As social media evolves, the era of pet influencers is in full swing.
Let me catch you up in case you’re new to the ever-growing world of social media. Within the past few years, people have been getting brand deals and making money promoting products on their accounts. They’re called influencers, and unlike multi-level marketing, the influencers don’t typically sell you anything, they’re just an advertisement. They often use a lot of #hashtags, too.
Influencers typically have a lot of followers (or friends, or likes, etc.) and have an established, public account before promoting brands. Brands can reach out to influencers and vice versa.
Ok, so now that you know all that… there are pet influencers too. They usually promote pet products, and they grow their following just like human influencers before getting ad work. You might remember Grumpy Cat, Lil Bub, Jiff the Pom, Boo, and Doug the Pug as popular pet names on social media.
It’s been suggested to me to put Smidge or Cairo on their own public Instagram, and I finally did make an account for Smidge. I just think she’s darn cute, and I like making up silly captions in her “voice.” I also like it as an outlet to be creative taking pictures of one of my favorite subject.
Will Smidge become an influencer? Probably not, but I have weighed both sides.
PROS
1) There might be free stuff. Many influencers get free products with brand advertisement. So say you make a deal with a brand, and they send you a leash in the mail. You would take pictures of the dog with the leash, wearing it, walking on it, etc. and post it to social media with hashtags (including #ad or #spon) and tagging the brand.
2) Everyone sees how cute your pet is. With a public account and a lot of followers, a lot of people get to enjoy your cute pet with you! Even if they aren’t following you, many people cruise the hashtag feeds and will send a like if you’ve posted something, well, likable. It’s a little bit of gratification.
3) It’s fun. If you get to the point of getting brand deals or sponsorships, cool! But if not, you’re still having fun with your pet.
CONS
1) It’s work and takes time. You do have to still to a posting schedule, and if you expect to get brands who want to work with you, you must follow through on the deals. It’s basically trading content for the brand deal, so you have to produce the content. And coming up with creative posts can take more time than you think.
2) It’s very public. Of course, you can adjust how much you share to who and on what platform, but there are elements of your life that will be out there, mainly, your pet. Security is definitely something to consider.
3) It may not be something you want to do long term. Let’s face it, people get bored sometimes with activities and they don’t want to do it anymore. If this is a common occurrence for you, consider whether or not pet influencing is something you’d want to do long term.
4) Speaking of long term… pets have shorter lifespans than humans. It’s not a nice topic, but pets do pass on. Smidge is a rescue, and I have no idea how old she is. What will you do with the account if the unthinkable happens? I have followed many pet influencers and seen several sides of this issue, some of which were unfiltered.
So there are my pros and cons for pet influencing. I’m just taking pictures of Smidge and enjoying it for now, so who knows if she’ll get Insta-famous or not! My best advice is: it doesn’t hurt to try it, and the worse case scenario is your family and friends get to enjoy extra pics of your fur baby on social media.
