{"id":4693,"date":"2016-09-05T16:20:10","date_gmt":"2016-09-05T16:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=4693"},"modified":"2016-09-05T16:20:10","modified_gmt":"2016-09-05T16:20:10","slug":"gen-x-and-the-instagram-connection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=4693","title":{"rendered":"Gen X and the Instagram connection"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Becky<\/a>

Becky Stern\/Emoji ghost Halloween costume\/Flickr<\/p><\/div>\n

Just as we looked up to the cool girl at school who was the first to sport a shiny, bright pair of Adidas Gazelles, so we still admire the grown up versions. Social media isn\u2019t just a millennial playground. Gen X\u2019ers are also engaging with content and following people who inspire them \u2013 be this in the world of beauty, fashion, home deco or parenting.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a Mum. Let\u2019s say \u2018in my forties\u2019<\/em> and leave it at that. I wear dungarees every day. I don\u2019t want parenthood to define who I am. I came to Instagram relatively late; as a Gen X\u2019er I feel like I have one shaky foot in the old world and the other in the new. I spend a lot of time making bad digital fails<\/em> (when DO you use the ghost emoji?) But once I joined, I quickly found a whole set of incredible women who shared the same values. Okay they were shinier, better organised and more digitally savvy (the analogy of the cool girl<\/em> works well). But I could relate<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Many of these women had made successful brands of themselves \u2013 turning their lives inside out and sharing the daily challenges of parenting, working, relationships and trying to look <\/em>like you\u2019ve brushed your hair. The combination of someone I could relate to, living a life similar to mine (but more aspirational) giving me recommendations on products and brands\u2026well, it was highly effective. I started to screen grab the products they recommended. I often discovered the stuff I was chasing was sold out before I could buy it (just as well or I\u2019d have been bankrupt). I realised I wasn\u2019t alone in thinking these women were bright and shiny.<\/p>\n

A recent article in The Times<\/em> magazine: \u2018Tennis Anyone? Why Are They All Wearing Stan Smiths?\u2019<\/em>, by Harriet Walker, \u00a0talks about the increasing power of social media personalities.\u00a0 Maks Fus Mickiewicz from The Future Laboratory says: \u201cInfluencer marketing is huge. It\u2019s great when Kanye wears your trainers and they get a lot of views but when somebody who isn\u2019t a big name but has 10,000 followers, levels of engagement can be higher.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the unique qualities of Instagram is the fact that it feels informal and there\u2019s a strong sense of connection between personality and follower. Much has been made of the \u2018rose tinted\u2019 feel but there\u2019s a subtle shift happening. More often than not, it feels like real life but with a lick of nice paint. Okay, you\u2019re unlikely to see a photo of a screeching toddler (though you just might) but you will definitely see a reflection of the challenges of the day-to-day grind. There\u2019s also a lot of egging one another on (you see this through the sheer glut<\/em> of positive affirmations that pop up in your feed every Monday morning). It feels like a club<\/em>. This is why brand recommendations are so powerful.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been a great expansion in the area of parenting personalities and social media. Brands such as dresslikeamum<\/a>, MotherPukka<\/a>, selfish mother<\/a>, peckhammamma and mothersmeeting<\/a> are creating a new discourse. They\u2019re using Instagram to publicise their own brands but at the same time they\u2019re chivvying their followers along. They don\u2019t pretend to be perfect. If anything their message is quite the opposite. They make their followers feel as if they too can be part of the narrative (or create their own). Some also have their own retail platforms (selfish mother\u2019s brand #GoodTees has donated \u00a3188K to charities to date).<\/p>\n

The majority of these personalities won\u2019t risk their social reputation by speaking up for brands that don\u2019t share common ground.\u00a0 There always needs to be a natural synergy.<\/p>\n

Helen Job, Head of Cultural Intelligence at Flamingo, says: \u201cI think the relationship between followers and these \u2018instagram stars\u2019 is a very honest one. \u00a0They feel an emotional connection to them. They trust in them and have a sense of shared values. As they are transparent about any endorsements, and not sneaky there is a feeling that the product must be genuinely good and relevant to their core followers.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s interesting are the ways in which the wider brand world can potentially collaborate with these personalities. It might simply be about making them aware (seeking out the people who are singing from the same hymn sheet<\/em>). Other times it might be about sponsoring a blogging competition or making a film that showcases a shared point of view. Events are another area where collaborations are rife (and you\u2019ll definitely spot some of these social personalities on panels \u2013 talking about parenting, work, entrepreneurship and third-wave feminism).<\/p>\n

We need to stay open minded about social media and not assume it\u2019s for the digital native. Before embarking on a project, make sure you know what people are saying, who these people are and what the brand\u2019s status is. For just about every category\/target, there will be a group of influencers. These social personalities can also teach us about what it takes to be successful right now. They\u2019re creative, nimble, respond quickly to change (it\u2019s easy to see what followers respond to and what they\u2019d don\u2019t) and they know their followers inside out. They operate on gut feel combined with savvy research.<\/p>\n

I looked up the ghost emoji on Wikipedia and it said it was \u2018ambiguous without being evasive\u2019<\/em>. I\u2019m still unsure what that means. Okay, I may be an ageing Gen X\u2019er and going through what journalist Miranda Sawyer terms \u2018mid-life dread\u2019<\/em>. But these women, these social personalities, these mothers, allies, innovators and encouragers are offering up a powerful, addictive and intoxicating brew.<\/p>\n

Like many other women, I\u2019m pretty much addicted.<\/p>\n

Anniki Sommerville’s article first appeared in AQR’s In Brief magazine<\/em>
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Instagram stars are building a dedicated following among Gen X’ers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":4696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,55,50],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4693"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4693"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4697,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4693\/revisions\/4697"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}