ADV 290: Becoming an Influencer

By: Lilly McCarthy

This semester I was one of the lucky students who got to test out the Becoming an Influencer class with Professor Carrie Wilson. The first day of class Professor Wilson stated to everyone that she wasn’t sure how she wanted the class to be structured. This gave us the option to talk as a class about what we think would be most beneficial. We decided that it would be fun to post a social media post at least once a week and during class learn more about influencer culture.

We separated into groups of “influencers” based on which topics were most interesting to us. Some of these topics include food, gaming, fitness, beauty/fashion, and vlogging which is what I choose. I wanted to be a part of this group because I figured I would be able to post a larger variety of content. We also decided which platform we wanted to post on with most people choosing either Tik Tok, Instagram, or YouTube. I decided to go with Tik Tok and this far have posted some day in the life videos, what I eat in a day and clothing hauls. The second week of posting Professor Wilson told us we had to collaborate with someone from within the group. I loved this idea because it gave us a chance to get closer as a group and teach each other different techniques for filming.

While in class we discussed popular influencers like the D’Amelios and watched some of their new Hulu series. Another topic we discussed that I found super interesting was the topic of the infamous apology video seen by almost every influencer. We discussed how these are just a part of the job at this point and how some seem to follow a certain format. During these discussions I loved hearing what my classmates and the Professor had to say about certain pop culture topics and controversies because you don’t get to talk about them in just any class.

Overall, I think this class was interesting. It’s important to learn about the influencer culture, especially in the advertising industry, because I believe this is just the start of influencer marketing. This class is a great way to be ahead of the pact by gaining more knowledge on the up and coming and not just advertising from the past.