In 2022, we have a very diverse and complex market. Companies are in a constant battle with one another for viewership of media, content, and clicks. Digital marketing has taken on a whole new role when it comes to sales and advertising. With the world literally at everyone’s fingertips in smartphones, tablets, and laptops, industries can create exposure to consumers now more than ever. What better way to get exposure? Influencers.
What is an influencer? An influencer is someone with a large audience. Someone that many people pay attention to and follow closely. An influencer could be in a beauty blogger, makeup guru, or someone who posts funny cat videos on Youtube. The people who share their experience and opinions tend to do so more effectively than large brands because of the authentic closeness that consumers feel towards them. After all, they provide real individuals with open minds an opportunity to try new products, services, and trends.
Influencers can range in age, race, and gender. They vary based on the target demographic that is trying to be reached by the company that hires them. Companies want a relatable influencer so that when they talk about the product, there is a level of trust. A consumer will see their favorite YouTuber or Tik Tok star talking about how much they like the new Chapstick that just came out (for example) and be more likely to want to try the product as they want to emulate their icons. Companies want to expand their social media platforms and reach a wider audience, so they are increasingly hiring these influential individuals. What better way than to bring people on board to teach them about your company so that the image looks authentic?
Lobbyists for certain phrases, products, and services have been a large part of marketing campaigns for years. What is new is the ability for influencers to earn money from this information fed to consumers by companies. This breaks up the barrier between advertising and editorial. Paid forms of media are more controlled by companies and are less opinionated. Sometimes you an easily tell when something is scripted versus when an influencer genuinely enjoys the product that they are using. Both are effective in their own way as both still send a message and are noticed by consumers. Big fans of the influencers will always listen to what their heroes have to say despite a script or not. These relationships are win-win and are always going to be worth it for both sides as long as both parties hold their end of the bargain and results are apparent. If an influencer is not successfully driving traffic to a product, then this can put strain on the professional relationship.
There are many ways that companies can track the success of an influencer in relation to the products they promote. Some of the ways that companies determine success in these marketing channels include but are not limited to: number of clicks, views and engagement on social media shares, and sales.
Influencers have a far greater impact than brand ambassadors or traditional advertising. Brands that use influencers will see higher reach and engagement, while being able to show a more authentic message compared to ads. This can be attributed to the greater level of trust that consumers have in influencer’s voices as they are heard by most people on an almost daily basis.
Influencers can be found all over the digital spectrum. Influencers can be (as we mentioned) YouTubers, and Tik Tok creators, but they can also be on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Tumbler, LinkedIn, and the list goes on. All of these platforms are less than 20 years old, so it is hard to gage long term success of these platforms. Influencing is an even newer concept. The data is not easily able to be captured. Short-term data will be relevant as we mentioned, however it can only take businesses so far. Over the course of 10 years, we do not know how influencers will affect businesses. In order to get a good idea of long-term data, companies can look at the long-term data from the “original” influencers. Celebrity endorsements have been a concept in marketing since the as far back as the 1800s. Celebrities will allow companies to use their name, photos, or even just their likeness. This data can be comparable.
As influencing grows and no longer becomes a new concept, we will be able to see how the long-term effects will go for companies. A lot can go right, and a lot can go wrong. Celebrities can get themselves into a lot of trouble just like anyone else, except when they do something wrong, they are in the spotlight. This begs the question, how much of a negative effect can an influencer’s actions cause? How many news stories will be brought up in relation to them? How many messages will they receive on social media? How many threats, or even physical violence, will they receive just because of their status as a celebrity? That is a major challenge that many “ordinary” people do not understand. There are always going to be additional added stresses.
Being influential is similar to being a celebrity. It comes with benefits and burdens. There is an advantage to having an audience that will listen to what you say and product that you endorse, but there are also some disadvantages. Being put into the spotlight comes with many pressures. It is important for these influencers (many of them young) to keep their composure and do what is right as they are not only representing themselves, but the companies that employ them as well. This is why companies must choose their influencers carefully. The company Young LA, for example is a clothing company that makes fitness apparel. They take on influencers that have a high following in the fitness community. They also double as their clothing models. This allows for familiar faces to be seen when the influencers drive traffic to point-of-sales outlets like their website. This is where familiarity will breed content which increases their chances to close a sale. That is always their main goal.
Relevant influencing is another key to success for a corporation’s sales. Let’s look at another great example of one. New Rockstars is a YouTube channel composed of many different personalities and hosts that discuss what they refer to as “nerd culture” topics. This includes different comic book movies and TV shows as well as other forms of media that back these genres. One of their influencer’s named Evan Voss has recently been adding in an advertisement to his video. The advertisement was for a VPN company (you can go look for yourself as we do not like to oversaturate our blogs with product placements). For those that do not know, VPNs are a way to change your digital location so that you can access restricted website that are blocked or not available in certain countries. If I wanted to stream a movie, but the platform is not available in the United States, I could use the VPN to say that I am in England and the site will think that I am really in that location. This is suitable for their audience as many of them are trying to use these VPN to have access to shows and movies they cannot normally see. The ad fits well.
Influencing is not always easy for the celebrity in question. Icons and stars do enjoy the added benefits of being an influencer, but there are some downfalls. Many times, a company will add in their contract that an influencer has to use the product taht they advertise for exclusively. For example, if someone is an influencer for Starbucks, the company may not want them drinking Dunkin coffee as they may be seen by the public and this could hurt the legitimacy of the ads that they’ve created, or the words said it the ads themselves. This is an added stress for the influencers. This is not a great feature of influencing but there are plenty of other reason to overlook this.
The benefits of influencing far outweigh the hardships. Opinion of the author: this is not a very difficult task to do. To take the 15-30 seconds out of a video to talk about a product seems fairly simple. There is the time that it takes to learn the script given from the company to the influencer, but that usually should not take too long. The same ad can be used multiple times as well, so there is even less work for more money in that sense. An influencer can memorize the same advert and not have to worry about new copy. There is another positive in this as they can perfect their craft by saying the same ad over and over again. This can help the influencer make it seem more natural as well as add their own features to the copy to make it seem more genuine to the consumer.
There are some “out of the box” platforms were influencing has grown in popularity. One of these is Snapchat. Snapchat has a section of the app called “Discover”. In the Discover section, you can watch video that address all different topics ranging from politics through comedy. In this section, influencers are constantly showcasing products and services on behalf of companies. Not to mention that there are ads being shown every 10 seconds (or so) and constantly interrupt the videos that you are trying to watch. That can have an adverse effect of viewers, which we will touch on.
Influencers and advertisers must be careful not to oversaturate the market with their ads. The overexposure of advertisements can make a product appear in a negative way and create the opposite connotation of what the company is trying to instill in the consumer. This can be avoided by doing less ads and not trying to overexpose your product. These risks are incurred by the company, but it is usually a tough call to decide how much you want to expose your product. Usually, the more you put your product out there, the more likely you are to drive traffic and turn sales. So that is the risk that is taken.
Overall, influencing as a whole has become a very popular form of advertising. The more that social media grows, the more influencers will be needed to fit the demands. More social media platforms may pop up in the future as well, and those platforms will have influencers showcasing the latest and greatest products. As long as consumers are utilizing those types of platforms, influencers will be in front of them. It is a very new concept still, but the data will show over the next few years weather or not the longer-term effects will be positive or negative. We hope this blog has given you some good insight into how influencers have become a large part of marketing in 2022.