How our ‘influencers’ are promoting consumerism

Where did you buy your latest GPS watch? How did you settle on your last travel destination? What motivated you to buy your chic palazzo pants? Your tunic top?

If you are to be frank, your decision to pay for these products and experiences was largely influenced by social media posts, either on your timeline or a friend’s WhatsApp status.

While you may have dismissed it at first, somehow, unconsciously, you brain stored the information. Later on, you revisited the post and made a decision to buy.

Ken Munyua, a psychologist, calls this “conditioning”.

“The brain processes and reacts to stimuli (information). When the mind is stimulated, it takes the appropriate action,” Mr Munyua notes.

Exposure to products on social media eventually for some time “compels” a user to make a decision about them.

Psychologists and advertisers have consensus that consumer behaviour – which is how humans select and use products – is influenced by three elements, namely personal, psychological and social factors.

For most of us, it is almost impossible to resist the urge to take a photo of our food while eating out. When we visit a new place, we capture the experience and share it with our friends. It is the way of life today.

Consumption behaviour

The next time you draw your phone to capture the succulent steak and salad at a new eatery in town, bear in mind that could be influencing consumption behaviour of your online network. In a big way.

A tough economy notwithstanding, Kenyans’ appetite for culinary delights, fashion and travel, for instance, remains as acute, now as it has been, in the past few years. After a lull in consumption at the height of the pandemic last year, Kenya’s leisure class is back to bulk buying.

You need not look farther than Nairobi’s Kimathi Street to understand the trend.

Arguably the home of restaurants in the city, this street is awash with eateries – KFC to Java, Kukito, Arte Caffe, Kilimanjaro, Ranalo Foods, Pronto and other largely anonymous food shops. At the foot of the street is the Hilton Hotel.

Yet, in a seemingly flooded restaurant market, eateries keep sprouting along the 500-metre street, to cater for the ever-bulging number of diners.

A visit at each of these turns up one consistent finding: teeming human traffic.
The Nairobi food scene is as diverse as its clientele. Chicken and ice cream joints teem with students and youth, restaurants host social and formal lunches and dinners while the rest specialise in takeaways.

Provide any product to Kenyans and buy it they will. It’s not by mistake that global brands, from luxury hotels, car makers and tech firms have set up base in Nairobi.

Driving traffic

Kamau Wanjiru, an economist with Infotrak Kenya, attributes Kenya’s consumption lifestyle to a large educated population, urban settlement and a good proportion of people with a “sizeable disposable income”.

But how does social media and the web influence consumption habits? Ms Wanjiru says that besides being attractive to educated middle-aged Kenyans in especially urban areas, online stores and social media play a key role in driving traffic to offline stores.

“Online stores are the first place where shoppers do their window shopping to compare prices before visiting a physical store,” Ms Wanjiru notes, quoting a 2018 Infotrak survey.

When Wahito Githaiga wanted to upgrade her bed in January, she went looking on social media, even before she could consult her neighbourhood furniture shops.

She posted on her Facebook and WhatsApp status: “Anyone who makes palette beds? Hit my inbox.” She argues: “It’s easier when you get referrals by people who have an experience with a product. You never know which carpenter to trust. There’s also the benefit of a discount when you are referred.”

A decade ago, travel was a preserve of the moneyed. Only people with cash to spare could afford to fly and to book a hotel for holiday. Not anymore. Nearly every Kenyan with an income today can travel for holiday, thanks to multiple budget travel packages available, and social media.

Esther Gakenia had never been to the Coast before joining college four years ago. In 2019, then in second year, the final-year media student and her two friends ticked this box after saving up for a joint trip.

‘‘My former schoolmate had posted photos of her in Watamu,’’  Ms Gakenia narrates of her motivation to travel. ‘‘My friends and I opened an account and made contributions for six months.’’

When the trio had saved enough money for transport and accommodation, they booked a flight to Malindi.

‘‘We stayed at an Airbnb for three days, swam, visited local attractions and had a lot of fun. Being my first ever, it was a memorable tour,’’ she says.

Low-budget tour packages, fast food joints and fashion outlets may be mushrooming all over Kenya, allowing all and sundry to have a taste of luxury. Yet at the heart of this lifestyle revolution is the social media stimulus.

Proximity to information

Like other civilisations, Kenyans spend millions of hours on social media every day, catching up on trends and reviewing products.

“Media is a powerful tool for shaping behaviour. Most of us look at the trends so as to adopt. Social media has taken it a notch higher,”  Mr Munyua says.

He adds that with this proximity to information, people are now more “reactionary” than ever.

It’s for this reason that social media is a goldmine for digital marketers and advertisers.

Projections by data company Statista indicate that the value of e-commerce trade in Kenya will reach $2 billion (Sh220 billion) in 2024, highlighting Kenyans’ appetite for goods sold online.

But if social media promotes consumerism, it’s the emergence of social media influencers that tips the scale of consumer behaviour.

We live in the age of social influencers. These are simply socialites and social media-savvy personalities with a huge following online. These individuals drive conversations about brands online, and have the ability to influence product purchases and product engagements through reviews.

For a single post on video-sharing network TikTok, American RnB star Jason Derulo reportedly earns a staggering $90,000 (Sh8,257,500).

Queen of influencer business

Closer home, socialite Vera Sidika is arguably the queen of influencer business. With a mouth-watering 1.9 million followers on Instagram alone, Ms Sidika has styled herself as a highly successful businesswoman.

She has a top-of-the-range spa in Mombasa, an ‘‘organic skincare products’’ line and Veetox, a herbal detox tea that’s the ‘‘ultimate tummy trimmer’’.

To put Ms Sidika’s influence into perspective, her (sometimes raunchy) Instagram videos garner up to 600,000 views, and up to 100,000 likes on her regular posts, thanks to her global appeal.

But cosmetics, controversy and slimming concoctions isn’t all that Ms Sidika sells. 

A globetrotter with incessantly frequent trips to London, Phoenix, Houston and Dallas, she influences her devoted followers to try out these destinations, thus driving a travel lifestyle among them.

Human touch

This is called social proof, a psychological and social phenomenon where a consumer buys a product based on the experience of another person whom they trust, as they hope to imitate them.

In social proof, people behave in a certain way (essentially by buying products) to “conform in order to be liked by, to be similar to or to be accepted by the influencer” or simply to feel “closer” to them.

It continues to baffle commerce experts globally how business flew from marketers and advertisers to become an influencers’ forte. It is easy to understand the revolution. 

The “human touch” that influencers offer appeals to consumers more than advertisements can possibly do.

There’s also no specialised training required to become an influencer. With a sizeable following on social media, a good camera, money to spend and time, you are good to go.

Interestingly, some products have emerged entirely from social media, through users’ ingenuity. #KOT5Aside, a football tournament that brings Kenyans on Twitter (KOT) for matches, is one such product. A slow-burn when it began three years ago, the brand has grown to become a championship with tours across the country.

Today, social media isn’t just a tool that helps you to stay in touch with family, friends and colleagues. Rather, it’s a marketplace as well, where buyers, sellers and pushers converge. From braids and bras to phones and furniture and shoes and shirts, social media is today perhaps the largest market of them all.

For a good reason.

Findings by Statista show that 12 per cent of all retail sales in 2018 were e-commerce sales. This number continues to grow exponentially by the day.

Today, 71 per cent of consumers are more likely to buy a product based on referrals on social media. For millennials, the number is much higher, with 47 per cent of all their purchases motivated by trends on social media.

But while social media has made it easier for sellers to reach potential buyers, it’s also had another major ripple effect: created a consumption culture. Most people today buy products and shell out a fortune for experiences as a result of what they see online.

This has made social media the second largest online mall after shopping stores such as Jumia and Kilimall, according various survey findings.

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