“Influencers Pay Double”. Joe Nicchi, the owner of a soft serve food truck in Los Angeles, is so frustrated with Instagram influencers demanding free scoops that he is now charging double for those who demand free food. He reports that he received this demand for special treatment at least once a week, where Instagram influencers would ask for a free scoop in exchange for posting about the food truck.

Although the Instagram influencing marketing is now a burgeoning industry, there are still very few guidelines governing its trade and use. While restaurants used to give free food to influencers, the growing number of influencers mean that it is now economically unsustainable to keep giving free meals and treats to influencers. Therefore, restaurants and other retail establishments now face the choice of whether to continue supplying the influencers or to face the potential backlash of cutting off their supply.

Read the full article on Los Angeles Times: Essential California: The ice cream truck vs. the influencers 

Analysis:

While the Instagram influencer phenomenon has become so pervasive, it can also easily be a means of scamming companies given the lack of adequate safeguards. The reason that customers of Joe Nicchi’s food truck have become so emboldened as to ask for a free scoop of ice cream is because other restaurant owners must be saying yes to their demands. With each request, owners of food establishment face the no-win choice between giving their food away for free or risk the thinly veiled threat of negative publicity. 

What sets Instagram influencers apart from the other kinds of digital marketers and public relations firms that they feel entitled demanding for free products and services? How can a business leverage on social media marketing without being ripped off by the users of social media? While there is a proper place for leveraging on social media personalities and larger firms with marketing budgets may choose to work with Instagram influencers to promote their products, it does not mean that any Instagram user with a decent number of followers should go around demanding things for free.

Questions for further personal evaluation: 

  1. If you were a restaurant owner, how would you go about deciding whether to offer social media influencers free goodies? 
  2. What do you think are the reasons for why social media influencers feel more entitled than traditional digital marketers? 

Useful vocabulary: 

  1. ‘burgeoning’: growing, expanding or developing rapidly
  2. ‘ubiquitous’: widespread; existing or being everywhere at the same time
  3. foot traffic’: pedestrian activity
  4. breaking point’: the point at which a person gives way under stress; the point at which a situation becomes critical