Influence Marketing
What Does This All Mean for Influencer Marketing?
Is this the end of Influencer Marketing as we know it?
According to Influencer Marketing Hub, the influencer marketing industry was projected to grow to approximately $9.7B in 2020. In addition, the number of influencer marketing-focused platforms and agencies has gone from under 200 in 2015 to over 1,100 in 2019.
And then the world changed.
Stories abound across the web about influencers who were, until recently, actively generating tens of thousands of dollars in revenue from major brand sponsorships and partnerships, all of which have gone stone-cold silent. The vast majority of influencer connected events and campaigns have been postponed long term or canceled outright as brands turn their focus to survival, cost-cutting, and government subsidies.
Many influencers have adapted in order to remain engaged with their audiences. Travel bloggers are posting recipes, fashion YouTubers now offer social distancing tips and food Instagrammers have pivoted to sharing insights on how to keep your kids entertained at home.
But this is just the beginning of what may well be a paradigm shift in influencer marketing as we know it.
What’s doing well right now? Live streaming services like Twitch and some interactive fitness influencers offering live workout sessions. TikTok has also seen a significant rise in downloads and engagement is up across all social platforms, which makes perfect sense since everyone is home. Essentially, anything that helps pass the time at home and keep the kids occupied is doing well from an engagement perspective but does that mean people are buying? And does it indicate that influencers are making a living?
The Impact on Influencers
Large scale influencers are being relied upon for PSA’s. Finland has become the first country to deem influencers as essential workers in order to help the dissemination of critical information during the pandemic. The thinking is that influencers are just as important as mainstream media when it comes to getting highly important messages in front of a public audience.
Overall, you can start to see a trend developing here. Influencers are sharing information of public interest or content that is entertaining in order to help people stay engaged but, under the circumstances, the vast majority of influencers aren’t generating income right now nor is there any expectation that this will change in the near future. For some, it may never go back to what was ‘normal’ and if it does, many influencers such as those specializing in hospitality, travel, and events may be forced to consider finding other ways to generate revenue streams.
All in all, staying relevant and top of mind through any form of content sharing may be important for influencers in the short term but eventually, the bills need to be paid.
Time to Reinvent?
The reinvention of oneself as an influencer may be easier said than done. For many who are involved in the industry, blogging and influencer marketing is all they know. This is their livelihood. This is still a relatively new industry that until a few years ago did not exist. It is comprised of hard-working people who have known no other career or in the case of certain verticals such as travel, we have seen hobby bloggers successfully turn a passion into a career of influencer marketing.
If you’re a food blogger who has been setting off to destinations as part of your everyday work, you are now asking yourself what comes next?
If there is an opportunity here, it lies in your ability as an influencer to evaluate the current situation in order to determine whether or not the steps you are taking today are going to create long term viability and sustainability for your personal brand. And perhaps the question you need to start by asking is whether you are actually a brand in the traditional sense or you are running an influencer business. That question may help influencers determine if they truly have staying power once this all passes.
Brands sustain themselves throughout difficult times because they have recognition and history. They deliver value, address problems or satisfy needs. Influencer marketing has created a different inflection for the term ‘brand’. The moment a writer launches a journey to become an influencer they talk about their ‘brand’. But are you really a brand to your clients or are you a service provider at a specific point in time?
There is only one Coke, one McDonald’s, One Disney. Yes, there are alternatives to these product brands but when it comes to influencers, there are many fashion, beauty and wellness bloggers. As things return to normal, many influencers will find out if they are truly an indispensable brand in the eyes of their partners.
The Impact on the Industry
There are dozens of influencer marketing platforms ranging from free models with limited search capabilities to enterprise offerings with extensive search, outreach and program management capabilities.
During the last economic downturn in 2008, a large number of martech platforms ceased to exist or were forced to enter into mergers with competitors in order to survive. A repeat of these events will likely be expedited in the influencer martech space given the speed and magnitude with which the industry has been devastated.
The numbers tell the story. If, for example, there were 10,000 ongoing influencer campaigns spread across 1,000 agencies and platforms and now there are 1,000 or, to be generous, even 3,000 campaigns, some agencies and platforms will be left behind. Which ones survive will be dictated by a combination of factors such as the strength of their management team, cash reserves and access to capital (maintaining and managing tech platforms requires personnel and resources), the size of their influencer database (a valued asset for potential suitors assuming these same influencers can weather the storm), the nature of their clients (to what degree have they impacted by the shutdown and how fast can they recover), the speed with which theses agencies and platforms can adapt to the current environment (if at all possible), and the ability to identify alternative sources of revenues and service offerings during this period.
In the weeks and months ahead, look for platforms to disappear and merge. Mergers will ultimately lead to even better technologies and an evolution of the industry.
The Takeaway
If there’s one thing right now that’s certain about the influencer industry it’s that the future is uncertain. The road ahead will be very rocky and the short term will be painful in the best of scenarios.
For influencers who understand that the industry may be forever changed, you can start to plan for the pending landscape and reevaluate the services you offer your clients and the ways in which you offer those services. Consider partnering with other influencers to mitigate challenges and risks and start thinking outside your comfort zone if you want to reinvent yourself and evolve beyond your traditional expertise.
For those operating on the tech side of the industry, be prepared to challenge for a smaller piece of real estate. With fewer opportunities expected in the vertical, now may be the time to also consider strategic partnerships and a more thorough vetting of your influencer database in order to provide industry-leading quality to your customers.
The industry has changed. Be prepared to do likewise.
How to Identify Influencers in 3 Easy Steps
Influencer Marketing has taken the consumer market by storm. However, a report by Meltwater finds that 35% of companies admit that their biggest challenge is identifying influencers.
Influencer is a broad term for anyone who creates audience-centric content that appeals to the average consumer and forms a relationship of genuine trust and relatability. Influencers create high-quality original content that organically attracts targeted visitors, generating new leads for your company. A study conducted in Canada estimated that Millennials and Gen Z consumers are 48% more likely to buy from a brand retailer who collaborated with influencers.
So how do we identify the right influencers to get key messaging for our brand out into the open?
We apply the concept of Search, Vet, Select.
INFLUENCER SEARCH
In order to facilitate your search for valuable content creators, using a combination of search methods is usually crucial to building a quality list. There are many software tools available for use online that often have great filtering abilities, access to a wide range of social channels, as well as complex crawling capabilities to keep their statistics up to date.
However, these technologies can be expensive, and there is no one single tool that can solve all of your influencer identification and outreach needs. For this reason, software tools are best supplemented by a classic Google search and other forms of good old fashioned manual searching. This does take a commitment of time but there are a number of online resources that provide extensive lists of quality influencers, ready-to-go and free of charge.
Finally, a manual search on platforms such as Instagram and YouTube can often help you discover niche-oriented influencers. Conduct these searches using relevant hashtags and keywords to uncover micro-influencers with highly engaged audiences.
PRO TIP: Instagram’s ‘similar accounts’ tab will lead you to comparable influencer pages.
Don’t forget, depending on your influencer needs, it is recommended that you switch-up your search methods to suit your requirements. For example, beauty bloggers are typically much more prevalent on YouTube and Instagram, but you won’t necessarily go looking for a corporate HR community there. Your choice of tool(s) should always reflect your goal(s).
INFLUENCER VETTING
Once you’ve started to locate relevant influencers, the crucial vetting process begins. Finding influencers with high levels of engagement with their audience, regular and up-to-date posting, and reliability as potential business associates are paramount.
Engagement may include things like total likes, high levels of post comments and quality influencer replies to their audience. Is your influencer engaging their audience? Are they creating genuine, organic conversation? These things encourage an authentic and quality group of followers who are more likely to convert into buyers following product recommendations or reviews.
Case Study – Instagram Star with 2 Million Followers Can’t Sell 36 T-Shirts
From a business perspective, it’s important to vet the influencer as a person to ensure that they are reliable, loyal to your brand, and professional in the workplace. You will be creating a working relationship with these individuals, and therefore it is essential that you only consider influencers with high levels of professionalism.
Lastly, it’s important to ensure the influencer’s channel is not completely drowning in sponsored content. Though this isn’t necessarily a negative attribute, this lack of vetting can lead you into a relationship with an influencer who is becoming less and less believable. A quality audience can often see right through sponsored, non-genuine content, and this can hurt the relationship your brand will hold with your future followers.
INFLUENCER SELECTION
After conducting your search process and vetting all influencers of interest, you can make your selection based on a final set of criteria that will ensure a positive relationship moving forward.
It’s important that you feel a positive connection to the influencer from the start. This helps ensure that any content they create for your brand is already in line with your goals. Verify any previous campaigns and their level of success; this is an influencers resume. Finally, leveraging people who have a pre-existing brand affinity for your product is invaluable. The influencer already knows and admires you and this will help to ensure quality content creation.
You are now ready to start the outreach process and utilize your dynamic collection of influencers to its fullest extent.
PRO TIP: Ensure that you have reliable data verifying and tracking metrics in place to measure the success of each campaign.
More Bad News for Snapchat [Infographic]
Things have been tough for Snapchat lately, and recent data shows that things are going to get tougher.
Instagram Stories arrived on the scene with a bang and has shown no signs of slowing since its launch. That has consistently spelled bad news for Snapchat, which seems to struggle more and more against the Facebook product every week. Now, new data from Mediakix shows that influencers are abandoning Snapchat for Instagram, and not in small numbers. Top influencers registered a roughly one-third drop in the frequency with which they post Stories. They’re moving over to Instagram for that. Take a look at the infographic below to see more data and get a better sense of how these two platforms are competing.
How to Win Friends and Influence People (On Social Media)
This article was originally shared to CoreyPadveen.com.
Almost 80 years after its first run, the tenets from Dale Carnegie hold true. (With a few notable differences.)
From the greatest businesspeople in the world (Warren Buffett still has his certificate from Carnegie’s course) to the not-so-impressive (Charles Manson reportedly used these techniques to influence his followers) people have found value in Carnegie’s lessons in How to Win Friends and Influence People. Today, on social media, a lot of this still applies. But some adaptation is needed for the modern era of communication.
How to Handle Your Fans and Followers
In order to properly handle members of your community, it is important that you not criticize, condemn or complain about them. You should also regularly show your appreciation for those members. That is especially true on social media.
Letting your fans and followers know that you appreciate their involvement in your community goes a very long way. One brand in particular that does this well is Cadbury. Here is one of the gestures they made to show their appreciation:
Making People ‘Like’ You
Now, the term ‘Like’ means something somewhat different on a social network like Facebook than what Carnegie had in mind, but the concept still holds up.
Of the six core traits that will lead to people liking you, there are a few that are particularly important on social media. First, developing a genuine interest in your fans and listening to what they have to say will improve the personal connection they have to your brand. What’s more, sending personalized messages using users’ names will be an important component of your communications strategy on social as well.
The idea of making people feel important when you talk to them is paramount when it comes to improving the customer experience. I don’t want to feel like ‘just another customer’ when I reach out to a brand. Even if that might be the case, I, the customer, should feel like the only person that matters when engaged with a brand online.
Winning People with the Way You Think (Your Brand’s Message)
“The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.” Truer words have seldom been spoken.
As a brand, the moment your start to argue with a customer on social media, you’re wrong. It doesn’t matter how right you are, you’re wrong. It is important to know when you’ve been beaten, and when to walk away. Getting into a debate is not worth the harm it will almost certainly cause.
Often times, when a customer is upset, they simply want to be acknowledged and heard. Social media can be that platform. Simply letting a customer voice their displeasure and responding in a respectful way can be a major factor in turning them into a brand advocate, rather than a detractor.
Turning a complaint into a constructive conversation about how your products or services can be improved is beneficial for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that your business can improve its operations as a result.
Conclusion
If you haven’t read through Carnegie’s book, and you or your brand spend time talking to people (which you almost certainly do) it is worth a read. While there is some content that is dated, there is clearly a lot of information that can help you better communicate with your community on social media (and other forms of communication).
This article was originally shared to CoreyPadveen.com.
4 Methods to Build Your Influence on Social Media
When it comes to growing your social business, one thing you’re going to want to leverage is your influence on social media.
Influence on social media can be valuable to helping build your brand online. But attaining a level of influence on social media that makes an impact with your target audience can be a tough thing to accomplish.
Though there are several ways to go about building your influence on social media, these are a few techniques that can help you get there much sooner rather than later.
Write What You Know Best
It has been proven time and time again that blogging can be a hugely valuable online asset. One way to build your credibility online is to write avidly on a topic you know a whole lot about.
While some studies have shown that writing multiple blogs per day can have exceptional SEO value, it is not a necessity for every brand. What you really want to do is write periodically when you know you have a great bit of content that will resonate with the audience you’re trying to reach.
What’s more, you’ll want to ensure that when you write, you’re as detailed as possible. The best rule to follow is a 70-30 split; share 70% of your knowledge and leave your audience wanting that extra 30%. This is an excellent technique for building influence, credibility and driving new business all with one technique.
Answer Questions
On sites like Quora, Blurtit and Yahoo!, people are asking questions hoping, in some cases, that an expert will provide them with an answer. Spend some time on these sites and share your insights. It will certainly be noticed.
Sites like these are ideally designed to let you showcase your expertise. People are asking questions to which you might be able to provide a detailed answer. The key in a case like this is being as detailed as possible.
Unlike a tweet or even a Facebook post, people are posting to these sites because they want a detailed answer. So take some time and really provide your audience with as much of your insights as possible. They will be more than happy to take the time to read it.
Produce and Share Instructional Videos
If you’ve ever visited our YouTube channel, then you might have seen our Q&A with t2 video segment. There, we answer questions that have come in on networks like Twitter or LinkedIn from our audience.
These have proven to be excellent resources for building credibility. Again, this is an area that is ideal for sharing expertise. Look at any content direction recommendations, and you will almost always see a recommendation that suggests the use of videos. Your audience like to see, not always read.
Videos are an excellent way of getting valuable information to your audience, humanizing your brand with the face of an employee, and, of course, building your influence and authority.
Interview Experts
Expert interviews carry a lot of weight. That is particularly true when it comes to building credibility and establishing your own level of expertise.
When an audience sees that you have the clout to command an interview with an industry expert, the impression left is one that reflects on your own expertise. There is an understanding that if you can carry a conversation with an established expert, you must be an expert yourself.
Whenever you get a chance, conduct interviews – either on your blog, on YouTube or in a podcast format – and your audience will see it as a reflection on your own industry influence.
Conclusion
There are several ways to build your credibility online and establish your brand as an industry or thought leader, and as the examples above indicate, a key part of that is dedication.
It takes time and involvement to grow influence on social media. But when you take that time and partake in these activities, your influence on social media will grow at a much faster rate.
How do you build influence on social media? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!
Demographics of the Top Pinterest Influencers [INFOGRAPHIC]
What are the key demographics of the top Pinterest influencers?
Influence is a powerful phenomenon in any industry, and that is particularly true on social media. The folks at HelloSociety have done some research to determine exactly what the demographic composition is of the top 100 Pinterest influencers.
Not surprisingly, they concluded that the majority of these tastemakers are women in major American markets with a higher education (much like the largest demographic of active Pinterest users). What is interesting, however, is that these Pinterest influencers are regularly active on the network, sharing several pieces of content per day and generating a ton of engagement.
Have a look and see if there are any surprises that catch your eye! Tell us about them in the comments below or on Twitter!
6 Criteria for Identifying Social Influence
What makes up social influence and how can you identify your industry’s influencers?
Building social influence can be extremely valuable. When people see you as a thought leader, your brand, personal and Social Equity all spike. But sometimes, leveraging other industry influencers can be just as powerful. But how can we identify social influence for a particular industry?
Though every definition of social influence might be unique – after all, influence is a pretty subjective concept – there are some criteria that, on social, are clear signs of an influencer. When determining the social influencers in your industry, keep a few of these aspects in mind.
1. Following
Virtually any marketer would tell you that it’s all about quality over quantity when it comes to an audience, and that, for the most part, is true. That said, quantity is important, too.
Your industry’s influencers will surely have a strong following. You don’t become an influencer when only a handful of people are interested in what you have to say. But keep in mind that black hat techniques are not all that penalized in the world of social (yet) as they are in search. So verify the quality of an apparent influencer’s large following by ensuring that audience members include other industry peers, and that engagement is consistent.
Speaking of which…
2. Engagement
People should be regularly sharing and talking about the content that an influencer posts. Keep in mind that engagement does not have to be measured in the tens of thousands of shares, tweets and comments. So long as engagement is consistent and relatively strong, you might just have an influencer on your hands.
Again, however, it is important to ensure that the quality of the engagement is positive as well. Note the audience members engaging with the content. Are they relevant to the conversation or industry? Are they employees of this ‘influencer’? If so, you might not be dealing with an individual as influential as they might want to be.
3. Message Consistency
True influence generally means thought leadership. Thought leadership often means that you start conversations that no one else has had and stick to your guns.
The message and rhetoric of an influencer should be consistent and sound. Going back and forth on a point is not a sign of a great thought leader. Sometimes an influencer might face criticism, and have to defend their point of view. That’s all well and good so long as they stick by the message that created the social influence they have.
4. Respect of Best Practices
True influence means understanding the platforms on which one is most active. This translates into a mutual respect for an audience and the adherence to a network or platform’s best practices.
If an ‘influencer’ on Facebook has a poorly designed page and shares nothing but spammy links, but happens to have generated a following, you might want to consider looking for thought leaders elsewhere. Best practices are in place because the industry has spoken and the majority has expressed their wants. True influencers understand that and abide by those guidelines.
5. Up-to-Date
When a major change, breakthrough, deal or update is announced in your industry, your influencers should be among the first to comment, discuss or simply bring up the news.
Having influence means keeping your ear to the ground and being first-to-market on social platforms when there is something important to discuss. This does not mean that an influencer should be breaking the news, but they should be aware of it and, depending on the industry, have an opinion or an analysis of what that means for the industry as a whole.
6. Practitioner of Own Advice
If you are reading an email marketing influencer’s blog and they tell you to keep your subject lines clear and concise, then proceed to send you emails with spammy, cryptic subject lines, you are likely not dealing with a thought leader.
Building influence means that you have done the leg work and found what works in your industry. Therefore, an influencer should be practicing what he or she preaches.
What criteria helps you determine social influence in your industry? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!
8 Criteria for Determining Your Target Audience
To find success with social, you need to cater your content to a target audience.
Finding your target audience on social can sometimes be a challenge. We know whom we are targeting when it comes to selling our product, but what are our goals when it comes to social, and what audience do we need to target in order to achieve those goals? This is where the challenge comes into play.
The targeting capabilities that exist with social are so advanced that they allow you to create a target market right down to the specific interest. Therefore, we need to evaluate a few key criteria when choosing our target audience so as not to send out our message to an inattentive audience.
These 8 criteria are some of the more important ones to consider when it comes to selecting a target audience for your content on social platforms. Some might seem obvious, but remember that with the exactitude with which we can target our message on these media, they are important to answer with as much specificity as possible.
Age
Though it seems like an obvious criteria to consider, knowing the specific age range of the audience that you are looking to target will help you build your social presence on networks where you know your audience is most active.
Gender
Men and women are not necessarily engaging in the same activities in the same places on social media. Building a successful content strategy will be heavily influenced by the gender with which you are trying to engage.
Education
You will not be drafting the same content for PhDs as you will for college freshmen. They are simply interested in different things.
Industry
This can be broad or highly specified, but it should certainly be a consideration, particularly if you are creating a content strategy as a B2B.
Job Function
If you want to engage the C-suite, you’ll need to appeal to the issues they care about most. To craft a successful content strategy, figure out exactly who you are targeting in the organization and craft a strategy designed to target their needs.
Interests
Take a step back and look at the content you are trying to share. What category of interests does it fall into? Figure that out to properly position that content in front of the eyes of the right audience.
Influence
Are you looking to target industry and thought leaders or would you prefer to establish yourself as the industry leader? Both have their benefits.
Marital Status
Priorities change when family comes into the picture, and you should decide if your product or service is better marketed to single or married consumers.
Building a target profile is also a very helpful exercise. Determine your ideal customer based around these criteria and build a content strategy geared towards peaking his or her interests.
For Example
Jane Smith is a 41-year-old married woman with 2 children and 18 years of experience in the field of product marketing. She has held a job at the Manager level for over a decade following the successful completion of her MBA. She is interested in running and hiking and likes pages and accounts on social media with a focus on branding. She does not have a blog herself, but she often comments on influential blogs in the field of marketing and advertising.
Try it for yourself. What does your target audience member look like? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!
Op-Ed: You’re Only as Good as Your Worst Interaction
Managing your reputation on social media is an integral part of any comprehensive social business strategy.
If you are not paying attention to the perception of your brand by audiences, then you are forgetting about one of the most important features that makes a social business successful. The management of your reputation on social media is a living organism, and you need to pay it regular attention.
One of the realities of doing business is that the larger we grow, the more likely we are to encounter that individual that doesn’t like our product, our service, or simply has a bad experience. And what happens then? Well, a recent study by ZenDesk shows that 95% of customers who have a bad experience tell someone about it, compared to 87% who shared a good experience. Maybe we just like to tell others about our suffering, but the fact remains that you can be sure that a customer who has a poor experience with your company is going to go out there and tell the world. And it is now much easier than ever before.
And so we come to the title of this article: your brand is only as good as your worst public interaction. What did an angry customer have to say about your brand? How did you handle it? Your reputation on social media – on every platform from Facebook to Yelp! – is going to be affected in a much greater way by how you handle your unhappy customers than how you handle the satisfied ones.
The Intelligent Traveler
Put yourself in the customers’ shoes. Let’s say you are planning a trip and you are considering staying at one of two hotels. Assume the prices and amenities are all the same. Well, if you are like 65% of online travellers, then seeing a management’s response to comments on a social channel like TripAdvisor would sway you to book with the responding hotel. (Google, January, 2013)
People like the idea of accountability, and when you avoid dealing with issues head on, you are hurting your reputation on social media. Owning up to your brand’s mistakes, and showing people that you are taking strides to both remedy situations as they arise and prevent them from ever occurring again goes a very long way.
Nobody Cares What You Did Right
When you are buying a product on eBay, and you see that a seller has a rating of 99% from 100 buyers, are you going to care about the 99 people that said, “Great job! Fast delivery! Recommend seller!”? Or would you be more concerned with finding that one comment that reads, “Item was not as described. Seller did not respond to questions. Would not recommend.”? Probably the second one.
You can do something right a thousand times, but that one time that things go wrong, people will remember it. It is here that you need to shine. It is easy to handle happy customers. How you handle unhappy customers on public forums is what is going to influence future buyers.
The Ostrich Never Dealt with Social Media
Burying your head in the sand while people speak out against your service or brand might have worked back in the days of phone and mail. But now, when people can reach out to networks of thousands, you had better be ready to respond. Clearly, ostriches never had to deal with issues on social media.
Have a plan in place for every plausible scenario. You need to know the Dos and Do Nots for handling crises and unhappy customers before you have to deal with crises and unhappy customers. The last thing you want to do is learn from your mistakes when your mistakes have already resulted in consumers making up their minds. Read up and do the research on the mistakes of others and devise strategies for managing your reputation on social media from these.
It might not be an ideal situation, but the fact is that your brand is only as good as it’s worst interaction on social media. This is where people are going to do their research; consumers trust each other, not your brand. But you can change that by properly managing your brand’s reputation on social media!
Find out more about becoming a social business and managing your reputation on social media here.
Do you research products and services on social channels before making a decision? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!
