 Doug Simon |
A Google search of “What’s Wrong with Influencer Marketing?” generates more than 28 million results. Influencer Marketing is popular because it works, but clearly there are problems with the way it’s currently being practiced. Are you building long term value? Are you putting your brand’s trust and authenticity at risk?
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As practiced today, we’ll see the law of diminishing returns take effect with influencer marketing. As Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia says “marketers ruin everything.” As we go from the Kardashians to micro-influencers, what could go wrong?
It’s time to flip the script on the traditional approach to influencer marketing. Instead of working with influencers as brand reps, we need to be promoting our own experts. We need to redefine influencer marketing.
According to the 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer, trust for business is 27% higher than trust for government and 21% higher than trust for media. NGOs are even more trusted. So, why are we risking our authenticity by putting our brand’s reputation in the hands of outside influencers? Is there a smarter way to partner with influencers to grow your brand and your influence without the risk?
Andy Polansky, CEO at Weber Shandwick noted “the strong link between corporate reputation and CEO engagement” in a recent press release. This approach builds long term value for your organization. This approach builds authenticity and trust.
Surprisingly, turning your experts into influencers also helps to earn media across platforms. The D S Simon Media Brand Video Communications Report found, your in-house experts outperform third-party spokespeople. In the report, 200 brand communicators were surveyed. 84% of them reported being satisfied or very satisfied with their own expert’s ability to earn media, more than double the level when using outside experts. PR agency people also found in-house experts outperformed outside spokespeople. This matches our internal results when clients feature in-house experts during Influencer Media Tours. Perhaps it’s time to remember the forgotten influencer inside your organization.
But do outside influencers still have a role? Yes. Instead of working with influencers as brand reps, we recommend partnering with them as media bringing your experts to their audiences without the risk. These outside influencers can amplify your message by interacting with your experts, via video and sharing the content with their audiences on Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram or Twitter as well as traditional broadcast channels. This provides a safe harbor for your brand while building the amount of influence your expert or leader has — all key factors for growth.
Here are some tactics that work With Influencer Media Tours your spokespeople will be interviewed by influencers on television, radio, online and through social media channels. Influencer Media Packages provide custom content with your experts directly to influencers in your space. As part of an Influencer Video Series, your in-house expert engages in conversations with key opinion leaders, business prospects and online influencers to expand your reach. Some other useful tools are Influencer Junkets and Digital Press Conferences that allow you to generate media coverage around the globe. With any approach authenticity is key and leveraging your internal experts is more cost-effective and ensures your brand messaging is delivered in the most reliable way possible.
Leaders at major brands understand the power of an authentic spokesperson. We recently worked with the Head of Products at Check Point Software Technologies, Michael Shaulov, who served as the spokesperson for his company’s recent media outreach. He had this to say about the benefits of using internal leaders as spokespeople: “Dealing with customers, we are in the field, we are in the ecosystem day and night. When we talk about those topics we are way more credible then someone you might bring from outside because we can bring real examples that we’ve experienced over the last couple of weeks, relevant information that we’ve captured from our customers. With the industry today, this goes way better than anything else.” Nicole Hayes, an in-house spokesperson for Toys’R’Us also said “We truly value what we do in bringing our expert toy opinions and baby opinions to media so you get that inside look and that true expert opinion from us directly.”
D S Simon Media is partnering with equities.com, House Party, Inc, Looksmart and The DGTL Advisors to amplify messages. Our influencer marketing division has these tips to get the best results:
• Treat third-party influencers like media instead of a brand rep to amplify your expert’s message without the risk
• Invite media and influencers to have a conversation with your leader via video that can be shared by all parties
• Create custom video content with your experts designed to be distributed by specific influencers
• Create video series where your experts interact with influencers
• Post video featuring your experts on your social media platforms that can be used as a tool to pitch the media and promote initiatives.
• Remember you save money using an in-house expert. Use that to expand reach.
Something needs to change. We’ve seen many examples of how influencer marketing can go wrong. Take for example Disney’s alignment with YouTube megastar Pewdiepie. Earlier this year, reports surfaced of anti-Semitic content in Pewdiepie’s videos and Disney had to quickly distance themselves to protect its brand.
Bad behavior is not the only risk. Third-party influencers hired by brands as media spokespeople can be less familiar with the story and more prone to error and misstatements. During a partnership with Adidas last year, supermodel Naomi Campbell accidentally copied and pasted an entire email from the Adidas marketing team in the caption of an Instagram post that read: “Naomi, so nice to see you in good spirits!!! Could you put something like: Thanks to my friend @gary.aspden and all at adidas — loving these adidas 350 SPZL from the adidas Spezial range. 😘 😘 💜 ✊ @adidasoriginals.” A lack of authenticity in influencer marketing is going to be a growing concern.
Increasingly, your key audiences value trust and authenticity. Your own experts and leaders know the story and subject matter. They need far less training and are less likely to be flustered by an unexpected question. By investing in your own people instead of outside experts you are positioning your organization for long-term growth. You can create content that feeds your social media eco-system. You can provide a platform for your leadership. Your leaders are the forgotten influencers no more.
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Doug Simon is CEO of D S Simon Media, an influencer marketing company.
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