Who do you allow to influence you? In our consumption-driven society, the term influencer has become synonymous with consumerism and keeping up with the Joneses Kardashians. This week’s Simple Living Sunday post explores the rise of influencer marketing, and how you can reject it and choose the right influencers for your life.
The purpose of influence is to speak up for those who have no influence.
Rick Warren
Three simple pleasures and highlights
Continuing my practice of celebrating the simple things in life, here are three simple pleasures and highlights of the last week.
- Last weekend, we went to our great-niece Amelia’s first birthday party. It was a beautiful afternoon, and so wonderful to be able to celebrate it with her.
- My tomato plants are producing lots of fruit at the moment.
- My husband and I had the week off work this week. We didn’t go away but spent time exploring our local area. We visited several local conservation parks that are included in the annual membership we got at Christmas.
This week’s simple living focus: Choose the right influencers
Over the last decade, influencer marketing has become a multi-billion-dollar industry and is now a huge driver of economic activity. My mission to declutter and live a simpler life has led me to carefully scrutinize the messages I receive in my inbox and social media feeds. I’ve come to the conclusion that very few of them add value to my life in any meaningful way.
A friend, who has a son pursuing a career in the skilled trades, recently shared this on her Facebook feed. It’s an important reminder of the power social media influencers have on our lives. (I have not been able to trace this back to its original source. If you know where it came from, let me know so I can credit it appropriately.)
Do you ever wonder where we went wrong? How did we get to the point where society looks down on hard-working people who truly add value to our lives, and instead reveres people whose sole purpose in life is to endorse products? Don’t be fooled. These paid influencers have one goal: to make you part with your hard-earned money to buy things that won’t make your life anywhere near as good as theirs.
One of the best ways to influence people is to make them feel important. Most people enjoy those rare moments when others make them feel important. It is one of the deepest human desires.
Roy T. Bennett
We all have the power to influence others by how we live our lives. The next time you see a post from an “influencer”, ask yourself who they are making feel important? I’m willing to bet it’s not you!
There’s an old saying that no-one can take advantage of you without your permission. Starting today, let’s put a new twist on that and say no-one can influence you without your permission.
No-one can influence you without your permission.
Michelle, Boomer Eco Crusader
You have the power to choose which influencers you let into your life. Choose wisely.
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Three things to do this week
If you’re ready to start choosing the right influencers for your life, here are three steps you can take this week to get started.
Make a list of people you admire
First, make a list of people you admire. Then, think about why you admire them. What is their message? Why do they do what they do? What do they do to add value to the world? How do they make your life better?
I hope you’ll now have a list of people who are truly worthy of your admiration—a list of the right kind of influencers.
Clean up your social media feeds and email subscriptions
Next, be ruthless about scrutinizing the messages you see in your email inbox and on your social media feeds. How do they stack up to the qualities of the people you admire?
Be selective about your external influences. Your multi-dimensional brain is influenced by everything you see, hear, read, smell, touch, feel or say.
Brian Tracy
Unsubscribe from marketing emails, and unfollow people who don’t add value to your life. I did this as part of my decluttering challenge and it felt great.
Follow people with a positive message
Finally, now that you’ve unsubscribed from the marketing noise, you’ve freed up space to follow people with a positive message to share.
Find people whose message aligns with your values. Follow them and share their message with others. The world needs more positivity!
Remember, you have the power to choose which influencers you let into your life. Take care to choose wisely.
What are your thoughts on influencer marketing? Tell me your ideas below.
This is definitely a topic I’ve thought a lot about. As a voyeur of some influencer vlogs, I do agree that I can see right through their “influencing.” I never fall for any type of product pushing but I generally just follow the couple influencers that I find inspiring (I am inspired by how they either live their lives or get back up after some type of perceived failure).
Yes, I do have some admiration for some of them, but sadly I find the people who fall for their product pushing are often those who can least afford it.
And, then there’s the Kardashians. Don’t get me started on that family! LOL
Excellent post, Michelle. It is really time-consuming to keep those voices at bay-the ones that stalk email, social media. Very good of you to bring attention to it.
Thanks Judy. It is very easy to get sucked in to the marketing hype if you don’t constantly remind yourself that’s what it is…marketing!
You are so right. I’m guilty.
I think it gets us all sometimes.
Love this reflection on the ways we are perhaps unknowingly influenced! I so love your quote and your call to action regarding how we can step up and take control of how we are influenced. Thank you for sharing! 🙂
Thank you Jaya. I think we always need to be aware of those external influences, or it’s too easy to get distracted from the important things in life.