Influencers: Dead or alive?

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Many traditional business professionals may be asking what an influencer is, the long and the short of it is that they are the ones your kid is following on social media and trying to imitate, whether it be with regards to their purchase decisions or lifestyle choices. It is usually because of this influencer that your bank account keeps deteriorating.

I influence you, therefore, I am!

Graham Deneys, Dentsu  31 Aug 2018

Influencer campaigns

Influencer campaigns have become the preferred and most effective way for brands to connect with their core target audiences. This is due simply to the fact that the younger generation is tired of generic advertising trying to target them through “lame commercials” and advertising.

You might ask what makes an influencer campaign different from one of these cheesy adverts and the answer is a simple one and can be related to the idea of The American Dream. The reader or the consumer feels that they too can be like the influencer, as they are real-life people that portray an aspirational and affluent lifestyle, and all they need to do is follow in their footsteps.

The reality of the matter is that most millennial and Generation Z consumers identify with the idea that the more followers you have, the more popular you are and the more you are accepted within your peer groups. This belief alone drives the trends that the influencers establish, creating a circle of circulated content.

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Best fit for the brand

What makes this such a strong form of marketing is the ease with which this content can be shared with family, friends and colleagues on the various social networking platforms. Allowing those followers to become the channel of the entire campaign or message.

The biggest challenge facing brands when it comes to influencer marketing is finding the best influencer(s) with the best fit for the brand.

However what brands need to remember is that these influencers know their audience and what content will work on their platforms, which means brands need to give the overall goal but leave the content creation up to the influencer themselves.

Going viral to an audience that is relevant

Many brands look for the formula for viral content and influencers have become the best solution, as not only is your content going viral, it is going viral to an audience that is relevant in your market if the right influencer is chosen.

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Businesses are wanting to grow and expand; thus, new consumer conversion has become pivotal to the survival of any business and for most influencers have become the affordable and perfect solution to this challenge. The challenge that brands face is finding the right influencers, this is not a game of spray and pray, but rather of sniper elite marketing campaigns that bring the right consumer to the right brand without any overkill or wasted cost.

At the end of the day, some brands will benefit from influencer campaigns and others will not, however, the failure is not due to the influencer or their “dying” breed, but rather due to ineffective influencer partnerships or brands trying to dictate what type of content the influencer can post about.