Why brands have been wasting money advertising through social media influencers

Despite leading brands investing heavily in advertising through social media influencers, a whooping 82% of Kenyans believe that is akin to flashing the money down the toilet as the influencers do not impact their decisions to acquire products or services.

According to research report authored by Odipo Dev,a Nairobi based information, technology and services firm, more than three quarters of the Kenyan population trusts traditional media and friends as more reliable sources of information about products and services while they hugely mistrust influencers who they believe have been compromised by huge appetite for advertising revenue.

The research states that this distrust has been largely brought about by the influencers themselves.

“As more brands ventured into influencer marketing, many influencers bartered their credibility for advertising dollars. This has led to influencers endorsing too many brands even some that are in direct competition or recommending products they’ve never actually tried nor use in their daily lives,” reads the report “The data shows that consumers have since picked up on this trend and have returned to directly evaluating brands for themselves or relying on close friends they can trust,”

Majority of the respondents questioned in the survey said that they follow influencers on social media for entertainment.

Data collected by the firm shows that musicians, socialities, politicians, bloggers and public intellectuals are the most followed individuals by Kenyans.

A large number of the surveyed respondents also reported not having a specific reason for following influencers with many of them pointing out that they follow them because “they are portrayed as the cool kids of social media”

{Read: Protestants higher users of social media in Kenya}

“Our data shows that the majority of Kenyans do not perceive influencers as experts in their respective areas. This may be largely affected by the tendency of many influencers posting content that cuts across many topics; thus not clearly positioning themselves with audiences.” further reads the report.

According to Odipo Dev, this dilution of authority renders the influencers as risky investment since they dont cultivate enough trust with the audience within any discipline.

This will come as a blow to big brands which have in the past paid big cash to the influencers as an alternative method to promote their brands.

{See also: Social media: Where brands score points or get buried}

Comedians Njugush, Eric Omondi and Karismemes as well as socialite Vera Sidika are some of the big names that have been paid different products.