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What is influencer marketing?
4 Plays1 year ago
In this episode of the On Your Mic podcast, Ashley Monk discusses the evolution and significance of influencer marketing in the creator economy. She explores the differences between influencers and creators, the impact of platforms like TikTok, and the value of influencer marketing across various industries. The conversation emphasizes the importance of leveraging influencers to build brand trust and credibility, while also addressing the challenges and considerations in pricing and campaign management. Takeaways
- Influencer marketing has evolved significantly since the early 2000s.
- TikTok has democratized the ability to go viral for creators.
- Influencers leverage their credibility to endorse brands.
- Creators focus on storytelling and may not show their faces.
- Pricing for influencer marketing can vary widely.
- Influencers help brands tap into new markets and build trust.
- Influencer marketing is effective across various industries, including B2B and healthcare.
- Creators can be more cost-effective than traditional influencers.
- Using influencers with paid media enhances brand connection.
- Building trust through influencer marketing is a long-term strategy.
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
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Welcome to the Anya Mike podcast, a podcast where we discuss the ins and outs of marketing, running a business and tips and tricks the industry may just not be telling you, but we will.
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If you're looking for inspiration on exactly how to grow your business with ambition, innovation and confidence while creating maximum impact to influence your clients like never before, you're in the right place.
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Grab your AirPods, pen, paper, or laptop, and let's get on your mic.
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Get set and grow.
Meet CEO Ashley Monk
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And now, here's your host on the mic, CEO Ashley Monk.
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Welcome back to the Anya Mike
Influencer Economy Overview
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podcast.
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And we are talking about the influencer and the creator economy today.
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What is it?
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How do we use it?
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Why does it matter?
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Because I might change your mind depending on what brand or what industry you're in.
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And how can we deploy it in ways that we might not have thought possible?
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I'm going to make the argument that no matter what industry you're in, no matter what brand you are a part of, that there is value here for you to explore.
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So what is influencer marketing?
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Way back in the early 2000s, and maybe I'm dating myself here because some of you listening might not even have been born yet, we really used to see the birth, so to speak, of the influencer economy.
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When social media came out, this was in the form of brand deals with celebrities, with athletes, with people that were really well known and had some form of notoriety.
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And so brands leverage that for collaborations.
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I mean, this is way older than just the social media days, but that was really when we started to see brands come on social media and therefore use and leverage these brand
The Rise of TikTok and Viral Opportunities
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deals.
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But after that, something new happened really in the post pandemic era, tick tock came out.
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And this short form video era, I mean, it used to be back in the 20, back in the 2010s.
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We used to see you would be, you would be able to get thousands of followers and maybe kind of close to a million, but we really didn't see very many people crack a million followers.
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But TikTok changed the game of social media forever.
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It really did because this is the first time where it was no longer gatecapped for people to be able to go viral just based on quality, which made it addictive.
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for creators to come back and create more videos, more and more and more to build a following.
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And so really the influencer marketing era was born and it's coming to maturity today to a degree, to a degree.
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And so during that period, we had so many influencers.
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So as I define an influencer, someone that's coming to leverage their credibility and their audience for the sake of endorsing a brand.
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That is how I would define an influencer.
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But we have creators today.
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We have micro influencers.
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There's so many different realms.
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So
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And what is the difference between an influencer and a creator?
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An influencer, as I mentioned, is going to be someone that's using their own notoriety and their fame to be able to endorse a brand.
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And so their reputation of endorsing that brand is going to essentially be impacted when they do either for better or for worse based on the brand.
Creators vs. Influencers: Defining Roles
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But a creator is a little bit different.
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A creator doesn't always have to leverage their name, their face, their namesake, whatever it may be for a brand.
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They could just create a video, not post it to their channels, not even show their faces and give it to someone.
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Actually, about 60% of Gen Z defines themselves as a creator.
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And so these creators are people that are creating content, telling a story.
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They can be an influencer, but they're really identifying in that storytelling element of the narrative.
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And now a lot of times people are thinking, oh, influencer marketing is overpriced.
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And sometimes it can be.
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This is an industry that is newer and that is still, it's somewhat matured, but not really.
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We're still seeing rates.
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We're still seeing things level.
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You'll see rates from like $50 to $100 a video for someone that they might have a huge following, but maybe don't have business savvy and they're pricing themselves in that market or overpaying for 30,000, 50,000, thousands of dollars based on their following, their engagement rate.
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other tactics.
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And so you're going to see prices and you're going to see areas all across the board for influencers and creators.
The Strategic Benefits of Influencer Marketing
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So why should we use an influencer?
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Well, really an influencer is going to help you tap into a new market, leverage credibility behind something or a brand that maybe has not seen the best reputation.
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It's going to help expose you to a new audience and build trust more quickly.
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And it's going to associate a human element with your brand to make it easier for people to know, like, and trust you.
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That is the power of an influencer.
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Oftentimes when people question rates, which I do think you can overpay for an influencer, depending on your audience and your campaign goals, you have to remember that they are staking their reputation on you.
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They're betting on you and they're also trying to really create and serve and add value to their audience.
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And so...
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If they're being mindful and doing their job well, they're not going to take too many brand deals.
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They're going to probably raise their price so that they can maintain that trust and credibility and give you really good content.
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Because when you're hiring an influencer, you have to remember you're almost hiring a midi agency or a video commercial.
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There's got to be a campaign objective.
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They're going to have to film.
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There's going to be correspondence, project managing for your brand stakeholders.
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They're going to have to make edits and revisions.
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They're going to have to post it to their audience and they're going to report back.
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So it's not just posting something on social media.
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There really is some campaign planning.
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And especially if you're going to use it as a part of something larger there and you're asking them to create creative direction, there's a lot that goes into that.
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And so you need to decide.
Influencer Marketing Beyond Consumer Products
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Here's the deal, though.
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I can see influencer marketing work across so many different industries.
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A lot of times people associate it with just business to consumer, B2C marketing, product based marketing.
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I've seen it work well in higher education, healthcare, B2B tech, and so many different areas because I've seen it on LinkedIn.
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I have a friend that has someone that has credibility and connections in their industry, and that person will go ahead and leverage having this person create posts every now and then about their company as an ambassador.
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That gets them leads every time.
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That's an influencer.
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And I've seen it work with higher ed.
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We have case studies where
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We have found personalities, students that are on different campuses advocating for the college experience being a rite of passage, famous admissions counselors that are well-known and viral doing unbiased reviews.
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There's so many ways you could deploy this for patients.
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We can talk about moms.
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This one's a little trickier with HIPAA.
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So we've gotten very, very creative with how to be intentional and also compliant, but bringing in people to advocate for the patient experience.
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So these are all ways that we can use influencers.
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What's a creator though?
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A creator is going to maybe even create something for you faceless.
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They might not...
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leverage their reputation, you might not even know their name and that's okay.
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I know for one client, that's as simple as somebody doing product opens and reveals without showing their face.
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And so a creator is probably going to be way more reasonably priced than an influencer because you're not hinging on that credibility.
Integrating Influencer Content with Paid Media
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Both of these, the gold standard is to use them with paid media.
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So you can take this creative and you can actually get advertising rights to advertise with it because it feels more human.
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It creates a connection and it really ties this close proximity to your brand.
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So
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I want to know what surprised you about influencer marketing that you didn't know and are you leveraging it?
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Because if not, I really think that you should, even though it can be hard to report back on the metrics that are going to quantify this over time.
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It is just like any other brand play to build trust and credibility long term for your organization.
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And I think it is something that has added value to you.
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I want to know what you thought of this episode.
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I want to know what you think.
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Be sure to comment back.
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Give us feedback.
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We are recreating the show based on your feedback.
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So if you talk, we will listen.
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All right.
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That's all we have for today.
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We'll see you next time.
Final Thoughts and Call to Action
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Thanks for joining us this week on the Anya Mike podcast.
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We'd love to hear from you.
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Make sure to visit our website, anyamark.com, where you can subscribe and never miss a show.
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While you're at it, if you found value in this episode, be sure to drop us a five-star review on iTunes and share the show with a friend to help us to continue to influence more people to create maximum impact.
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Tune in for next week's episode, and we'll see you then.