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.

#SocialPowWow: A meeting ground for Communicators & Marketers

While most of my friends and family are on Facebook and “addicted” to this social network, I choose to meet and interact with new people on Twitter.

No, that doesn’t mean I don’t like my friends or family. ;)

The beauty about Twitter is that you don’t need to be “friends” with someone before you start interacting with them. And what’s better than e-meeting new people from across the globe and learning from their experiences?

Social media has paved the way for us to meet like-minded people from all over the world.

Last year, I started a Twitter chat called #SocialPowWow in order to have a meeting ground on Twitter for PR pros, marketers and startups from India and across the world.

Before I tell you more about it, I’d like to give a BIG shout out to the hosts of chats and the respective communities who helped me learn and increase knowledge over the years and yes, I have built strong relationships with them over time!

I was introduced to the world of Twitter chats by Shonali, and the first ever Twitter chat that I tuned in to was, of course, #MeasurePR. Since then there was no looking back. I enjoyed interacting with the community and learning more about the PR ecosystem and the importance of measurement in PR.

It always felt good to hear different perspectives from people across the globe; that pushed me to explore various other Twitter chats including #Bufferchat (Nicole Miller does a great job by going an extra mile for her community and making a connect with them), #Luv4social (Teri Kojetin & Carmella Lanni), #BizHeroes (I can’t thank Kelly Hungerford enough for guiding me), and #SEMRushChat (Olga Andrienko) which focuses on topics like communications, branding, digital marketing, analytics, and SEO.

How did these chats help me?

Regularly interacting with these communities helped me gain immense knowledge. While I learnt a lot in my day job at a PR agency, I learned even more via these chats. From design tools to understanding analytics, measurement and the changing face of PR in the digital era, the Twitterati have definitely been my guiding light.  

Birth of #SocialPowWow

It was last year in October that I decided to start a chat to build a community of PR pros, marketers, and entrepreneurs in India to discuss topics of mutual interests. From 0 to over 400 followers in five months, I enjoyed building a community of people who have similar interests.

Power is gained by sharing knowledge, not hoarding it.

Inviting experts from various parts of the world including India, and collaborating and connecting the community in India with experts from all over the world and vice versa has definitely been one hell of a roller coaster ride!

I have always believed in the power of community; there is just SO much you can do. You learn, exchange ideas, collaborate and build long lasting relationships, because it’s true that you connect only with like-minded people in this world.

So far, the topics we’ve covered include content marketing, digital marketing, marketing challenges for startups, analytics, storytelling, community management, the gap between PR and media, IMC, marketing trends for 2016, customer experience through analytics, the ethical side of social, and the future of video in India.

It’s been five months since I started the weekly chat and the response to the chat has been overwhelming. Within three months of starting the chat, it was rated among the 15 most popular digital marketing Twitter chats by Echovme. 

Ain’t that awesome?

So, if you’re reading this post, I really hope to see you at the next #SocialPowWow Twitter chat – we chat every Thursday, 11:30AM ET/ 9PM IST. Let’s get together and build a strong community of communications and marketing professionals!

This post was originally published on WUL. 

Marketing Trends & Predictions for 2016

In 2015, what marketers did right and where they missed the mark: 

In 2015, marketers understood the importance of mobile. We also observed increased use of videos and images too this year. 

It's said that by 2020, there will be over 5 billion internet users, with over half of them accessing the internet over handheld tablet devices and 80 billion connected devices worldwide! 

With increasing internet users & connected devices worldwide, marketers will push more content to their audience. While some marketers are already overdoing content, good quality content will triumph quantity.

"Storytelling" as a jargon has been used quite a bit  by marketers in 2015. However, not many have mastered the art of storytelling just as yet. Marketers must first understand their audience and what kind of stories they are likely to respond to. It's imperative to build the story in a brand's DNA, amongst its employees, content and finally in the marketing efforts.  

Time & budgets likely to be spent by marketers in 2016

According to Gartner. marketing budgets in 2016 are set to increase on an average to 11% of total company revenue. 

As we saw increased focus of marketers towards mobile and video, it's expected that marketers in 2016 will be $pending heavily on mobile and video. WithGoogle pushing video "micro moments", it will be interesting to see how brands will capitalize on videos. The purchase journey of a consumer has been fragmented into hundreds of micro-moments.

It's important for brands to be present in those moments with relevant, useful videos to establish brand equity and connect with their consumers. 

A study by Web Video Marketing Council says that 96% of B2B marketers are now using video marketing. 

Needless to say, content marketing is set to rise in 2016! As per the Content Marketing Institute (@CMIContent), 51% of B2B companies plan to increase spending in content marketing in the coming year. 

It's the age of data and it makes every spend accountable and measurable which implies analytics will be big in 2016. According to @brandanewco, expenditures on marketing analytics are set to rise by 60%. 

Smart Marketers will also reserve some $$ for organic/earned & engagement! 

Wearable technology & smart devices expected to gain more traction in 2016

As more people strap technology to their wrists, wearable devices are set to become powerful platforms for customer engagement. Wearable devices will give marketers an opportunity to analyse habits, attitudes & behaviour patterns to better serve consumers. 

Healthcare industry will be one of biggest beneficiary of wearables in my opinion. 

A report by @McKinseyDigital states that wearables are set to become $11 trillion market!  

Evolution of Paid v/s Organic 

Convergence of earned, paid and owned media will remain the sweet spot for marketers. Smart marketers will find the right balance between the three that will work for their customers. 

While it is said that paid is taking over organic growth, I believe in the long term organic growth helps build trust and loyalty with the customers and eventually lead to sales. A paid campaign can get you more eyeballs, but organic still has a long tail!  

So, what are your marketing trends and predictions for 2016? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below.

Note: This topic was discussed during the #SocialPowWow Twitter chat and the full transcript can be read here: https://goo.gl/ef1mhx 

#SocialPowWow: Share, NOT Save Knowledge

I have always believed in the power of community and over time have formed a community of like minded people who share similar interests.

“Power is gained by sharing knowledge, not hoarding it”

That said, I recently started a Twitter ch #SocialPowWow. The idea behind the chat was to build a community:

• For Indian Entrepreneurs, Marketing, PR, Advertising and Digital professionals
• To exchange ideas and start discussions around topics to explore endless possibilities that are transforming the world of business

Till now, five chats have been successfully hosted on Twitter and the response has been superb! Here’s a list of topics we have covered so far and in case you haven’t check out the chat as yet, please do give a read to the re-cap:

• Social Media for Public Relations & Strategic Communications

With our special guest Vikram Kharvi, Senior Group Head, lead B2B & Tech Practice @AdfactorsPR, the chat received a great response from the PR & digital marketing professionals in India and globally. The chat focused on the role social media plays in strategic communication, especially for those in PR, how social media can be beneficial in PR crisis management and best practices for PR teams in managing brand position on social media. Here’s the full transcript of the chat: https://goo.gl/E8x7WH  

• Content Marketing for Businesses

Olga Andrienko, Head of Social Media at @semrush spoke about content marketing. We all say content is the king and rightly so! How do you create scintillating content for the readers, align content marketing with your business objectives and tools you can use for content creation is what was discussed during this chat. Here’s a quick re-cap: https://goo.gl/Jeppsc

• Digital Marketing for Startups

The chat with Sorav Jain, Thinker in Chief @echovme was focused around digital marketing for startups, how much should one invest in digital marketing, tools which can be helpful for marketing for startups and much more! Catch the full transcript of the chat here: http://sfy.co/c0nCK  

• Social Media Analytics

Social media analytics with Shonali Burke, CEO, Shonali Burke Consulting, Inc. was a fun and engaging chat. The chat covered how social media analytics could benefit businesses and clients, how to develop strategies and measure KPIs, challenges faced to get buy-ins from the upper management and the tools that can help in social media measurement. Check out the chat transcript here: https://t.co/jHtasg6zjW

• Storytelling & Social Media

After an engaging chat with Shonali on social media analytics, we had another insightful chat with her on storytelling & social media. The topic covered the importance of storytelling in social media, focus of brands on storytelling in their campaigns, best practices in storytelling and how customers’ perception play into effective storytelling. To read the full chat transcript, click here: https://goo.gl/gTsZAn

I’m thrilled to have such wonderful and powerful #SocialPowWow community! Always around to exchange knowledge, share ideas, examples and enticing case-studies. Let’s strengthen the community and learn from each other’s experiences. Join us for #SocialPowWow, every Thursday 9PM IST; 11:30AM ET. Look forward to your participation.

Keep Your Marketing Efforts Afloat With Demand Marketing

Today, everyone is a publisher in the sea of content and it is imperative that the marketeers move towards better strategies with modern day storytelling. This is where demand marketing comes to play.

Demand marketing is an integrated mix of traditional and digital marketing methods which includes content marketing, PR and influencer relations. (Content marketing + PR + Social media = Demand marketing).

Here's an interesting info graphic by Onboardly explaining the concept of Demand Marketing.

Twitter Tips to Turn into a Twitter Pro

It is interesting to note that while for some individuals, social media platforms remain to be a mere tool or a means to connect with friends, for many it is an extension of their personality. Parallels can also be drawn on how enterprises/brands use these social media tools – they imbibe the ethos of customer driven marketing. 

In today's digital age, customers are increasingly interacting with the brands on social media and it is imperative to have a strong social media marketing strategy in place.   

While there are various tools which individuals and brands use to promote their products, I came across a very helpful info graphic bySalesforce on 'Twitter' which highlights the key ways to optimize the Twitter profile (both for individuals and for brands), best practices for tweet structure, and how to increase engagement. 

I'm sure most of you will agree that Twitter is a great tool for marketing and by adopting the tips shared in the below info graphic, it definitely will boost your Twitter presence and perhaps increase your Twitter followers. 

Read on to make a difference in your Twitter marketing strategy.

Click To Enlarge

Via Salesforce

Flash Mobs Go Social in India

What the iPhone is to smart phones, flash mobs are to marketing.

As organizations all over the globe try to use smart moves to attract and retain customers, the recent and ongoing turbulence in the global economy has only intensified this need.

While a slew of such campaigns have taken place in India, one that caught the fancy of many is the recent flash mob organized by the IBM OnDemand Community.

If numbers could speak, 19,000 views (and counting) for this YouTube video (on YouTube) is pretty impressive. It is interesting to see how companies – both large and small – are taking the social route to engage audience.

Keeping the IBM flash mob in square focus, while IBM was one of the first technology firms to champion the idea in India, using social media (Twitter) has only helped to further the reach of this effort.

Here’s another example: a flash mob was organized “just for fun” towards the end of 2011, where nearly 200 people in Mumbai pulled off a four-minute jig at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (where the terror attacks of 2008 began).

And in New Delhi, around 50 Delhiites took the city by surprise with a similar tactic. While there were 200 people who participated, there were over 2,500 views online on YouTube.

Flash mobs have a way of engaging the audience. So CMOs globally (and in India) are taking flash mobs to social platforms to give them a new lease of life.

As you can see from these examples, the reach of such activities without the use of Twitter and YouTube would not be as high.

While the key is to use flash mobs to garner attention from the onlookers, social media helps to improve their repeat audience as well as capture fresh eyeballs for the gig.

Over and above that, 19,000 views (going back to the IBM video) also helps the CMO prove a great viral impact to its internal stakeholders – particularly when it only took 75 IBMers to make it happen!

While IBM India pulled together a great show, there were aspects of the event that deserved more attention, particularly on Twitter. While tweets by the IBM team reached a lot of folks on Twitter, the company did poorly when it came to the related hashtag (#IBMFlashMob) trending.

Given the number of employees IBM has in the country, it shouldn’t have been very challenging to bring them together and make the hashtag trend, so that it reached a larger number of Twitter users.

That said, IBM has been one of the tech giants to take a step forward and try to be different in its approach to reach out to the audience.

Do you think others are going to follow suit? Do share your thoughts in the comments.