Chevonne Xue
Product Designer & Entrepreneur based in Toronto.
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Digital labour, the dilemma of Instagram influencer

Chevonne Xue



IntroductionInstagram is a photo and video sharing social media app launched by Kevin Systrom in 2010. On October 6, 2010, the Instagram app was launched and reached 25000 users in a single day. (Blystone, 2020) From the beginning, the app's main focus was on displaying photos, especially those taken on mobile devices. Just before Instagram's initial public offering (IPO) in 2012, Facebook bought the company for $1 billion in cash and stock. By 2021, Instagram will have 500 million daily active users, making it the third-largest social platform after Facebook and Twitter. (Iqbal, 2021) In the rapid rise of Instagram, a small number of users have gained a large number of fans by sharing their daily routine and shooting engaging and high-quality photo content, so they are called an influencer. Simultaneously, the primary marketing companies also began to turn their attention from the traditional market to the digital market and regard influencer marketing as an attractive new digital marketing field. Many influencers make money by working with brands, and many of them also begin to run their brands, which makes blogger or influencer a new career. However, their income is reasonably unstable. It is positively related to their account performance, including the among followers and each post's exposure rate.

There is a huge gap in financial income between well-known influencers and the micro ones. An important factor determining income is the number of followers. In order to get better data performance, attract more followers. Influencers must adopt and develop a particular publishing strategy. 

In 2016, Instagram announced that they have to change the feed order from chronological into algorithm oriented. (Titcomb, 2016) Since then, "how to survive from Instagram's algorithm" has become the most concerning problem for Instagram influencers and many digital marketers. The influencer has to cooperate with the algorithm in order to maintain their followers and make a living. This paper will analyze the structural obstacles and oppression faced by influencers as a new form of work from conflict theory, collecting information from public resources and academic literature to analyze how Instagram influencers are affected by algorithms to change their behavior, and why?

This paper mainly takes Instagram as the platform and uses several examples from Instagram influencers to indicate that although people have experienced an unequal power relationship from the platform. However, users, including the influencer, still have their free will and agency to react accordingly to the platform's rules and algorithm. 


 Theory As a career born with social media development, influencers do not look like a real job to many people. Some people think that influencers only need to share their lives and take pictures to gain many followers and earn money. This puzzles many people and criticizes this kind of "getting something for nothing" profession at the same time. An influencer has much work, from marketing strategy to content production, from shooting and editing to operation and launch. Their work is almost like a small media company.

The Internet is like a vast machine that entirely creates consensus, socializes many knowledge workers, and integrates them into an innovative economy. Like writers, journalists, graphic designers, and other cultural workers, Internet celebrities are not cultural elites but cultural workers. However, knowledge production is often regarded as not labor, and relevant scholars gradually put forward the concept of " Immaterial labor" in the late last century.  (Lazzarato,1996) Unfortunately, at present, the relevant cultural workers can easily be regarded as a leisure class.

Immaterial labor consists of a series of activities that are not generally considered "work". In other words, activities that define cultural and artistic standards, fashion, taste, consumption norms, and more strategic public opinion. (Lazzarato,1996) In the Capital, Marx emphasized the importance of "exchange value". Commodities have no value if they do not have exchange value. (Marx, 2004) On the other hand, workers separate their labor force from their bodies and assign value to goods through labor and production. At the same time, it also realizes the value-added of goods in this process. Through a series of careful design and management, influencers through the production of rich content products (not limited to text, pictures, video, live broadcast), accumulate followers on the Internet, making themselves an essential central node in the social network. Gain economic income by increasing one's influence. (Abidin, 2015)

The influencers on the Instagram platform are part of the gig economy, just like the drivers who take orders on the Uber platform. There is no employment relationship between these individuals and the platform. They are all self-employed, making use of the platform's power to give themselves access to more business opportunities.

So who does influencers work for? What is the relationship between the influencer, platform, and the brand? The next chapter will introduce the essential information and operation of Instagram to analyze the relationship between the three parties.



Introduction of Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service. It has currently become the leading influential marketing platform in terms of gross revenue and large user base, which to grow to 112.5 million US users in 2020 and 117.2 million the following year, according to eMarketer.(eMarketer, 2019) Eighty-nine percent of those surveyed said the ROI of influence marketing was on a par with or better than other networks. According to the same survey, 65% of marketers plan to increase their budget in 2019. Like Facebook, Instagram makes its money from advertising impressions. Its revenue growth is said to now exceed that of its parent company. (Simon, 2021)

The running process of Instagram mainly includes three central parties, the user, the platform, and the brand. Like other social networking platforms, Instagram's leading service is to enable users worldwide to upload and share their content to one platform by using Instagram's services. On this platform, every user is both a content producer and a content consumer. This duality of user identity enables Instagram to achieve a complete cycle of content production and consumption. It is this positive content production cycle that gives Instagram a steady flow of information. Because of its large user base and precise group characteristics, Instagram has become the social network platform favored by e-marketers. They buy advertisements from Instagram officials and use data analysis to deliver their products' advertising content to their audience better and more accurately. In the business cycle of advertising headlines, the platform is like a big square, attracting many people through the specific services they provide. They are gathered in such a space, and brands can advertise and peddle their products and other advertising messages to them loudly. It is just like they used to put vast and conspicuous billboards on the big square, except that the scene was moved to the Internet, but the purpose remained the same, and all the advertisers cared about was traffic and exposure.

In such a tripartite relationship, the identity of the user becomes very complicated. In the simple relationship between the platform and the user, the user has the duality of content producer and content consumer. Instagram gains commercial value through the activity of their user. On the other hand, users are like free workers of Instagram, keeping Instagram active through spontaneous production of information content.  Users also enjoy the content produced by other users on the platform. Enjoy entertainment or learn about counseling. However, in the massive flow of information, it is also mixed with the advertising content put in by many businesses. Users, at this time, also become consumers or potential consumers. In this advertising cycle layer, the platform needs to help merchants better deliver their content to their potential target.

However, the beauty of the Internet is that it is flat. It broke the traditional power relationship as in the hot media, which in Mcluhan's term, a form of media that emphasizes one sense over the others.  (McLuhan, 2015) Information dissemination is no longer the traditional one-way transmission from high to low, from one to many. In the era of web 2.0, users of mobile social media do not need to be information receivers and advertisers. They can become information producers, which means that they can also become advertising producers. As long as the number of followers in their accounts is large enough, they can also become a small information broadcasting station. These people are called influencers.



Special user: Influencer Influencers are a group of micro-celebrities (Senft, 2008), but with more realism and more reachable, who have accrued many followers on social media and frequently use this social capital to gain access to financial resources (Abidin, 2015). At first, they were just ordinary users of Instagram, but they gathered many followers through the unique content. Advertisers come to them, hoping to help them advertise or introduce PR products. Gradually, influencers were able to support them through advertising, and bloggers became their jobs.

Advertising and marketing through influencers have gradually become a separate category in marketing. Under social media, the conversation space between the market and consumers has become incredibly crowded. (Gretzel, 2018) Platforms like Facebook have developed their exposure algorithms, making it increasingly difficult for marketers to appear organically in consumer social media tweets. Simultaneously, consumers are also using various ad-blocking software but can not stop the amount of information's explosive growth. People need information filtering to find a reliable voice in a noisy environment. In such an environment, the critical actions of online celebrities or bloggers / KOL are self-evident. (Katz,1957) The niche of influencers is the essential factor in determining personal brand fit. Their niche market refers to the professional segments that individuals attract and whom their messages are communicated (cosmetic shoppers, sneaker enthusiasts, online entrepreneurs). The coverage of influencers is a secondary consideration, which outlines an individual's ability to attract a target audience. The range of influencers refers to the number of followers, the degree of participation, and the overall authenticity level. The influencer’s goal is clear, to get more and more loyal followers. The more followers they generate, the higher commercial value the influencer will have.

In order to gain more fans, influencers must abide by the rules of the game. The rules of the game here are set by the platform's algorithm, which is also called "visibility management". (Flyverbom,2016) Some of the rules made by the platform are invisible to the user. After hiding this part of the information, it forms a kind of information asymmetry between the system owner and the user, which leads to an invisible and unconscious distribution of rights. Under the influence of invisible rights, they must also abide by the platform's algorithms and the rules of the game to get more exposure and attract more fans.



How to survive in the algorithm?
In 2016, Instagram changed how information is pushed, from strictly chronological order to an algorithm-determined order. (Barnhart, 2020) Instagram said that people are less likely to miss messages from people around them by changing the algorithm. When the rules change, content producers, especially influencers, start a battle with the algorithm, and they have to convince the algorithm that they are the people they like by their users. 

"This assertion of algorithmic objectivity plays in many ways an equivalent role to the norm of objectivity in Western journalism. Like search engines, journalists have developed tactics for determining what is most relevant, how to report it, and how to assure its relevance —— a set of relatively invisible practices to their audience that they admit are messier to deal with than they might appear. That helps set aside but does not eradicate value judgments and personal politics." (Gillespie, 2014)

In information retrieval and classification, a new power relationship is born—the algorithm controls whose information is selected and whose information is received. To gain more exposure, influencers can only guess the logic of the algorithm behind Instagram based on a small amount of information officially released by Instagram.

According to Instagram, six key factors influence the Instagram algorithm for feed posts: interest, relationship, timeliness, frequency, following, and Usage. (Miashkova, 2020)These factors can influence how the Instagram algorithm values people's score of engagement. According to Jillian Warren, an author from Later Blog, "What you see in your Instagram feed is a combination of all of your Instagram behaviors. The accounts you interact with the most, the people you are tagged in photos with, and of course, the type of posts that you like and comment on.” (Jillwrren, 2021) 

The change in the algorithm represents a change in the original set of standards for calculating user performance. To gain more exposure, bloggers must take action to win the favor of the algorithm and stand out from the massive flow of information. Major marketing websites have also launched various articles to tell people what to do to "survive" in the new algorithm. Although survival is more like a metaphor, it vividly explains the life situation of bloggers. It is a survival game.



What should influencers do? The most important thing for influencers is the number of followers and exposure rate. These two factors are directly related to their revenue. So, when Instagram changed its algorithm, influencers needed to change their strategy to comply with the algorithm to have more chances to appear on users' homepage and in their feeds. Various tutorials are circulating on the web to teach influencers how to survive the algorithm.

Then, how to survive (and outsmart) the Instagram algorithm? According to an article shared by e-marketing site sprout social, the influencer should improve their content, media type, build up a social network, and other dimensions.(Barnhart, 2021)

First of all, content creation, in addition to enhancing the quality of photos and videos, the content of media (including photos, videos, or Live) needs to be attractive. In the Instagram environment, two main types of content are attractive and spreadable in themselves. One is "female body," and the other is gossip.

The "body" plays a vital role in their photo. In social media, conformance to heteronormative prescriptions of attractiveness and femininity is fundamental in gaining attention (Duffy, 2017). It has been observed that women's self-presentation on social media is highly sexualized (Carrotte, Prichard, & Lim, 2017)

Besides, gossip has also become another way to improve the spread rate and popularity, according to its unique transmission mode. (Bishop, 2019) Therefore, instead of reflecting on their real life, influencers need to cater to their followers' tastes to create exciting content, which cannot help but run counter to the truth. Amalia Ulman, an artist from Argentina, conducted a performance show on Instagram in 2014 to make people think about online content authenticity. (Smith,2007)

Instagram has evolved from its earliest image-sharing community into multimedia sharing software. In recent years, with the rise of short videos, Instagram has added several short video features such as story, IGTV, and Live. The frequency of users using these new features will also become an essential indicator for calculating activity to promote new features and businesses. .(Barnhart, 2021) This creates a situation where users are not interested in a new feature or are not skilled in using a new media. Nevertheless, the user must start using the new feature because of the need to cater to the algorithm. There is a new power relationship here. When new features are introduced, users will choose to use the new features to please the algorithm. But this does not mean that users cannot express their dissatisfaction with the platform and product design.

In 2021, Instagram updated their homepage design, replacing the "create new post" and notification tab with the newly introduced Instagram Reels and shopping features. Many users expressed their anger about this. James Charles, a famous influencer, recorded a one-and-a-half minute video expressing his displeasure with Instagram's newly updated homepage information. He said, "it (new homepage updating) is absolute trash and ... and Instagram does not give a F*** about their creator or literally anyone who uses the creator or literally anyone who uses this app...it makes it really clear where their priority lies and that is making It makes it really clear where their priority lies and that is making money." "nobody asks for reels, and people use TikTok for a reason, at least it has an algorithm that does And now the notification button is a shop button, who is shopping on Instagram?"(Charles, 2021)

He also points out several things that the user of Instagram keeps asking for. According to James Charles, people keep complaining about Instagram's features and algorithm, “Their posts have not been seen, their explore pages are broken, Their notification is not functioning well, and most importantly, people do not see posts on their timeline their best.” He complains that, instead of making any of those changes and fixing the app, Instagram keeps adding features that literally nobody is asking for.

Instagram's update hides two of the features most relevant to user use, placing them in a more unnoticed corner. Instead, the entire page design's most central position is reserved for the new feature Reel, which is TikTok’s competing product. Shopping function is also the other function that Instagram would like to promote. From a UX design perspective, the relationship between Instagram and its users has shifted from the original focus on user innovation and content production to the platform's strategic considerations. The growing empowerment of the platform is reflected in the repositioning of these two buttons. However, users are still able to reflect their anger and dissatisfaction.

Besides, building up a social network is also a significant way to increase the exposure rate. Moreover, the two main ways to increase exposure are by adding #hashtag to their images or recommending each other's accounts in stories, allowing one's account to show up to users outside of one's social circle. In contrast, people have to react accordingly to fight the algorithm, such as participating in the engagement pod. As O'Meara mentions in her paper, whether the ultimate goal is to increase one's exposure or "an attempt to combat the perpetual state of precarity that characterizes the work of these cultural producers laboring under platformed conditions."(O'Meara,2019)


Conclusion In the digital platform economy, labor has changed dramatically in both time and space. The emergence of this change is natural because capital is profit-seeking. Most platform economies consider their algorithmic logic with cost minimization and efficiency maximization in mind. Moreover, the labor component is often seen as part of labor cost, rather than the actual person. This contempt for people or labor itself is brought about by capital, while digitalization, or more precisely, algorithms, are just tools in the hands of capital. Moreover, whether the tool is used well or poorly depends mostly on the user's identity and values.

As Doorn analyzed in his article, labor division in the traditional workplace enables the atomization of labor. (Doorn, 2020) There is little to no communication between each takeaway and delivery person because each one is independent. There is practically no intersection of work, except for some moments when they happen to meet, and it weakens the union's ability. Instagram influencer's environment is very similar to that of the takeaways. They borrow the platform to carry out their business and do not have an employment relationship with the platform itself. However, their income is limited by the platform's algorithm.

Nevertheless, the algorithm is just a tool, where it is an automated management process. Since it is a tool, it is for people. What people want to do, and what they want to do, affects the tool's approach and logic. Whether Deliveroo's takeaway workers who have set up online unions on online platforms, making the unions more powerful and using electronic platforms to carry out activities and exchanges, their influence is more potent than traditional unions. Instagram influencers also participate in various engagement pods to communicate with each other, deal with algorithms, or fight for their rights. Although many situations are changing and information technology has made tools more powerful, tools are always at people's service. It allows managers to be more meticulous in their management, but it also allows workers to unite better and defend their rights.




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