Meet the Influencers: Dos and Don’ts of Niche Celebrities
My Take on Five Stories on Influencer Marketing
How many world class celebrities were there 50 years ago? Maybe a few dozen actors, several dozen singers, some politicians, sportsmen, and others? Anyway, it was still a three or four digit count.
Social media disrupted the concept of celebrity, just like many other fields. Globally-recognized celebrities are being disposed of by niche online influencers. A few years ago, Wired calculated the approximate percentage of famous people living in the world: it was less than 1 percent, but that’s still over 600,000 individuals! I bet this figure grows exponentially. You don’t need to be a multimillionaire anymore, being a multimillion-follower YouTube vlogger is quite enough.
Influencers are an inexhaustible source of brand engagement for online marketers. But as empowering as social media can be, is it limited to online? In looking at online celebrities, I got curious: how truly influential are they?
1. Influencers do deliver
Have you planned your yearly marketing budget yet? Even if the answer is “yes,” maybe you’d like to recalculate. A McKinsey study says that marketing-inspired word-of-mouth generates more than twice the sales of paid advertising, and these customers have a 37% higher retention rate.
A key trick to achieving these results is to choose the right brand influencer. They should appeal to the right audience with relevant content. How do you find the right influencer? There are quite a few online services on the market. If that’s not enough, startups like theAudience (covered by USA Today) can help you to find your Felix Kjellberg.
2. Influencers don’t fight the platform
Remember the recent Apple-Taylor Swift news? Unfortunately, online influencers can’t fight the platform like that. Traditional celebrities are cross-platform, while online influencers depend on the platform which made them popular. Crazy popular YouTube videos can’t guarantee the same exposure on Instagram, while genius Twitter users can hardly turn into Medium success stories.
An interesting example of this happened just last week. Hank Green, a popular vlogger came on Medium with a post titled, “Theft, Lies, and Facebook Video.” In that piece, he accused Facebook of deceptive practices, prioritizing native content over YouTube links. Over 2,000 likes show that Hank was not alone in those thoughts.
Facebook came back with a response. In their view, prioritizing native video simplifies the watching experience. The truth is that vloggers can complain or not complain, but Facebook won’t change its video strategy. With the launch of its “live” streaming feature, Facebook clearly placed a bet on native video content. It has YouTube and Twitch to beat! So I can see how Facebook would rather grow its own flock of influencers than help the conversion rates of other companies.
3. Influencers do talk to youngsters
Social media giants like Facebook and Twitter have a single incremental problem: how to reach a younger audience? The same problem is easily addressed by Instagram and Vine, which are owned by the first two. A possible reason behind that is millennials don’t want platforms for everything. Instead they pick their preferred format — square photo, GIF, vanishing message or 15-sec time-lapse — and go with it.
Although Facebook and Twitter have their celebrities too, the rise of influencers is more about the single-format platforms. And that’s why new online celebrities appeal to youngsters: their content is simple, predictable and easy to consume.
Well, probably not just because of that. Many social media influencers are still in their teens or early twenties. And it’s much easier to identify yourself with someone who shares your tastes, your views, and probably your love of Snapchat and Tinder.
4. Influencers don’t fully rely on tech
The tech industry kindly provides social media addicts numerous opportunities to create something influential. But where is the boundary for “tech” replacing “person” in media content creation? Last week’s piece on Re/code featured Graava, a device and software which outsources video editing to a computer.
But does the tech you use make you an influencer? I doubt it. Emotional appeal and personal trust is a centerpiece of influencer marketing, as they are a centerpiece of social media influence in general. Influencers share their content through their own perspectives, and when it is unpolished, it is perceived as true.
Working with influencers in the gaming community, we at My.com believe in people. Our meetup for influencers in video (put August 20th down in your calendar!) is aimed at sharing insights and secrets of winning the hearts of millions by being passionate and genuine in video creation.
5. Influencers do— and do not — take as many brands as they want
Influence in social media is a temptation. With millions of subscribers, there’s no need to do more than talk into webcam or take iPhone pictures. And here comes the money. In other words, getting it all in life while still young. As soon as someone has at least a few thousand fans and decent content, any social media account gets the attention of brands.
The key question is: after an influencer begins speaking for a brand, how many brands can he or she take on without selling out?
“The more brands use influencers for marketing campaigns on social platforms like YouTube, Twitter or Instagram, the less impact each influencer has,” says Sydney Ember of The New York Times.
I think that an influencer can work with as many brands as he or she wants, but cannot sell the identity of his blog or personality to brands that are not aligned. I know this is a vague formula, but a real influencer would feel this invisible boundary.
The tricky part is to make the brand understand boundaries. 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.
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