Social media influencers are people that have a platform and a voice that people want to listen to on different social media. They have a large amount of followers who are interested in their everyday lives. Whether they do make-up for a living, fashion, designing clothes, or playing sports. Some may make vlogs and put them on YouTube for their followers to see.
Usually their following grows from one platform to another. They may start posting videos on YouTube and then their fame flows over to Instagram as well.
Influencers have to figure out what they stand for and a message they want to share with their followers. Their message has to be present and shown throughout all their social media and be consistent throughout them all too.
D’Vontay Friga is a basketball player for the University of Mount Union. He is a six foot senior guard. One thing that many of his opponents don’t know is that Friga is considered a social media influencer. On YouTube Friga has over 100 thousand subscribers and has about 28 thousand followers on Instagram.
“Becoming an influencer has affected my daily life because I know, no matter what I do, their eyes are on me but it’s also the life that I’ve created and that I wanted.Tt also makes me push every day because I know I have to create content,” Friga said.
You can say Friga has a voice that many people want to watch and listen to. Friga’s platform revolves around sports and more specially basketball, which is the sport he plays. His main platform is YouTube.
“My largest platform is YouTube. And I believe the reason is because the content that I post is for all age ranges. Therefore it is easy to watch whether you are 12 years old or 60 years old and there’s more people in the world now that are online,” Friga said.
He posts vlogs of what it is like to play basketball at a D III school as well as being a student.
His videos are focused on how he balances schools with basketball. He really likes to promote positivity and he is someone younger boys looking to play college basketball look up to and want to be like.
“I think my work has affected people positively being my intention with my work is to motivate people around me and people that deserve to live the life that they want. I hope it inspires them to create a lifestyle they want to live in,”Friga said.
During the basketball season Friga posts gameday vlogs that consist of how he and his team get ready for games, actually game footage and then he will debrief after the game. He likes to incorporate his teammates and some of his coaches in his vlogs as well.
At the beginning of every video Friga post, he has a somewhat motivational speech that he says. He promotes self love and hard work. A main point he has focused on in his videos and how he has gotten to where he is as a social media influencer but also as a person is that you have to work hard to get where you want to be.
His target audience is mostly athletes wanting to play at the next level.
“My target audience is 24 to 30-year-olds. I also believe my largest open audience is 14-18-year-olds because a lot of them want to become large creators. I don’t want my audience to change in specifics I just wanted to grow overall,” Friga said.
He strives to be the best person he can be on and off the court. The message that he spreads helps a lot of other people as well. He says what he’s going through, which many other people can relate to.
“The biggest message I want to send to all of my audience is motivation and positivity. I also believe it is important to broadcast the use of gratitude and empathy in our daily lives,”Friga said.
He has a created a platform that many people follow and look to for advice in life and in the sports world as well. He has been able to reach thousands of people and touch a lot of people through all of this.
“Social media will never change my outlook on life the only thing it will do is show me the impact you can truly have online,” Friga said.
