Are social influencers the new celebrity endorsers?

I have been to a few business talks recently where they take this a step further.

Incentive programs for employees to market, advertise and promote their service/product on social media. This is such a worrying trend, with the 'celebrities' we look up to promoting shadely, and now even our friends and real connections we have made bombarding us with advertising, it seems we are being bombarded from all sides with marketing and advertising!

Very dystopian if you ask me.

What do you think is the real difference between a YouTuber or Social Influencer and a Celebrity? Do you think we could say that they are selected by an agent and not by the people? Or do you see it as a level of talent?

Maybe - but most celebrities who do endorsements are not exactly A-list, are they? You just have to watch an episode of Celebrity Pointless to know how relatively obscure and talentless a 'celebrity' is these days. If social media influencers are becoming more like them... well, that's no real surprise.

I'm not sure I buy the 'at least they use the products' argument. How do you know they actually use them off camera? I think people are lulled into believing lifestyle vlogs are real life - they're not, they're scripted, edited and polished to an absurd degree. It might be low budget but it's just as fake as TV. You can't trust Zoella or any other social media influencer to give you useful buying tips or point you in the way of a bargain. Unfortunately, there are a lot of gullible people out there who buy into the fantasy.