Subverting the algorithm, pleasing followers: engagement campaigns of Brazilian digital influencers on Instagram

Issaaf Karhawi

Although digital influencers and content creators face the black-boxed structure of social media networks in their labor routines, “beating the algorithm” is a constant goal (Arriagada & Ibáñez, 2020). One of the reasons is that visibility is a crucial and valuable currency in creators’ culture and in the professionalized sphere of digital marketing (Duffy, 2017; Karhawi, 2020). In the absence of official tools or platform guidelines to understand algorithm logic, digital influencers invest in “guestimation” where they observe patterns on “how to please the platform to facilitate their visibility, and how to have their popularity grow” (Abidin, 2020, p.85). To do so, they evoke an “algorithmic imaginary”: “perceptions about what the algorithm is and how it works” (Bucher, 2017, p.40). The insights from this exploration shape users’ orientation towards the platform and, in the case of influencers, also shape their content and production choices.

Based on that, there is a recent phenomenon emerging in Brazil: digital influencers on Instagram are inviting followers to engage with their posts – commenting and liking publications or sending direct messages via Stories. The practice may sound familiar, but the difference is in the “compensation”: at the end of the month or the week, or by the end of a commercial partnership, influencers select the most engaged follower and reward them with a gift.

This article is a first dive into these “engagement campaigns”, and part of an ongoing research. The text aims to elaborate some hypotheses on the reasons why digital influencers propose these strategies and possible effects on their relationship with followers and platforms. As a preliminary analysis, 12 digital influencers were accompanied through a non-participant observation during 2021.

A niche, a gift

In research conducted by Victoria O’Meara, the author pointed to the existence of Instagram pods, and engagement groups in which content creators get together to exchange likes and comments on their publications. The attempt to hack the algorithm reveals a form of resistance to coercion and demand for constant production of content (O’Meara, 2019). But the mobilization takes place apart from the relationship with the followers. What is distinctive about the engagement campaigns identified here is that they are openly negotiated with the audiences. The call for participation is made public, and the gifts reinforce the subject related to the niche where the content creator has built their audiences.

The variety of niches that compounded the observation was plentiful, and so were the gifts: makeup products given by beauty content creators, bedding as a gift from a decoration influencer, a dinner delivery from iFood and others. But it was also common to note influencers rewarding followers with cash, specifically with “pix” – Brazil’s Central Bank instant payment system that facilitates money transactions with no requirement of debit or credit cards, no fees and no value limits.

Community-centered sense

When presenting their engagement campaigns, digital influencers highlight that the initiative is a form of rewarding the attention, support and kindness they get from followers – words used by the influencers when explaining the existence of the award. And it is not a random prize, but an intentional one. The followers are not chosen by giveaways or prize draws, they are individually chosen by the digital influencer. The parameter for the choice, as already indicated, is the constant participation in the posts.

Tacitly, as an effect of this supposedly personal choice, followers perceive themselves as “indispensable” for the maintenance of digital influencers’ work that results in a reinforcement of a sense of community (Abidin, 2015). In addition, it is not uncommon for the most engaged follower to receive a nickname: the most frequent is the “engaged of the month”, but other versions usually appear, replicating a nickname already used within that built community. A strategy that reinforces the perception of authenticity and proximity that has become an imperative in the performance of digital influencers (Karhawi, 2021).

Another aspect that reinforces the communal character of the campaigns is the announcement through the stories and not the feed: only the faithful followers, those who follow the private and ephemeral content of the stories, know about the present in sight.

Labor issues

The relation and partnerships with brands are crucial to explain the phenomena of “engagement campaigns” in Brazil. Digital influencers are part of communication and marketing strategies of brands in the Latin American country, Brazil. In 2021, 94% of a sample of Brazilian brands worked with digital influencers (Youpix, 2021) – as part of an investment that corresponds to almost 35% of companies’ media budget. To assess digital influencers results in sponsored posts or other commercial contents, 82% of Brazilian brands analyze metrics of reach and engagement (Youpix, 2021). It is not a surprise, so, that understanding how a platform works is part of digital influencers professional skills.

Engagement campaigns are designed according to digital influencers’ algorithmic imaginary. By personal tests within the platform, intuition and some “algorithmic gossip” (Bishop, 2019) they realize that high reach metrics are directly related to engagement. So, the encouragement for followers to interact is a way to keep high numbers that allow new audiences (and brands) to reach their content. 

In a “win-win” game, followers are pleased with gifts and influencers not only “hack the algorithm” but subvert its impenetrable and unbreakable logic. On the other hand, the initiative also reveals the precarity of social media workers (Siciliano, 2021). While some influencers boost their social media accounts by buying fake followers and fake engagement – from click-farm platforms (Grohmann et al., 2021) – others emulate genuine interaction. Both, with money involved.

Engagement campaigns as part of an ecosystem

For researchers dedicated to the creators’ culture field, engagement campaigns seem to be an evolution of other strategies: iPhone prize draws (very common in Brazil), engagement pods or the buying of (real or fake) followers. However, these specific engagement campaigns revealed two particular aspects of this stage of professional performance of digital creators: 1. In addition to the production of posts, videos and photos, mapping the functioning of the platforms is presented almost as a new skill. If in previous research we identified the capitals of fashion bloggers (Karhawi, 2020), now, a new capital seems to be consolidated; 2. The notion of relatability is a fundamental characteristic of influencers’ practice (Abidin, 2015). Their performance is based on the perception of intimacy, horizontality and co-construction. The engagement campaigns reveal that this “nature” of the labor is already recognized by the audiences so that digital influencers can talk about it more openly, even if covered by a “communal” discourse. 

In opposition to the first reactions to the work of digital influencers – that that would be just a hobby – there is a recognition that they are, in fact, working and that this work is subjected to the logic of the platforms that modulate the engagement of the audiences that impact the evaluation and choice of brands and that set influencers‘ labor prosperity. It is the recognition of a mutualism or an opaque, hierarchical and precarious ecosystem.

References

Abidin, C. (2015). Communicative intimacies: Influencers and Perceived Interconnectedness. Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, No.8. doi:10.7264/N3MW2FFG

Abidin, C. (2020). Mapping Internet Celebrity on TikTok: Exploring Attention Economies and Visibility Labours. Cultural Science Journal,12(1) 77-103. https://doi.org/10.5334/csci.140

Arriagada, A., & Ibáñez, F. (2020). “You Need At Least One Picture Daily, if Not, You’re Dead”: Content Creators and Platform Evolution in the Social Media Ecology. Social Media + Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120944624

Bishop, S. (2019). Managing visibility on YouTube through algorithmic gossip. New Media & Society, 21(11–12), 2589–2606. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444819854731

Bucher, T. (2017). The algorithmic imaginary: exploring the ordinary affects of Facebook algorithms, Information, Communication & Society, 20:1, 30-44, DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2016.1154086

Duffy, B. E. (2017) (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love. Yale University Press.

Grohmann, G., Soares, A., Matos, E., Aquino, M. C., Amaral, A., Govari, C. (2021). O que são plataformas de fazendas de clique e por que elas importam. Nexo – Políticas Públicas. https://pp.nexojornal.com.br/ponto-de-vista/2021/O-que-s%C3%A3o-plataformas-de-fazendas-de-clique-e-por-que-elas-importam/

Karhawi, I. (2020). De blogueira a influenciadora: etapas de profissionalização da blogosfera de moda brasileira. Porto Alegre: Sulina. 

Karhawi, I. (2021). Notas teóricas sobre influenciadores digitais e Big Brother Brasil: visibilidade, autenticidade e motivações . E-Compós, 24. https://doi.org/10.30962/ec.2182

O’Meara, V. (2019). Weapons of the Chic: Instagram Influencer Engagement Pods as Practices of Resistance to Instagram Platform Labor. Social Media + Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305119879671

Siciliano, M. L. (2021). Creative Control: The Ambivalence of Work in the Culture Industries. Columbia University Press.

YouPix. (2021). Pesquisa ROI & Influência 2021. https://medium.youpix.com.br/voc%C3%AA-sabia-que-1-em-cada-3-empresas-n%C3%A3o-define-m%C3%A9tricas-e-kpis-antes-de-realizar-uma-a%C3%A7%C3%A3o-com-be53fc18963

* This article was presented by the author at the first annual GDC Conference, Global Perspectives on Platforms and Cultural Production at the University of Amsterdam (June, 2022).

Issaaf Karhawi holds a master’s and doctorate in Communication Science from the School of Communications and Arts at the University of São Paulo (USP, Brazil). Currently she is conducting post-doctoral research with a federal grant from the CNPq at Unisinos, where she also serves as a researcher at Cultpop. She is the author of the book “De blogueira a influenciadora: etapas de profissionalização da blogosfera de moda brasileira” (From Blogger to Influencer: Stages of the Professionalisation of the Brazilian Fashion Blogosphere), published by Editora Sulina in 2020. E-mail: issaaf@gmail.com