Blog #10 - Viral Marketing | YouTube Sponsorships

Based on what I read about viral marketing, I can only think of sponsorships on YouTube. Maybe the viral part is throwing me off, but when YouTubers collaborate with brands in their videos, it's definitely a way of promoting and spreading the word about the brand/product. I'm subscribed to a lot of beauty/makeup gurus on YouTube, and I'm always buying what they suggest, however when it comes to a sponsorship in their video, it's really hard to trust what they're saying because they're getting paid to promote it, so I don't know if they're sharing it because they're making money off of it or because they truly like it. Of course, what's really popular is their disclaimer, saying things like "This is sponsored however I wouldn't have accepted a sponsorship if I didn't truly like it or believe in the brand" or saying "They did send me these things for free but they don't know I'm making this video and all opinions are my own". Being on YouTube for a while and watching all these different gurus, it's getting easier and easier to tell which of them are genuine and which of them post only when they get sponsored. I don't believe there's anything wrong with YouTubers doing this because they have to make their money somehow, whether it be the views, or the ads, or companies paying them to talk about something, however it does get annoying if there's too much of it and it's hard to figure out who's credible.