Crisis situation for the patron saint of influencers this Thursday, September 15. At morning coffee time, Magali Berdah gives a press conference at the Hilton hotel in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. She talks about online harassment, but also about the death threats that she has been the victim of for several months.
A few days earlier, a report by Complément d’Enquête broadcast on France 2 addressed the excesses and scams of influencers on social networks.
But during this press conference, Magali Berdah denounced the attacks of the rapper Booba without going back to the practices of the influencers with whom he works. He is currently under investigation for deceptive marketing practices because influencers from his company are suspected of promoting ineffective products or scams.
His company Shauna Events, founded in 2017 and bought by the giant Banijay, employs about sixty people and supports a number of influencers who exceed one million subscribers on Instagram. Often very young subscribers.
Candidates for reality shows, a promising market
In 2021, however, she was named by Forbes magazine as one of the most influential businesswomen of the year in France. Known especially by generation Z (people born between 1997 and 2010), it is in the family that some discover her face and even without a doubt her existence at the Fort Boyard show in July 2021. She is, that day, next to her great protégé. Nabilla, one of the stars of the networks followed by almost 8 million people on Instagram.
Actually, it all started in 2016. Magali Berdah had to start from scratch after the bankruptcy of her insurance company. She then rubs shoulders with various reality TV candidates, young women and men propelled into the spotlight during the time of a television show and who, upon leaving, become short-lived stars. There is an unexplored niche left: the only way for them to endure is to be close to their community on social media. To do this, they monetize their smaller publication by collaborating with brands. And this is where Magali Berdah comes in.
Being profitable becomes the watchword. Magali Berdah’s job is to monetize her image on social media. These influencers spend the day telling the story of her life or inventing it, and that, between two stories, they do product placement. Products that sometimes raise doubts about their reliability and origin. Influencers are also promoting injection surgery. Problem, “they highlight people who practice medicine illegally and clandestinely,” says journalist Mélanie Mendelewitsch, interviewed on our podcast.
Influenced even in politics
During the first confinement, Magali Berdah also publishes direct on her Instagram account, participates in the call for donations from the Hospital Foundation, chaired by Brigitte Macron.
Last year, a few months before the first round of the presidential elections, Magali Berdah played the game of intimate interviews and even managed to interview almost all the candidates on the YouTube channel. A product placement at the beginning of the videos funds his project. We thus find her face to face with Jean-Luc Mélenchon or Eric Zemmour. Interview with the President of the Republic last April. Appearances that allow candidates to target young audiences and first-time voters. The rumor even lent him a position as minister of social media.
Source: BFM TV
