Let me start out by clarifying that there are some "good" influencers out there.
The rare 0.01% like James Hoffman or Non-stop Dan.
But I've been friends with influencers before and this is what happens.
They quit their day-jobs and become dependent on income. They stop growing organically and start depending more and more on sponsored content. They start to see doing unsponsored content (aka real content that's not trying to sell you anything) as a waste of their time. They start to take their viewership for granted. They show the sponsored products in a good light while not liking them. They will sell you $50 in junk so that they can earn $2 in commission.
A former friend received many things for free + cash for uploads. She peddled these $4000 invisible braces while saying oh they're so convenient, oh they're so great. In reality after 1 week she stopped wearing them because she didn't like them and just took the money to pay her rent. There are people who (innocently) saw her as a trusted authority and spent their money on something that they would end up not working. There's so many things that she shares with her fans (yes, real fans, I've seen people hug her, at starbucks people have asked for her autograph, they've brought her book for her to sign at meetings).
The problem is that when someone becomes dependent on money, they have a motivation to deceive you. And some people just don't care about "strangers". She hasn't even read comments on her videos in over a year. Her assistant reads them (partially justified because then she doesn't have to read the hate comments, but on the other hand some of the "hate" (criticism) comments are justified in their own right). She complains about low engagement on her videos WHEN SHE DOESNT EVEN ENGAGE HER AUDIENCE.
People ask questions in the comments and she doesn't bother replying nor tasking her assistant to reply. Why would you want to comment if there's a 99.99% chance of being ignored? You're nothing but a number used to justify a bigger paycheck.
I don't feel like I'm the one burdened with the task of proving that influencer marketing works. It does. I've seen it affect my previous partners (and I personally purchased a cake boss branded lazy susan, although I really did use it for my cake decorating).
Anyways back to the AWS console I go. o7