Is it a mystery wrapped in an enigma shrouded in the internet?

Notice that in my explanation, I didn't use the word free.  The catch with Influenster is the review part.  Their products (and sometimes samples) are free in the sense that you're not going to pay any money for them.  You will, however, pay for them with time and effort.  If you want to be an Influenster, like the song says, you better work.



Man, I bet Rupaul gets all kinds of free stuff.

 When they use the words "try and review," they really mean that they want you to try the product, and then promote it - a lot.  I've never seen them ask you to put a positive spin on a product that you don't like, though.  I can say I've been involved with groups that do want you to do that and that's not fun at all.  There's nothing worse than being forced to try to sell a pile of poop as the greatest thing in the world.

Recently they've completely changed how their program works and totally revamped their website.  I don't particularly like the website.  It's still very, very buggy and navigation can be a total pain in the butt throughout specific sections.  Some of the layout and design features have some serious issues.  However, its only been a couple of weeks since launch, so I'm hoping that the developers will work to smooth out these kinks.  Also, it really does not work well with mobile browsers.

The biggest change to the website is addition of scores.  This is something that's fairly common amongst websites of this type.  However, theirs is handled a little bit differently than most.  In Influenster's case, you have a main score, your Influenster Score, that supposedly showcases how influential you are.  This is modified when people rate your reviews and answers as helpful.  Yes, this is a big popularity contest, and I can see it been majorly manipulated in the future.  However, it also has the affect of ensuring that you actually think about what you're typing, instead of just tossing out a half-assed review that doesn't help anyone. 

You see, this is where the work part comes in.  If you want to get free stuff, you have to give them a reason to give it to you.  They're not going to give it to you just because you're a chick or because you've popped out some kids.  Sorry, it doesn't work that way.  Companies do care about what you're saying, but they don't care about it if you're only willing to talk to yourself.

From the main Influenster Score (which affects ALL of your scores, by the way), you're broken down into what they call "Expert Badges," which focus on hobbies and interests.  When you're starting out, you're only eligible for five of them.  This is something that I'd wish I'd known when I started, because when I did mine, it was NOT clearly marked at all.  :(  They allow you to pick and choose which five that you'd like to try to earn, and you earn them by taking a qualification survey.  However, I'm pretty certain that the surveys give it to you automatically at the end. 

One thing that I do NOT like about the Influenster Score is that it ties into your referrals.  One of the ways you can increase your score is to invite friends to join via your referral.  Once they join, everything they do reflects back on you.  This means if your BFF begs and begs for a referral, and then does absolutely nothing with it, you're boned.  You're only allowed five referrals to begin with.  However, I will add in that I'm not sure exactly how much their score does influence yours, as it's not really made clear. 

There are also "Lifestyle Badges" that work pretty much the same as the "Expert Badges," except these focus more on things like whether or not you have kids, pets, are a college student, etc.  There is no limit on how many of these you can have; as long as you qualify for it, you can have it.

All of these badges have their own scores that function similarly to the main score, except they tend to be based on the number of reviews, blog posts, and answers that you provide.  A good Influenster will provide lots of them, because those are the main meats of the website.  They've really expanded the reviews section, and have added a question and answer section to go along with the reviews.  Again, this section tends to be really buggy, but it will be quite nice once the kinks are worked out.

All these badges and scores come into play when it's time to select people for a VoxBox (supposedly - truthfully I think they throw darts at user names sometimes).  VoxBoxes are how they send out products.  They'll have a theme with matching products, and send this out.  Of course, sometimes the products only vaguely match the theme, so you can never really be certain what you're going to get.  During the course of the campaign, you're required to fill out entrance and exiting surveys.  I tried to complete one through Safari on my phone, but it was so glitchy that I was unable to do so.  You're also able to complete voluntary tasks or "brand badges" to win prizes or acceptance into other boxes.  They say these are voluntary, but I highly suspect that the more brand badges that you have, the more campaigns you'll be eligible for.  Plus, they usually give out some nice prizes, lol.  I've won a few of them and I've been super stoked to do so.

Now the brand badges have been around since I joined Influenster.  This isn't anything new.  What is new is how they present the challenges on the website.  The new style page may be cluttered and aggravating to navigate, but it's still way better than it used to be. 

Despite the stutters in the design of the website, the new Influenster looks quite promising.  They've said that there is a mobile app in the works that hopefully will make the site even more useful. 

If you're interested in signing up with Influenster, you can click over there to check it out.  Don't worry, that's not a referral link.