Smaller Influencers Generate Nearly 5 Times More Engagement Than Big Celebrities

The general perception surrounding influencers is that bigger is better, but in spite of the fact that this is the case, it turns out that micro and nano influencers can offer exponentially higher ROI than massive influencers such as Kim Kardashian. It should be noted that Kim Kardashian charges a hefty $1.69 million for a single post on Instagram, but hardly 1% of her followers interact with her posts. This makes her a far less valuable investment than might have been the case otherwise.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that influencers who have between 1,000 and 5,000 followers tend to get an engagement rate of 4.84%. That just goes to show that smaller influencers are not just more affordable, but they are also able to give brands better results.

Smaller influencers are important because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up allowing brands to target niches instead of going for mass appeal. The small niche followings they have allow them to specialize greatly, and hyper targeted audiences have a propensity to be more passionate about any and all products that are being offered.

It also bears mentioning that smaller influencers appear more trustworthy with all things having been considered and taken into account. Followers are more likely to assume that they are not just in it for the money, and this leads to them engaging with their content at twelve times the rate that Kim Kardashian can provide.

According to a report that was recently released by Influencer Marketing Hub, just 19% of brands are willing to work with influencers who have between 100,000 to 1 million followers. As for celebrity bloggers, they are a priority for just 12% of brands. It will be interesting to see where things go from here on out. The trajectory of the industry appears to be headed towards a more democratic and diversified influencer ecosystem where even the smallest of creators can get the chance to earn a decent living from their work.

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

Gen Z’s Love Affair With TikTok Might Be Due to the Influencer Formula

When TikTok began its dizzying rise to the top of the social media charts, many assumed that it would supplant Facebook, Twitter and other legacy social media platforms at least among the younger crowd. Sure enough, TikTok experienced an unprecedented level of popularity with Gen Z, but in spite of the fact that this is the case, recent data from the Morning Consult seems to suggest that it doesn’t have quite the same pull as far as influencers are concerned.

The Morning Consult recently released a report revealing which social media platforms Gen Z tend to go to in order to get the latest content from their favorite influencers. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that while 35% of Gen Z pointed to TikTok, 32% still go to YouTube because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up giving them better content.

One thing that bears mentioning is that YouTube’s share has plummeted from 47% in 2019, but the dent caused by TikTok is not quite as severe as many had expected. Instagram experienced a much steeper decline, going from 39% in 2019 to just 21% in 2023 with all things having been considered and taken into account.

The recipe for influencer success might be at the root of these seismic shifts occurring in the industry. According to a separate survey that was also conducted by the Morning Consult, 71% of people say that a creator needs to make entertaining content in order for them to be considered an influencer. 70% also stated that they want influencers to inspire them by sharing a wide range of unique ideas.



Advice also appears to be an important thing for people to obtain from the influencers that they follow across a variety of social media platforms. 61% of people that responded to this survey agreed that offering advice made an influencer seem more legitimate in their eyes.

Interestingly enough, promoting products and services wasn’t actually something that diminished an influencer’s credibility to any extent whatsoever. 60% of survey respondents went so far as to say that the promotion of products and experiences is a core element in the influencer formula, indicating that they are getting accustomed to the manner in which the industry functions.

To expand on that, 56% of survey respondents said that influencers should earn money from sponsorships and 55% said that affiliate link earnings should be factored into the equation. This seems to suggest that consumers expect influencers to earn money, otherwise the label may not end up proving all that accurate.

Unsurprisingly, 59% of people that answered questions in this poll also indicated that the presence of a large social media following is critical for the influencer label to be applied. A similar proportion, 59%, mentioned that they would only consider someone to be an influencer if they earn an income from their various online activities.

Another important activity that influencers would do well to take part in would be to share tutorials, with 56% of survey respondents selecting this option. 53% believe that the content that influencers put out needs to have some kind of opinion behind it.

TikTok might be the best place for influencers to meet each of these needs, yet other platforms are also providing them with an opportunity to get ahead. It will be interesting to see which of these platforms end up coming out on top.

Source: Morning Consult Reports

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

Do Links Still Matter in Google SEO? This Top Google Exec Says Hmmmno...

Back in 2016, the landscape of SEO was quite different from what it looks like in the here and now. A senior search quality strategist at Google by the name of Andrey Lipattsev stated that backlinks that lead to your site were one of three major factors that determined a website’s ranking on the Google SERP. In spite of the fact that this is the case, it appears that this has changed with Google’s new algorithm.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that Gary Illyes from Google just confirmed at PubCon that links are no longer considered to be a top 3 Google Search ranking factor. This is relevant because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up changing the way people approach SEO, with a greater emphasis being placed on content quality than might have been the case otherwise rather than just generating links.

While Illyes clarified that links are still useful, he went on to say that their importance tends to be overestimated with all things having been considered and taken into account. Links are no longer seen as votes of confidence, perhaps due to the manner in which so many SEO professionals attempted to game the system by generating backlinks without providing suitable content quality.

Google’s MO in recent years has been to clean up shop, and prioritizing quality content has been a major aspect of that. Illyes went so far as to claim that a site can receive a high ranking on Google’s SERP even if it does not have a significant quantity of backlinks, which just goes to show that the game has changed entirely since the mid 2010s.

Even as far back as 2020, John Mueller indicated that links were starting to be seen less favorably by Google. The only way to receive a high enough ranking now is to become an authoritative source of information, and it will be interesting to see how this impacts SEO down the line as the algorithm continues to change.

Illustration: Freepik

Read next: New Study Reveals How to Break into The Top Ten on Google’s SERP
by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

The Devastating Impact Of Instagram Ads On Body Image: Perception Vs. Reality

The popular Instagram app may sound like fun and games at first but a new study proves how its ads can truly affect one’s body image.

Thanks to a new study taken from the Journal Of Psychology, we are getting some further insights about the role of Meta’s popular app ads and how they can negatively influence females’ self-esteem.

The research proved how the effect was greater on those women who wanted to be on the extreme of the body mass spectrum. And by that, we mean either too thin or too curvy.

Ads featuring models of this body type on Instagram had people second-guessing their confidence and whether or not they were good enough to fit into society’s image of perfection. And that led to a greater desire to take on drastic measures to appear a certain way.

As one can expect, nothing positive was to come out of such an endeavor. People were ready to compromise their health to look a certain way thanks to these ads that promised to drastically alter one’s looks.

Instagram is one app that’s not only visually appealing but it’s also used as a great medium for interaction purposes. Therefore, people claim they follow the platform religiously and take on the ideal goal of a perfect body image and beauty standard.

So the consequences were studied in detail of such ads on females arising in the late adolescent age bracket.

The beauty standards of society usually have a lot to do with different body types and that is exactly what such ads display, the study showed. However, the main purpose of the research was to see what effect on girls’ body image arose when such ads were frequently encountered. Similarly, it looked at women’s eagerness to take part in actions to get such ideals in place.

Researchers added how they became motivated by a huge concern linked to the negative effect of ads on body image and that too those who had young minds that could be convinced easily.

As it is, studies from the past spoke about how displaying ideal body figures in the media led to more people getting depressed about their own bodies, and hence taking drastic measures to look a certain way.

The authors who do hold marketing degrees added how they’ve also seen the effect of ads on people’s minds and the latter was true for women who were younger in age. But the data regarding the effect that ads have on the Instagram app is not a lot. And that is what motivated the authors to carry out this particular study in detail.

A total of 284 women who were aged between 17 to 19 took part in the study after being allocated via a participant pool so that they met particular criteria for inclusion. Hence, you would need to be a regular app user and shouldn’t have any kind of eating disorder either.

The study proved how women who were exposed to ads featuring models that were either too thin or too curvy via the app were generally inclined to like that kind of body type. And that means such ads have a huge influence on a person’s preference for a body type and also who they consider to be ideal body goals as well.

Young women were also ready to take part in all the actions that were required to attain such a body type, the study added. So if you like the thinner models, you’d be taking measures to get thinner. It could mean taking on drastic surgery or extreme diets to get that body goal. Similar was the case for curvy models featuring bigger breasts and wider hips.

Lastly, the authors noted how body dissatisfaction was a major deciding factor too. The unhappier lot were more inclined to take on such extremes than the rest.

Moreover, women who made physical comparisons with such models were generally more affected by such ads featuring models that were thin or curvy. And that motivated them further to alter their appearances at any cost.

Read next: Snapchat Is Losing Its Grip on Teens
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Google Delists Over 48,000 Facebook URLs After Europe’s New Privacy Guidelines

Europe is often at the forefront of user privacy because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up protecting its citizens from companies that want to use their data for profit. In an analysis conducted by Surfshark, it was revealed that Facebook turned out to be the most widely delisted site of all, with Google removing approximately 48,600 URLs from that site across 29 of the 31 countries that were studied.

In spite of the fact that this is the case, other social media platforms and major websites faced a similarly widespread spate of delistings with all things having been considered and taken into account. All in all, 100,000 pages were delisted from Google’s SERP, and while nearly half of them belonged to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were also hit pretty hard.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that Europe’s new right to be forgotten law might be at the heart of these goings on. Germany and France were the strictest nations of all in enforcing this new regulation, delisting 20k URLs each. They’re followed by the UK where 13,000 URLs ended up getting delisted, indicating that many European nations are wasting no time before adhering to the policy guidelines that have been set by the European parliament.

One way to look at this data is to compare the number of delisted URLs based on the average population of the country in question. If we were to focus solely on this metric, the Netherlands comes out on top. 57 URLs were delisted for every 100,000 people living in the Netherlands, which is the highest proportional URL removal by far.

While most major tech sites are getting delisted, their overall rate of delisting is lower than average. 40% of the top three sites faced delisting, which seems to suggest that they are being given at least a little bit of leeway that would allow them to survive more easily than might have been the case otherwise in the future.

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

80% of Gen Z Use YouTube Every Month, But Other Platforms Aren’t Far Behind

The battle for the attention span of Gen Z is arguably the most important focus for social media companies around the world. It turns out that as many as 80% of Gen Z reported using YouTube each and every month. In spite of the fact that this is the case, other platforms such as TikTok and Instagram reported same levels of usage, which seems to suggest that the attention span of people between the ages of 15 and 26 is being split rather evenly between them.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that teenagers between the ages of 15 and 17 use five social media platforms on a monthly basis. As for adult Gen Z, namely those between the ages of 18 and 26, they used six platforms on average.

84.8% of teen Gen Z use YouTube, with 79.4% of adult Gen Z said the same. Interestingly, adult Gen Z were more likely to use Instagram, albeit by a very slim margin of 77% to 77.9%. TikTok saw a relatively similar proportion split between teen and adult Gen Z as well, with 77.9% and 76.8% respectively. As for Snapchat, 65.2% of teen Gen Z said that they use it monthly, with 66.2% of adult Gen Z saying the same.

This seems to suggest that Snapchat is marginally less attractive to teen Gen Z, but nothing can be compared to the plummeting fortunes of Facebook with all things having been considered and taken into account. While 58.4% of adult Gen Z reported using Facebook on a monthly basis, just 38.2% of teen Gen Z said the same.

The same disparity can be seen with Twitter, with 46.3% for adults and 34.8% for teens, and Reddit, with 28.1% and 19.1% respectively. This indicates that older platforms are falling out of favor, although YouTube has managed to maintain its hold on the younger population which might help the Google owned video streaming and social media service to survive for much longer than its legacy counterparts.

H/T: Insiderintelligence

Read next: Snapchat Is Losing Its Grip on Teens
by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

New Study Proves You Can Extend Battery Life Of Your Smartphone And Laptop With A Cheap Piece Of Tape

There’s truly nothing more daunting than having to deal with an electronic device with a limited battery life. Be it your laptop or your smartphone, it’s one of the most annoying things because, in today’s modern world, it’s hard to function without them.

Imagine being at the airport in a foreign country with a phone whose battery just died. Clearly, it’s not a pretty situation to be in. But wait, a new proof that you actually can fix the matter through an affordable and convenient hack.

And that includes replacing the usual tape that covers lithium batteries with another cheaper option.

The study comes to us thanks to researchers at Canada’s Dalhousie University in Halifax. They’ve found a great means of extending battery life for the most important electronics that we make use of on a daily basis.

As per the report, research teams found how the usual PET tape that keeps battery parts in place has the tendency to dissolve. And it’s commonly due to some kind of chemical reaction taking place in the battery which leads to it self-discharging with time.

In case you have charged your battery and you’ve left it idle for a few days, you’ll notice that the battery life has gone down the drain to some extent, if not completely. And as expected, the frustration is on a whole new level altogether. But wait, don’t lose hope.

The fix is simple and it involves replacing PET tape with PP tape in such batteries can prevent it from dissolving. Moreover, the great news is that PP tape costs similar to PET tape so no need to worry about the financial burden that comes into play during the manufacturing process.

Coming down to the benefits, research teams find that battery levels in devices with PP tape were greater than 10%. Meanwhile, devices were self-discharging less with this tape as compared to the classic one.

Clearly, it’s a no-brainer for obvious reasons and it’s not wrong to mention how you can make the switch with ease.

The study was even evaluated by a leading professor from the university’s physics department. They called it something that was really incredible and the fact that all of this detective work was brought into the spotlight now instead of before is worth a mention.

Moreover, it does take some talented individuals to really unravel such a finding, he added, referring to it as something that was super impressive.

To really get down to the bottom of this and recognize connectivity amongst so many other things can really help individuals identify connections amongst other leading things taking place in their necessary electronic devices.

This particular research paper has been published in the famous Natural Materials journal and so far it’s getting positive feedback because it’s like unraveling a mystery that not even scientists have done.

We don’t see how such a change would even require manufacturers to drag their feet in terms of making this change because it’s more than possible. The cost is the main factor that has people talking and in this situation, we’re saying hello to minimal change as it’s the same price point as the usual tape covering lithium-ion batteries.

But again, more research is definitely required and the process of scrutiny has also begun to see how positive the findings are for others who test it out. But if that also goes as planned, it won’t be long before laptop and mobile producers make the tape switch for all products that exist in the market today.

Photo: Unsplash/Amanz

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World