#InfluencerDebate: Jules Lund, Eaon Pritchard and Jamie Crick debate effectiveness of influencer marketing
The effectiveness of influencer marketing was debated today in a live hangout between Tribal’s Jules Lund, King Content’s Eaon Pritchard and Emotive’s Jamie Crick.
Influencers are generally defined as people who have a large social media following, often based around a particular interest like fashion, cars or entertainment.
Can we please not pretend that it is anything more than paying someone to plug a product. It’s just another paid product endorsement. Wrapping it up in data and “science” (?) doesn’t remove the fact that endorsements of this nature are not believed as genuine. They are still cheesy and forced. Why are consumers treated as being a bunch of dumb arsed fools who would fall for this rubbish? Hang on,,,,,maybe that’s what the people pedaling this approach are relying on.
I doubt these influencers have a large following in AU. And if the brand buys views to hit an AU audience, the claims about authenticity become false.
I don’t think anyone is relying on the public to be foolish with influencer marketing. Consumers are arguably now more discerning than ever.
Whether or not the endorsement is paid, social media influencers are conscious of their own brand as well. In our experience, they won’t endorse products that they don’t already genuinely love. As discussed in the hangout, if it’s not done properly it can definitely appear forced and out of place – but the backlash to that kind of content is precisely why influencers are careful about what they will endorse on their own channels. Jules and Jamie were absolutely right about the key benefit of influencer marketing being that it is organic and authentic when done properly.
@really? It is possible to verify an influencer’s Australian following before engaging them and is one of the first things anyone working with influencers should check.
Jamie you have missed my point. Simon claims this will move the sales dial. However for that to happen you need reach. If we assume this influencer only has 5% of their total audience coming from Australia, like most Youtubers in this country, Subway has paid for significant wastage. And my point above, if you buy true view to extend the AU reach then the authenticity from such a campaign, as claimed here, is lost.
@really? I take your point but don’t entirely agree. The measure of whether you’ve got the right content in front of the right people is in their (voluntary) engagement with it: view-through, shares, likes, comments, etc. Paid media can be a legitimate part of accelerating distribution if it succeeds on these terms.