Your Weekly Influencer Marketing Update 🚀
08.02.2021
☀️ Happy Monday! ☀️
5 Tips to Avoid Influencer Marketing Disasters
It was actually the sub-header “shortcuts in influencer marketing do not equal payoffs”that really caught my eye on this one. I would like to preface that the author makes it very clear that they work for an agency.
Let’s dig into this article and find out what tips are given to make sure your next campaign doesn’t end up a catastrophe.
Beware the “bait and switch”
Partner selection is crucial, and if you’re working with partners/agencies/agents, etc., you may find yourself “lured” in with proposals of fantastic influencers (bait) only for you to find out you can’t afford them, and end up paying an inflated fee for substitute creators that you didn’t want in the first place (switch).
Brand friendliness is important
My personal note here; make sure you utilise influencer tech, doing the below manually will be painstakingly laborious.
The author notes that you should find an influencer agency (..?) that keeps historical tracking of influencers. That you should vet potential influencers and look for controversial posts or bad behaviour. Also (another personal note) make sure to look for the positives.
A successful track record with brands often translates to professionalism from an influencer perspective.
Plan for influencer misbehaviour
Adhering to sponsored post regulations is incredibly important, and it’s important to make sure that you are aligned with the influencer on this to avoid any surprises (or fines). It’s also important to note that influencers are people, they may end up misbehaving socially - don’t let that shock you. Communicate your expectations and put penalties in place.
Draft Reviews
Make sure to put in a process for reviewing and approving content before it goes live.
It's also critical you maintain influencer relationships during the process by not asking for changes that strip away a creator's voice, come off as overly commercial, or alienate the influencer's core audience. The balance can be delicate, but an emphasis on experience and knowledge will help.
Don’t underestimate the amount of time it takes to manage influencers
The author starts off by saying that SaaS platforms have often caused more mess than made things easier, and while this is something I heavily dispute - her point about the fact that influencer marketing shouldn’t be automated is a valid one.
Working with people requires actual people and not automation - there are so many facets of influencer marketing that simply cannot be handled by tech. E.g. negotiations, questions from influencers, approving content, campaign pivots, etc.
Taking shortcuts in influencer marketing do not equal payoffs. Having “smart relationships” combined with a hands-on approach could be your best defence as well as your secret to success.
💡 Our Opinion
There’s a lot of good advice given in this piece, but reading through the entire piece it did come across as a bit of a sales pitch for an influencer agency with a layer of not-so-thinly veiled opposition against SaaS platforms.
A few points of comments / general thoughts on the industry after reading the article in full:
Without tech, influencer marketing cannot be scaled up. While it’s true for the majority of platforms that there is a bit of a disconnect between the people building/working for the tech and those for who it is actually designed, technology does allow for scaleable processes for identification, management and measurement to be put in place that allows brands and agencies to scale up their influencer efforts.
The influencer marketing industry is not as transparent as honest as it should be in 20201. No parties are exempt here. If you disagree - please feel free to get in touch.
People can’t seem to make their mind up when it comes to influencers. As an industry, we need to decide if it is a cash-for-audience exchange that becomes the lifeblood of the influencer economy - or whether it’s longevity and mutual equity. It’s a loaded question for both creators and brands. I see too many conversations focused around “my reach/time/content is worth $” and too few conversations around “What if we worked together on this piece and worked on something that adds long-term value to both our audiences in order to build value that can be turned into $ in the long-term”
🏭 Industry Headlines
Influencer Marketing Strategy Won't Work Without This One Key Ingredient
“However, on the other end of the aisle, we see the influencers who have built followership based on a clearly demonstrated insight, knowledge, and empathy in their field and for their audience. Names such as Felix of PewDiePie and Lena of Panthere_Instyle immediately come to mind after having garnered millions of followers, doing very simple things professionally.”
TikTok takes on Facebook with US ecommerce push
“Last week, TikTok announced its first major deal with an advertising agency, WPP, which will give the London-based ad group early access to its latest ad products, in a move that boosted WPP’s share price and unnerved rival social media groups, according to advertisers.”
"Fake Famous" Doesn’t Understand Influencers At All, But Mocks Them Anyway
“The new HBO documentary sneers at an industry that has been primarily built and run by women while, in some cases, using influencers’ content without their permission.”
TikTok vs Instagram Reels [Infographic]
“It's too early to say whether those efforts will pay off, but recently, The Influencer Marketing Factory conducted its own study to get an idea of comparative engagement and performance of Reels versus TikTok clips.”
Instagram is realizing it's not so easy to knock off TikTok
“Six months later, it isn't taking off in the way the company had hoped. TikTok has outlasted the Trump administration and continues to be popular, with roughly 100 million users in the US, a significant impact on American pop culture and a loyal mix of influencers who don't seem to be going anywhere.Unlike with Stories at this point in its history, Instagram has not released any metrics about Reels so far.”
What is Clubhouse? The invite-only audio chat app used by Elon Musk
Part talkback radio, part conference call, part Houseparty, Clubhouse is a social networking app based on audio-chat. Users can listen in to conversations, interviews and discussions between interesting people on various topics – it is just like tuning in to a podcast but live and with an added layer of exclusivity.