Investments and influencers

One of the strangest new words in the world is 'influencer', yet it seems to be a fully formed profession. In its purest form, an influencer is an advertising carrier, just like conventional media. You can pay a newspaper or a TV channel to carry your ad; you can also pay someone with a large social media audience to post something on your behalf. From googling a bit, you can discover that the Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, who has close to half a billion followers on Instagram, charges USD 1.6 million for a promotional post. There are many others like him, including top cricketers and actors from India. However, as far as I'm concerned, this is just a variation on the age-old business of celebrities endorsing products in advertisements. The nature of the advertising vehicle has