By Logan Godfrey    

By Logan Godfrey    

Sourced from Business 2 Community

By Allen Yesilevich

Influencer marketing is the new darling of the modern digital marketing world, even though its practice is as old as human language — maybe even older. It has always been about persuading those with influence over others to speak up on our behalf.

The ancient Greek teacher and philosopher Aristotle codified an approach for influencing outcomes via communication more than 2,300 years ago as part of his rhetoric teachings. We now call that method Aristotle’s three proofs:

• Ethos: Is the communicator trustworthy and credible?

• Pathos: Does the communication stimulate emotion?

• Logos: Is the communication logical and supported by evidence?

Keep Aristotle and his teaching in mind as we investigate the best business-to-business (B2B) marketing methods for allowing influencers to influence your prospects.

Stimulating emotions is easy. A picture of a cute puppy in a cage at the dog pound, a child in need or a particularly testy political subject will do the trick. It’s much harder, however, to convince people that you are a trustworthy source of information or to prove your thesis with logic and evidence. An influencer marketing strategy requires you to not only convince the influencer of your intent but also make sure they have enough information and clout to do the same with your target prospects.

Things have changed since Aristotle’s time, but his teachings still apply today. They may apply even more, as we live in a time when it’s easy for disreputable people to fabricate information that stimulates our emotions without providing any factual evidence. This makes savvy consumers and prospects leery of many emails and social media posts unless they are from well-known sources.

Renewed Interest In Influencer Marketing

So, why now? Why is influencer marketing on the rise? What makes influencer marketing so attractive to modern-day marketers? The answer is threefold: volume, ease of implementation and cost of digital media.

Social media and email are low-cost and easy-to-use methods of communication that potentially allow for high volumes of connections. While these methods have value, they are more quantitative than qualitative. This makes digital media a great advertising tool to get your message out quickly and cost-effectively. A successful influencer marketing program, however, needs qualitative results; influencing is more about psychology than technology.

Effective communication is much more than the mere words you say or write. We instinctively know that the more senses you engage in a campaign, the more memorable and influential an experience will be. Certain smells, images, places, descriptions and music trigger long-recessed memories because of your associations with previous experiences. Adding a layer of credibility with the right influencer will only solidify the memory and leave a lasting impression.

Experiential marketing allows you to stimulate the five senses and effectively express a message. Putting your influencers together with your prospects, in an environment that fosters genuine interaction, allows your influencers to influence in a natural, highly personal and qualitative manner.

(Full disclosure: My company offers experiential marketing and events services.)

Influencer Strategies At Trade Shows, Conferences And Seminars

If you already use experiential events as part of your marketing strategy, you can easily tweak them to be influencer-friendly. Here are some ideas and strategies on how to loop in an influencer approach at your next event:

• Invite influencers to attend as guests. Having a party or other type of gathering allows you to invite both influencers (including clients) and prospects. Be sure to find ways for your guests to interact with an influencer. Even the seating arrangements at seminars or demonstrations can enhance the potential for influencing. Try creating seating in a round or horseshoe shape to allow attendees to face each other, and then arrange the seating placement so that influencers and prospects are in positions to facilitate discussions with each other.

• Invite influencers to be panelists. Create methods for having the audience interact with your influencers. All too often, guest speakers leave the stage after they are done, and the audience does not have an opportunity to speak with them. The same goes for company executives, who, in some regards, are perceived to be influencers themselves. One of the main reasons people attend trade shows is to speak with company experts and executives. Do yourself a favor — give the people what they want.

• Invite influencers to participate with your brand. If you currently do not participate in trade shows, conferences or seminars, consider creating a road show or pop-up activation. Invite both influencers and prospects to share their thoughts, test out a product or do anything engaging and on-brand that can be captured on social media by the attendees.

The notion is simple. An influencer has a built-in audience, eager to digest and promote acquired information. The act of endorsement is multiplied exponentially across digital and personal networks, thus maximizing an investment spend that goes beyond quantitative results and continually pays it forward.

Socrates influenced his student Plato, who influenced his student Aristotle, who influenced his student Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great conquered almost the entire known world in his time and has influenced Western and Middle Eastern culture for more than 2,300 years. Now that’s influencer marketing at its best.

Feature Image Credit: Getty

VP of Marketing & Growth @mc2experience_ reengineering human experiences through impactful events and experiential marketing.

By Allen Yesilevich

Sourced from Forbes

By  Barrett Wissman

Influencer marketing is paying off for brands. In fact, a Tomoson study found that for every dollar a brand spent on influencer marketing, it made $6.50. That’s no small chunk of change in an era when up to 24 percent of a company’s budget is allotted to marketing.

Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that influencer marketing is predicted to swell to a $10 billion industry within the next five years. With significant ROI and relevant, cost-effective marketing tactics, influencer marketing represents an appealing way to reach the masses. This dynamic environment is what makes every day at Two Pillar Management, our firm that helps match companies with influencers, an exciting and engaging one.

The problem is that it isn’t always so easy to reach the masses. A study by TapInfluence and Altimeter revealed that more than two-thirds of marketers struggle to find the right influencers. Influencers come equipped with their own interest areas, tone, and audience — selling points that can quickly become drawbacks if they don’t line up with the company’s own branding.

That’s why smart brands that have found their ideal influencers are trying to seal the deal indefinitely.

I recently attended a company meeting of VPX Sports, a manufacturer and distributor of sports drinks and supplements. Jack Owoc, the company’s CEO, gave an in-depth presentation on the company’ social media efforts. The company employs more than a hundred influencers that it calls “Elites” on long-term contracts to promote its Bang brand of sports drinks. In doing so, it has created the comraderie of a team-like working environment amongst its influencers. Meg Liz Owoc, the companys CMO, noted that these longer term influencer-based programs have given the Bang brand its social media edge and growing market share over its more entrenched competitors Red Bull and Monster Energy.

What’s in It for Brands?

The most obvious benefit long-term partnerships offer brands is trust. As influencers devote more blog posts or more Instagram real estate to a specific company, their faith in the brand becomes more visible — and their followers are likely to develop a stronger affinity for it as well. That ongoing support appears much more genuine.

Likewise, transitioning an influencer into a brand ambassador can bring with it exclusivity and the opportunity to explore new angles. An influencer who’s producing multiple posts in conjunction with a company isn’t locked into covering just one aspect of the brand — she can use different posts to highlight different elements or ways to use the product or service. That means she has the potential to reach different people grappling with problems the brand can solve.

Sazan Hendrix, who is a respected beauty, lifestyle and fashion influencer, is focusing more and more on longer term brand ambassadorships vs. shorter term one-off posts for random brands. Most recently, she has entered into longer term agreements with Maybelline, Olay and CVS. Sazan commented that “it is far easier to create organic and honest integrations with brands over time as opposed to an individual post here and there for random companies”.

Sazan HendrixSazan Hendrix

Long-term partnerships also provide both brands and influencers with the option to do testing they couldn’t do otherwise. With both brand elements remaining the same across multiple posts, companies and influencers can do A/B testing on different approaches, formats, images, and messaging. By isolating the piece that’s changed, they can test and tweak in a live environment and make immediate shifts.

Digiday noted that the trend toward long-term partnerships even includes more in-person appearances on brands’ behalf, as well as morality clauses to prevent damage to the brand hitching its wagon to the influencer. They’ve also afforded brands the ability to capitalize on the move to video more easily: “We’ve seen cost per view being the most important pricing model as video formats have overtaken static content,” explained John Kalis, vice president of U.S. business development at indaHash.

What’s in It for Influencers?

Influencers who seek to build careers on their influence get a big boost from long-term partnerships with brands: It’s guaranteed work with a brand that fits their message and audience. That affords them the flexibility to turn down one-off requests that feel like a stretch or would be viewed as off-brand by their followers.

Because these brands are familiar with influencers’ work, they’re given more creative freedom. This plays well with A/B testing, but it also lets influencers stretch their wings to try new filters, fresh phrasing, or distinctive approaches. Many influencers originally won attention through their unique style, and diluting that to meet the expectations of brands that don’t understand what they bring to the table can be demoralizing. Long-term partnerships counteract that by allowing influencers to maximize the trust they’ve earned.

More recently, brands are using marketing strategies such as influencer capsule collections and co-branded products with influencers to build longer term associations with influencers with mass appeal. Recently, influencer Jay Alvarrez designed a travel and luggage bag line for the Norwegian company Douchebags. The company is giving Alvarrez the flexibility to shoot his own iconic content and to promote the line in his own style over an entire season. Company CMO Vetle Brevik commented that the company was very pleasantly surprised when sales far exceeded expectations for the campaign launch. Brevik attributes this success to the natural passion Alvarrez exudes for the brand: something that is certainly linked to the brand being a collaborative effort between the influencer and the company.

It would be dangerous for brands to overlook the importance of influencer-follower connections. Influencers know their followers well and interact with them regularly. If they also happen to love a specific product or service, they’ll go to bat for the brand behind it, and they’ll find ways to communicate their appreciation to their followers. The longer an influencer engages with a brand, the more synonymous his or her name becomes with the company — and it’s a good thing when fans see brands and influencers in alignment.

As the FTC reminds influencers to clearly disclose their relationships with brands, long-term partnerships remove some of the anxiety and hassle that accompany these disclosures. More transparency can make influencers like they’re removing a barrier and allowing followers to see the real relationships they have with beloved brands, not just the parts they want them to see. It explains why an influencer like Joy Cho from Oh Joy! has put in years of work with Target to design bandages, benefiting both.

These long-term partnerships may make influencer marketing feel less risky to both influencers and brands while, ironically, allowing them to take more risks in their marketing. Brands that have found relevant influencers are locking them down, and companies that don’t want to fall behind will feel pressure to find their own long-term matches.

By  Barrett Wissman

Sourced from Forbes

By Caitlin Burgess

Today’s content marketing space is a tumultuous one. Content shock, ever-changing search engine algorithms, social media’s midlife crisis, growing consumer distrust in brand messaging—marketers are constantly challenged to adapt and scale their strategies to simply bolster visibility, nevermind reach objectives and prove ROI.

Emerging from the noisy marketing mix is a promising strategic marketing star that can capture the attention of hard to reach buyers, improve audience engagement, bring insightful perspectives to the forefront, and build brand trust and credibility.

Of course, I’m talking about influencer marketing.

Spokespeople, brand advocates, experts—brands have been tapping “influential” people as marketing and advertising partners for a century. And, just as it’s always been, in the modern era of influencer marketing, some love it, some hate it, and plenty of people question whether it “actually works.”

At TopRank Marketing, we see credibility, value, and opportunity in influencer marketing; people crave credible content.

And we also see authenticity, relevancy, and thoughtfulness as defining characteristics of the modern approach to influencer marketing—we call it Influencer Marketing 2.0.

Our own resident marketing influencer and CEO, Lee Odden, has been evangelizing influencer marketing inside and outside company walls since 2012, before the practice in the content marketing realm went boom.

Lee’s been named the No.1 “Influencer Marketing Influencer” by Onalytica, and his expertise on the subject has been featured on top industry publications including CMO.com, Forbes, and Social Media Examiner. Lee was also instrumental in the Influence 2.0 research report in partnership with Traackr and Brian Solis of Altimeter Group.

So, what is the “Influencer Marketing 2.0” approach? Let these words of Lee Odden wisdom—words that have defined how we’ve architected our influencer marketing manifesto—lend some guidance, focus, and inspiration to your influencer marketing efforts.

How to Approach Influencer Marketing 2.0

Co-Create for Greatness

Content is the foundation of marketing. Period. But marketers repeatedly cite that consistent creation of strategic, quality, engaging content is a top marketing challenge.

But as Lee often says:

If you want your content to be great, ask influencers to participate. – @leeodden Click To Tweet

When you co-create content with influencers, you not only provide influential experts with a medium to share valuable insights, but can also provide your audience with a mix of perspectives—upping your storytelling capabilities and credibility. In addition, some influencers already have a desire and knack for creating content, so an opportunity to collaborate will be welcomed and beneficial to your business.

For any kind of content a business creates and publishes to the world, there is an opportunity for collaboration with credible voices that have active networks interested in what those voices have to say. – @leeodden Click To Tweet

However, it’s also important to note that co-created content isn’t inherently valuable or set up to drive gangbusters marketing success. Value and relevance is certainly in the eye of the beholder—your audience. As a result, you need to stay true to your audience and your influencers, which requires an integrated approach that includes SEO and other proven content marketing tactics.

As Lee has said:

With an understanding of keyword demand, B2B marketers can tap into the opportunity to be the best answer … (adding influencers) to that optimized content will give it the credibility and engagement needed to inspire action. – @leeodden Click To Tweet

Influencer Marketing 2.0 In Action

Content planning software company DivvyHQ* took their marketing the “back to the future”, launching a long-running campaign that included a sequence of connected content marketing campaigns featuring relevant influencers.

The SaaS company secured contributions from top content marketers for campaigns that resulted in significant increases in credibility and engagement. Additionally, the campaigns exceeded performance goals and added to DivvyHQ’s bottom line. The end result was this interactive eBook asset.

Define Influence for Your Brand & Audience

Influencer marketing is often pegged as a tactic rooted in compensating celebrities or brandividuals with large social followings to push your product or service. But influence isn’t defined by popularity or number of followers:

Influence is the ability to affect action. – @leeodden Click To Tweet

There may be no bigger mistake than focusing on “shiny object” individuals; fame by association is more than hard to come by. There is absolutely a place for brandividuals in your influencer mix, but it’s important to remember that:

Everyone is influential about something. – @leeodden Click To Tweet

Your brand, industry, product or service, and audience is undeniably unique—and influence varies. Furthermore, it may be easier than ever to give the perception of influence. After all, Twitter’s recent purge of suspicious accounts sent some individuals’ follower count into a landslide.

However, the potential is there to validate and build relationships with relevant, experienced individuals—inside or outside your organization; broad expertise and niche knowledge; large or intimate yet engaged followings—who have the ability and willingness to affect action.

Nurture Relationships Early & Often

At its core, influencer marketing is all about brands engaging and developing relationships with individuals—individuals who have relevant topical expertise, reach, and resonance that aligns with the goals of the brand.

But strong, lasting relationships aren’t built overnight. Some influencers are frequently tapped to participate in various projects. In addition, other more niche experts or rising stars may not be as experienced in content collaboration. So, as Lee says, you need to develop rapport with influencers early:

Grow your influencer network long before you need them. The day to create an army of influential advocates isn’t the first day of the war. Find common interests and develop rapport. – @leeodden Click To Tweet

And your work shouldn’t stop after the first collaboration. You need to keep connections hot and mutually beneficial. In addition, for those more niche experts or rising stars, you can help them create more influence for themselves and your brand.

Work with an influencer, you’re friends for a day. Help someone become influential and they’re a friend for life. – @leeodden Click To Tweet

Influencer Marketing 2.0 In Action

Prophix*—a leading provider of corporate performance management (CPM) software solutions—combined original research with influencer content to create crush-worthy content marketing force.

With an interactive quiz, with influencer micro-content featured throughout, serving as the anchor asset, additional tactics such as long-form influencer interviews, email marketing, and more, rounded out this campaign.

The results? In the first 45 days, the anchor asset landing page garnered a view rate six-times higher than the benchmark for a similar resource. It was also the fourth most trafficked page—behind the Home, About Us, and Privacy pages.

Entice Participation By Showcasing Value

Whether you’ve cultivated warm relationships or you’re hoping to go beyond social engagement with the first collaboration ask, your success in securing their partnership is grounded in showcasing the mutual value proposition.

Some thought leaders want to bolster or grow their influence, while others simply want to create something their proud of (or their bosses can take pride in). Regardless, be transparent, make sure your ask is relevant, and lead with the value.

Invite influencers to make something together that drives the influencer’s objectives, while at the same time, fuels brand objectives. – @leeodden

Specifically, when it comes to colder relationships, don’t ask too much too soon.

Be thoughtful about how you ask and how you reward when working with influencers. – @leeodden Click To Tweet

Make Amplification Natural & Easy

There are obvious business benefits to working with influencers. Not only do they lend authority and credibility to your content and brand, but they also hold the power to introduce you and your content to their audiences.

Once your co-created content is ready to be released into the wild, at a minimum, provide influencers with the messaging and visuals they need to easily promote on their channels. In addition, make sure the final product lives up to its full potential. Regardless of their intentions for participating, if they’re going to share content with their followings, they need to be proud of it.

If they care, they’ll share. – @leeodden Click To Tweet

Influencer Marketing 2.0 In Action

There are few better examples of this principle in action than SAP’s* interactive microsite designed to help launch their Leonardo platform. Thirty-two influencers were engaged to share their insights on digital innovation topics from blockchain to machine learning.

The content experience was so compelling for the influencers that the share rate was 100%. In fact, several influencers shared multiple times. The content experience was engaging for the audience, too—the microsite had over 21 million social impressions.

Put Wisdom Into Action

Whether you love, hate, or question the potential of influencer marketing, it’s undoubtedly on the rise. It’s enjoyed a couple years of big hype, but now is the time to decide if it should be a trusted part of your integrated marketing strategy.

Use these guiding principles and snackable quotes from a pioneer of the craft to help you define what influence means to your brand, and opportunities for collaboration and co-creation.

Speaking of quotes, as the “Prince of Preachers,” Charles Spurgeon said: “Wisdom is the right use of knowledge.”

So, go forth and put your newfound influencer marketing wisdom into action.

Remember how we said that influencers add credibility to your content? Learn how three brands co-created more credible content to drive awareness, engagement, and action.

If you still want more influencer marketing insight, join Lee along with TopRank Marketing Digital Strategy Director, Ashley Zeckman, at their CMWorld sessions to learn how influencer marketing can grow your business. Get the details here.

*Disclaimer: DivvyHQ, Prophix, and SAP are TopRank Marketing clients.

By Caitlin Burgess

Sourced from TopRank Marketing