The power of cool and product placement in social media

Product placement is infiltrating social media influencers, but how long will it be before the platforms come for their piece of the pie asks Richie Meldrum?

Beauty and popularity have always gone hand in hand. If you think back to the most popular kid at your school, chances are, he or she was blessed with nice hair, clear skin and fortuitous features. Call it natural selection if you like, but the cool kids have courted the attention and admiration of their peers in a relationship dynamic that’s been going on as long as anyone can remember.

These days, things are different – there’s money to be made from being popular. In the online arena, certain individuals have been able to amass huge audiences via their social media accounts. Followers are attracted to their beauty, status and apparently enviable lifestyles, which they document, down to the finest detail, through regular posts and updates on social media accounts – most notably Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube and Tumblr.