All Round View (Peshawar): New terms relating to the Internet and social media have been circulating for some time, including “influencer” and many more, with an Internet influencer being an individual who can affect change in society through activities on the Internet, whether that means in terms of ideas, buying products, or other areas.
Some such influencers are celebrities like actors or singers, and there are influencers in every field. Instagram and YouTube have become full of such influencers, many of them in search of an income.
“Anyone can be an influencer as long as he influences other people on social media and thereby affects society,” commented one Egyptian Internet expert who chose to speak on condition of anonymity. “An influencer can change things on social media, just like a member of parliament can in real life,” he said.
According to the expert, for an influencer to become known and be able to host advertisements on a YouTube channel there are certain conditions that must be met. “For a YouTube channel, it should have 1,000 views and 4,000 hours of viewing time to get advertisements. After that, it is up to the channel-owner to accept advertisements on the channel. When the owner accepts advertisements, he or she starts receiving money from advertisers,” he said.
“Another way to make money from a YouTube channel is to start posting videos on the channel on a regular basis, for example twice a week, and then getting money for these clips on a monthly basis,” he said. In this way, the more the number of views, the more money an influencer can get, meaning views are transformed into money.
“So, a channel-owner starts getting money from the first 1,000 views and 4,000 hours. These conditions must be fulfilled within a year for the channel to be recognised as that of an influencer,” he added.
“On Facebook, a page-owner has to have 10,000 likes for their page to get advertisements. Some advertisers either ask page-owners to post their advertisements or to make advertisements for them. The same goes for Instagram, except a page-owner needs 20,000 likes to get advertisements. As for Twitter, there is no set number of likes to get advertisements,” the expert said.
“It all depends on how popular the person owning a page is. And it is the company that wants to advertise something on the page of a celebrity that approaches that person. For instance, if an advertiser gives a Twitter page-owner LE1,000 and asks him to make images to advertise a product, the owner will make advertisements worth that sum of money,” he added.
According to a study by the Ministry of Communication, there were over 39 million mobile Internet subscriptions in Egypt in 2019, a huge audience for would-be influencers. This makes it more important than ever that the content of the pages is beneficial, helping an influencer to build popularity.
“Influencers should focus on what content they share and not only on how many people see it,” Hegazi commented, adding that if the content is good, the number of followers will increase automatically. Influencers should also listen to constructive criticism given by their followers.
Al-Dhahabi agreed and said that for an influencer “the most important thing is continuity.”
“Influencers should gain people’s trust,” she said, adding that those who want to be influencers should be specific, persistent, and try to be unique. It should not be their only aim in life to be a fashion-blogger on the Internet, for example. Instead, they should get on with their lives while pursuing their passion in order to create content for their sites, she concluded.
Omi Aiman
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