I work in the biz and every so often you hear about “influencers.” The jest is, marketers hire influential people to recommend their products. Usually the influencers pimp the product (or idea, or site, or whatever) through their large social networks and blog followers. Celebrity endorsements have been around forever and now that celebs have an online community they can easily reach (with little to no effort), there is no end in sight for product placements.

Why of course I’d like a Mastercard. If Usher is on  it.

Even Hugh Hefner’s ex-girlfriend Kendra Wilkenson can infect my Twitter feed by declaring her love for the snack Pirate’s Booty. (Sidenote: that’s one of the stranger sentences I’ve ever written.)

Recently, I became a bit of an influencer myself. I saw on Good Morning America that Pizza Hut had started to sell a hot dog stuffed crust pizza in the UK (perhaps I’ll discuss the merits of putting hot dogs into the crust of a pizza in a later post). I alerted my British friend Michael that this delightful culinary treat was available in his neck of the woods by posting a link to the GMA story on his Facebook wall. That very same day, Michael posted a photo of him eating the pizza.

My influence, sorry Michael’s digestive system

Now, I may not have quite the same reach or substantial number of followers that celebrity influencers have, but I sold a pizza. Where’s my check Pizza Hut?

Also, if you want to read about celebrities endorsing stuff on Twitter from a better writer than me, check out this Fast Company article.