There’s a lot of social stigma when it comes to the career path of an influencer. Some people don’t see it as real work, believing it takes no skill or talent to become an influencer. Others dispute that this career path is socially beneficial. The problem with this is that they’re usually not taking a moment to look at the big picture and try to understand why influencers are better for society than you think. Here are the top six reasons that may change your mind. 

1. Spread of information

A micro-influencer may have more insight into the topic than you think. Sure, an A-list celebrity may have no idea about anything technology or healthcare related, but they have a great legal team and access to experts to look into it. Don’t you think they’ll assess the brand risk before promoting anything?

Micro-influencers are usually people with a vested interest in a certain niche. They usually have only their reputation to stake. Since micro-influencer deals aren’t as lucrative as macro-influencers, it’s not worth ruining their brand by promoting something they don’t understand.

Also, when it comes to micro-influencers, the value that they provide usually is information. Sure, people follow macro influencers to see their lifestyle. Micro-influencers are usually specialists that people follow to get new tips on topics of interest. For instance, as a crypto investor, you may follow a specialist to get some tips. Coins worth buying, according to influencers, will often be more solid than those you discovered through independent research.  

Because they don’t leverage high enough social significance, micro-influencers and specialists build their entire brand on the accuracy of the information/tips they provide. This, on its own, provides no small amount of value.

2. Awareness of important subjects

People don't want to hear it from a brand regarding mental health, bullying, and similarly sensitive topics. They want to hear about it from someone they trust and look up to. An influencer is always more relatable than a brand. Keep in mind that these are the subjects that may actually change people’s lives for the better, as well as positively impact society as a whole. 

In that regard, Influencers can spearhead aspects like social change and activism. It’s not just about the message but also about who it is coming from. This is especially true for people who are living by their examples. It’s not just about what you say but whether people believe you have a moral right to say something.

While influencers sometimes get a bad reputation for being too commercially oriented, many use their power for good. Philanthropy is huge in this field, and an influencer can help boost any fundraising campaign that they set their attention to.

3. Consumer education

Lack of consumer education is one of the biggest problems with today’s commerce. The thing is that people order products that they’re unfamiliar with, which results in a poor customer experience. This is not just bad for the consumer but also the retailers. After all, a dissatisfied consumer will request a chargeback, write a negative review, and rate them poorly, which will affect their brand in many unpleasant ways. 

First of all, there are all sorts of influencers out there, some of which are giving people life-changing advice. Finance-oriented influencers, for instance, may offer numerous guidelines on securing different loan types. Without them to provide a breakdown, many people would have to invest in serious research. Because people hate research, this usually ends with them just going in blindly and making a huge mistake. 

If you’ve ever gone to YouTube to look at a product, you must have encountered a “Before You Buy” video as one of the results. Here, influencers do their best to inform their viewers of every product's good, bad, and ugly side. Do they have a commercial incentive to praise the product? Sure! However, it’s far more expensive for them to lose face in front of their audience. Their credibility is their greatest asset, and compromising it is usually not worth it. 

Remember that the comment section on influencers’ posts serves as a community of its own. A lot of influencers also have their subreddits, etc. The bottom line is that these community discourse instances may be more effective in consumer education than the influencer in question.

4. Small business support

People are obsessed with brands, and we’ve reached the point where this obsession hurts small businesses and local economies. Fortunately, influencer marketing has the power (and even incentive) to change this. 

What’s the incentive for the influencers? 

As an influencer, one of the biggest challenges lies in providing (discovering) enough content for your audience. Sure, you can react to things, recycle other people’s content, and get involved with online drama, but your audience also wants original content. One of the ways to do so is to find places, businesses, or products that lack a review and be the first to make it. In other ways, influencers have a reason to reach out to small businesses, which may result in mutual benefit.

A perfect example is the “One Bite Pizza Reviews” on YouTube. They visit a lot of small pizza joints (they deliberately avoid franchises), and any place that gets a score of seven or more usually sees a huge influx of customers.

5. Career opportunity

Becoming an influencer is not enticing to everyone; however, this is an extra opportunity you need to consider. Sure, social media following is important as a vanity metric, but it can also be an asset you can leverage. 

Most importantly, it doesn’t prevent you from pursuing your “main” career. If anything, there’s a mutually-beneficial correlation here somewhere. 

Let’s say you’re a dentist and start a dental blog or an Instagram page dedicated to dental health. The better and most reputable you are as a dentist, the easier it is to attract more audience by leveraging your authority. Once your audience becomes big enough, you can use this funnel to drive more work to your practice. You can also use your influencer status to increase your pricing. After all, you’re a celebrity dentist, why not adjust your prices accordingly?

While it’s not a passive income stream (you shouldn’t underestimate the amount of work that goes into content creation and curation), it’s a great way to diversify your income.

6. Entertainment

People are following influencers either for information or entertainment. Now, one of the biggest problems with assessing the role of influencers in modern society is that some sociologists look down on the value of entertainment.

At the same time, they produce a huge amount of content in an era where content is consumed at an unprecedented rate. Due to their huge numbers, they can generate enough to saturate the needs of this growing market, repurpose other people’s content, and establish collaborations. 

It’s also important to mention that some mainstream entertainers (musicians, comedians, actors, etc.) first achieve breakthroughs on their platforms (YouTube or social media). In other words, this can also be a stepping stone for those looking to transcend into the mainstream. 

Influencers perform several important functions and benefit individual users as well as whole communities

In the end, explaining the importance and significance of influencers is not that hard. They are generating value for themselves, their followers, and even society as a whole. This profession is here to stay, whether providing information, education, entertainment, or community-building services.