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Ever since the line between celebrity and social media celebrity was erased, bloggers have become legitimate influencers across almost all industries, affecting consumer decisions beyond purchasing by acting as both tastemaker and trusted friend. And a large fan base is no longer a requirement for influencers. More recently, brands have been turning to micro-influencers, bloggers with less than 100,000 followers, to better target consumers. Bloglovin', a media platform that connects these microbloggers with brands through proprietary marketing platform Activate, looked at its users' followers and influence across social platforms to see how they use these channels to drive engagement.
"In a rapidly growing world of micro-influencers and proliferation of social channels, brands and advertisers are looking for best practices to engage the right micro-influencers to reach their target audience," said Activate president Rohit Vashisht. "This research shows that brands can and should look at adjacent verticals to tap into multiple channels for wider audience reach."...
f you’re thinking about using social influencers to grow your audience, then read on.
As the Director of Marketing for London-based social media startup 6Tribes, I’ve been tasked with quickly growing our user base and have had great success over the last few months using YouTube influencers as a marketing channel.
I’ve learned a lot about how to get the most out of these partnerships, so I thought I’d share with you six things that I’ve learned – which I hope you’ll find useful if you’re considering using social influencers to promote your brand.
I just came across a quote in an eMarketer interview with an agency CEO that made me stop and shake my head: “We don’t start to work with an influencer unless they have 50,000 combined followers across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.”
This thinking is soooo backwards and lazy. Picking an influencer isn’t about the size of their network, it’s the connections they have to that network....
At Onalytica we have been looking closely at the transformation of PR as we know it. Our vision is to evolve media relations into influencer relations professionals by managing relationships with hundreds of key influencers rather than just journalists.
Think about the numerous analysts, politicians, bloggers, thought leaders, industry professionals, stakeholders and influential consumers that all have big audiences that you want to reach. Influencer relations is a truly essential part of modern PR (we also offer a B2B influencer relations platform for PR practitioners)
One of the most time consuming parts of influencer relations (or influencer marketing) is identifying the right thought leaders. What if you just wrote a new blog and you have no idea what influencers would be interested in your content?
We’re here to help! We built a new tool to do this. Before it took up to an hour to find 10-20 relevant influencers, now you can do it in less than a minute…
Regular Twitter users know self-proclaimed social media experts gurus and ninjas are a dime a dozen. How can you sort through all the fluff?
You could scan through millions of tweets and vet the Twitterverse, or you could let Vocus do the work for you.
By leveraging Vocus product technology, our algorithim determined the top social media professionals to follow on Twitter through contextual analysis, engagement levels, reach and relevancy. Unlike other methodologies, Vocus’ technology populates its pool of candidates based on more than keyword searches alone.
Here’s our top 50, listed alphabetically....
Klout really wants to make you care about your online influence.
That’s in part why the company has, with little fanfare, pushed out Cinch, an iOS application that pairs questions asked by users with other “experts” on certain topics, based on their amount of knowledge of the area in question.
The idea is basically leveraging the value of Klout’s flagship product, which purports to rank people in terms of their influence in certain areas. I, for instance, tweet a whole bunch about Facebook and Twitter as companies, so it would make sense for a product like Cinch to pair a person’s Facebook-related questions with my answers....
...Technorati released a great report at the start of 2013 showing that after retail and brand websites, blogs are the most influential for consumer purchases. The best part is that the majority of influencers blog, and quite a few have multiple blogs!So where’s the disconnect?
Why are brand marketers only spending 6% of their social media budget on INFLUENCERS? (Brands spend about 10% of their digital marketing budget on social, with 6% of it dedicated to influencers). It’s shown to be effective and that consumers trust blogs more than social advertising and other networks. Influencers have a community that’s built on trust. When they recommend something to their community, people listen and trust them.
Why are marketers still hesitant?...
One of the big focuses in social marketing today is influencer marketing.
The idea being that if you can get one person to tell something to their large audience, their audience will listen.
For organizations this is seen as less effort and potentially high response.
In reality, things aren’t that simple.Let’s take a look at a few things to keep in mind when you approach influencer marketing....
Traditional media is on the decline and we can now identify "influencers" with relevant content pipelines to help us. Now what do we do about it? All the old “pipelines” for our content are drying up. So one viable alternative is to borrow somebody else’s pipeline. Today, bloggers, podcasters, and home video producers are gaining consumer mindshare through their passionate and entertaining content. No wonder this is the new media gold rush — influencer outreach. I have a 360-degree experience with this trend as I strategize with clients, advise agencies, and become a target for outreach programs myself. And what I see is not pretty. Sure we have tons of content. We have lots of wonderful new alternatives to identify influencers. Now, what do we do about it? I think the core competency that needs to develop is a mindset transformation from a “purchaser of ad space” to a “developer of relationships.” Here is a model to get you thinking about this in a new way....
What’s the difference between influence and advocacy? The differences are quite notable but the answers aren’t often sought. Influencers are individuals who’ve earned authority on any given topic and have built a community or series of communities around their body of ideas or work. They have the capacity to cause an effect on the character, actions or behavior of someone or something. Advocates are champions (and/or enthusiastic customers) who align with or embody the tenets or the mission of a thing (in this case a brand) or a cause. Advocates may or may not carry influence individually. When advocates unite, the concerted group can wield influence. On the subject of influence, Technorati recently released its 2013 Digital Influence Report. In it, I discovered some interesting stats about the various ways that brands are approaching influence....
Social marketing can be wasteful. Depending on how often someone checks their Facebook News Feed or Twitter stream, they might rarely see a brand's message unless it was paid to be put front and center. Facebook analytics firm PageLever (recently acquired by social marketing company Unified) said last fall that most Facebook page posts fade off into the ether three to five hours after getting published. But the promise of social isn't one-to-many broadcast-style publishing; it’s creating a ripple effect. Get something in front of the right people and they’ll push it onward and outward. Not only does that serve as a sort of audience-quality filter, but a side benefit for brands is that it can be as inexpensive as it is efficient. Washington Post-owned social agency SocialCode rolled out an influencer targeting tool last year with exactly that intent, and now the most high-profile arbiter of social influence, Klout, has unveiled an analytics dashboard to help brands pinpoint their influencers. "This is really the first step—but a meaningful step—towards a set of tools that will enable brands to more effectively understand and engage with their influencers," said Klout CEO Joe Fernandez. He maintained that Klout remains a consumer company, but Klout for Business definitely levels up the brand side of the business with the potential to become an enterprise-level marketing platform. At launch, Klout for Business aims to tell businesses who the influencers are among their Twitter followers and Facebook fans, including age groups, gender, location and of course what topics they're influential on. Fernandez said Klout rewrote its topic analysis system to give companies a dynamic look at those influencers’ interests. "Imagine Pepsi wanting to know who in their audience is influential about snowboarding and invite those people to a Pepsi competition at Aspen," he said....
New research study identifies Twitter Tribes by unique words As a Twitter power user, I couldn’t resist looking into this Twitter research study on word usage in my favorite micropublishing channel. It’s fascinating to say the least. It’s titled "Word usage mirrors community structure in the online social network Twitter." Researchers looked at more than 250,000 users to define some very interesting Tribes. Who knew Twitter users were forming such unique Tribes and speaking their own language? Academics really do provide a useful service for the rest of us. Pointing out the sociological implications of social media and everything else we do....
As the old adage goes, the only two certainties in life are death and taxes. And with tax season looming near, there is no better time to get your finances in tow. To assist with this task, we’ve ranked the top 50 independent finance blogs in North America. The bloggers range in age, experience and ideology, rendering a well-rounded snapshot of the financial blogosphere. The list was created using Cision’s media database and blogs are ranked based on our Cision Influence Rating. Whether you’re after general market news or personal finance tips, these blogs have you covered with a wealth of information.
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Are you seen as an expert in your industry?
Want to develop relationships with the media to become a go-to expert?
To explore what marketers need to know to connect with traditional media influencers, I interview Josh Elledge.
This week I moderated another Social Media Today webinar as part of their Best Thinker webinar series, this time on the topic of The ROI of Influencer Marketing. This webinar featured Eric T. Tung (@EricTTung) Brand Ambassador for companies like Ford, Microsoft, Verizon and MasterCard, Kathleen Hessert (@KathleenHessert) CEO of Sports Media Challenge and Eric Berkowitz (@tracx) SVP of Global Services at Tracx. This webinar was sponsored by Tracx. We discussed ideas and tips from finding influencers for your brand to calculating ROI on your program.
Here are three key takeaways from the webinar:
- Not all influencers are created equal – Brands should look beyond social metrics into psychographics and contextual intelligence to determine the ideal candidates
- Bigger doesn’t mean better – A large following or readership does not inherently make a person influential
- The ROI of Influence – True influence drives action, not just awareness...
As our influencer marketing columnist Raymond Morin blogged sometimes ago, there are 3 main types of influencers: - celebrities - opinion leaders (traditional media, online media, social media) - ambassadors (satisfied customers, happy employees).
With the democratization of social media influence, there are simply more people that yield influence in social media. Perhaps this is one reason why Influencer Marketing continues to soar in 2015. It really shouldn’t come as a surprise, because numerous stats have already documented the power of online recommendations...
It may seem tempting to seek out people in your industry who have millions of followers on social media, but don’t get ahead of yourself. While there’s nothing wrong with including them in your strategy, pay attention to the little guys too. Many people in your industry are well-known among a niche crowd, and they may be much more accessible than a CEO with 10 million Twitter followers.
So how do you go about finding these influencers? Here are five different tools you can use.
Real experts don’t talk about cat videos.
There is a strangely troubling trend I have come across recently that seems to be once again afflicting presentations at business events around the world. It comes down to the ubiquitous cat video – and its closely related cousin, the animated cat GIF. Don’t get me wrong. I like a cute kitten as much as the next guy. But there’s a problem with this feline frenzy.
Cat videos are a backward looking cliche about the insignificance of the web whose time has come and gone – much like the once frequent quip about Twitter being a great place to share what you had for lunch. I think it is safe to say the impact of Twitter is way beyond lunch orders. And the Internet has moved beyond cat videos....
Whether we agree with them in principle or not, the topic of digital influence is only becoming more influential. Almost anyone with a social media profile is already indexed in at least one of the many vendors on the scene today. Consumers are trying to figure out what it means. Brands are realizing the promise of connecting to connected consumers. Advertising and PR agencies are spending budget against it. So what is influence and what does it really mean?
Right now, there are more questions and theories than answers. Like some relationships in Facebook, it’s complicated. But, I can tell you what it is not. Influence is not popularity and popularity is not influence. It’s so much more than that.Since 2009, I’ve studied the influence landscape. After a few years and a few dozen articles on the subject, I concentrated my focus on developing a comprehensive report to take a deep dive into all things influence. One year later, I’m proud to publish my first report as part of the Altimeter Group, “The Rise of Digital Influence.”...
A recent study by Oglivy suggests that social media users aren’t showing advocacy or passion for most of the brands that they follow.
What I want to do in this post is take a look at the research behind that assertion and posit an alternative explanation for the chasm between brand advocacy expression on social media and its expression in real life.
Methodology This study looked at between 6 and 7 million social media mentions of 22 major brands and eight feature films in four countries (United States, China, Brazil, and the United Kingdom). They assessed five product categories: coffee, hotels, fashion retail, movies, and skincare....
... Knowing the value of advocates versus influencers is key to making the right decisions when it comes to your marketing strategy. But most importantly, you need to be honest with yourself about the true purpose behind your marketing efforts. “Do I invest my limited budget into a one-time burst and get a lot of short-term buzz? Or do I build a bespoke network of advocates and engage, direct, and activate them long-term, which may require commitment beyond a three-month campaign?”
We see our customers struggle with this question every day. You need to be clear from the outset what your goals are before deciding whether to harness the passion of your existing fans or to turn to the broader--but arguably less committed--reach of an influencer. Both can be a hugely important part of a marketing campaign, but only if their capacities are used effectively.
My advice? Build movements, not campaigns! Don’t just stimulate buzz, ignite passions through engaging the true believers who “get” who you are and are fanatical about your brand. Identify them, listen to them, engage them. It is worth the effort.
@sree, @jasonfalls, @prtini, @shonali, @jaybaer, @peterhimler, @laermer and @prsarahevans are some of the top social media, PR and journalism experts to follow on Twitter…. but who do they follow? Last week at a Cision “Behind the Story” breakfast panel, Sree Sreenivasan was discussing how PR pros and journalists interact on Twitter and said, “I find PR people (and journalists) are generally using Twitter poorly. Some of them use it very well and those are the ones that succeed. The best PR people I work with are the ones who are connected, not because of Twitter, but because they read a lot, know the issues and have a great rolodex.” He challenged the panelists to identify some great PR pros on Twitter, people who are “doing it right.” In addition to the panel’s recommendations (I’ve included Sree’s below), I asked some industry experts – and my personal favorites to follow on Twitter – who in PR they thought did it right on Twitter. See below why I follow them and who they recommend...
With the rise of Klout and other personal influence measurement tools, much of the talk around influence marketing has focused on how to best target and engage high-ranking influencers. But new research is showing that a focus on mid-level influencers is actually far more effective when it comes to engagement and driving earned media, and at a much more efficient cost than working with “professional” A-list influencers. This is the conclusion from a SocialChorus analysis of over 200 social word-of-mouth campaigns, which shows that large-scale social engagement is increasingly driven by a group of influencers the company refers to as the “Power Middle.” These influencers typically have a smaller but very loyal audience (2,500 to 25,000+ unique monthly visitors to their blog or other social networks). Because their communities are so loyal, these Power Middle influencers drive an average of 16x higher engagement rates than paid media and owned alternatives–and at a much lower individual cost than professional influencers....
Implications - Superbloggers, like supermodels, are online authors who are establishing themselves as authority figures outside of their initial industry. In today's information age, blogs are more influential than any other media outlet. This propels their owners to celebrity status, opening opportunities for smart companies to treat them as such with sponsorship deals and related merchandise....
Millions of updates are shared on social media every day and years worth of content is spread along with it. When we log in to Twitter we are greeted with “What’s happening?” On Facebook it’s with “What’s going on?” Social media demands content from us and is driven by user-generated content, but it adds a lot of noise across the social media channels we are using and on the social web. Some organisations sport hundreds of followers and unique visitors to their blog every month while others have thousands of followers and generate so much more unique traffic. Which one has more influence? Of course you will think that the organization with a larger audience has more influence, and in some cases, you might be correct. But, digital influence goes so much further than the number of people following you or the traffic you are generating to your blog....
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![Why Influencer Marketing Matters [Worksheet] - Pardot | Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight | Scoop.it](https://img.scoop.it/7WlvyZ3QFdYue3RVNYY_Gjl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVvK0kTmF0xjctABnaLJIm9)
The rise of social media celebrities is very noticeable. Is it because social media is more democratic or democratizing? Something to ponder. Or is it simply because there are so many niche channels that targeting has become easier?