Influencing the Influencer — A Series: The Brand’s Perspective
To influence or be influenced? That is the question.
Everyone’s an influencer one way or another. We influence decisions based on what to eat from the fridge, what show to watch, and whether that sweatshirt will keep us warm on a cold day. Take that perspective into influencing a creator (or influencer), and you’ve introduced yourself to influencer marketing. This is how brands connect with audiences in a creative way.
To explain what I do, I act as the extension of the marketing team for the brands that I represent. I connect with content creators about a product of which they are personal fans of and segment all or just a portion of an online video to showcase that brand’s product.
I’ve worked with products ranging from a new video game to various hygienic products. What makes it fun is the type of content you work with and how it can differ on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitch. Brands may notice that their target audience is young, male, and loves sports. But on the other hand, they decide to test some channels where an audience may also be more receptive, such as creators who review movies and have an older audience.
Depending on the campaign, one audience may perform better in terms of actually purchasing the product than another audience. This strategy leads me to talk with creators of all kinds. One minute I’ll talk to ASMR creators, and the next one I’ll be talking with gaming content creators in Australia. Out of these conversations, these content creators share their creative freedom to how they can make this brand appeal to their audience. Based on how the first video goes, the door opens for more sponsorship opportunities.
To do this, I dove into experiencing what it’s like to be the brand, the content creator, and the agency connecting the dots. To be the brand, I look at what I would strive for when it comes to getting creators to promote who we are and how both of our stories can align both creatively and in a way to benefit our businesses. As a content creator, I record videos of things I enjoyed doing, which are video games and “trick shots” (sometimes combining them both), and launch them on YouTube and Instagram. Lastly, as the agency, I look at how to optimize the brand’s performance efficiently and effectively.
Let’s take a look at how these parties approach this narrative. In doing this, I’ve split each perspective in its own article with another article to conclude this four-part series. There’s a lot to cover for each, and I’ll condense this to reflect and understand each one in its own right.
The Brand’s Perspective
Know Your Audience
You know your brand best when it comes to capturing that audience. Are you an energy drink brand looking to capture those who stretch the limits and play extreme sports? Are you an upcoming video game that knows how gamers who enjoy FPS (first-person shooter) games would be a fan of it?
With all of the data points that led your brand to the world of influencer marketing, look at the traits of content creators that show that connection to your brand. Are they drinking energy drinks or have an electric personality that would fit in their next video? How about a gaming content creator who would enjoy that upcoming video game and show enthusiasm as they play it?
Before executing a campaign, asking for a content creator’s audience demographics in the platform you’re choosing helps determine whether or not he/she is a fit for the campaign.
A great example of this is an educational platform like Curiosity Stream working with YouTube creators who dive into interesting topics. RealLifeLore is one of those creators who asks geopolitical questions and answers them to an audience who is “curious” about these types of videos and in learning more, which they could get an extra perk based on following the creator’s channel.
Something that a brand should be aware of are the features of the social media platform that could amplify the campaign to get that much closer to an audience, by help of the creators of course. One thing you should avoid doing as a brand is exploiting these features where it looks like more of a sellout. For instance, Burger King made use of the donations feature on Twitch, a live streaming platform most known for its gaming streamers, by making $5 donations to streamers, with a text-to-speech feature to that streamer’s live audience about purchasing a meal deal at their nearest Burger King. What seemed to be a pleasant exchange by Burger King to connect with an audience wasn’t taken in a light note — donations are ways these creators earn a profit and bridges the gap for the viewer to talk to the streamer. These streamers may not also be fans of Burger King and instead the brand gets an easy placement of their own ad on someone else’s screen. For this to be made into a commercial can take the good out of donating to a streamer based on their work, likeness, and personality.
Choose Wisely
There are a plethora of amazing content creators out there who will participate in a campaign. Sometimes you’ll fall in love with the content, and you need that creator to be part of your campaign. You learn quickly not to fall in love with a content creator that soon, especially before reaching out to him or her. It may be a heartbreak you didn’t expect in the first place. Things may not align on both sides, so it’s important to keep a log of all the creators you have in mind that would represent your brand well. For example, out of 100 content creators, you may end up with 5 to 10 who follow through and deliver.
Keep in mind that campaigns have their limitations. Some may include timing of the campaign (i.e. does the content creator have availability for this, do they have enough time to prepare, how soon can they execute, etc.), the budget (i.e. can I fit all creators in this campaign, or do I stick with creators that are the best bang for my buck), the deliverables (i.e. is everything read through on a script and handed to the creator to piece together or is there plenty of creative freedom), and the extent of how flexible your brand can be with various kinds of creators.
Find what’s best for your campaign by mitigating these limitations and move forward with the creators who care about what they feel would be great for their personal brand and your brand. Quality outpaces quantity. You can feel the enthusiasm, especially when time and budget are on your side.
Depending on how it goes with those content creators, this may open a bottleneck effect for more opportunities, which helps with delivering more in just a text or phone call away. For instance, there are opportunities that have a very short timeline (we’re talking a week or sooner in this case) where you have a budget to spend on a new game DLC (downloadable content) launch and need content creators/people who have connections to content creators and their availability for those dates to go right ahead and say “yes” to the opportunity to then deliver it. Whew, that can be nonstop as there may be hits and misses but eventually becomes a sigh of relief when you know it all works out.
Take Risks
This is where influencer marketing gets to be a lot more fun (for great and not-so-great reasons). On the one hand, depending on their budget, brands have the opportunity to test with the most recognizable creators and/or creators who might be handed their first sponsorship opportunity ever. There’s a satisfying feeling when the campaign goes live and there’s an outpouring support of that content creator’s audience to both the creator and the brand. You see the results upfront.
On the other hand, brands test their marketing campaigns with channels that may extend beyond their original target audience. For instance, that energy drink brand is looking to test channels that focus on innovation and entrepreneurship because entrepreneurs need to stay up throughout the day to get their business going.
The good thing is that it’ll take a bit more creative juice to connect the dots with content creators. The bad thing is that if the campaign is based on performance, the campaign may or may not deliver the results you’re looking for (meaning, no one clicks the tracking link and no one purchases the energy drink product). There may be a multitude of reasons why it may not have delivered, but it is only a test.
It may need a bit more convincing when testing out with content creators who may be outside the target audience in terms of the content itself but can be worth lots of upside. It’s up to the brand to do its due diligence in understanding the content creator’s audience breakdown (stats such as age, gender, and geographic information) and seeing how the content aligns with the product/service you’re selling to the audience. For example, if you’ve been testing channels for a men’s product, it can yield greater results when a female content creator with a majority female audience promotes the product as some of her audience members may be enticed to purchase the product for their boyfriends.
The brand has the power to spend money to make money but need the creators to join their side to make this happen. We’ll focus on the creator’s perspective tomorrow in the next part of this series.
Let me know if there are any questions as we go through POVs in building an effective influencer marketing campaign.
