One Hashtag to Rule Them All? Mandated Disclosures and Design Duties in Influencer Marketing Practices

Social media influencers (SMI) have become familiar figures over the last few years. We visit their profiles, watch their “stories”, retweet, like and share their posts. Bloggers, vloggers, Instagrammers, Facebook Famous and Musers are terms that have entered our daily vocabularies and such people have established themselves as new celebrities.
However, the influencer phenomenon is not just about amusement. Considering the authority and reputation gained in the Internet arena, the value of SMIs - as a new generation of testimonials - has been promptly understood by brands and advertising professionals. A large part of marketing investment is now dedicated to securing the endorsement of influencers, and methods for identifying the relevant or emerging influencers in a given area have even been patented.