WTF is influencer marketing? quick reads sponsored by DIGIDAY | WTF is influencer marketing 1 Table of contents 03 What is influencer marketing? 08 Regulations 04 Early digital influencers 09 The future 05 Spend 11 Glossary 07 Macro vs micro DIGIDAY | WTF is influencer marketing 2 What is influencer marketing? Influencer marketing isn’t new. It’s been with us in one form As always, the waters are murky. The complexity of or another at least since Lucille Ball started shilling for Jell-O platforms and networks has spawned an industry devoted on post-war radio. But influencer marketing—the use of a to connecting brands with the talent they need to get celebrity or other influential person to promote a product or the word out. But who should brands hire? Where should brand—isn’t nearly as simple as it was in days of yore. There’s they engage? How should they measure success? only so far that brands can go with a commercial or a wide Stop spinning. WTF is here to help. marketing message. In this era of social media stars and micro-influencers, the very definition of an influencer has changed radically. To reach difficult demographics, sometimes the only way to go is to tap into a network of individuals who have the trust, or the admiration, of the target consumers. Today, influencer marketing could mean anything from tapping a Kardashian to boost your makeup brand to landing an influential YouTuber for a branded video. DIGIDAY | WTF is influencer marketing 3 Early digital influencers Influencer marketing in its current digital form took hold in regulations governing just what and how paid bloggers and the early 2000s alongside the blogosphere. Enthusiasts other influencers could endorse. Meanwhile, much of the around a wide range of topics—from health and fitness to influencer marketing sector would move to social media automotive to tech—captured audiences with self-published where celebrity and niche influencers were racking up writing on the web, amassing a devoted following in the audiences in the millions on platforms like Twitter, Instagram, process. Brands didn’t miss the opportunity to reach out, YouTube and Vine. offering these early influencers everything from cash to free samples in exchange for a favorable post. It was a valuable transaction in the early days of the web, when many content creators operated as unpaid amateurs. The following years would bring with them a host of DIGIDAY | WTF is influencer marketing 4 Spend Social influencers can command massive fees, grabbing up seen brands up their budget for influencers,” said Brendan a sizable chunk of the average digital marketing budget. Gahan, founder of video influencer marketing firm Epic Signal. A-list influencers like Kylie Jenner and Selena Gomez can bill “In many cases getting an influencer to share your message is as much as $550,000 for a single Instagram post. Prices for the only way you’re really going to have a voice with younger more down-market digital influencers vary widely, from a few millennials and teenagers, and it’s having a big impact with hundred dollars for an Instagram product placement to tens moms, parents and enthusiasts, too.” of thousands for a custom video. Prices are also based on the size of the individual creator’s audience and the depth “We threw too much money at of their reach. According to research conducted by Augure, them and did it too quickly.” more money is set to flow into the influencer space. The study found that 61 percent of advertisers plan to increase Ultimately it may come down to a shift in the type of spending on influencer campaigns in 2016. influencers brands value. The same anonymous exec Still, there are some lingering doubts about the value of suggested that brands have begun looking more closely at influencers. In an anonymous interview with Digiday a social the quality of content creators’ work and audience, rather than media executive suggested that influencer pricing has spiraled just the size of their audience. Micro-influencers, with tightly without corresponding ROI to support it. “We threw too honed but highly engaged audiences, look likely to benefit. much money at them and did it too quickly. So in 2014, they Further Reading were making $500 to show up and take some photos. Then it Capitalizing on Digital Influencer in Retail - Deloitte became $1,500. Now it’s hundreds of thousands of dollars.” That perspective is far from universal though. “We’ve definitely DIGIDAY | WTF is influencer marketing 5 GET YOUR BRAND HEARD TapInfluence helps brands get heard by tapping into the power of digital influencers. Data-led and tech-powered, TapInfluence boosts market share and amplifies revenue growth by delivering scalable reach, consumer trust, and unprecedented 11X ROI. “Working with TapInfluence gives us the tools to find the right influencers to advocate for our brands. The platform allows us to track actual, real-time results, which means no more estimates! And since the content lives beyond the campaign we continue to see engagement Lori Ulanoff and value grow over time.” Trusted by: #getheard #influencermarketing Macro vs micro 100+100+100 8 Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Beyoncé. Together their social to 100,000 follower range like rates are just 2.4 percent. audiences number in the hundreds of millions, far larger than For brands looking to forge a more authentic and engaged 8% engagement many digital publishers. At the height of Justin Bieber’s fame, connection, tapping influencers with smaller but more active + 4 0–1,000 followers Twitter famously operated multiple servers devoted exclusively followings might be a safer bet. to his massive following. These macro-influencers enjoy huge 4% engagement Take, for example, the case of LaCroix. Once a regional reach across multiple categories. These big names attract big + 3 midwest staple, the sparkling water brand recently expanded 1,000–10,000 followers name brands. Coca Cola’s branded campaign featuring pop to national distribution. Rather than buy into major TV markets engagement princess Selena Gomez broke Instagram records. Gomez, 2.4% or even pay big name influencers, LaCroix has tapped currently the most followed person on the platform, shared micro-influencers with organic social campaigns, encouraging 10,000–100,000 followers a single photo with her 92.9 million followers and racked up fans of the brand to share photos by engaging with those who 5.1 million likes, a very broad audience for Coke. do via comments and shares. This sort of low-cost incentive “A lot of our partners are finding “If you’re a big brand, with lots of recognition, and you just along with the brand’s Instagram friendly packaging has made that they get better results by want to rack up impressions, then you should be thinking it a sensation on the platform and raised awareness in a key Selena Gomez, or a Kardashian-Jenner. They can put up big demographic with next to no spend. partnering with a creator whose numbers,” says Lisa Filipelli, VP of Talent at Big Frame. “But a By paying smaller influencers and social participants with audience might be smaller but lot of our partners are finding that they get better results by attention and engagement rather than cash, the brand also better aligned with their targets.” partnering with a creator whose audience might be smaller avoids being subject to FTC rules, which have cracked down but better aligned with their targets.” on sponsored social content in recent years. Her assertions are backed up by data. A recent study Further Reading conducted by Markerly found that influencer engagement The Rise of the Micro Influencers actually drops off as audiences grow. While an influencer with just 1,000 Instagram followers has a like rate of roughly eight percent, that rate drops to four percent for those with between 1,000 and 10,000 followers. In the 10,000 DIGIDAY | WTF is influencer marketing 7 Regulations Like any product endorsement, influencer campaigns are hard way when a video influencer campaign for Oreos subject to FTC regulations and a host of disclosures. What was cited by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority, was once a wild west of paid bloggers and incentivized resulting in warnings for participating vloggers and fines influencers—paid in trips, samples, access and cash—has for the snack maker. gradually morphed into a controlled environment in which “Enforcement is still inconsistent,” says Lisa Filipelli. “There’s brands and content creators must both toe the line of not a lot of monitoring, so someone would have to report acceptable advertising standards. a video or post as deceptive. I suspect a lot of smaller “The disclosures are a good thing campaigns fly under the radar, but it’s always best to be honest. The disclosures are a good thing for creators. They’re for creators. They’re selling to an selling to an audience that trusts them. If they damage that audience that trusts them. If they trust they damage their own business.” damage that trust they damage Further Reading their own business.” FTC Sponsored Content Guidelines Oreo Videos Banned for Deceptive Adverts Regulatory agencies require that content creators prominently When Brands and Influencers Screw Up disclose sponsorships or face fines. These regulations aim to clarify an increasingly blurry line between advertising and content. Creators who endorse products must disclose any payments they receive or both brand and content creator may face sanctions. These regulations, meant to curb deceptive advertising prac- tices in the still relatively new influencer space, can easily derail a campaign. Food giant Mondelez learned that lesson the DIGIDAY | WTF is influencer marketing 8 The future Roughly 67 percent of marketers report that they are (the sponsor of this guide), FameBit, Exposely and others are good for them and which ones can hurt their brands.