Influencer Stories 👀

Where digital meets travel + lifestyle … A collection of can’t-miss news from this week. Sign up to get the TURNER Weekly Download in your inbox every Friday.

Influencer Stories

The big story for influencers in 2018 was … stories! Instagram Stories, that is. According to a new study by Klear, a whopping one-third of posts that contained the #paid hashtag were Instagram Stories. “Today, many posts by influencers on your Instagram feed are very polished,” said Guy Avigdor, Klear’s chief operating officer. “There’s a lot of work behind them, and they don’t look as authentic as they used to. Stories are the new way to create more interesting and engaging content. Influencers began using it first, and they were the ones pushing for it, but when brands learned more, this became a mutual effort.”

Branded

Some influencers aren’t going to settle for lending their influence to other brands. They’re starting their own. This trend is especially rampant in the fashion world. “[Y]ou're no longer just a blogger, but an entrepreneur and designer, not simply influencing what people wear, but creating it,” writes Marie Claire. “In short, you're a power women.” The magazine has rounded up some of the biggest names who have made the leap from fashion bloggers on the fringe to industry powerhouses.

Unboxing For Bucks

You’ll find a different (but still widely popular) type of influencer over on YouTube. “Unboxing” videos rack up hundreds of thousands of views on a daily basis. People seem to love watching other people open packages and narrate their initial experience with a new product. Similarly, “haul” videos, featuring influencers reviewing the products they’ve picked up on their latest shopping sprees are huge, too. Martechseries reports: “Interestingly, the top brand mentions in unboxing videos were a bit more high-end than the haul videos, which included Samsung, Apple, Google, Sony, Lego, Xbox, Disney and Nike.”

Fitting In

Over in the fitness world, the influencer game is strong, too. And Plankk, a new-ish app, aims to help fitness gain audiences and build careers. It should help them stand out; after all, there are millions of #fitness posts every day on social media. SportTechie has the details: “Plankk works with the influencers when building each customized app to ensures it matches their social media brand appearance. Some popular features integrated into Plankk apps include at-home fitness programs, gym routines, nutritional meal plans, calorie calculators, video demonstrations, and individual progress tracking systems. The company also helps with content production and marketing.”

Weekly Moment of Zen

A typo landed him an invite to a bachelor party halfway across the country. Naturally, he’s going.