Influencer ethics

tompoland This is good stuff thanks. I hadn’t thought about the supplier but that makes perfect sense. Appreciate your post.

Glad to be of a bit of help.

The way I see it, a “revewer” is there to do exactly that, review the product. For whom, is the question. If it really is a review, it’s for the consumer of the review, the reader or, in the more modern case of Youtube etc, the viewer. If it’s done for the benefit of the manufacturer/supplier (they may or may not be the same, but often are, in my day at least) then really, it’s not a review so much as an advert or a slick if disguised press release.

As a consumer of such content myself, what I really want to know if the genuine, unbiased and objective personal opinion of the reviewer, perhaps with a bit of subjective assessment in the conclusion.

My ‘recipe’ for a review, if you like, was :-

• the hook. Something to get the reader (or viewer) interested, or they won’t get beyond the first minute or two.
• a break-down of the most important points, benefits, and features
• conclusion, based on the above analysis, including who the product especially might, or might not, appeal to.

The last part, especially, is subjective. Few proucts are truly perfect or horrible, in that they suit everybody or nobody at all. It’s usually more nuanced. And who a given product does or doesn’t suit depends on their exact needs. Someone owning a coffee shop is likely not going to need or want the same feature set in a grinder that I will, with my very variable 3 or 4 cups a day. I might prefer a Ferrari of a grinder while the coffee shop owner probably wants a tractor. :D

If a review not only assesses what a product is good for, or bad at, and suggests, with reasons, what kind of user should consider it and what kind should not, then a review can’t do much better …. providing the review consumer trusts the opinion. If they get the feel that the reviewer’s agenda is anything other than producing a fair and honest review, they (probably rightly) won’t believe a word of it.

Hence, transparency.

HarveyMushman I think our own humility probably encourages us to sugar-coat opinions for fear of hurting someone. Understandably. If someone’s developed a conversation, handed out a free product, excitedly asking you to try it, you’re going to naturally feel uncomfortable saying negative things.

I get where you’re coming from, and if were a tiny, startup business and a product given to a friend to try …. well, yeah.

But when it’s often large (* see note) companies and supposedky ‘professional’ reviewers/influencers, then no, I don’t think that’s the dynamic at all. The company, unsurpisingly, has an agenda - get publicity, sell stuff. But contrary to the popula saying, there really is such a thing as bad publicity. The only thing any company has a right to expect from a review is that it’s fair, competent and professional. If the product has faults, flaws, weaknesss etc, then they should see having them pointed out as an opportunity - an opportunity to get experienced outside feedback, and to use that as input into the development process.

I had one company, a US software house, contact me after a review that was pretty detailed (a major feature, and cover feature at that) where I’d been largely complementary but I’d pointed out a brief list of areas that could stand change or improvement, and because I’d nailed pretty much every single point they’d already identified as needing work, and been fair, about both the positives and negatives, their CEO wanted to meet. I ended up in San Francisco, talking to him and senior developers, on my way to a show in Vegas.

A proper review absolutely should include criticisms, provided they’re justified. But the reviewer needs to remember they COULD end up getting sued …. so check, double-check and triple-check before lashing out, and when you do criticise, be sure it’s for good reason, and that you keep notes and records demonstrating why you criticised.

Only once did I get threatened with a lawsuit. After a discussion with the mag editor, who’d had a chat with their lawyers, it came down to “Do I stand by my criticisms, in court if need be?” I did, and said so, and yes, I had notes, photos, screenshots, test and benchmark resuts etc, should it become necessary to justify the criticisms. The mag told the complaining company, if they wanted to sue, see you in court.

That is annother possible difference between my day and today - the upset company would have been suing a large and powerful multinational publishing corppration, not an individual Youtube reviewer. But EVERYBODY, private or company, doing a review or just mouthing off online, ought to remember you COULD (unlikey though it is see Note 2) end up trying to justify what you said, in front of a judge. An awful lot of keyboard warriors would come badly unstuck at that pont. It applies to “inluencers”, but it also applies to everybody posting, for example, on this board. If you “publish” damaging or defamatory remarks, depending on quite what you say, you could end up having to justify them. So, a good rule is don’t say it if you can’t justify it, especially in a review. But that’s a long way from saying reviews should only say good things - in my view, if they do that, they’re just marketing, not a review.

(* NOTE - in my day, and largely in computers, it was companies like Microsoft, IBM, HP, Lexmark, Canon, Epson and so on that I was dealing with most of the time, and professional press and marketing managers/directors) I dealt with, “Excited”, if it appeared at all, would be seen as artifice.

Note 2) - while getting sued is possible, it’s unlikely, in part because it can get very expensive, very quickly. But that applies to both parties, so if you don’t have deep pockets, be very careful what you say about someone that does.

When I was sent my second lot of Lelit machines for technical feedback to Lelit, I realised there were 2 types of contracts, an Influencers contract and one I was asked to sign (AFTER) I had been sent the machines. My contract simply asked if they could use any photos or media I produced, but emphasised I was not required to publicly review the product.

Which means the converse of my contract must exist and for those people are required to sign it before they get anything sent from the company and may even contain other terms.

So really, if I reviewed those machines, it was because I wanted to and not because I had to. I still intend to do a re-review of the Bianca V3, just have not had time to get round to it.

DavecUK You can see example influencer contracts here - https://www.isba.org.uk/knowledge/isba-influencer-contract-templates

Gagaryn Wow, I would never want to sign anything like that….no wonder influencer reviews are what they are!

All the videos end with, “I’ll hand the conversation over to you, what do you think, let me know in the comments?”…which they rarely, if ever, respond to. (An exception, in my experience is AwareHouseChef).

They generally don’t care what other people think, they don’t interact in any meaningful way, other than to lash out if they feel they have been slighted.

The purpose of these channels is purely to generate clicks & comments…the content is largely irrelevant, it could be sowing machines, chainsaws or belly button fluff.

They all seem to know how to use Youtube & Google in general, but why then they so are typically awful at attributing proper credits?

Hoffmann & Sprometheus have been doing this a while, but there’s an awful lot that have sprung up since Covid with little novel to offer, just aiming to take a slice of the pie.

I watch a lot of Youtube, lots of different channels, and yes they all ask for likes, subscribes & comments, but the videos are at least entertaining (as are Hoffmann’s to be fair) in their own right and some actually seem to impart a reasonable level of knowledge:

A good example of someone who does both is Clint’s Reptiles.

The ethics are moot if the ‘information’ is really just noise.

MWJB All the videos end with, “I’ll hand the conversation over to you, what do you think, let me know in the comments?”…which they rarely, if ever, respond to. (An exception, in my experience is AwareHouseChef).

They generally don’t care what other people think, they don’t interact in any meaningful way, other than to lash out if they feel they have been slighted.

Yup, I wish they wouldn’t just say then when they don’t really care what you think….but if you don’t go 100% with what they say, they can respond quite aggressively.

You also need to have a lonnnnng memory and remember everything you say,

There’s a YouTuber who helped to design a hand grinder and I’m pretty sure the first video he spoke of how he got kick backs and that would be the last you would see of it on his channel.

I mean it’s been featured loads since but who’s counting…

Cuprajake Who was that?

DavecUK I mean basically they are there to make money from you…nothing more!

We all gotta make money 💰 in this 3D reality that our Soul’s consciousness is currently focused in to be able to manoeuvre this physical vessel we identify as.

drdre89 We all gotta make money 💰 in this 3D reality that our Soul’s consciousness is currently focused in to be able to manoeuvre this physical vessel we identify as.

We do, and there are some people who choose a particular way to do that….It’s not something I could, or would do personally.

HarveyMushman it’s no different to marketing or sales people have been doing for hundreds (thousands?) of years. Same way you can barely read a newspaper these days without having to search for the ‘this is an advertorial’ sma

A lot of marketing and sales people are professionals though. Most of these influencers are just idiots, but not as stupid as the brainless morons who follow them and provide them with a living. This video id a classic example!

HarveyMushman I think you miss the wider point here Harvey. The current crop of millennials are growing up in a fantasy world that is driven by them not being able to make any decisions for themselves without consulting social media or their phones. The growth of the internet over the last 20 years…….is it a good thing or a bad thing? We now have AI to deal with. Did you know that there are hundreds of AI models on sites like Only Fans……stupid kids are paying millions of dollars a month for computer generated porn and photos. They cannot get to work or function without their morning skinny, full fat, latte cappuccion without milk but with chocolate sprinkles. They spend as much on a phone and internet signal as it takes to insure an average car. All this is fuelled by the latetst trend in influencers…….just take the name ‘influencer’, what does it mean and why do I need to be influenced in order to form an opinion on something?

Hats off to anyone who is smart enough to make a living in their chosen environment, but can anyone explain to me why that wan4er Lineker is the BBC’s highest paid star for reading an autocue once a week. Why is Naga Munchetty paid reportedly £400k for reading an autocue……..it is plain and simply total madness

HarveyMushman If you have not seen this, it really makes a good point!