote on their pages to their followers and some even got free sponsored trips and were encouraged to post on social media to their followers.
All in all, it looks like being an influencer is a “science” and can be hacked. It makes you wonder how many personalities online actually have a genuine following vs a fabricated following and fake lifestyle.
So how can brands actually trust that investing in a local influencer will actually pay off dividends? By that I mean: are Ghana influencers actually bringing value to brands?
Influencer Or Content Creator?
So are Ghanaian influencers actually “influencers” or content creators?
Well, they could be both. Marquees Brownlee also known as MKHD, is a YouTube content creator who creates videos showcasing tech including smartphones, laptops, and lately, electric vehicles.
Although he’s more labeled as a YouTube content creator, he definitely falls into the category of “influencer” because his opinions and videos on YouTube can sway his audience to either purchase or skip a particular product he reviews.
If Marquees says that the new iPhone “sucks” and makes a video showcasing why the new iPhone is bad, it will definitely make headlines and could affect sales.
But can a Ghanaian influencer sway you into purchasing a product? I took an unscientific poll on Twitter asking if anyone had purchased a product endorsed or advertised by a local influencer and the majority said “No”.
Of course, the question could be “ who “ was selling the product. But from observation and casual conversations, it doesn’t seem like people really purchase products advertised by influencers.
On the other food, a food “influencer” like Zubie can raise awareness of a new restaurant or food spot that opened up in the city. Whether her influence can make people go and purchase food at that establishment is another topic.
“Make Us Go Viral”
Most of the time, it’s more the fault of brands and companies for creating a saturated market for new influencers. Once an individual has gone viral, companies try to latch on and sign deals and sponsorships with those individuals.
If a social media user who has a large following and is known for posting certain content, suddenly starts selling you a product, it could easily be a turn-off.
This could also backfire because the individual might not really be versed at selling products or doesn’t incorporate the product into their content properly.
Many casual social media users tend to be bombarded with ad placements by people they follow which sticks out like a sore thumb because the ad placement is not as well done as it should. If more time was dedicated to properly selling products online by the brands and companies, perphaps it wouldn’t create all these new “influencers”.
Earlier this year, we made a bunch of predictions about how the influencer/creator economy might trend in 2023. One of the trends we think we’ll see is more companies trying to get more value from influencers. That means focus on engagement numbers and more product sales will show off the outliers from the main influencers.
All in all, you can’t really call most people with “influencer” in their bios influencers in reality. Most actually fall into the category of “content creators”. The word “influencer” has seemingly lost its purpose and meaning with everything trying to get in on it.
Basically, an “influencer” is now synonymous with “content creator”. Whether that’s a good or bad thing, we can’t really say. But brands definitely need to distinguish between the two terms before deciding to open up their influencer marketing budget to the wrong individuals.
There are genuine personalities who are doing work on TikTok and Instagram, who definitely deserve the badge of “influencer”. But others are most likely falling on inflated numbers to gain notoriety.
So is everyone an influencer now? Apparently, it would seem so.
