B(u)y The Numbers – The Complicated Relationship Between Brands And Influencers

 67% of brand marketers believed that campaigns with Social Media Influencers

helped them become visible to a targeted audience.

 Some studies claim a 7.65X return in media value on each $ spent on social

media Influencers.

 In 2018, Instagram is expected to see over 25 Million brand-sponsored

influencer posts -costing brands over $ 1.2 Billion.

These are staggering numbers by any yardstick, but the picture is not all rosy. Some of

the biggest brands in the world are re-evaluating the basis of their relationships with

social media influencers. Unilever has publicly denounced a vast cadre of Influencers for

indulging in, what is essentially fraud, buying followers to project a wider reach and

hence command a higher price. Other brands have asked for everything from more

accountability from the Influencers they engage, to greater control over the other

content the Influencer posts. Some sort of an inflection point seems to be arriving -and

this is a good thing.

A lot of the initial frenzy around engaging Influencers fueled Entropy in the form of un-

reasoned pursuit of numbers- “my brand must have more followers on social media

than my competition”. Engagement on the social channels became an easy, and

measurable, substitute for meaningful impact in the lives of the consumers. Instead of

representing a signal, just a milestone, to validate the resonance of the activities of the

brand, these numbers became an end in themselves. These brands got sucked into a

race to the bottom- and the Influencers were equal parts collateral damage and equal

parts weapon of mass-distraction in that ego war.

Hopefully, the current debate about the definition, role, and desired impact of

Influencers will help bring some reform about in this system. It’s either that or be liable

for “Branding under the influence.”