ASSIGNMENT BRIEF
Details:
This assignment tasks you to identify and analyze a market influencer (an individual) over a minimum period of six weeks. The assignment is intended to help you identify both the emotional/human need side to social media marketing (from the consumer side) as well as the ability to recognize strategic, deliberate marketing initiatives being used through social media to create influence (from the influencer, brand, organization side).
How to: Using either Facebook or Instagram (check with me if you have another platform you prefer to use), track and journal various posts, actions and reactions on this influencer’s platform feed. If possible, choose an influencer that you are somehow drawn toward. Perhaps you are already a “fan” or are influenced in some way by this marketing person. What are your interests? Sports? Fashion? Social causes? Hobbies?
FORMAT OF THIS ASSIGNMENT: You should have the following headings and details for this assignment.
Introduction (to your report and the influencer you have chosen): identify who you have chosen to follow and analyze, and give some background information about them and why you chose them. One paragraph should suffice for this section. (you don’t need to write this part)
Initial Reaction Piece: Each time you interface with this influencer’s feed, take note of your initial reaction to a particussclar post/content such as what resonated with you, what was inspirational, influential, even off-putting about it? Prepare to provide some detail as to what/why you believe you had this initial reaction. You should have a minimum of six (6) posts/examples to analyze over your minimum six-week period.
Also, in this section as you begin to analyze the influencer’s social media content, identify and document any tangible signs of “influence” in terms of follower comments, “calls-to-action” (e.g., “Shop Now”, “Swipe Up”), tagging of brands, other influencer “shout-outs”, “mentions”, etc… Not all the posts will be blatantly influencing you towards a purchase but they should all have some kind of tangible evidence they are trying to accomplish with their posts.
Screenshots of relevant posts and examples of their content are required to support your analysis.
Reflection Piece: Refer back to your initial reactions to your influencer’s content. What has changed for you now that you have analyzed social media through that article and can see better what the intention may be behind the content? Perhaps there is no difference, some difference or a significant difference. Can you now identify a theme that suggests this influencer has intended to create a certain type of reaction from you (and lots of other people like you)?
Other Details (examples):
But what’s an “influencer”?? Think about any individual who has a strong following on social media. This influencer has reached a point where they have created an online social media personal brand where they seem to be able to influence consumer behaviour in some way. Typically, the more influential they are, the more commercially-infused content (not always) exists. For example, Laura Beverlin (@laurabeverlin) has 1.1 million followers and there are tangible signs of
brands and promotion built into her Instagram feed but she is seemingly just an everyday person – not a traditional celebrity superstar. One of the most interesting developments in modern marketing is the concept of
“the celebritization of the ordinary” which means some of our biggest influencers out there are seemingly just ordinary people, not typical celebrities. These people can be a particularly good choice to study because they seek to be portrayed as, “just like you” which, for some reason, is extremely powerful these days.
Another example of an everyday influencer is Julian Smith (@smith.julian): 1.2million followers. Well-known brands continually contact these influencers, requesting they “influence” their target markets in some way.
You may choose either an influencer (more than 10,000 followers) or a micro-influencer (less than 10,000 followers). The key is to choose an
influencer who posts often so that you have a lot of data to pick and choose from for your analysis. For example, if an influencer creates Instagram stories and/or posts daily, you will have much more to work with than those who post infrequently.
Formatting for capturing screenshots of your influencer’s posts:
Because the formatting of this assignment might be different than what you are accustomed to producing, here is a sample of what it should look like. Use 1.5 spacing.
Relevant header/ title for a section of your assignment:
Some text here that matches what the assignment is asking you to write about. And because this assignment asks you to specifically identify a social media post by an influencer, it is most effective if you insert your screenshot of
the post here alongside your respective writing on that post. This is an actual example of how you can insert a picture/screenshot to fit within the text of your assignment so that the reader (me!) can easily and effectively “see” what you are talking about. This is a more effective way to communicate your ideas, analysis and remember, one of the key learning
outcomes in this course is to, “enhance both
oral and written communication skills relating to the evaluation and presentation of
marketing…”.
Note how the length of this assignment is calculated by word count, not number of pages so that your screenshots and sizing of your visuals will not limit your ability to complete your written content.