Is Influencer Marketing Broken? Or is there simply a better way to do it?

It’s no big secret that influencer marketing budgets are steadily increasing. Recent research by Linqia found that “39% of marketers surveyed plan to increase their influencer marketing budget in 2018.” The truth is, the influencer marketing network is more important today than it’s ever been before.

“92% of marketers who used influencer marketing in 2017 found it to be effective.” (The State of Influencer Marketing 2018, Linqia)

But is it broken?

Too Many Variables

When it works, influencer marketing can significantly increase customer engagement. In fact, in a Launchmetrics survey of 600 European and US fashion industry professionals, it was found that nearly half prefer to work with micro-influencers (individuals with between 10,000 and 100,000 followers) for this very reason. Unlike expensive mega-influencers, micro-influencers reach fewer people, but their audience engagement is greater, making them more likely to buy the products being endorsed.

Still, influencer marketing can be a little bit like paying your salary to play pin the tail on the donkey, in the dark.

There’s no way of telling if you’ve been successful and even if you are, you can’t see the prize.

The current influencer marketing model requires front-loading, fingers crossed and then a wait to see if results come through. It is inefficient and expensive, without guaranteed or specific, measurable ROI.

There are too many variables.

Out With The New, In With The Old.

For such a relatively “new” advertising method, influencer marketing is quite old fashioned in its approach. In fact, it’s not too dissimilar to newspaper, or even TV, advertising.

Firstly, you identify an audience. Then you determine an appropriate media space frequented by your target audience. Finally, you pay, in advance, to fill that media space with your advertising, in the hope that your audience, sees it and is motivated to act.

Newspapers. TV. Influencers. The process is the same. There’s nothing new about it.

Of course there are ways to track sales using these media (using offer codes, for example), but the system is flawed. Paying in advance. Not knowing what you’re going to get in return for your spend. It’s a system that only benefits the owners of the media space.

How many people in your target audience are ACTUALLY going to see your ad? Let alone be compelled to action?

Potentially, there’s a very high risk of receiving nothing back in return for your ad spend and efforts.

And, what’s worse, you might not realise it until it is too late.

Fake News

Let’s bring this back into the digital content ecosystem and take a look at the home of influencer marketing: Instagram.

It doesn’t take much of a search to find an Instagram user account with tens of thousands of followers and thousands of likes. Across the platform there is no shortage of such accounts. Potential influencers? Perhaps.

But how do we know they’re real?

Buying followers and likes is endemic throughout Instagram. Ghost Followers and Bots are often used to make up the numbers in order to make a user’s profile seem more appealing or attractive. After all, everyone looks up to the popular kids, right.

The thing is, fake followers don’t engage with content. And that illusion of popularity and influence can prove costly.

What you really want is targeted, direct and measurable engagement. Because engagement leads to conversions. And that’s the measure of a campaign’s success.

Massaging The Numbers

Data is critical to understanding and analysing the impact of any marketing campaign. Tracking impressions, engagement, clicks, is digital marketing currency used to represent ROI.

So how de we analyse a campaign with thousands of clicks and no sales?

Is it the landing page?

Was the offer not good enough?

Or is there another reason?

Could it be that those stats that we currently consider “all important” may in fact be massaged? Attributed to only a few users, or even just a single user, with a trigger-happy mouse finger, repeatedly clicking through your ads. Perhaps they are part of a bigger “Click Farm”, paid to robotically like your posts or click on particular links, without any real and meaningful engagement.

Can you ever be sure?

What if there was a better way?

Decentralise And Incentivise

Thanks to MEDIA Protocol, now there is.

What if you could see exactly how consumers interacted with your content?

What if you could reward only the real influencers? And not just for sales, but for consumption of content, engagement with content or for being real influencers that have a real impact?

What if you could receive fully transparent, meaningful data immediately, and securely recorded on the blockchain?

MEDIA Protocol offers all of the above.

It creates a new incentive-driven content ecosystem where direct relationships are built between content producers and consumers.

The MEDIA Protocol economic model rewards consumer engagement. Directly. Using the native cryptocurrency, MEDIA Tokens, publishers can attach a predetermined value to any piece of content they create. This is tracked by a URL, with all interactions and engagements logged on the blockchain.

Consumers are then rewarded for viewing, reading, liking, commenting or sharing MEDIA Protocol-enabled content, earning MEDIA Tokens in return for their interactions.

An attractive proposition for Influencers with real influence. An answer to the challenges currently faced by digital content creators and marketers.

Is Influencer Marketing Broken?

Yes.

The current model doesn’t work. It benefits the intermediary, not the content producer, and not the consumer.

But there’s a light at the end of a dark and gloomy tunnel.

MEDIA Protocol.

A new way of making influencer marketing really work. Reshaping and levelling the digital content playing field.

No more front-loading. No more guesswork.

It’s time to reward direct engagement. It’s time to get value for money and a real, measurable return on investment.

MEDIA Protocol is changing the digital content ecosystem. For the better.

People. Value. Content.

For more information regarding MEDIA Protocol find us on our social channels below:

Website: www.mediaprotocol.org

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MEDIAProtocol

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MEDIA_Protocol

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/media-protocol/

Telegram: https://t.me/Media_Protocol_Community and https://t.me/Media_Protocol_Announcements

Medium: https://medium.com/@mediaprotocolsm

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMqo01fh4wST0XYck_zPHeA