Too Long; Didn't Read
The value of one’s opinion has increased once social media appeared. So what’s coming next? Before we get into that, though, let’s rewind for a bit. Ten years ago, it was pretty hard to become an opinion leader — there were only the message boards similar to Reddit where people shared their opinions, and it was chaos. It was pretty impossible to follow one particular user and everyone’s opinions were scattered around and hard to find. This all changed with the creation of social networks. In 2004, when Facebook was launched, people were given a channel to express their opinions and thoughts globally. Eventually some people started to gain followers who listened to them and they became opinion leaders (also known as influencers.) The growth of YouTube and Instagram, two platforms with an emphasis on visual content, only made this trend stronger.