How Influencers Use The Psychology of Covert Content

 / 

,

Behind the glitz and glam of social media, ever wondered how influencers affect our reality? Letโ€™s have an understanding about the psychology of covert content.

The creative influencers that capture our feelings without our awareness.

The Psychology of Covert Content and How Influencers Make Use of It

Psychology of Covert Content

Burly, heavily bearded, and permanently decked out in construction gear, you might expect to see Omar holding a hammer, rather than an iPhone. And yet his Instagram is more active than the average high schooler. His pictures pop up with stunning frequency: on a construction site, drinking coffee, back on a construction site again.

In many ways, heโ€™s the antithesis of a social media influencer. In one post, he details how he started his account just to playfully โ€œcompeteโ€ with his too-cool teenage daughter. He lists โ€œlifestyle influencerโ€ on his profile sarcastically. But to the tune of nearly 500,000 followers, Omar (@justaconstructionguy) is an Instagram sensation and another citizen in the world of micro-celebrities.

The only problem is that Omar, as the internet grew to know and love him, is a complete fabrication.

The account is the creation of Mike McKim, the owner of Austinโ€™s Cuvรฉe Coffee. Together with Bandolier Media, they created โ€œOmarโ€ in the image of the brand โ€” a blue-collar and hard-working anti-influencer. The man featured in the posts was compensated for the photoshoots but had no autonomy over the account itself. And while some of Omarโ€™s posts include other hashtags to poke fun at influencers, the creator brand @cuveecoffee is also specifically tagged in several posts on the page.

Ironically, he isnโ€™t the self-professed antithesis of influencer marketing but rather the crystallization of it.

What to make of Omar? Thereโ€™s a lot that can be said. Was he real in the sense that people thought he was real and found enjoyment in following his life? Was he real in the sense that he represented a real idea?

What is Omar? In a word, Omar is a strategy. He is a perfect embodiment of a new wave of creating, mining, and monetizing social influence. And heโ€™s just the beginning.

Influencer Marketing: A Quick 2-Year History

To understand how we got to Omar, we have to go back in time to 2017 โ€” eons ago in the breakneck pace of the influencer world. Influencer marketing was established and the number of micro-celebrities was growing quickly. All this growth brought attention from regulators. Many worried about its prospects when the Federal Trade Commission began watching influencersโ€™ practices more carefully.

The FTC soon discovered that nearly 93% of influencers are not properly disclosing their endorsements, and in April, they started formally cracking down serving notifications to both brands and influencers.

When these regulations hit the fan, many thought this was the beginning of the end. In retrospect, it represented the beginning of a new era. With the FTC keeping a close watch, content that directly discusses the product or even uses it too easily could arouse suspicion. Now the influencers had an incentive to be sneaky, to give the brand exposure without looking like youโ€™re trying to give the brand exposure.

If Jay-Z and Beyonce go on vacation and post a pic with a Corona bottle in the background of the shot, we may never know if itโ€™s a paid post or Corona just happened to be lucky enough to be in the vicinity and get free exposure. The content has the same effect on the FTC as it does on the masses. You canโ€™t tell whatโ€™s real and whatโ€™s an ad.

The age of covert content was born.

Related: Social Media and Its Ill Effects On Modern Relationships

The Science of Exposure

You might be asking yourself, well if the influencer isnโ€™t actually promoting the product in their picture (hell, some seem like they donโ€™t even know itโ€™s there), how can this possibly be helpful to the brand? Hereโ€™s where the neuromarketing perspective comes in. Even if the influencer isnโ€™t actively promoting the product, it still has a major impact.

In fact, the impact is actually enhanced, not hindered if we donโ€™t think itโ€™s an explicit ad. Marketing works best when you donโ€™t know you are being marketed to.

This is the neuroscience of exposure. It all starts with familiarity: As a general rule, we humans like things that are familiar. If something is familiar to us, it means weโ€™ve seen it before, which means it probably isnโ€™t life-threatening. From the standpoint of evolution, non-life-threatening is unequivocally good.

Behavioral psychologists and neuroscientists call this the Mere Exposure Effect. All else being equal, the more weโ€™re exposed to something, the more we like it. And fascinatingly, this preference for the familiar appears to operate completely outside your awareness.

In one experiment, researchers showed English speaking participants a range of different Chinese characters. No task, just look at them and pay attention. Later, participants were asked to guess what each character meant. Remember, the participants knew zero Chinese. From their perspective, they were just guessing random words โ€” โ€œdog,โ€ โ€œcup,โ€ โ€œhandsome,โ€ โ€œsoccer.โ€

Hereโ€™s the thing, the guesses werenโ€™t random. If they had seen the character before, even briefly, they were much more likely to assume the word was associated with something positive like โ€œHappinessโ€ and โ€œLove,โ€ despite not having any idea what they actually meant. These results persisted despite the fact that none of the participants remembered having seen the characters before.

Over 200 studies across a wide array of domains have replicated the mere exposure effect finding โ€” you like things the more youโ€™re exposed to them. Similar findings have been noted in animals as well, and even in developing chicks still in the egg. Tones of two different frequencies were played to two groups of fertile chicken eggs. At birth, the chicks preferred the tone they had previously heard.

And hereโ€™s the kicker. Research has found that the effect is more pronounced when the exposure is implicit. If we donโ€™t consciously know weโ€™re seeing an ad for Corona but it appears in the background of a few posts weโ€™ve come across, we like it even more! This has massive implications for consumer psychology and ultimately, your behavior.

Exposure is even more potent when you donโ€™t consciously know you ar influencers capitalize on the brain e being exposed to a product.

Think about it. When you know a commercial is, well, a commercial, the message loses power. You know you are being sold to and it feels inauthentic. We shut down our openness and turn on our critical thinking, which is kryptonite to the advertising brand.

The era of social influencers has converged on this feature organically, perhaps by accident. Micro celebrities and influencers capitalize on the brainโ€™s preference for integrated, subtle exposure. As YouTube Influencer Anwar Jiwabi recently told Forbes, โ€œIf the content isnโ€™t funny, or if it feels like a 100% scripted ad, then viewers arenโ€™t going to pick that up. I did a video with Steph Curry, for Brita, and it was very organic and fun. In my mind, Iโ€™m creating a regular video with a product instead of creating an ad.โ€

From the perspective of influencers, covert content is a win-win. It is an optimal tactic for delivering value to brands (who pay them) without attracting unwanted attention from regulators. And with each new creative, integrated piece of content, the line between โ€œorganicโ€ content and branded content continues to blur along with an objective way to regulate it.

The Arms Race of Covert Content

Social media has galvanized digital marketing like no other medium before it, no surprise here. The influencer branch of the social media tree has further obscured the lines between advertising and organic content and this is why the sway of influencers goes well beyond direct endorsements. In fact, the less direct an endorsement, the more influential it could be. Driven, perhaps ironically, by regulation, the industry is becoming more covert, and in turn, more effective.

Some of the best marketing is done without us ever knowing weโ€™re being marketed to. And in fact, itโ€™s effective because we donโ€™t know weโ€™re being marketed to. With a renewed focus on covert content, the influencer economy has continued to grow and is expected to be a $15B industry by 2022. And if more personalized, face marketing techniques are adopted, these trends may even accelerate.

But users arenโ€™t just passively taking this in. Theyโ€™re starting to wise up to these tactics. You can only see the โ€œbathroom selfie with a branded shampoo in the backgroundโ€ so many times before you become a little suspicious. So as consumers catch on, influencers are having to become more and more creative about integrating their content in a covert way that still feels authentic.

The neuromarketing arms race is on: An escalating battle between the awareness of the consumer and the creativity of the influencer.

Omar and his โ€œlove of coffeeโ€ is just the start.

This post originally appeared on the consumer behavior blog PopNeuro.

Related: 8 Signs You Need To Stay Away From Social Media

References
Adweek: Influencer Marketing in 2018: Becoming an Efficient Marketplace, Giordano Contestabile
Bornstein, R. F. (1989). Exposure and affect: Overview and meta-analysis of research, 1968-1987. Psychological Bulletin, 106, 265-289.
Federal Trade Commission: FTC Staff Reminds Influencers and Brands to Clearly Disclose Relationship
Ward, Tom (2019) Forbes: The Influencer Marketing Trends That Will Explode in 2019
MediaKix (2019) 93% of Top Celebrity Social Media Endorsements Violate FTC Guidelines
Zajonc, R.B. (2001). โ€œMere Exposure: A Gateway to the Subliminalโ€. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 10 (6): 224.
Zajonc, Robert B. (1968). โ€œAttitudinal Effects Of Mere Exposureโ€. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 9 (2, Pt.2): 1โ€“27. doi:10.1037/h0025848. ISSN 1939-1315.

We hope you gained insight about the psychology of influencer marketing along with the covert content and psychology. Tell us your thoughts about how you think consumer awareness and influencer creativity are related.


Written by: Matt Johnson Ph.D.
Originally appeared on: Psychology Today
Republished with permission
Influencers Psychology of Covert Content pin

— Share —

— About the Author —

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Up Next

Is Your Depression Causing Anger? 4 Crucial Reasons to Address It

Do you find yourself caught in an emotional tug-of-war? Is your depression causing anger? If every little frustration feels like it could explode into rage and snapping at loved ones for no reason has become a common habit, learn the ways to help yourself with depression and anger.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

As an effect of depression, anger is quite common because

Up Next

Maladaptive Daydreaming: 5 Warning Signs That Your Inner World Is Distracting You

If you frequently find yourself lost in your thoughts, consider learning about maladaptive daydreaming disorder to help yourself from being trapped in your imagination!

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Taking a few moments to daydream can help a person take a break from reality and think more creatively or even solve problems. But when it goes to

Up Next

8 Everyday Habits That Are Damaging Your Brain (And What To Do Instead)

We all do things we know we shouldnโ€™t- that we know are unhealthy. Skipping lunch because you woke up late for work, or staying up past bedtime binging on the new show on Netflix (because who can resist, right?). These might seem harmless, but some of these are habits that are damaging your brain.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Our brain is the most vital organ of our

Up Next

Why Itโ€™s So Hard to Admit Youโ€™re Wrong: 7 Surprising Psychological Barriers You Didnโ€™t Know About

Have you ever found yourself in the middle of a heated debate, feeling that gnawing sensation that you might be wrong, but donโ€™t want to admit it? Or maybe you are watching someone double down on their stance, even when all evidence points to the contrary, and wondering, โ€œWhy canโ€™t they just say theyโ€™re wrong?โ€ Itโ€™s a common scenario that plays out in classrooms, workplaces, and even family dinners, leaving many of us puzzled about why it is so hard to admit to being wrong.

Up Next

Are Music and Personality Traits Connected? Exposing Secrets of Your Music Taste

Whether youโ€™re a die-hard rock fan, a classical music lover, or a pop enthusiast, your playlist might just be the key to understanding who you truly are.ย Music lovers, prepare to have your minds blown! Letโ€™s dive deep into the fascinating connection between music and personality.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Get ready to discover how your favorite tunes might be

Up Next

3 Hacks To Stop Negative Thinking: It Worked For Me!

As someone who struggled to recognize negative thinking in myself, it took some time to understand I was doing it as a self-defense mechanism. I felt like I โ€œhad toโ€ think negatively to keep myself safe. After a series of negative consequences, I discovered three easy steps to help stop negative thinking.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Negativity is not just in your

Up Next

9 Habits Of Highly Intelligent People That Sets Them Apart

Understanding the habits of highly intelligent people can offer useful clues about what sets them apart from the rest of us.ย 

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Intelligence is multi-dimensional, but it is your habits that show how well you can use it in lif