Let's talk Influencer Marketing

"Influencer marketing is critical for all brands because it's the most effective driver of consideration and conversion. Trusted advocates are 4-10x more effective at driving sales, and 92% of consumers trust recommendations from people they don't even know over a brand."

As for the future of influencer marketing, Experts expect it to get bigger, better, and more collaborative.

 "The influencer model of the future will be a place where brands build strategic business partnerships with influencers. Instead of it being solely pay-for-play, there will be a value-exchange economy between brands and creators."

 For the last ten years, I have been doing influencer marketing strategy and talked to many experts about the value and why brands shouldn't solely rely on positive organic shout-outs from fans.

 "Creators don't have time to look through 200 PR pitches. Instead, they want to get paid by brands for creating custom messages."

 The biggest misconceptions brands have around influencer marketing are that positive brand buzz will happen naturally online from fans often, making influencer marketing unnecessary.

 And while organic brand buzz does happen from fans, it probably doesn't happen as frequently as brands would like to think. Moreover, even when it does happen, the brand still misses out on the opportunity to help frame the messaging and loses out on timing benefits that could be helpful for launches and brand narratives.

 "There are only certain brands embedded in the culture that are talked about organically in meaningful ways," this is what most of the experts in influencer marketing had to say. this is 

 And that statement has a lot of weight coming from someone who has been doing influencer marketing for the last ten years. 

The Evolution of Influencer Marketing

When I started my career as an online marketer, Facebook and Twitter existed at the time, but brands were just beginning to think about building an organic social media presence. Her focus was to write strategies for brands that would drive organic growth on social platforms. There was no such thing as a YouTube presence, and influencers were bloggers and influential journalists, with the latter definitely not being paid.

 I remember sending tech products to journalists to try out and review. Still, they would typically send the product back to assure their audience that the reviews were honest and not positively influenced due to being able to keep the product.

 Of course, today's modern influencer game is slightly different, with many influencers receiving products and payment. However, the authenticity and trust with their audience are interestingly still kept in place between influencers and their audiences, with influencers knowing full well the ramifications of becoming a "sell-out" or recommending a cheap product or a product that doesn't align with their values. And influencers were all recently reminded to check the quality of the things they recommend after many celebrities promoted the Fyre Festival. Guests showed up to find what looked like no festival and a refugee campsite.

"There are only certain brands embedded in the culture that are talked about organically in meaningful ways." 

 It wasn't until I was working on the strategy for an edgier toy brand in 2013 that I first worked with YouTubers, considered more "super fans" to talk about the toy.

 Back then, I would reach out directly and either gift products or pay nominal fees compared to what brands pay now for influencers to talk about the product with their audience.

 This strategy also included earning buzz from people on Twitter and Tumblr who weren't even the biggest fans of the product but had the right audience the brand wanted to reach. From this angle, it's easy to see how influencer marketing has evolved into what it is today and how there was always interest from brands even in its earliest stages with social media.

What Brands Are Still Learning About Influencer Marketing Today?

Today is a much more advanced influencer game, and I guide my clients through an influencer marketing strategy and execution that is much more robust. My department is the social media strategy and planning department at OMD. It has a specialty focus on earned, owned, and paid, including influencer marketing, which makes sense as I clock in my tenth year of planning and executing influencer marketing campaigns for brands.

 "Early on it was harder to get brands comfortable with the idea of paid influencer marketing," 

 "There's been some hearts and minds we've had to change about influencer marketing with education about what it can do for their brands."

 It's Important to Lock Them in Early; What Brands Should Know About Influencer Production Timelines

Another thing that brands often need to be educated on is the production time influencers need to create quality content. Despite the 3-6 week process, it takes for an influencer to create a creative asset, working with them to create content is still a quicker turnaround than most creative agencies. However, many brands struggle to get creative briefs approved by stakeholders and legal with enough time for the influencer to still be available or to ensure they're not rushing the content. (Note it can take up to 10 weeks to see final results on the content).

 "Let's face it, and creative agencies have a very hard time keeping up with the quantity of content that modern media plans require," 

 "Influencers are usually much faster than agencies, but it still takes time to turn around that content." 

 "Influencer marketing is critical for all brands because it's the most effective driver of consideration and conversion." 

 This means that I am already starting to plan holiday campaigns for my clients to ensure there is enough time to source the right influencers and that they have enough time to produce quality creative at the correct quantity. 

Celebrities and Influencer Marketing 

 "The term influencer is used too liberally. Celebrities have to influence, but they aren't influencers. Influencers make something that inspires emotion," 

 A Celebrity endorsement attaches the name, face, and persona of a celebrity to your product. Idolizers of the star will hopefully associate the qualities they like in that celebrity with your brand; influencer marketing is the word of mouth advertising for the modern world. Trusted members already integrated into a niche interest group help bolster and give legitimacy to a product. These people have created a much different relationship with their followers than a fan to celebrity, predicated on the value they bring to them as a source of education, insight, and inspiration.

 Because they are specialists who have built their following around their expertise, they can be a potent brand ally. When influencers recommend a product, they offer a genuine recommendation predicated upon years of gained trust. So, when deciding between celebrity endorsement and influencer marketing, you have to determine what your brand needs more: millions of eyes that may or may not look too hard or a few thousand that are already looking for their wallets. Once you've decided on what type of human marketing tool suits your brand's needs best, you now must determine what this tool looks like and what they do best.

 Celebrity: They come with a big audience, many of whom can only use credit cards for emergencies and even more bots. This is anyone whose autograph is worth at least a few bucks on eBay: athletes, musicians, actors, comedians, etc.

 The Creator: They're the people whose ten-second Instagram videos are better than some summer blockbusters or whose photos make Nat Geo look like a student art project. Their content is what makes them valuable, which means they're already bringing a dedicated and emotional fan base to your brand.

Subject-Matter Experts: Whether it's food, fashion, beauty, or pets, they know everything there is to know about their purview. Their fans consider them the ultimate source of knowledge and trust their opinions emphatically.

 The Personal Brand: What most people think of as influencers. They're well dressed, love inspirational quotes, and seem only to eat kale salads and quinoa bowls. However, these influencers have built themselves up with nothing but charisma and a good filter, which means followers find them aspirational and relatable.

 "Authenticity is key," 

 "Influencer marketing is relatively new, but the time-tested principles of brand marketing still apply. It's critical to stay on-brand and focus on building real connections between brand, talent, and consumer."

Picking the right influencer for the right creative isn't an easy task, and most brands don't have the specific know-how. But if your brand can master this strategy, you'll be able to avoid the pitfalls, which can be the difference between a PR nightmare and a practical, winning campaign.