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- Influencer Marketing Isn't Dead
Brands want to leverage influencers to sell their products.
There’s only one problem: consumers don’t trust influencers anymore.
A recent report published in The Drum drives this home:
12% of consumers trust influencers
42% of people regretted buying a product endorsed by influencers
86% of consumers trust UGC content posted on brand accounts
But why did influencer endorsements become ineffective?
The short answer: consumers have influencer fatigue.
When your favorite creator is endorsing a new product every week, it’s tough to trust that they use the stuff they’re promoting. The content often plays more like a commercial than a genuine endorsement.
Hiring Creators as Brand Ambassadors
Some brands have opted for a different tactic: hiring creators to post natively on their accounts.
To execute this correctly, it means finding people who (i) create content that aligns with your brand and (ii) pay them to produce content for the brand pages.
See an example of how Hedley & Bennett is doing this below. 👇
@hedleyandbennett @Shaunson Explains is joining the H&B team and he couldn’t be more excited! Get ready to learn the things you didn’t know, you needed to know.
Using creators in this fashion drives eyeballs to the brand accounts instead of influencer accounts, putting the brand at the center of attention.
Influencer Marketing 2.0 — Product Placements
Along with hiring creators to post on brand feeds, there will still be a place for influencers to post about products.
But…it’s going to look a little different. We will see more and more product placement in the daily content from influencers, sparking intrigue among consumers.
This follows the same pattern of traditional advertising. When people tuned out commercials, brands started injecting their products into movies and TV shows.
What should you do?
Well, that’s tough to say without knowing your budget, current influencer marketing efforts, etc.
But I can tell you there are a couple of pieces of advice for brands of any size:
Make sure you are licensing content correctly - contact legal help if you need it
Don’t let influencers use trending audio when promoting your brand unless you have licensed it.
Work with influencers who embody your brand values. Bonus points if they are already a real customer of yours.
If you pay for a sponsored post, include a link to your page or website. Posts with links/tags drive 11.4% higher ROI, according to the Harvard Business Review.
If you have any questions on influencer marketing you want to be answered in this newsletter, reply to this email.
Until next week, that’s a wrap!
