Influencer marketing is on an upward trajectory with brands dramatically increasing their investments. Yet not all influencer marketing is created equal.
Hear from Jory DesJardins, co-founder and former President of BlogHer and The Virago Group, along with Jim Tobin, founder of Ignite Social Media and Carusele, as they share what they've learned watching influencer marketing change over the last decade as well as sharing tips on how to make sure your 2017 influencer marketing programs are up-to-date and effective.
Click here to listen to the full Audio webinar: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/recording/2969353578226228737
Additionally, you may access the full webinar transcript here: http://bit.ly/2tRFW6A
2005-2007: ”Blogger outreach” was largely manual, bloggers sourced through WOM, search engines and reading blogs. mistrust among brands of engaging in “Wild West” and among bloggers for “selling out”. Early attempts were sharing press releases and “hoping” for a writeup.
2008: Best practices like disclosure enabled brands to feel comfortable spending on early display ads; “blogger reviews,” Facebook starts to build and experiment with products like Beacon that provide target recommendations;
2009: Impact of earned still largely unmeasured and therefore not part of paid plan; FTC involvement actually grows the opportunity for digital influencers by helping us get past legal roadblocks with scaled and highly regulated brands.
2010: This put marketers in the mindset of expecting guaranteed performance; influencers still turned off by it
2011: Marketers less interested in mass displays and more in having “the right” people in the room. Also want guaranteed writeups and open to paid and earned social shares.
2011: Wanting “the right influencers for the right platform”; more and more data capture behind influence.
2012: Shifts in advertising enable influencers in that they get additional paid content opps, but they also must open up their edit wells—shifting in thinking around standards; starting to have to engage on performance—or CPA vs CPC—models.
2013: Changing dialogue around blogger size and building metrics on performance. Rise of Pinterest and Instagram as platforms—in some cases replacing blogs as a primary content platform and opening up additional channels of content distribution. Video important, but hard to do well. Brands seek out hybrid models where they control content but enable influencers to develop it in their own way.
2014: For audiences influencer is less important than make-up of influencer’s audience, this and viewability guidelines significantly impact influencer traffic and monetization. Brands expect to pay for outcomes—data modeling becomes critical; platforms built to enable performance data capture and predictive modeling.
2015: Influencers who don’t engage one or more of these platforms get left behind. Advertising models continue to punish influencers, who look at other content platforms such as Linked In and Medium that will enable premium publishing with less hassle—but no monetization.
2016: Blowing budgets on “name” influencers and for single pieces of content is out; engaging and aggregating unknown longtail talent across multiple platforms is in.
2017: Blogging no longer the nexus of one’s digital presence. Find me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Medium, YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram, Streaming Video, VR … Influencers are not driving to any one, but to several and monetizing in more targeted, specialized contexts. Nonexclusivity to any platform/Partner