It came to my attention at the beginning of this school year just how big advertisement has become when it comes to social media. I'm not talking about ads for social media sites or ads on the sides of social media sites, but rather social media users being sponsored by companies to advertise their products to the person's audience. Scroll through Instagram and you'll see Karlie Kloss promoting L'Oreal, or go to YouTube and your favorite channels will have videos of people reviewing products that were sent to them by a clothing company. This is so fascinating to me because so many people still view it as entertainment and don't even acknowledge that it's another form of advertising. Beyond that, the people sharing these sponsored posts are getting paid large sums of money. According to Esquire, people with 3 to 7 million followers on Instagram can charge $75,000 for a single sponsored post, a disgusting amount of money for taking a picture, writing a caption, and then uploading it.
What this displays to me is how much of an impact and reach social media has if companies are willing to spend that much for an endorsement. But besides that, this is a warning that even the consumption of social media leads to exposure to advertising, and that even watching one YouTube video is supporting a company. It's an addition to the traditional method of Madison and Vine techniques, where entertainment and advertising join together, but this time the tactic is much more apparent. Advertising is keeping up to date with the most modern and popular forms of entertainment, so it's no surprise that sponsored content on social media is now a big part of how companies promote their products. Now introducing yet another way to add to the clutter, how wonderful.
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