Are influencers evil?

Short answer: No for most of them… but read through and get some advice on how to approach influencer marketing.

With TikTok usage booming, Facebook getting back on track, and Instagram becoming the norm, I see influencers everywhere. Sure, this is my line of work now, but Influencer Marketing has been around forever. Boomer like to call it “word-of-mouth”. The digitalization of this old habit is logical and going through the same pitfall has any change in medium: an excess of content, mistakes in the message, no barrier to entry, black-sheeps, unethical practices,…

Where we have been failing as marketers and brands is that we misunderstood the opportunity. Remember when Facebook launched in 2006/2007 (maybe not, but I do), brands rushed to benefit from the traction of this new channel but used it as a promotional channel, a new format of web page. It took some time to get used to understanding the communities, the type of content expected, and how to cater to our audiences.

With influencers, brands behaved like when they were approaching talents or celebrities. Find someone with a huge and relevant audience and the job is done. Giving the false promise of money to be made quickly, audience being everything, content just a mean to an end. A rush started, teenagers and young adults were asking parents to be on Instagram and ditching their studies to make a quick buck. We opened the pandora box. Influencers communities started growing as fast as the networks they were in, they began building real IPs (Intellectual Properties), selling their image to the highest bidder. As users, consumers, and followers, we saw these behaviors and started building the image of a lazy youngster, spending her.his time taking selfies everywhere and living a luxurious life showered with free products.

Of course, seeing “random” people build huge communities “overnight” is a vastly spread image of the influencers. The reality is very different. An influencer is first and foremost a content creator. Someone with an editorial line and building stories around it, driving attention from an audience sharing similar interests. With this growing audience, they are in constant pressure to create new content, always more creative, unique, or well documented, their audience looking for novelty, expertise, and authenticity.

The 3 factors that most motivate influencers to collaborate with brands: . 28% of influencers are motivated by working with brands they like . 26% of content creators want to test new products for free . 25% of influencers want to create content for their social networks networks

When asking our community (over 3.5k respondents) what they crave for, most of them replied that working with brands was a way to have new content, unique stories to tell. Money wasn’t a driver. Passion was. In fact, for 77% of the influencers questioned being a content creator is a passion or a hobby.

And passion is conveyed through content and storytelling. It is not a matter of simply showing a product, it is a matter of sharing a consumer experience.

As marketer, we are now stepping back and moving away from macro-influencers, who rightly serve the objective of brand awareness but miss the mark when it comes to engagement. “Micro and nano influencers” are now the key to leveraging word-of-mouth. The secret sauce? Building trust with the content creators that matches our brand value, that knows and loves our products. Their audiences will be smaller, but you can reach out to many of them and the level of engagement is up to 6 times better.

Brands must understand the importance of matching the right profile, doing their homework when reaching out to them. Spend time reading the feed, comments, looking at relevancy, and authenticity. Approach with care, you are not the only one trying to get their attention. Show your values, why there is a fit, what to expect… It is the same game as hiring employees for your company. Lastly, leave some room for them to express their identity, a person can only thrive and shine if you give him.her the opportunity to do so, you must accept to have a brief that is not too strict.

Ultimately, you build a pool of brand ambassadors that you will manage all year long, bringing new members on a regular basis to renew your audience and expand to new territories.

“Influencers” might be seen as evil but when they are “content creators”, they serve a positive purpose and can be leveraged by brands to have a real discussion with their audience, understand expectations, test new products, collect reviews, etc. The versatility of Influencer Marketing is limitless. The years to come will see nano influence becoming king and consumers sharing their views on products or brands a critical path towards buying a product.

Influencer Marketing is dead, long live Influencer Marketing.

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.