Cut the fluff: Why’s everyone buzzing about influencer marketing?

Simple, it’s the alternative to the ad spend burnout.

Here’s what you’ll learn

To listen to the podcast, click the image below:

The 411 on influencer marketing

Old-school marketing: “Hey world, look how awesome I am!”

Influencer marketing: “Hey world, listen to them tell you how awesome I am.”

Bottom line?

Peer recommendations resonate.

Your friend raving about a book has more pull than an ad, right?

People trust people.

How influencer marketing evolved to become what it is now

It all began with the bloggers.

Simple platforms.

Powerful reach.

And when social media giants like Facebook and Twitter rolled in? Kaboom!

Suddenly, everyone’s their own media powerhouse.

The game’s changed, and the media landscape?

Well, it’s vast and varied now.

Why every smart business needs influencers

Here are the main points to remember:

1. Economical: Compared to traditional PR and ads, this packs more punch dollar for dollar.
2. Precision: Know your ideal customer? Influencers can dial right into that sweet spot because they already have their attention.
3. It’s Personal: People buy from people, not ads.

Influencer collaboration 101

The name of the game: Relationship Building.

Think of it as planting seeds for a future harvest.

Know, trust, repeat.

Steps to ace it:

1. Pin down your ideal customer, aka “customer avatar”.
2. Scout for influencers who resonate with your target crowd.
3. Approach and collaborate. And hey, it’s not just about some Insta stories. Co-create content, get product reviews, gain insights, and so much more. It’s versatile.

Value Exchange: It’s not one-sided.

Whether it’s monetary compensation or a valuable product, respect the collaboration.

And hey, think big! How about an influencer advisory board for constant insights?

Influencers are the pulse of the market. The insights do they offer?

Pure gold. Forget splurging on traditional focus groups.

With influencers, you’ve got a direct line to the pulse of your target audiences.

Ready to roll?

I’m here to guide your business to greatness through influencers. Let’s chat strategy. Any questions? You know where to find me.

Contact me if you have any questions.

Updated September, 2023

The post Why Influencer Marketing is Hot and How You Can Use It appeared first on // 551 Media LLC.

Let’s start with a little background about you. What do you focus on as an influencer?

My primary interest as an influencer is in helping people find the right technology to address their specific needs.

In the consumer space, that means helping people find apps and gadgets that allow them to express themselves creatively.

From an enterprise computing perspective, I try to learn as much as I can about software and infrastructure solutions so I can help point people in the right direction when they look at solving bigger picture business challenges.

How did you get started?

No one talked about influence when I was starting out.

Way back in 2001, I started writing about some of the challenges I was facing with audio and video production for the web.

My biggest motivation at that time was to document how I solved something so I wouldn’t need to remember how to do it the next time.

My writing quickly became a blog where I would post detailed how-to tutorials explaining how I solved something, so the next time I needed to do that same task I had a cheat sheet for what I did.

It turned out that other people found my how-to content useful and questions started pouring in.

The questions resulted in a steady stream of topics for me to write about.

As I gained a reputation for providing reliable information, individuals and companies reached out to me to help them solve problems, which translated into more writing, video tutorials and consulting opportunities.

My own needs for knowledge changed over time and I started looking at how to solve bigger problems, which is how I got more deeply involved in enterprise IT topics.

You cover a lot of ground as an influencer … B2C, B2B as well as video … what is your favorite and why?

My favorite subject to geek out about is probably content distribution – figuring out how to connect audiences with great content.

That actually touches on both the B2C and B2B worlds.

Part of the reason I make videos and write about both B2C and B2B is that I love aspects of both.

At the end of the day, all of us, from the CEOs of the world’s largest companies down to the barista at your local coffee shop are consumers.

Beyond just recommending the latest gadget or talking about cool apps I find useful, I think about how consumer-focused tech also impacts the way we do business.

On the B2B side, I like looking at ways to solve really big problems.

B2C doesn’t operate at the same scale, so getting the opportunity to understand how B2B products solve big problems is also exciting to me.

I see that you work with many brands and get invited to events by them to cover topics and products, so what advice can you give marketers about how to work with influencers like you?

Get to know the people you want to work with.

Read a few of the things they’ve written or watch some of their videos before you approach them with a pitch. And don’t try to force an unrelated product into their niche.

I can’t tell you how many times I get emails from people who will try to interest me in a product that has nothing to do with any of the topics I’m interested in!

What advice can you give to other influencers who would like to work with brands as you do?

Be professional. Be prepared. And don’t only focus on getting paid.

What I mean by that is prepare for any engagement with a business like it’s a real meeting, because it is.

That might mean simply reading the last couple blog posts from a company or it might mean installing their app and using it before you meet.

You’ll get more out the engagements and the brands will be more likely to take you seriously.

As for the getting paid part, we all need to make a living, but I do a lot of things with brands because I either really believe in the product or because there’s some amount of fun to be had.

Too many people who are currently calling themselves influencers are only looking at how they can get paid for talking about a product, whether they actually love the product or not.

Do you have any pet peeves about working with marketers or brands? If so, what are they?

This goes back to my earlier answer, but marketers frequently try to make broad leaps about my interests without actually getting to know me first.

I get plenty of emails from marketers who will start by saying something like, “I saw your article about GoPro, I think you’d really like our robotic teddy bear.”

That’s pretty tone-deaf.

What do you look for in a brand when working with them? Do you look for a certain attitude or focus?

The product needs to be something I would use myself. If I wouldn’t use it or recommend it to someone as a solution to a problem, I won’t work with a brand.

In the B2B space, that means I need to be able to see some value that solves a business need.

I might not personally have that business need, but I need to have a clear understanding of who does and how the product solves that need.

In the consumer space, it means the product needs to be something I would actually be willing to spend my own money on.

The people representing the brand are incredibly important as well.

In general, I look for people that I’d want to talk to me more than once.

Ideally they are people that I’d love to spend time with over coffee or a beer if we happen to be in the same city.

I’d rather work with brands that I can work with for a long time than do a one-off just because the company has a budget this quarter that they are trying to burn.

Any horror stories when working with a brand on a project (no need to name the brand)?

I can thankfully say I haven’t had any true horror stories.

I think that’s partly because I’m incredibly picky about who I’m willing to work with, so I avoid some of the potential problems by doing a thorough job of vetting up front.

I’m sure you get approached by brands frequently. Do you have a set of requirements you look for when working with a brand?

My two primary requirements are wrapped up in two simple questions:

Is the product something I would actually use myself?

If not, I will pass on the opportunity, no matter how much money is offered.

Is the company looking to create a relationship with me or are they simply hoping they can goose their quarterly numbers?

If the company is looking for a quick hit, I’m probably not the right person for them to work with.

What trends do you see emerging that influencers and brands should be aware of?

Probably the biggest thing I see right now is the need to be more transparent in disclosing the relationships with brands.

The FTC has started cracking down on influencers who aren’t being open about why they are talking about a particular product.

Influencers who were behaving ethically and disclosing their relationships already won’t notice any difference, but I think there are definitely folks out there who haven’t been forthcoming about their relationships.

What aspect of being an influencer is the most rewarding to you?

The most rewarding thing for me is the occasional unsolicited “thank yous” I get from people who read and watch my stuff.

I love helping people.

Do you have any thoughts on the state of influence marketing at this point in time?

I think the term “influencer” has been a little polluted recently.

Sometimes that means a celebrity like Kim Kardashian, when really what someone means, in that case, is they want a celebrity endorsement.

Sometimes influencer means paid product reviewer.

Brand representatives who are looking to have a real impact via influence marketing should be thinking about how to find people who are passionate about their products and have the potential to convince others that the product is as great as the influencer thinks it is.

At the end of the day, if the people you engage cannot help move your potential customers off the fence and get them to make a purchase, then they don’t actually have any influence.

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The post Interview: Jake Ludington Reveals Being an Influencer Is About Connecting People appeared first on // 551 Media LLC.

I think my readers and viewers would describe me as a gadget/tech reviewer, while brands and marketing types would describe me as a tech or video influencer.

For me, though, I am really someone who loves consumer electronics and is passionate enough about it to write about the subject and make videos about them because I want to share that passion with others.

I’m just a guy who loves gadgets with a big personality!

Is Gear Live your full-time job or is it more of a passion project?

It’s both.

Gear Live is much more than a full-time job.

It’s a company in its own right, and as an entrepreneur, and video influencer, I face all the challenges that any other business owner comes up against.

The thing about entrepreneurship, though, is in the vast majority of cases, the business owner is doing what they love.

To do this, requires passion, though.

I am kind of a one-stop shop, in that, I pretty much do it all – I don’t have a staff.

Most people think I sit around all day playing with toys and then writing about them at my leisure.

Or they think that making a great YouTube video is as simple as pointing a camera at a smartphone, hitting record, and talking.

It takes much more than that to keep people engaged and interested in content.

As an example, the other day I posted a video that was about 6 minutes in length.

That video took about 4 hours of shooting, and another 3 hours of editing before it was ready to be shared.

And that doesn’t include the upload process, the social sharing, and the writing of the content that will live alongside the video!

The magic is in making something that is hard and takes a lot of time look effortless.

How did you get started building your audience?  What steps did you follow?

I wouldn’t say there was really a specific audience-building strategy, other than making content that I’d like to see.

When I create something, it has to be something that I would be interested in watching or reading.

So my audience is people who are fans of things I am a fan of, and people who are interested in the things I am interested in.

That turns out to be early adopters of consumer electronics, with a good overlap in the gaming space as well.

That was the start.

As time went on and more people found my videos, either through my fans sharing them on social networks or emailing them to friends, my audience expanded to people who were more generally interested in personal technology – after all, who doesn’t have a smartphone these days?

Just because you own one doesn’t mean you’re an expert.

When you are seeking out tips and tricks, the best apps to download, or which device to upgrade to next, my content is helpful because it’s useful from the research perspective … like when you want to make a purchase.

It’s not just entertainment for like-minded gadget fans.

In the world of YouTube, which do you consider most important, subscribers or views and why?

I focus more on views myself.

I want to get my videos seen by people who are interested in seeing them, or who would be helped by them.

The subscriber count doesn’t mean much in my opinion, because it is so easily gamed, and is also done at a whim.

Someone can hit the subscribe button and then never see your videos again simply because they weren’t on YouTube when it showed up at the top of their feed, or for other algorithmic reasons.

So, I would rather than 1 million views and 0 subscribers than 1 million subscribers and 0 views.

Do you use a marketing strategy to grow your audience? If yes, what is that strategy?

The only strategy I employ is to make sure I make videos that I think people will want to see.

Think of the audience before you make the video and plan out exactly how you will get the point across and how it would best be received.

Keep your audience in mind.

From there, I make sure to share it across the social and influencer networks that I am a part of.

All of my Twitter followers, Facebook followers, Instagram followers…just because a person follows me on one platform doesn’t mean that they follow me on all, or that they subscribe to my YouTube channel.

I make sure to go out to the people, rather than expecting the people to come to me.

That’s how a real video influencer has to think.

How important is having a video “go viral” to subscriber growth?

If you are asking how important a viral video is to getting your subscriber number to grow, I guess it would do a good job at that – but I don’t know that it is really meaningful in any way.

A video going viral is normally because of something about that one, specific video.

How often do you hear the term “viral video” compared to the term “viral channel”?

Viral videos are kind of like fads. People like them for a while and then they disappear. I am more about staying power and consistency.

Do you have a video crew who helps with your production or do you do production and appear on camera?

I do it all.

I’m behind the camera setting up shots and making sure things look good, that the colors are right and the white balance is on point.

I do the staging of the area where the video will be shot to make it look interesting.

Of course, I am on camera talking about whatever needs to be explained and showing up as the face of my brand.

When all is said and done, I am also the one at the workstation editing the video and trying to turn a couple of hours of footage into a nicely packaged 4-10-minute compelling video.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be that way though.

If you are great on camera but don’t know anything about editing or shooting, you can get help in those areas.

I just personally like to be involved in each step of the process because it all interests me.

How important is having the right gear to being successful at online video?

You definitely need to have the right gear – it’s important. I’ll give you a quick rundown of all the gear you need as a bare minimum in order to be successful on YouTube:

A video camera.

That’s it.

No, really. That’s all it takes.

Does your smartphone record video and audio?

Perfect, then you have the ability to shoot a video and upload it to YouTube.

No one has ever seen someone’s video and then said to themselves:

“Before I conclude that this person is a success, I need to take inventory of what gear they used in order to produce this. Only then can I determine their worthiness of success.”

No one does that.

Some of the most-watched videos were shot using a cell phone.

Don’t get caught up in the gear aspect, and it is very easy to spend a bunch of money on expensive cameras, lights, editing workstations, lenses, microphones, and the like.

Forget all that.

Just get started with what you have, and grow from there.

If you could improve one thing about your current video strategy, what would it be?

I love creating content and talking tech – and I’d love to remove any other barriers that require my attention that are also necessary.

For example, I have an accountant who handles business finances because I’m no accountant and I’d rather an expert deal with that.

Another area that would help with videos specifically is having someone who can handle my sales and sponsorships.

The process is time-consuming and takes me away from the camera but it has to be done.

What’s your advice for people looking to get started? What should a newbie focus on first?

Just start.

That’s it.

There are so many lists out there for what you need to do to get started on YouTube or in video or with blogging.

The longer the list gets, the more intimidating it looks.

My advice is to just use what you have, record something, and upload it.

Get used to doing it.  Make it a habit.  Post on a regular schedule.

Don’t worry about the views, the subscribers, the comments, or anything else.

Don’t compare yourself to other channels or other people.

Just start doing it, and get used to it, and things will start to make sense.

You’ll start to get a knack for things, you’ll see what works for you and what doesn’t.

The hardest part is just getting started!

Got a comment or question? Pop in the comments below.

The post Video Influencer Andru Edwards of Gear Live: Putting the Audience First appeared first on // 551 Media LLC.