Influencer Marketing is Changing Quickly, Is Your Marketing Team Ready?

Influencer marketing is splintering into multiple but related activities, each one demanding certain skill sets but requiring differing metrics in order to measure return on investment (ROI). Because of this, many companies are struggling over who should control or “own” influencer marketing inside their organization.

Is it an advertising, public relations (PR) or a marketing function?

Should multiple teams share responsibility, or should there be a designated team that centralizes control?

I encounter this question often with my corporate clients – and it’s not always easily answered because of how they are organized.

Therefore, when I read Relatable’s recent global brand study, The State of Influencer Marketing 2019, I was interested to see this:

“There have been reports stating that the average influencer marketing campaign involves no less than 8 different teams in larger organizations– and the PR vs Marketing team debate is common amongst both small and large companies.”

Does this sound familiar?  Is your organization struggling with which team should “own” influencer marketing too?

The confusion stems from the fact that influencer marketing has become a generic term covering a range of activities.

Although these activities are similar, even related, each requires certain skills to execute and metrics to measure accurately.

The activities break down into three main buckets:

1. Media buys (advertising)
2. Influencer relations (PR)
3. Influencer marketing

In this post, you’ll learn about each of these activities, why they require certain skills in order to handle properly and the metrics needed to measure them.  I’ll also explain which team inside your organization should handle your influence marketing activities and why.

Let’s get to it.

Influencer marketing is a confusing term

Let’s be clear, over the last couple of years influencer marketing has become a confusing term.

For example, who or what is an influencer?

These days, anyone with a social following is considered an influencer: Fashion models, industry analysts, Rap stars, YouTubers, Instagrammers, bloggers, business consultants, corporate executives, and celebrities.

Then add into the mix terms made-up by influencer platforms in order to sell you their services: Micro influencers, nano influencers, and macro influencers.

Even better, some influencers prefer to be known as content creators, bloggers, mommy bloggers, vloggers – and the list goes on.

I think you see what I mean.

While influencer marketing has never been a precise term, it’s become muddled as more brands and marketers have jumped in to take advantage of it.

But hold on, it gets worse:

Have you ever noticed how influencer marketing gets discussed depending on where you hang out online?

For example:

On LinkedIn, influencer marketing is largely discussed by professional marketers working for agencies or brands. Conversations there focus on news, trends and best practices.

Facebook and Instagram, on the other hand, are totally different.

There you’ll encounter entrepreneurs and Internet marketers using influencers to drive traffic to Shopify stores, webinars to hawk their courses and sell affiliate products.

And the only social platform they talk about is Instagram.

They see it as a media buy, a form of direct marketing and an alternative to using Facebook ads.

And that’s something else the Relatable study goes into…

Facebook ads are getting more expensive, so marketers of all stripes are looking for alternatives.

Money follows opportunity and right now that’s focused on influencers.

So all the interest in influencer marketing makes sense, but it’s also created confusion.

Influencer advertising and media buys

Relatable’s report focuses on how brands are working with influencers on social channels like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

What their survey doesn’t tell you is that much of the influencer activity on those platforms is focused on advertising – media buys.

That’s direct marketing.

It’s measurable and it’s straight forward:

Find some influencers with big follower counts and pitch them to publish a post or a series of posts about your product or service for a fee.

It’s not much different than renting space on a billboard only this one faces your target audience rather than the world at large.

So, what’s your take away here?

Media buys are transactional and center on the money.

The influencers aren’t necessarily interested in your brand or your products – they’re doing it because they’re being paid.

In some cases, the influencers don’t even create the copy for the posts, its written for them by the brand’s agency or marketing staff.

Take a look at this example:

Behavior like this defeats the entire notion of influencer marketing because the influencer’s authenticity is undermined (albeit willingly), and the audience is taken for granted.

Instead, influencer marketing is about working with them to co-create content and leveraging the relationship they have with their audience.

It’s about inspiring, persuading and speaking to your target audience with personality – in a way most brands can’t.

Activity like the example above is purely transactional, it’s pay-to-play.

I don’t mean to suggest that advertising with influencers is wrong or incorrect.

It can be useful and profitable, so use it if it makes sense for you.

The point here is to understand the activity itself, so you can set your expectations, leverage the right internal team to handle it and use the right metrics to measure your results.

Since this is direct marketing, use CRM to track the traffic directed to your landing page or Shopify store.

You’ll see who drove the traffic, how many carts were abandoned, and products sold.

If it’s a webinar, you can track hits to the landing page, registrations, drop-offs and more.

Therefore, if your influencer advertising buy falls flat, it doesn’t mean your foray into influencer marketing failed.

Your media buy did.

Influencer Relations: Is it marketing or PR?

Ever invite the press to one of your company’s events? What about pitching them to meet with your executives or brief them on a new product offering?

PR people are familiar with these activities.

They’re similar even if you are working with influencers instead of journalists.

It’s why PR teams believe they have the skills to work with influencers.

However, what many people in PR don’t realize is that influencers conduct themselves differently than journalists do.

While reporters are often guarded, not likely to share information and primarily interested in the news of the day, influencers are collaborative, more open about what interests them and not tied to news.  Many, especially in the B2B arena, likely have a deeper understanding of your industry and business too.

Once PR people understand this, they can handle influencers as well in these situations.

It’s all in the mindset and approach.

As to measurement, the typical PR metrics work because these activities are about driving awareness.

So metrics like impressions, web site hits, social shares, likes, comments, the number of content pieces produced and share of voice all apply.

Influencer marketing is about attention

Influencer marketing is like dating.  You don’t begin by asking for the sale at the first communication. You earn the right by introducing yourself, exchanging information and experiences, and getting to know one another.

One of the main drivers of influencer marketing is the low cost of connecting with people and establishing relationships.  As you work with influencers, little by little, story by story, message by message, you resonate and impact your consumers more and more.

So marketing through influencers requires a different mindset, one of cooperation and partnering.

You co-create content together that tells your story in a personalized way and opens new vistas of opportunity by getting you something that most marketing strategies are bad at:

Getting attention.

And attention is scarce. It’s at a premium.

Therefore, influencers give you the privilege of delivering personal and relevant messages to people who you want to receive them.

Their followers will pay attention.

This is how you get beyond selling and start marketing. It’s how you set your brand apart.

As to measuring the ROI of your influencer campaigns, it requires a mix of quantitative and qualitative metrics – all of which I’ve talked about before.

Who should own influencer marketing inside your company?

Owning and maintaining relationships is key.

PR controls contact with the press within most companies.  They know and understand each reporter, how they operate, what they like to cover, and whether they are troublemakers or not. Controlling access to reporters is necessary for maintaining an orderly presence and brand message with the press.

It’s the same with influencer marketing.  Someone must own and maintain the relationships with the influencers.

I don’t mean to imply that other teams inside your organization can’t reach out to the influencers but there has to be a central team or person who coordinates activities.  If there isn’t, then things are disorganized, the influencers get confused and your company comes off looking badly.

Now, which team is best suited to control the influencer marketing activities?  I believe the marketing team is best equipped because working with influencers is primarily a marketing function.  It goes beyond awareness activities and involves co-creating content that should be leveraged by inserting it into many of your company’s marketing materials — digital and hard copy.

Now I’m turning it over to you:

How do you see influencer marketing changing?

Are you ready to handle these changes inside your organization?

Or maybe your company is wrestling with other issues with influencers that supersede these?

Either way, let me know in the comments section below.