Dear Influencers, please try harder.

I get the fact everybody sees themselves as an influencer these days. But this week one email really took the biscuit.

Nov 13, 2024

Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome!

This week I got an email from an influencer. A male influencer. The men that email me about restaurants or clothing products I’m working with are usually savvy on the way things work.

They get the game; they know what to expect regarding posts on social in return for a product or experience. Generally, I know how to handle male influencers and they’re polite. They don’t ask for much.

Truth be told, I detest the word influencer. I understand it, obviously. But I don’t like it. I like celebrities. I was all about faces, talent and household names throughout my career as a showbiz reporter on Fleet Street. I love celebrity. Not reality stars. Not those who turn up to parties. Those who have a career.

These days, I have no choice but to be across the influencer world - and the power they hold - when it comes to brands and what they can potentially do my clients. With audience reach and translations to sales online, some people of influence can be the making of a business. But some just don’t get it and, to be frank, take the absolute piss.

Back to the email I received…

This guy has over 2 MILLION followers on the gram. Ok, I admit that caught my attention. But there was very little else he asked me in his email. Other than whether I could organise for him to go to the GQ Awards next week (LOLZ) or help him get into an after party (BOLD AF).

Now, for background - this is a cold “out of the blue” email. I don’t know the guy. I don’t know who he is. What he does. What his audience is like. His profile. Nada. He’s never tried to meet for a coffee, find out what I do or sent an email before. He’s a nobody to me and has never tried to build a working relationship with me.

The first thing that annoyed me about his email was the spelling and punctuation. All in lower case. Lots of mistakes. No link at the bottom in a signature to his handles. No deck or anything to fill me in on what his job is. I was blind as to who this person was.

So, I replied politely asking for some sort of a media deck or something he could send me link wise to point me to what he does for a living as an influencer. His reply was extraordinary.

“Hey Dean best thing for you to is type my name on google and on Instagram everything will come up xx”

Wow wee, I thought. I immediately text a couple of friends the email and their disgust was exactly what I needed to hear. How obnoxious was that? Somebody I don’t even know emailing me saying I ought to google them to see what they did for a living. They couldn’t even be bothered to send links to press articles, their Instagram account or provide some sort of a media deck (which many influencers who are professional tend to have ready to go for brand work).

You see, I’ve dabbled working with those who don’t really have a career before now. I had to part ways with one client early on in my PR career because I asked them one question that they couldn’t answer.

“If you’re going to renew your passport and you have to say what your occupation is what would you write?” They didn’t have a clue. I realised I couldn’t work with people like that moving forwards. Keeping people in the public eye and building them into a famous person just for the sake of it really wasn’t something I wanted to make myself known for. Saying that, I did make that person a name around the party scene, and they’ve since gone on to become an author. I always knew they’d achieve something eventually and I’m chuffed for them. But back then I had nothing to go on and there wasn’t a work ethic to be seen. There was just a hunger to party.

The thing is, if you really want to be an influencer and make a living from Instagram and TikTok, posting ‘face tuned’ fashion pics and getting freebie holidays and nights out please, for God’s sake, make sure you’re ready to work for it. That you have a plan. You need a deck of your audience, your previous successes, your press in the past…the list goes on.

The other thing that makes me chuckle is these people I have literally never heard of with millions of followers. How does that even happen? Well, they clearly buy them. I had one possible client a while ago who’d bought a bundle of followers, and we actually struggled with how to PR them because despite the millions of followers NOBODY knew who she was.

It’s a hard sell for us to PR somebody who on the gram looks like a big shot…but in reality probably had less than 10k followers to begin with. The project didn’t happen because we didn’t know how to reverse the damage of the fake followers. She was probably better off staying on Insta and continuing down that avenue :-/

Anyway, there’s not much more to say on this aside from influencers need to do better. If you act professionally and have your plans afoot then I, as a PR, will be really open to conversations. After all, the work I’m doing with celebrity names and, God forbid, Influencers is doing far more for my clients than any press articles are at the minute.

But if you send weird emails asking me to google you. Then you can jog on. I wish I could say I wish you well. But I can’t. Don’t hate me. You’re a total douche bag.

GLASTONBURY 2025 – who I’d like to see performing…

It’s that time of year where I start to look for any sort of joy in life. The nights are darker, the grey is exhausting, and the temperature is cold. So, what about next summer? Well, in June Glastonbury is back for their final year before a fallow year in 2026. Tickets are on sale next week…

So, I’m properly thinking about who I’d love to see and why. Here’s a top five.

1. Madonna – there are huge rumours she’s confirmed after last year didn’t end up working out. She’d be the best headliner. She won’t go near a legend slot, gang.

2. No Doubt – Gwen’s back performing in the US with the band. Now, it’s time for Europe to have a dose of No Doubt.

3. Charli XCX – She’s so ready to be a Friday night headliner. SURELY, this is going to happen. It would be the perfect Friday night headliner.

4. James Blunt – Jimmy’s played Glasto three times before on the Pyramid Stage. Time for the return.

5. Spice Girls – I know this one won’t be happening right now. It’s not on the cards. But how good would it be?

PODCAST OF THE WEEK

If you were watching the US election aftermath you might have noticed the conversation about how Trump’s win might have had something to do with him swerving proper print press interviews in favour of Podcast interviews. Is that where we are with the power of influence? I think so. Have thought so for a long time. Why put yourself into the throng of the media to be hung up to dry when you could do a long form interview without any snidey commentary and get your points across and not be misquoted?

With this in mind, I’ve chosen this as my pod of the week. When Louis Theroux met Barry Keoghan. I love nothing more than fresh meat on the podcast circuit and it’s a thrill to hear Barry talk about his upbringing and how he’s navigating his career and fame. Louis does what he does so well. Check it out below…

WHERE DID IT GO WRONG?

I didn’t want to make this column about the US elections and Kamala Harris’ loss. Ugh. But one thing really stood out. See, I called the fact Trump would win early on. Why? Well, the minute the celebrity world starts to make a stand it always goes wrong.

You see, celebrities and their allegiance to a political party has always been a tricky subject. Some say celebrities shouldn’t enter the arena of politics. Why is it their place to get involved in a subject so huge?

Well, it feels like on all thing’s politics - when my timeline or feeds turn into a political playground with famous names professing their ‘sides’ it goes wrong.

This election, Kamala had the support of Beyonce and Kelly, Julia Roberts, Rihanna, Taylor, Madonna, Katy and Orlando, Clooney and HELL even Oprah put her weight behind Harris – the list was endless. All the big names. Couldn’t be huger reach or audience for the young people. Yet still it fails.

From experience, it never ends well when the famous faces jump on the bandwagon. Brexit, our Mayoral elections, the UK general elections…time after time the minute it becomes a celebrity driven contest it always ends up with the wrong result.

Personally, I’ve always thought it’s up to a human being what they do on their socials. Especially if they’re fighting for the good of the world. But maybe it is time for the celebs to shut the fuck up when it comes to politics?

Either that, or we have a little wait for a whole generation to die and for us to enter a period of proper change. Tick tock, Trumpers.

AND FINALLY…GET PREPPED FOR DECEMBER 12 AND CHRISTMAS JUMPER DAY

This year I decided to team up with my friend Rave and release a capsule festive jumper and beanie collection. They’re 90s inspired by design and feature some rather Niche sayings.

That’s why we called the company Naughty but Niche. Check them out below on the link and happy shopping. Your seven choices of slogans are: