Book Review: #influencer by Brittany Hennessy

I borrowed this book from my public library because I was interested in learning about everything involved with being an 'influencer' on social media.  Contrary to popular belief, an #influencer is someone on social media that has a relatively large following.  10,000 to 24,999 followers is considered a micro-influencer.  25,000 to 49,999 followers is the collaboration stage when a person collaborates with other influencers.  50,000 to 100,000 followers is when an influencer starts to approach other brands that they can represent on their social media channels.

The author, Brittany Hennessey is the Senior Director of Influencer Strategy + Talent Partnerships at Hearst Magazines Digital Media.  As she puts it in the books, "it's her job to know the universe of influencers."  And yes, she does fully understand the influencer universe.

Before reading this book I had a basic understanding of what influencers do and my knowledge was mainly based off of what I have heard my 12 and 16 year old daughters talk about from their favorite YouTube & Instagram personalities.  There is definitely a broad range of influencers out there, but this book goes into the nitty-gritty of the steps and business knowledge needed to be successful as an influencer.

Most of the people who have followers in the thousands are eating, breathing & sleeping this business.  And the more popular they get, they are not doing it all on their own.  They have a team of people behind them.  From assistants, managers, publicists, attorneys, social media managers, photographers and agents....this is a team effort and serious business for serious income.

Throughout the book there are stories of highly successful influencers as well as many tags to check out on Instagram (the @name you find on the site.)  They highlight how they began, which platforms that focus on and what they wish they would've known when starting out.

Currently most influencers are women and because the author of this book has dealt with mostly women, this book is geared towards a female audience.

This book was a very quick read for me and I think it would be extremely eye-opening for the younger generation to read (middle to high schoolers) because I think that age group believes the life of these influencers is so glamorous, when in reality it's a lot more work than people let on.  Anyone aspiring to put in all the hours required to do this kind of work would greatly benefit from this book as well.