Ricky Dillon has become more selective about his brand deals. Photo credit: Gage Skidmore
Almost everyone in PR and marketing now recognizes the power and value of social media influencers. Endorsements from bloggers, video producers or celebrities with enormous numbers of social media followers can supercharge PR and marketing campaigns.
Realizing this, many brands are piling into influencer marketing. Influencer campaigns on social media can reach a broad cross-section of demographics – including 55+. Brands have learned, however, that influencer endorsements can be especially effective in reaching young people on youth-oriented, photo-centric social media platforms including Vine, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube and, yes, even Facebook.
A recent poll by the Altimeter Group found that 35% of social media professionals worldwide said they had a well-established influencer relationship management program. Another 19% were in their first year of use, while 32% were planning or piloting influencer relationship management. Only 14% had no interest in doing so.
The Cool Factor
As brands begin to saturate influencers with endorsements, the strategy is encountering headwinds and may begin to falter. More brands employing influencer marketing may dilute its power and increase cynicism among influencers’ social media followers. “The more brands use influencers for marketing campaigns on social platforms like YouTube, Twitter or Instagram, the less impact each influencer has,” writes Sydney Ember of The New York Times. Influencers are rejecting more endorsement requests due to fear of appearing uncool and “selling it,” according to Ember.
Ricky Dillon, a YouTube video personality who has more than 2.5 million subscribers plus millions of Twitter and Instagram followers, posted a photo on Instagram of two Coca-Cola cans — one with the name Ricky on it, the other with Dillon. Most loved the image, but some were cynical. One asked if the photo was a paid advertisement. It was. Dillon had promoted Coke as part of an ad campaign for MTV’s Fandom Awards.
Dillon told the Times that he has become more selective about brand endorsements, saying his partnerships must feel organic. “That is still a big concern for me,” Dillon said. “I pass down a lot of brand deals.”
“Early on, they would almost say yes to everything,” said Ricky Ray Butler, founder of Plaid Social Labs, which connect brands with influencers. “But now, they’re a lot more picky.”
The Key Questions
The Times story highlights important questions. How many endorsements can an influencer accept before losing respect? How many partnerships can an influencer reach without losing respect? What role do PR and marketing personnel have in maintaining influencers’ standing? There are no definite answers.
Influencers can collaborate with as many brands they want to – as long as they do not sell the identity of their blog or personality to the brands. As Ksenia Chabanenko of BizDev & Communications notes in Medium, that’s obviously a vague formula, but a real influencer can feel that invisible boundary.
“The tricky part is to make the brand understand boundaries,” Chabanenko writes. “The future belongs to the brands who can listen to their influencers, and treat them not like product placement platforms, but as equal partners with their own brand identity.”
To build a successful influencer marketing program, companies must maintain a balance between the brand’s promotional interests and the influencer’s need to maintain their identity and their followers’ perception that they are independent and cool.
The key is to find influencers who truly believe in the brand and are pleased to endorse it. As in media relations, influencer marketing campaigns build relationships that are collaborative. The ideal influencer relationship requires admiration on both sides. It also requires careful vetting of the influencer before entering into an endorsement agreement. As social media influencers get picky about endorsing brands, brands must get even pickier in selecting influencers. What Subway endured is no fun.
Bottom Line: Brands continue to pursue influencer marketing with vigor – perhaps too much vigor. Brands that build unnatural relationships with influencers risk undermining the influencer’s credibility with followers, an outcome that harms both the influencer and the brand’s marketing efforts.
What’s your opinion about influencer marketing? Please comment below.
William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, media measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.
