Influencer Marketing Archives - Page 9 of 10

In News

Advertising in Fashion Magazines is Dead to us Now

February 19, 2018 No Comments

Now? Fashion brands are meeting with social media influencers directly.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Hundreds of NY Fashion Week influencers were invited to a party specifically held to put them in front of brands that want some of the spotlight. The party was held by a company called Influence, which connects brands and influencers. Together, they create social campaigns that expand visibility and engage new audiences for brands. The influencer gets paid, and the brands get to reach audiences that they might not be able to access using other methods. Welcome to the “now” of fashion and brand marketing.

Influence is a sister company to the already-successful operation called Newswire. Newswire currently have an online portal that publishes thousands of press releases every day. Journalists and influencers can go straight to company news, by keyword or subject search. This means that they can get their news directly from the companies, rather than have the interaction brokered through a PR agency. This renders the traditional PR agency almost obsolete.

The way the PR industry is changing is similar to the way that fashion magazines are going. Teen magazines and fashion publications are no longer the huge, powerful entities that brokered deals between brands/fashion houses and their audiences. Now, it is the online fashion influencers who have huge sway with their fans, and brands can contact them directly. This circumvents the hugely expensive fashion magazines, whose circulations are falling dramatically.

As an example, a top YouTube fashion influencer is Chriselle Lim. Her channel is growing at a breakneck pace. Her videos reveal how to transform basic pieces of clothing into stylish apparel. Chriselle has support from global brands such as Target and Estee Lauder.

The change in the way brands and fashion are marketed has been incredibly rapid. Fashion magazines? Pah. Now Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube are the place to put brand marketing spend.

But back to the party. The event hosted hundreds of NY Fashion Week Influencers at Manhattan’s chic Sixty Soho Hotel. Influencers and brands from across the globe arrived to share in networking and developing opportunities for campaign partnerships that strengthen an Influencer’s channel and widen content reach for brands. The party was also used to promote Influence.com itself. And it worked, because here you are, reading about this new company.

Said Director of Influencer Marketing, Magnolia Sevenler, “Whether you are an influencer or marketer, the Influence by Newswire platform provides a community to build your campaigns.”

According to Sevenler, the platform has been well-received from both marketers and creators for its simplicity and reach. “It’s exciting to see all the positive feedback…as we enter a new era of marketing, where micro-influencers can be rewarded for their passions and brands can reach new untapped audiences.”

The company has plans to expand its network and add additional features to enhance users’ experience. And it is doing this all because the fashion magazine industry is destined for a papery grave. It’s time to move on, people, and bring your marketing spend with you.

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In News

How brands’ use of online celebrity influencers is maturing

February 16, 2018 No Comments

By Stephen Lepitak

The search by brand marketers for consumer engagement has led to the continued growth and funding of the social media influencer that has made millionaires of some vloggers and online celebrities the world over.

However, as these seemingly normal people have grown their fame, demand by brands for their audiences has similarly grown and the rules and regulations around their ability to promote products became a problem for marketing regulators. And in that time some have developed that relationship to become the face and voice of individual brands they truly connect with. Examples are endless, from Cole LaBrant and Mackenzie Davis to Maia Mitchell, who have used different platforms and shared their own life skills and insights to develop personal fan bases. And as Facebook changes its newsfeed algorithm to drive more personalised content to the fore, over media content, those organic relationships will become more coveted by advertisers.

According to research by blog discovery website Bloglovin’ 32% of marketers saw influencer campaigns as being essential to their strategies, with 41% admitting to seeing more success from their influencer campaigns over their traditional advertising.

“Brands are learning,” states Peter Willems, head of marketing activities and sponsorship for world footballing body, Uefa, while speaking on a panel organized by FCB Inferno about influencers and his experience of working with them through the launch of a new project alongside freestyle soccer skills channel, F2.

“Brands are more and more trying to put the objective first. We believe in data but we struggle a little bit with specific target groups, especially youngsters, and therefore one of the objectives of working with F2 was to grow our database within that specific target group. We believe at the moment that influencers can help us there.” he continues to explain, adding that sharing the objective with the influencers who are involved in the collaboration is now crucial too.

Willems also cites the comparison over the share prices of Adidas and main rival Nike as examples of how powerful the use of influencers can be in delivering sales, with Adidas having spent years now working with online personalities to achieve global growth and product awareness.

“For me, the biggest problem has to be how you measure success, which is still in its infancy to show what it can bring and what it can do,” Willems continues.

That problem around measuring return on investment is definitely to be an issue that brands entering this burgeoning sector face, agrees Laura Visick, head of social for FCB Inferno.

“There are soft and hard metrics that we can put in place such as reach and engagement which can be given to the influencers themselves to benchmark against their own content and to identify how things are resonating. One of the most important things is upfront identifying what the objective is and articulating what success looks like to ensure that everyone is on board.. there are a huge number of ways to work with influencers,” she explains of the clearly maturing marketing strategy, where one celebrity tweet is not seen as success in itself.

“The ASOS model is a good one. They are building a group of influencers that are engaging with and advocating the brand all of the time, and there are a few campaigns that we are seeing coming through that the moment that are very similar. They are building a group of ambassadors who are engaging with the brand and creating a very authentic relationship rather than a ‘one-hit-wonder’,” she continues, adding that that course helps create more robust measurements.

Using tools to help monitor and achieve return on investment is an obvious route. Verena Papik, director of marketing EMEA of Musical.ly, says it is important for brands to understand why each tool is being used and used to meet specific set goals and objectives.

She also advises that brands and influencers set objectives that see both succeed together.

“When brands and influencers really collaborate together, and they include a tool like Musical.ly, it is to add value to each other. Everyone is getting lost in setting goals and achieving data numbers, numbers of posts; but in reality is actually about adding value to each other,” she explains. “For a long term relationship you definitely have to understand what benefit the other party can actually bring to this partnership.”

Influencer, Bangs Carey-Campbell, fitness editor at Elle Magazine and blogger, advises that brands recognise the importance of not just paying online celebrities to pose with one-off products but to agree an ongoing strategy and to really follow through on the partnership for the most successful collaborations. She also advises that influencers understand the brand’s perspective rather than forcing their own ways of working fully, too.

“It’s about finding that middle ground when creating content. Especially if you are being paid to do that. You do have to understand from a brand’s perspective that they have a certain job description and certain markers that they have to achieve even if they are not 100% clear on them. It can be tough from the creative’s point of view as you have a way that you like to produce your content, but that’s why the brand got in touch with you. It can be tough to find that middle ground but as a creator, if that is the direction that you want to take your brand in, and you want to be more involved with other brands, you have got to be willing to meet in the middle somewhere. It’s not compromising your material. It’s finding a way to work together and find a way to be flexible,” she relays but later offers a reminder to brands that they are working and partnering with individual people, and not to forget that and treat them as a soulless commodity.

There is a long way still to go for the brand and influencer model, and the bubble has far from burst judging by the growing numbers offering their services and audiences to brands, however another piece of advice that all contributors agreed with was that influencers were more successful if they offered authentic insights and had achieved success in the fields their audiences held interests in. Otherwise it was likely that such influence would be fleeting and of little long-term commercial value in tandem.

By Stephen Lepitak

Sourced from THE DRUM

In News

4 Reasons Why Influencer Marketing is a Must-Have for Your Company

February 14, 2018 No Comments

By Magda Urbaniak

Marketing is such a dynamic industry that the “in thing” from a year ago, is now just a wisp of a memory. It is essential to have an ear to the ground at all times. Following our customers is simply not enough – we always need to stay one step ahead of them.

The beginning of a new year provides the ideal opportunity to identify, find and adapt to the latest trends.

Observing and acting on the latest trends in time can be challenging. Each year we hear marketing experts predict plausible trends, and the year passes with no action from our end. That could be the case because we don’t find enough evidence to support the trend and convince executives of its necessity, or because we can’t find the time and resources necessary to pursue it.

This year, one thing is certain: influencer marketing will rise in demand.

What exactly is Influencer Marketing?

Unlike classical marketing, influencer marketing is more niche; focused on a specific person, group or brand, rather than a wider target audience. For a company that implements this form of marketing, it’s important to provide the influencer a quality product that he/she would want to promote. Then, on the basis of an agreement, the influencer will introduce his/her community to the product, providing the brand with advertising and publicity, and increasing brand awareness and consequently sales.

You can also use micro-influencer marketing to reach your audience.

How it works

How to find influencers to reach your audience?

First find a platform where people discuss your brand, your competitors or other topics of interest to you, and keep tabs on it. This is much easier to do with a monitoring tool, like Brand24. Not only will the tool monitor multiple platforms, but report to your interesting mentions specifying the platform where each mention was made, person who made the mention and his/her reach.

Then, having prepared a strategy and a list of objectives, you can contact a specific person, group or brand, present mutual benefits and initiate an influencer marketing project.

It is important to have clear objectives. Influencer marketing relies heavily on building a strong relationship, and you need to be proactive in building one.

Why influencer marketing is worthy of your attention

Traditional advertising no longer works

Did you know that advertising is the second oldest occupation in the world? After many centuries of effective action, it seems that in the XXI century, its efficiency is lower than ever. We are immune to trivial, common advertising messages. We omit them in the public space, and ignore the press. Online pop-ups annoy us so we use an Adblock, which lets us use the network without banner ads. As indicated by Nielsen: 90% of consumers trust peer recommendations. Only 33% trust ads. Daniel Newman, digital transformation expert and Forbes contributor claims that traditional advertising does not work anymore. People have not stopped buying things, but how and why they buy those things have changed.

This is particularly evident among millennials – people for whom surfing the internet is as natural as breathing. What we can observe about them is that different sources influence their online choices and advertising is not one of them.

Before purchasing a product, they tend to check if any of their friends has recommend it and if their favorite blogger or YouTuber has anything to say about it. Influencer marketing has huge potential, which can perfectly meet brands’ demands, and not only of those that want to reach millennials.

Your competition is already on it (or will be shortly)

As indicated in the TapInfluence report, 84% of marketers are planning an influencer marketing campaign in 2018. This means that after several years of momentum, influencer marketing has finally gained impetus. Marketers are not only appreciating it as a phenomenon, but realistically implementing it in their strategies.

As indicated in the report, the top companies and agencies are just learning of the effective use of influencer marketing. People still need proof that influencer marketing can impact their bottom line.

Year 2018 promises to be one in which the effectiveness of influencer marketing will be backed up with hard data..

It does not cost much

Facilitation of an influencer marketing program can also be a great challenge. Remember, however, that influencer marketing doesn’t need a big budget (of course, provided it’s not a star like Julia Roberts who advertises your products). What counts more is creativity, thinking smart and out-of-the box.

The goal is to get through to a particular group or a person. Any number of communication channels and messages can be used. You need to reach out, surprise and get noticed. Remember, however, that the practise should benefit both parties. Even if you do not have a budget of $ 1M, you may want to think of personalizing the communication. Prepare your product in such a way, that the recipient can feel that you have earned their positive opinion. It may not be easy, but it’s certainly worth a try.

People trust opinion leaders more than friends

I realize how controversial this may sound. The fact that people trust in recommendations more than in advertising is already widely known. However, recent studies presented in the book Influencer Marketing in Practice, show something rather surprising. In the decision-making process, people are beginning to trust industry experts more than their own family and friends. A few years ago, the enormous potential of recommendations was also shown in Nielsen’s report.

You could connect with influencers, or run an employee advocacy program on a platform that also doubles up as a content curation app. With top industry content curated, you can prompt your employee advocates to share and position them as experts that their friends will be likely to follow.

Experts, bloggers and YouTubers build their authority on the basis of knowledge and experience, but also their personality, charisma and original ideas for presenting themselves and their business. They stand out, they provide innovative content and that is how they build their reach and authority.

The line between an Influencer and a blogger is thin. When one becomes an influencer is difficult to predict as it doesn’t depend on the influencer himself/herself. It is the audience that decides to follow, to like, to observe and to trust an online persona. As a consequence, influencer’s recommendations gain credibility.

Conclusion

Influencer marketing is based on mutual benefits. When inviting influencers to work with us, we need to show them that money might be one, but not the only incentive. It may happen that the influencer, or company, is so pleased with how the given company operates, that they become (voluntarily or by encouragement) brand ambassadors.

Influencer marketing is growing at lightning speed. It can actually convert into sales and bring tangible profits. Join the game and enjoy it as soon as possible or it’ll go on without you.

Sourced from http://magdaurbaniak.com

In News

Targeting Teenagers with Your ads? Here are the Four Personas to Appeal to

February 12, 2018 No Comments

Academics have identified four distinct personas of social media user that teenagers describe as shaping how they behave on social media.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Young social media users are categorised as either acting like the Geek, the Internet Celebrity, the Victim or the Lurker depending on their levels of online activity and visibility, University of Sussex academics say.

The categorisations are based on interviews the researchers conducted with children aged between 10 and 15-years-old for a new book, Researching Everyday Childhoods, published by Bloomsbury last month.

The interviews revealed many youngsters were increasingly savvy about maintaining their privacy online, often being motivated to protect themselves by unpleasant past personal experiences or negative incidents that affected classmates.

Dr Liam Berriman, lecturer in digital humanities at the University of Sussex, said: “Our research found that concerns about staying safe online created an atmosphere of intense anxiety for young people, even if they had not directly experienced any problems themselves. The young people we spoke to felt a great weight of responsibility for their safety online and were often motivated by the concern of being labelled a victim.”

“While there has been a lot of negative media coverage around teenagers’ interaction with social media, our findings are more hopeful that teenagers are responsible users of social media, are very conscious of the dangers and make considerable efforts to protect themselves against those risks.”

Teenagers navigate between the desire to be praised and recognised online and anxieties over the risk of opening themselves up to criticism and trolling. Among the four personas is the Internet Celebrity who is able to best use the latest trends and increasingly values “visibility of the self” through Instagram, Snapchat, the selfie and YouTube vlogging.

The internet celebrity

But academics also identified how young people are experimenting with and enjoying invisibility online. They describe the Lurker as someone able to avoid peer dramas arising through platforms such as Facebook, whilst still engaging in fun peer activities such as stalking their favourite music bands online.

The lurker

The Geek, meanwhile, uses invisibility to anonymously share and promote their amateur media creations online, such as music videos or fan fiction writing. The academics described how the Geeks’ long hours of labour on projects risked parental concern that their behaviour was obsessive or addictive.

The geek

Professor Rachel Thomson, professor of childhood and youth studies at the University of Sussex, said, “What is distinctive about these active social media users was the entrepreneurial character of their practice, with ‘play’ re-envisaged as a form of economically rewarding work. By gaining an audience, young people are aware that they could capture advertising and corporate sponsorship. The dream is to ‘go viral’, establishing a career as a cultural creator.”

The research also highlights the risks contained in a world dominated by personal visibility with the Victim left to suffer personal exposure and shame following the creation and display of intimate material such as sexting and the loss of control of this material.

The victim

The Victim’s high visibility is often out of their control with their presence and heightened without their consent as private material is extracted from them and exchanged under false premises.

This can vary from the frustration of being tagged in photographs and the creation of an unflattering digital footprint through the activities of others to the more invasive techniques of fraping, where a person’s online identity is hijacked without their permission, or sharing of intimate photographs.

Dr Berriman said, “These examples reveal the impossibility of non- participation in the world of social media. A teenager does not necessarily have to create an online persona, it is something that can be created by others.”

This is great food for thought for anyone trying to catch the attention of teenagers online. You may even need to consider four different approaches when targeting the teen market. Thanks, science!

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In News

You Might be Paying too Much for ads on Google and Bing

February 8, 2018 No Comments

Before you dish out money to bid for a top-ranked ad position on a search engine, you may want to pause and make sure it’s actually going to pay off.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

New research out of Binghamton University, State University of New York suggests that instead of just spending to get that top spot, advertisers should be considering other factors as well to ensure they are getting the best results from their sponsored search advertising campaigns.

Sponsored search advertising involves paying search engines, like Google and Bing, to bid for placements on the search results pages for specific keywords and terms. The ads appear in sponsored sections, separate from the organic search results, on those pages.

“The common belief in sponsored search advertising is that you should buy the top ad position to get more clicks, because that will lead to more sales,” said Binghamton University Assistant Professor of Marketing Chang Hee Park. “But the fee for the top position could be larger than the expected sales you’d get off that top position.”

Park, with the help of Binghamton University Professor of Marketing Manoj Agarwal, analysed data collected from a search engine and created a model that can forecast the number of clicks advertisers could expect in sponsored search markets based on four factors:

Rank in the sponsored listings
Website quality
Brand equity
Selling proposition

The model gives advertisers a way to quantify the expected clicks they’d get by adjusting these four factors, while also taking into consideration how their competitors are managing these four factors. This could enable advertisers to find a perfect blend of the four factors to ensure they are getting the most out of what they are paying for their ad positions.

It may also indicate that they should be spending more money to bolster their brand or website rather than amplifying their offers in top ad positions.

“Using this model, you may find that paying less for a lower ad position while investing more in improving your website is more effective than spending all of that money strictly on securing top ad positions,” said Agarwal.

This applies especially if your competitor has a poorer-quality website, but is spending more than you on securing top ad positions.

Their model found that poor-quality advertisers that are ranked higher in ad positions drive consumers back to the search results page, leading consumers to then click on advertisers in lower ad positions to find what they are looking for.

In contrast, they also found that a highly-ranked good-quality advertiser results in significantly less clicks for all the advertisers ranked below them.

“It’s more likely that in the top position, all advertisers being equal, you’ll get more clicks. But depending on these four factors, as well as the quality of your competitors, you may find that you’ll get more clicks in the second or the third position,” said Park.

“Conceptually, this is not a new idea, but now the model can help determine this by accounting for multiple factors at play at the same time.”

Advertisers aren’t the only ones who can benefit from this research.

Park and Agarwal’s model found that simply reordering the listed advertisers could result in significant changes in overall click volume (the total number of clicks across all advertisers) for search engines.

“Because they often charge on a pay-per-click model, search engines can now simulate which ordering of advertisers in a sponsored search market results in the most overall clicks and, therefore, most revenue” said Park. “Search engines may want to consider charging advertisers in a way that gives the search engine more flexibility in determining the order in which the ads in sponsored sections are displayed.”

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In Uncategorized

Buyer Behaviour: Love Trumps Budget When Your Customer is Buying Sentimental Items

February 6, 2018 No Comments

People will always pay more when being led by the heart and not the head.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Brides and the bereaved beware: You, like many shoppers, may have a tendency to reject thriftiness when your purchase is a matter of the heart, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.

People are reluctant to seek cost-saving options when buying what they consider sacred – such as engagement rings, cremation urns, or even desserts for a birthday party – for or to commemorate loved ones. The paper, published in Judgment and Decision Making, is the first to examine the implications of this phenomenon.

Even when they identify a less expensive alternative to be equally desirable, people choose the more expensive of two items. They also avoid searching for lower prices and negotiating better prices when the goods they’re buying are symbolic of love.

“People’s buying behaviour changes when they’re making purchases out of love because it feels wrong to engage in cost-saving measures,” said Peter McGraw, associate professor of marketing and psychology at CU. “People abandon cost-saving measures when it comes to sentimental buys because they want to avoid having to decide what is the right amount of money to spend on a loving relationship.”

The findings highlight how wedding, funeral and other industries can exploit consumers, said McGraw.

In one part of the study, which involved nearly 245 participants, the researchers asked attendees at a Boulder wedding show about their preference between two engagement rings. The attendees nearly always chose the more expensive ring when deciding between a more expensive ring with a bigger carat and a less expensive ring with a smaller carat.

“It’s important to be aware of this tendency not to seek cost savings because, over a lifetime, consumers make many purchases that are symbolic of love — whether for weddings, funerals, birthdays, and anniversaries,” said McGraw. “The loss of savings can really add up and put people in compromising financial situations.”

So how can we apply this to a marketing situation? If you are selling goods or services for sentimental events, play up the quality, not the price.

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In News

Small Businesses Use Social Media Instead of a Website, Despite Risks

February 1, 2018 No Comments

A new survey indicates that 1 in 5 small businesses use social media in place of a website. Many assume a website is cost-prohibitive and may not consider the risks of not having one.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

More than one-third (36%) of small businesses do not have a website, according to the websites section of the fourth annual Small Business Survey conducted by Clutch, a B2B research firm. One in five small businesses (21%) selectively use social media instead of a website in an effort to engage customers.

The survey indicates that small businesses consider cost a bigger concern than the potential repercussions of not having a website.

Social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram attract small businesses by cultivating a highly engaged user base. However, relying solely on social media may be a risky strategy for businesses.

“Whenever you put all of your eggs into someone else’s basket, it’s risky,” said Judd Mercer, Creative Director of Elevated Third, a web development firm. “If Facebook changes their algorithm, there’s nothing you can do.”

Facebook recently announced changes that potentially increase the risk of using social media in place of a website. The social media platform plans to prioritise posts from family and friends over posts from brands.

This new policy may make it more difficult for small businesses to reach their audiences through social media. As a result, websites are expected to regain importance among businesses – as long as cost is not considered an obstacle.

Among small businesses that do not currently have a website, more than half (58%) plan to build one in 2018.

Some Small Businesses Say Website Cost is Prohibitive, But Others Cite Costs of $500 or Less

More than a quarter (26%) of small businesses surveyed say cost is a key factor that prevents them from having a website. However, nearly one-third of small businesses with websites (28%) report spending $500 or less.

Small businesses may not be aware that some web development agencies offer packages that defray costs by dividing website construction into multiple phases or sliding rates for small businesses. “You don’t necessarily need to launch with your first-generation website,” said Vanessa Petersen, Executive Director of Strategy at ArtVersion Interactive Agency, a web design and branding agency based in Chicago. “Maybe just start small.”

Mobile-Friendly Websites Becoming Standard
Businesses that do have websites are moving en mass to mobile friendly ones, the survey found. Over 90% of respondents said their company websites will be optimised for viewing on mobile devices by the end of this year.

In addition to the 81% of company websites that are already optimised for mobile, an additional 13% that say they plan to optimise for mobile in 2018.

Clutch’s 2018 Small Business Survey included 351 small business owners. The small businesses surveyed have between 1 and 500 employees, with 55% indicating that they have 10 or fewer employees.

To read the full report and source the survey data, click here.

In News

The Media is Now the Least-Trusted Institution Globally

January 25, 2018 No Comments

So, which citizens trust their media the most? And the least?

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Let’s start with the USA. The 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer reveals that trust in the U.S. has suffered the largest-ever-recorded drop in the survey’s history among the general population. Trust among the general population fell nine points to 43, placing it in the lower quarter of the 28-country Trust Index. It is now the lowest of the 28 countries surveyed, below Russia and South Africa.

The collapse of trust in the U.S. is driven by a staggering lack of faith in government, which fell 14 points to 33 percent among the general population, and 30 points to 33 percent among the informed public. The remaining institutions of business, media and NGOs also experienced declines of 10 to 20 points. These decreases have all but eliminated last year’s 21-point trust gap between the general population and informed public in the U.S.

“The United States is enduring an unprecedented crisis of trust,” said Richard Edelman, president and CEO of Edelman. “This is the first time that a massive drop in trust has not been linked to a pressing economic issue or catastrophe like the Fukushima nuclear disaster. In fact, it’s the ultimate irony that it’s happening at a time of prosperity, with the stock market and employment rates in the U.S. at record highs. The root cause of this fall is the lack of objective facts and rational discourse.”

Conversely, China finds itself atop the Trust Index for both the general population (74) and the informed public (83). Institutions within China saw significant increases in trust led by government, which jumped eight points to 84 percent among the general population, and three points to 89 percent within the informed public. Joining China at the top of the Trust Index are India, Indonesia, UAE and Singapore.

For the first time media is the least trusted institution globally. In 22 of the 28 countries surveyed it is now distrusted. The demise of confidence in the Fourth Estate is driven primarily by a significant drop in trust in platforms, notably search engines and social media. Sixty-three percent of respondents say they do not know how to tell good journalism from rumour or falsehoods or if a piece of news was produced by a respected media organisation. The lack of faith in media has also led to an inability to identify the truth (59 percent), trust government leaders (56 percent) and trust business (42 percent).

This year saw a revival of faith in experts and decline in peers. Technical (63 percent) and academic (61 percent) experts distanced themselves as the most credible spokesperson from “a person like yourself,” which dropped six points to an all-time low of 54 percent.

“In a world where facts are under siege, credentialed sources are proving more important than ever,” said Stephen Kehoe, Global chair, Reputation. “There are credibility problems for both platforms and sources. People’s trust in them is collapsing, leaving a vacuum and an opportunity for bona fide experts to fill.”

Business is now expected to be an agent of change. The employer is the new safe house in global governance, with 72 percent of respondents saying that they trust their own company. And 64 percent believe a company can take actions that both increase profits and improve economic and social conditions in the community where it operates.

This past year saw CEO credibility rise sharply by seven points to 44 percent after a number of high-profile business leaders voiced their positions on the issues of the day. Nearly two-thirds of respondents say they want CEOs to take the lead on policy change instead of waiting for government, which now ranks significantly below business in trust in 20 markets. This show of faith comes with new expectations; building trust (69 percent) is now the No. 1 job for CEOs, surpassing producing high-quality products and services (68 percent).

“Silence is a tax on the truth,” said Edelman. “Trust is only going to be regained when the truth moves back to centre stage. Institutions must answer the public’s call for providing factually accurate, timely information and joining the public debate. Media cannot do it alone because of political and financial constraints. Every institution must contribute to the education of the populace.”

Other key findings from the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer include:

Technology (75 percent) remains the most trusted industry sector followed by Education (70 percent), professional services (68 percent) and transportation (67 percent). Financial services (54 percent) was once again the least trusted sector along with consumer packaged goods (60 percent) and automotive (62 percent).
Companies headquartered in Canada (68 percent), Switzerland (66 percent), Sweden (65 percent) and Australia (63 percent) are most trusted. The least trusted country brands are Mexico (32 percent), India (32 percent), Brazil (34 percent) and China (36 percent). Trust in brand U.S. (50 percent) dropped five points, the biggest decline of the countries surveyed.
Nearly seven in 10 respondents worry about fake news and false information being used as a weapon.
Exactly half of those surveyed indicate that they interact with mainstream media less than once a week, while 25 percent said they read no media at all because it is too upsetting. And the majority of respondents believe that news organizations are overly focused on attracting large audiences (66 percent), breaking news (65 percent) and politics (59 percent).

It’s a brave new world, and we as marketers must realise that placing any marketing cash with distrusted media outlets could mean a very big waste of our advertising spending power.

In News

Strategies Most Marketers Misunderstood In Influencer Marketing

November 24, 2017 No Comments

By avita dcosta.

Many brands are also switching from celebrity endorsements to influencers, as it becomes and increasingly powerful marketing channel for marketers. But it’s easy to make mistakes, so how do you avoid them?

Influencer Marketing has become one of the most powerful tools in a marketing teams’ toolkit today. In 2016 Salesforce’s Paradot claimed thay 86% of marketers are already using some form of influencer marketing to reach consumers. And research shows that is probably going to continue, why?

People no longer trust the brands. A lot of us are no longer influenced by these traditional marketing techniques and increasingly we are more likely to turn to people we trust and respect – our peers. Truth be told, 74% of consumers identify word-of-mouth as a key influencer in their purchasing decisions, and influencer marketing can be a highly effective way to drive sales. It is no wonder that marketers are increasingly embracing it to achieve their business’ goals and objectives.

I’ve outlined the most common influencer marketing mistakes I’ve seen that you should steer clear of in order to be successful:

Fail to understand the audience

Your audience is your critic, if they want your product, they will be your customers. You will never be able to create a long-term and effective influencer marketing strategy if you don’t know your audience/customer. Marketers who have not yet flourished a genuine marketing personality are suggested to place their programs on hold until they understand who are their customers and what are their interests in order to achieve and interaction with the brand. It is to be noted that marketers need to understand purchasing habits, demographic information, pinpoints and psychographic information in order to create a marketing persona and conventionally, all of these statistics can be gathered through customers’ reviews.

Using Influencer Marketing in the wrong influencers/channel

Your marketing would not work unless you are working with the right influencer for your campaign. Influencer marketing is not identically effective across all channel, niche, and the target audience. If you are promoting a beauty product, much recommended working with YouTube Influencers since it is much effective in videos than a plain picture of your product and a post on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

Expecting results in a short period of time

If you have just started doing the influencer marketing, you cannot just expect a good result in just one snap. In some cases, for a powerful influencer, marketing campaigns can produce results overnight. But mostly and especially for brands and companies that are not using E-commerce, Influencer Marketing should take time to effect. Trust and patience are advisable. It is to be noted that effective influencer campaigns help the improvement of brand awareness. When a candidate is aware of your brand, they will still need to undergo the process of your marketing funnel, the consideration and decision making stages before performing the purchase. So yes, it takes time to get the results.

Forgot to use the Analytics

Using analytics is one of the most accurate ways to get updated and determine whether your influencer marketing is effective or sat to say, ineffective. Monitoring and measuring the performance of your campaign is required in all types of platforms, from there, you will be able to know which part of your marketing campaign needs to be improved. You can find lots of platforms online that can help you measure your campaign insights and progress.

Failure in conveying expectations with your influencers

Upon working with influencers, it is much important to construct your expectations clearly. You should give your influencers a summary that includes the goals and objectives of your campaign. Collecting and including the marketing personal you have collected will help your influencers to become more successful. You may also want to include analytics information that you find valuable when marketing to the target audience.

Focused on the wrong KPIs

Influencer marketing is a powerful marketing method, but everything in this world has its own limits. Marketers need to ensure that they are using influencer marketing the right way. It is advised to focus on the KPIs which fits your brand, product, and activity, don’t just focus on getting sales, start being genuine! An influencer marketing campaign designed to influence KPIs related to bottom-of-the-funnel behaviors is not generally perfect.

Avoided this strategy because you failed “once”

Just because you failed once in this marketing strategy doesn’t mean you should give up. Marketers don’t just quit marketing because one of their marketing campaigns was not successful. Instead of quitting, if you have failed, use that failure to improve your marketing. You must understand why did the campaign fail so that you could implement better strategies and ideas the next time you set an influencer marketing campaign. Remember: Failures are one of the challenges you will face upon entering Influencer Marketing and learning from it is the key to success.

Neglected the call to action

Before you launch your campaign, make sure you have considered this question: Where should my audience click to take action upon engaging with my I.M. content?

If you planned to drive traffic to your website using I.M, make sure to construct a webpage that will allow your visitors to utilize the next action. Importantly, make sure to test the constructed web page if it is perfectly working and responsive both on mobile and PCs. Associating the call to action with an I.M. campaign and securing that it is optimized for your target are keys to success with I.M.

Chosen an inappropriate agency to manage influencer relationship

Influencer marketing has become affected and is on top of the line. Marketing agencies are also crawling and offer I.M. services. But guess what, not all of these agencies have valuable experience with I.M. strategies, I mean they do have a bit, but not on its deep understanding. Therefore, they can not make your marketing successful. Be sure to choose an agency that has experience working with influencer marketing methods that are related to your business.

Misapprehension of Influencer Marketing process

If you wanted to start influencer marketing, make sure to learn what is the process and activities involve on this strategy. This will guide you to your success.

On creating a successful influencer marketing campaign, it is important that you understand your audience. Make sure that you have properly given your influencers a summary of your expectations and think carefully on which steps to choose for your marketing campaign. Note: Success cannot be achieved immediately, hard work, perseverance is needed to taste the born fruit of your hard work.

By avita dcosta

Sourced from Digital Doughnut

In News

The Most Exciting Social Media Platforms Among Teens

November 22, 2017 No Comments

Musical.ly is currently the place for your influencer marketing money.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

A new survey of teenagers age 13-17 finds that teens have shifted their favoured social media platforms to Instagram and Snapchat. But the most exciting breakthrough is that of Musical.ly.

A survey taken by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research in the USA found that:

76 percent of teens age 13-17 use Instagram.
75 percent of teens use Snapchat.
66 percent of teens use Facebook, down from 71 percent of teens using the site in 2015.
47 percent of teens use Twitter.
Fewer than 30 percent of teens use Tumblr, Twitch, or LinkedIn.

Strangely, however, there is one contender that fails to be mentioned: Musical.ly, which is roaring into popularity, especially in Europe. And there are great opportunities for marketers to reach that ever-elusive teen and tween market.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjf8tvnaIQs

Musical.ly was founded by friends Alex Zhu and Luyu Yang. They decided to target the US teenage market, as this market is characterised for being an early adopter of new trends. The main idea was to create a platform that incorporates music and video in a social network. The first version of musical.ly was officially launched in August 2014.

In 2015, the app began to attract millions of users and in July 2015, musical.ly climbed up to the number 1 position in the iOS App Store, becoming the most-downloaded free app in over 30 countries, including the US, Canada, UK, Germany, Brazil, Philippines, and Japan. In July 2016, musical.ly reached 90 million downloads, with over 12 million new videos posted every day.

So how does it work? To put it simply, “musers” lip-sync to their favourite tunes, by themselves or with a friend, and share it. That’s actually the main thrust of it. But the opportunities for marketers are strong. In June 2016, Coca-Cola launched its #ShareACoke campaign on musical.ly, which introduced musical.ly’s “User-Generated Ads” model.

Kids were making some seriously cool little ads for Coke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LgMzMl9OFA

The hashtags that are popular on this social network usually make reference to bits of pop culture and trends among the internet world.

So, marketers, if you want to reach tweens and teens, it is definitely worth your while to check out Musical.ly. It has fast become a Go-To destination for influencer marketing. The app is still finding a way to monetise its platform.This means that they are a little more loose with restrictions or requirements in place for branded content, advertising, and influencer marketing campaigns. You never know, it might just be the perfect spot to place your influencer-marketing budget.