How do you become a ‘cool’ brand? You certainly can’t just claim that you’re ‘cool’ – that is decidedly un-cool! One increasingly popular way to build the cool-factor is by paying social media influencers to promote your brand. After all, they have the credibility and coolness built-in, and an endorsement from an influencer must be more powerful than an ad coming from a marketer, right?
That may be the case, but there are some major hurdles to overcome if you’re going to go the influencer route. The first is finding the right influencers. Companies like Influential are using AI (powered by IBM Watson) to help match brands with the right influencers, partially based on ‘personality’ traits. For influencers to build your brand in a manner that’s going to strengthen its value, it’s critical to find a good match. Without this, you risk blurring your brand’s identity in ways that will damage its authenticity and distinctiveness.
But not only do the influencers you choose need to fit with your brand and everything you stand for, they also need to have the fan base to support the investment. While the top influencers claim anywhere between 5 million and 20 million followers, the vast majority of those who sell themselves as influencers typically have reach that’s in the hundred-thousand range. If you’re going after Moms or Millennials, this may be great from a targeting perspective, but in the grand scheme of total Moms or Millennials, 100,000 people is a tiny fraction of the group you are hoping to reach and persuade. Given the reality of these numbers, reach is a significant hurdle if you’re expecting to become cool as a result of your influencer strategy. If you’re not paying top dollar for a top influencer, you’ll need an army of influencers to reach any sort of critical mass.
Another major hurdle to overcome is that most of the people who actually see the post from the influencer are not there to learn about your brand. It’s the content that they came for, not your brand news. In fact, the deliberate idea is to make these posts not look like ads, or even like brand-sponsored content. The result: most of those who see these posts don’t remember what brand was involved. For one Communicus client who uses influencers to support their campaign efforts on a consistent basis throughout the year, less than one-third of those who see their influencer posts are able to remember the brand that was being featured. Having the influencer use one of your Distinctive Brand Assets in their image can help dramatically improve brand linkage, but there’s always a careful balance to consider where too much branding can make the post seem less authentic.
So while influencers can bring coolness and legitimacy to your brand, between the issues of scale and brand associations, it is wise to balance out the investment against the likely return. For advertisers who hope for broad impact, an influencer strategy is usually best as a supplement to – not a replacement for – a more traditional media buy.
Kacy Doster Executive Vice President
