Q: I'm writing a blog post about the problems & challenges "Influencer Marketing"

Hello Rand,

I actually spent 2017 building a product around this. We didn't get it to market due to some technical/data issues, but I wouldn't mind having a call with you to share my findings and connect you to the network we built at the time. My email is jasondnice@gmail.com

I think Influencer Marketing is a very good concept. Its simply Referral Marketing based Online. And Referral Marketing has one of the highest ROIs. Now our research identified that there is a bit of a decline of ROI when Influencers have larger followings. Think: an Influencer is Anyone who can influence someone else. The highest ROIs are Referrals between friends and experts. Such that, smaller influencers may actually have higher ROIs than larger influencers. This is mainly because a target market (the followers) 's diversity of interests grows when you have more people in the market and they may not be following for the same reasons. Whereas niche groups are usually smaller and do follow for a very specific reason. Now I might be talking myself in circles so its better if I just get straight to the data we collected than for me to explain it further.

Since this Referral Marketing is based online, it is fairly low cost to reach massive scale. So price per adopter is smaller. You can also attach URL links to drive sales directly after the influencer posts and collect more accurate data from this technical relation or attach discounts to the product. Mainly, you can do a lot more with the analytics so that Influencer Marketing is actually more transparent and accurate for use cases.

Additionally, I find that its a lot like the Truman Show. Products are placed in photos like they're supposed to be there naturally. Sometimes people get more involved by trying to show off the product or do videos, but this may be more work than its worth. GoPro is actually a good example of influencer marketing (though since none of the videos were paid for, its not truly classed as influencer marketing): ie: extreme sport enthusiasts create crazy videos using GoPro cameras. Then show these on youtube and tell others to use a GoPro. GoPro then build this into their marketing strategy and with brand ads, they showed shots of their client's videos promoting the power of their product. Though in my opinion, smartphone cameras are better cameras and since everyone has a smartphone, do they really need a GoPro?

Research also noted that there was a bit of a gray area in telling consumers that these were actually ads and hashes like #ad and #sponsored are the legal elements for making consumers aware that the content was an actual ad. Now I think there should be a better way of implementing this because the #s are glimpsed over and aren't effective in protecting consumers (why we have the legal rules in place). So I think platforms will need to integrate Influencer Marketing into their list of advertising offerings and provide new ways of showing this content that does not relate to just an instagram post (which is limited on how you show content). But this is more difficult for platforms to do because this marketing segment is in its infancy - although its much like celebrity marketing - and the legal ramifications around it are there. Perhaps a SaaS service and API for platforms to integrate may be better? But from a service standpoint, it may be more difficult to regulate and you may run into a bit of legal action because you have amateurs operating the marketing channel.

So we are possibly going to build a boutique influencer agency, because influencer marketing is a profitable market and lots of influencers are millennials like me who like to share their lifestyles with others who want that lifestyle. I also like this type of advertising content better than other brand ads as they are more creative, clean, and have an intimate support element (comments on posts that lead to conversations with the influencer and possibly the brand about the product) that is not easily duplicated by Brands support / chat bots. Because of this difficulty, no influencer marketing platform or company has a large share of the market and until formal standards and training are created, there will likely be many participants fighting for the marketing dollars companies are pouring into it. Although these same companies will have a difficulty creating long term campaigns because they need to invest a lot of time and effort into it - even bringing on influencer like they do with models and managing those influencer's themselves. A lot of rock climbers are actually doing this with outdoor retail lines for some extra cash while they climb. In this case the industry is a bit more like journalism than marketing where content is king.

Please let me know via email if you want to connect and have a call.

Say something nice to randfish…

2

(I've never tried Influencer Marketing) But my biggest question is around the authenticity of the audience this person has "influence" over. With so many growth hacks and purchased followers/likes, how can you determine where you'll get real and qualified leads/traffic from?

DavePoly

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8 years ago
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1. 1
  
  There are ways to find this data out. I know a few if you are interested.
  
  nice1
  
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  8 years ago
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1

Hello Rand,

I actually spent 2017 building a product around this. We didn't get it to market due to some technical/data issues, but I wouldn't mind having a call with you to share my findings and connect you to the network we built at the time. My email is jasondnice@gmail.com

I think Influencer Marketing is a very good concept. Its simply Referral Marketing based Online. And Referral Marketing has one of the highest ROIs. Now our research identified that there is a bit of a decline of ROI when Influencers have larger followings. Think: an Influencer is Anyone who can influence someone else. The highest ROIs are Referrals between friends and experts. Such that, smaller influencers may actually have higher ROIs than larger influencers. This is mainly because a target market (the followers) 's diversity of interests grows when you have more people in the market and they may not be following for the same reasons. Whereas niche groups are usually smaller and do follow for a very specific reason. Now I might be talking myself in circles so its better if I just get straight to the data we collected than for me to explain it further.

Since this Referral Marketing is based online, it is fairly low cost to reach massive scale. So price per adopter is smaller. You can also attach URL links to drive sales directly after the influencer posts and collect more accurate data from this technical relation or attach discounts to the product. Mainly, you can do a lot more with the analytics so that Influencer Marketing is actually more transparent and accurate for use cases.

Additionally, I find that its a lot like the Truman Show. Products are placed in photos like they're supposed to be there naturally. Sometimes people get more involved by trying to show off the product or do videos, but this may be more work than its worth. GoPro is actually a good example of influencer marketing (though since none of the videos were paid for, its not truly classed as influencer marketing): ie: extreme sport enthusiasts create crazy videos using GoPro cameras. Then show these on youtube and tell others to use a GoPro. GoPro then build this into their marketing strategy and with brand ads, they showed shots of their client's videos promoting the power of their product. Though in my opinion, smartphone cameras are better cameras and since everyone has a smartphone, do they really need a GoPro?

Research also noted that there was a bit of a gray area in telling consumers that these were actually ads and hashes like #ad and #sponsored are the legal elements for making consumers aware that the content was an actual ad. Now I think there should be a better way of implementing this because the #s are glimpsed over and aren't effective in protecting consumers (why we have the legal rules in place). So I think platforms will need to integrate Influencer Marketing into their list of advertising offerings and provide new ways of showing this content that does not relate to just an instagram post (which is limited on how you show content). But this is more difficult for platforms to do because this marketing segment is in its infancy - although its much like celebrity marketing - and the legal ramifications around it are there. Perhaps a SaaS service and API for platforms to integrate may be better? But from a service standpoint, it may be more difficult to regulate and you may run into a bit of legal action because you have amateurs operating the marketing channel.

So we are possibly going to build a boutique influencer agency, because influencer marketing is a profitable market and lots of influencers are millennials like me who like to share their lifestyles with others who want that lifestyle. I also like this type of advertising content better than other brand ads as they are more creative, clean, and have an intimate support element (comments on posts that lead to conversations with the influencer and possibly the brand about the product) that is not easily duplicated by Brands support / chat bots. Because of this difficulty, no influencer marketing platform or company has a large share of the market and until formal standards and training are created, there will likely be many participants fighting for the marketing dollars companies are pouring into it. Although these same companies will have a difficulty creating long term campaigns because they need to invest a lot of time and effort into it - even bringing on influencer like they do with models and managing those influencer's themselves. A lot of rock climbers are actually doing this with outdoor retail lines for some extra cash while they climb. In this case the industry is a bit more like journalism than marketing where content is king.

Please let me know via email if you want to connect and have a call.

nice1

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8 years ago
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1

Brands will likely move toward working with smaller-scale influencers where engagement and authenticity is really high. This is a great article on the concept of 'nano-influencers':

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/11/business/media/nanoinfluencers-instagram-influencers.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes

AviSilverberg

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8 years ago
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