Rise of Influencer Marketing

The increased presence of social media has given consumers a lot of power and it's becoming

increasingly difficult to distinguish who the real and ethical influencers are. With this power, there comes a need for marketeers to build an influencer marketing strategy.

What is Influencer Marketing?

Influncer marketing is the type of marketing that focuses on using experts or leaders in a specific domain to drive a brand's message to a larger audience.

According to a May 2015 study by Schlesinger Associates, 84% of global marketers expected to launch at least one influencer marketing campaign in the coming years, and 81% of those who had already done so reported they were happy with the results.

With this trend picking up, it's important to understand what makes someone an influencer considering everyone on social media is an influencer in some regard.

"The potential to influence can be zeroed down to three important pillars: Reach, Resonance and Relevance." - Tejas Krishna

When we talk about an influencer, most of us think of of it as a person with large number of followers on twitter or a huge fan following on social networks. That's a very myopic way of identifying an influencer.

Anyone with followers above a threshold, provided they are not bots, can claim to be an influencer today. I recently read a story in Mint, where a 17 year old boy with close to 23K followers on twitter, considers himself to be an online influencer. Brands pay him to tweet and reach out to a wider audience. Is that a right approach to influencer marketing?

In my opinion, *Absolutely NOT*

If a brand's target is to reach out to a wider audience through influencers who have a massive following on social networks, then they must target the people (including celebrities) who 'truly believe in brand's value and what it has to offer to its audience.'

In the above example, a teenager is making his pocket money just by tweeting. With multiple brands reaching out to him for their campaigns, makes him believe he is an online influencer. He isn't an expert in a specific domain, he doesn't believe in a particular brand but is ready to work for multiple brands at the same time to earn extra bucks! This example makes me believe that most brands are getting 'Influencer Marketing' wrong.

What makes for an ethical influencer?

• An influencer is someone who is an expert in a specific domain
• A huge follower base is indeed a plus for an influencer. However, the quality of the followers matters just as well. It's important to identify those who have grown their following organically over time 
• Massive follower base isn't a necessity to qualify as an influencer but what matters the most is content & engagement 

"A good sign when you've become an influencer is when that authority goes unquestioned and folks trust you automatically"- Hemant Gaule

It's often said that influencer marketing is paid for. While in most cases, influencer marketing is "assumed" to be paid for, it doesn't hold true for every campaign. However, it's important to be transparent and open about such an engagement.

"Brands are identifying ways where they can let influencers experience something great and not link it to money directly." - Tejas Krishna

That said, I do believe that it isn't necessary to always pay influencers to market a product/service. A lot depends on the kind of relationship you share with them. If brands develop strong relationships with its customers, then they can leverage those customers on social media as their biggest influencers.

But hey, what's more powerful? - voice of a customer or voice of an influencer
A cutsomer's voice goes a long way in making or breaking a brand! Your customer is the king BUT if an influencer has the power to change the decision of those customers, that makes an influencer's voice more powerful.

If you are looking to engage influencers for your brand, do take a note of the above points and use social media platforms to identify, engage, interact and build relationships with your influencers.

What do you think it takes to be an ethical influencer on social media? I'd love to know your views in the comment section below.

The Emerging World of Brand Journalism

The Internet has made brand publishing ubiquitous. Gone are the days when brands required an intermediary to reach their target audience. Now, they have the luxury of reaching out to their audience directly, through content storytelling.

Welcome to the emerging world of brand journalism

Brands are using digital publishing tools and social media to directly reach out to their audience. 

On January 11th this year, one of the biggest e-commerce platforms in India, Flipkart.com announced the news of their new co-founder on Twitter. As a PR professional or a reporter, we usually expect big announcements to unveil at a press conference/event BUT with digital media, things are changing.

Flipkart tweeted the news via their handle @FlipkartStories and uploaded the full story on stories.flipkart.com. The news of course spread like fire!

Flikpart now shares all their stories on the stories.flipkart.com.

This example reiterates the fact that:

• Brands want to own the narrative and want to be storytellers to reach out to their consumers/stakeholders directly
• Brands are looking for quick and effective ways of communicating with their target audience 
• There is no need for intermediaries to tell a brand's story - with brands sharing their own stories, they don't need reporters to reach out to the stakeholders. However, how 'authentic' the story is, cannot be judged 

Brand journalism and brand content have very different purpose and ethics. Journalists/reporters share authentic news with the public, however, a brand's content is always targeted at its consumers. The ultimate aim of a reporter is to'inform' the public and that of a brand is to 'sell.'

So while we say that the world of brand journalism is emerging, not sure if it will 'shake up' the media industry. That said, we might see a rise of brand editors in the near future. What do you think?

Are you a thought leader on social media?

Recently I hosted Jason LeDuc, Founder and President of Evil Genius Leadership Consultants, LLC,

an executive and leadership coaching firm on #SocialPowWow twitter chat . The one hour chat with him fueled a lot of questions and conversation around positioning oneself as a thought leader on social media.

While offline networking and communication with the industry peers can position oneself as a thought leader in the industry, social media is the vehicle for effective leadership online. Leaders have multiple audiences, from customers, employees to industry peers and social media helps reach them all.

In the words of Jason, "Social media is an incredible way to show the world about your leadership values and style."

To become a leader in your own community, start by helping existing communities

"Communities are made of people, so connecting existing communities is a great way to build a new one!" - Jason 

Engaging and building relationships with the existing community helps strengthen your own network. An interesting point that Jason pointed out during the chat was that often best results come from connecting two communities that don't know each other and social is built for that.

While having an online presence and engaging with communities on social platforms is a must to be seen as a thought leader, what's more important is to understand which networks should a leader be present at.

We can never define one platform where presence is a must to be visible as a thought leader. It depends on your goals and who you are trying to connect with.

Interestingly, during the chat, the community voted for Twitter and LinkedIn to be the most effective social networks for thought leaders. Twitter is great for real-time engagement, feedback and to build a community. LinkedIn is effective to network with the peers in the industry and engage with them via LinkedIn groups/ posts.

Platforms like Blab, can bring across personality and authenticity. However, it isn't mandatory to be on live streaming apps or on video networks to position yourself as a leader.

And to be a like-able leader, you got to be "Authentic."

"Likeability comes after lot of work. Approachability, Accessibility, Attitude to help, Humility & Updated content" - @falgunivasavada

In fact, those in the leadership position and active on social media come across as more friendly, transparent and accessible to the followers.

If you want to be seen as a thought leader, raise your social media profile

• Focus on your objective and reach out to your target audience via online forums / LinkedIn groups / Twitter/ Blogs
• Start small - like participating in Twitter chats and building connections 
• Engage with your audience with effective and useful content
• Always respond to questions and comments 
• Share your thoughts, learnings and opinions with the community
• Engage for social good. Support causes that are closer to your heart and associate with like minded groups - @1DigitaLife

"Leadership is about people and if we are not engaging, we are not really leading" - Jason

Our community gave a shout out to the leaders who engage, communicate and lead in the areas of HR/ Entrepreneurship/ Leadership/ Communications/ Travel: @richardbranson; @anandmahindra; @AshishJThakkar;@GautamGhosh @narendramodi; @BarackObama; @sureshpprabhu;@guykawasaki; @PrabirJha; @AbhijitBhaduri; @IndianYash; @JoyAndLife;@JLipowski; @Nicolette_; @TheTravelCamel;@Sihpromatum;@PRmomentIndia; @shonali

I'd love to know the thought leaders who have inspired you on social media. What is your like-ability quotient for a leader on social networks? Share your thoughts in the comment section below!

How To Use Online Networking For Business Development And Growth

Let me tell you a story of a hardworking entrepreneur named Paul, who was dedicated to grow a successful business. Day after day, Paul worked so hard giving the maximum, but getting no results,  and he became angry and frustrated. But Paul wasn't a quitter, and decided that he had to work harder. A long time ago he was told that a hard working person always reaps the reward. One day, Paul, feeling devastated and like a failure and not made to be an entrepreneur, decided to go for a walk to blow off some steam. That walk in the park changed everything, because he ran into his college friend Amy. She was the missing link, who connected him to other valuable links.

YOU HAVE TO WORK LIKE AN ANT, AND NETWORK LIKE A GRASSHOPPER

The story of the ants and the grasshopper shows two extrems - ants work hard they don’t have time for rest and leasure, grasshopper is having fun all the time, but in the winter he ends up hungry. The moral of the story for many is - be like an ant and not like a grasshopper; but because most of the time we too, have a tendency to go to extremes, we received that lesson only half way, forgetting that we are not forced to take it to the latter but rather learn and apply what works best for each and every one of us in a specific context.

Networking was always an intricate part of a business success, because business is all about people – and that includes new connections. What gets in a way of networking is that once we focus on our end goal, we forget everything else. The more we work the more we become detached from a social aspect of our business.

Nowadays we have social networks, which represent huge opportunities to meet new people. With a good strategy and targeted approach we can save time while maximizing our efforts and success rate. Usually, networking means «business communications», but these days networking doesn’t have to be tied directly to a business to get results.

Social media networking is not free – you pay for it upfront with your energy and your time. Energy can be restored, however time invested in networking must have some kind of ROI, something tangible that can help you move forward, grow, increase sales, generate more income or gaining any of the following examples:

- New point of view
- Different experience
- Learning new skill
- Increased awareness of your personal brand
- Increased awareness for your startup
- New important contacts
- New friendships
- Invitation to participate in a tweetchat, private linkedin group, blab, community, writing a blog post...
- Start an online brand community

What’s important is to think of your time as if it were a budget, and allocate certain amounts to communicate, connect, exchange opinions, LEARN from others, teach...

If we behave only as ants, we might end up in solitude, and no (wo)man is an island. To go further, grow and innovate, we have to collaborate.

STRATEGIC NETWORKING MUST INCLUDE RESPECTING OTHERS

Choosing our tactics, like whom we contact with and how, seems very calculated and unemotional – but that’s only half of the story. Once you’re done researching and shaping your networking strategy it’s time to focus on the people.People are not assets, numbers, stepping stones... people are made of emotions – dreams, passions, needs, wants.

In other words, your networking strategy might look like it’s focused solely on you and your

business, but it also needs to be focused on the people you’re going to reach. And if you’re not a «people person» your first step, before jumping in business networking, is to learn some people skills, so you can become more effective at it and also have more fun.

- Don’t fake it till you make it – people like genuineness, they have a way to instinctively sense fake.
- If you take, you must give back – show support and respect, be a connector.
- Be prepared to give more than you receive – some people might need more to open and collaborate.
- Invest your time and energy in quality not quantity – don’t be a victim of vanity, and pick those social networks which will best serve your goals.
- Test and try – not every plan and approach will work, prepare to adjust.
- Be curious not a stalker - the more you get to know a person the better relationship

The beauty of online networking is that you can find out peoples' interests in advance, so you can connect with those who share your interests, and discuss related topics. Who knows, you might even move beyond mutually supporting one another and establish a business collaboration. It happens all the time.

Remember: Networking IS a part of Business success – a part you must not skip and leave for a more convenient time. Business success IS about people – and how they respond to your service, your product, most importantly to YOU!

Disclaimer: The post has been written by Iva Ignjatovic, @IvaIgnjatovic who was a guest on #SocialPowWow Twitter chat to speak on this topic.