Digital Rockstars of Social Media Marketing

By Alice Lam

No longer do MTV reality stars rule the media.  Nowadays, with the advent of Vine, Instagram and Pinterest, bloggers get followed.  Posters do not even have to be human as Barkbox is using untraditional avenues to advertise their products.  Using some of the Instagram dog stars such as Biggie Griffen, Notorious D.O.G a Brussels Griffen with 75,000 followers to advertise, each animal get a special code so the company can track conversion to sales.
Companies like Niche has also arised from these other forms of social media, representing the talent that are now online.  Cycle also manages Instagram personalities, and posters can garner up to thousands for a post, and making six figures in a year.
Even behemoths like GE asked Niche to galvanize their brand, resulting in an innovative Vine post, and showing the advanced testing of materials in a very approachable way and for a fraction of the marketing price compared to the traditional channels such as TV.
This has spurred traditional companies such as WME to have a social media arm,  listing Joy Cho as one of their top talents.  Joy has 13 million followers and is now collaborating with companies like Target and marketing her inspired boards.
The lines between social media/digital marketing has become so blurry in some cases that it will be interesting to see what kind of processes will be put in place to make sure that this platform does not become deceptive.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/13/fashion/social-media-stars-use-instagram-twitter-and-tumblr-to-build-their-career.html