How to Be an Ethical Influencer
In a role that’s often tagged as disingenuous, it’s difficult—but not impossible—to maintain your integrity and ensure you’re deserving of your followers’ trust
Recently, as my husband and I were watching one of the Fyre Festival documentaries, he gave the mother of all eye rolls when a man and woman, both identified as “influencers,” appeared on screen.
To be fair, both of them came off — well, pretty much as one might expect, given the subject of the film. But still, the eye roll hit a nerve. I paused the documentary, turned to my husband, and said, “You know influencer work pays some of our bills, right?”
While I’m not on the level of the influencers featured in the Fyre Festival documentaries, my modest online following, combined with authoring books, does come with the opportunity to work with brands in an influencer capacity. But even to many people who identify with the term “influencer,” the label can be less than desirable, conjuring up images of superficiality and ripoffs.
“I cringe at the word ‘influencer,’ though I have yet to find a better word for it,” says Grace Atwood, the founder of lifestyle blog The Stripe and co-host of the podcast Bad on Paper who boosts more than 100,000 followers on…
