New & exciting influencer from across the globe | Marketing Mag

Influencer trips draw attention to being “out-of-touch” with the current economic crisis

Benay Ozdemir — Thu, 02 Feb 2023 23:34:20 +0000

Lavish and all-expenses paid influencer getaways have been circulating headlines, criticising whether it’s relevant to its audiences during an global economic crisis.

A recent Tarte influencer trip, has caused controversy, as twenty-nine influencers and their plus-ones enjoyed a three day all inclusive luxury getaway in Dubai. Spectators across the internet have criticised the amount of money spent on this trip and the relevancy to its audiences showcasing a luxurious lifestyle.

The popular makeup brand received backlash for being “out-of-touch” with its audience due to rising living costs. But the brand has stated that it’s able to reach millions through influencer collaborations as CEO of Tarte Cosmetics, Maureen Kelly compares the trips to marketing budgets of the Super Bowl. However, the current economic climate across the globe, particularly families struggling to afford a basic standard of living, questions the relevancy of these marketing strategies.

Research via Room Unlocked has indicated that users have outgrown the culture of perfectionism showcased on social media platforms. As users, online authenticity is reshaping the internet and how they consume these channels. The research revealed that 64 percent of British people say they lost respect for influencers that are driven by commercial gain, and lack authenticity.

Furthermore, another 37 percent have indicated they identify more with influencers who post with a social cause at the heart of their content. This revealed that users are in need for brands to engage with content creators not particularly for financial gain but to make a positive difference in society.

Users are gaining interest to see themselves reflected in those brands that choose to collaborate with like-minded creators, as 25 percent reveal that they only follow influencers who share the same beliefs and values as them.

CEO and co-founder of Room Unlocked, Alex Payne, comments on the nature of brands being more cautious with the creators they partner with.

“Influencers are earning less because brands are being more cautious with their spend, ensuring they connect with the right creators who align with their values and also those of their customers,” says Payne.

He continues, “Influencers who are going to survive and thrive in the current climate are those that have a social cause or genuine passion at the heart of their voice and the content they create, rather than just posting things that they’ve been paid to advertise. Authenticity has quite rightly become king amidst an industry that has been awash with disingenuous content throughout the years and this is becoming increasingly easier to spot.

Payne highlights that a reduction of earnings with influencers has reduced because of the market being saturated by them.

He says, “There’s been a wave of people leaving their jobs to chase this career path meaning there’s more competition by way of choice and as such, brands can pay less.”

“Room Unlocked passionately believes that relationships between brands and influencers can be built on love, not money and provide an alternative to traditional, paid routes for content creation. We provide a platform for people to connect and create mutually beneficial and lasting relationships regardless of the current climate.”

The Tarte marketing saga explained

Benay Ozdemir — Thu, 02 Feb 2023 04:17:34 +0000

Influencer brand getaways have become bigger and more popular, but Tarte’s latest trip has caused a whirlwind of drama about its marketing strategy.

Similar to press tours, brands can choose to organise influencer getaways. These usually involve sending influencers on vacations across the world. Brands invest in these trips to allow influencers to show off their adventures while showcasing the brands’ products.

But these luxury brand getaways come with a steep price tag, as brands don’t hold back in their spending on extravagant accommodation.

The recent luxury brand trip with major beauty brand Tarte has caused controversy with many people asking questions about the relevancy of the trip to its audience. Twenty-nine influencers and their plus-ones began their journey to Dubai, including big names like Alix Earle (3.9 million TikTok followers), Meredith Duxbury (16.7 million TikTok followers) and Ellie Zeiler (10.8 million TikTok followers).

As these influencers were posting about their luxurious escape to Dubai, people on the internet questioned where the money to support these trips was coming from. In an interview with Glossy, Tarte Cosmetics CEO Maureen Kelly responded to these comments saying, “This isn’t our first trip, but I can, of course, understand how people may have a knee-jerk reaction to seeing content overload like this.”

Kelly compared the budget for these trips to marketing budgets for the Super Bowl.

“Every day, brands make decisions about how to spend their marketing budgets. For some companies, that means a huge Super Bowl commercial or a multi-million-dollar contract with a famous athlete or celeb. We’ve never done traditional advertising, and instead we invest in building relationships and building up communities,” she says.

Glossy also indicated that, according to a Tarte representative, the trip was the beginning of what the brand will do to market the new foundation. However the representative declined to reveal further plans.

The hashtag #TrippinWithTarte has been shared across the internet and is being described as the free business airfare, meal and stay trip. But some see it as more than that. It has also been an opportunity for other brands to collaborate and get influencer recognition as their rooms were covered with gifts from other like-minded brands, many of which Tarte has partnered with for years.

Kelly told Glossy that she was proud of giving influencers the opportunity to be showered in gifts.

“We partner with tons of small businesses, many of which are female-founded, like The Post and Electric Picks. This is a great opportunity for them to share their talents with their favourite influential people,” she says.

Here’s more on what’s in for influencers in 2023.

Images from Alix Earle TikTok.

B2B influencers are on the rise: what does this mean for brands?

Marketing Mag — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 23:00:57 +0000

Influencer marketing has revolutionised the way that brands engage consumers over the past decade. Once viewed as a threat to to the industry, influencing has provided a way to raise awareness and promote purchasing to larger and more targeted audiences.

But business-to-business (B2B) companies have only recently recognised the value of the creator economy – and their involvement with influencers is just beginning to grow.

There is no doubt that B2B influencers are rapidly rising in popularity, and the influencers themselves are multiplying by the day.

Why are they gaining traction? HypeAuditor is a platform that helps marketers discover and analyse influencers on YouTube and Instagram. Its CEO and co-founder Alex Frolov takes us through what the future holds for this nascent field, including some of the challenges of implementing B2B influencer campaigns.

Tapping into the success seen in B2C

The use of influencer marketing in the business-to-consumer (B2C) space has skyrocketed largely due to the high level of consumer trust that creators are able to establish with their audiences. Because creators often share products that align with their personal brand, their promotions can feel more genuine compared with what a brand has to say about itself. This same effect is seen for B2B influencers.

Just as it is in the B2C space, building strong, long-term relationships with their audiences is the main priority for B2B businesses. Typically, these targets include key decision-making executives at prospective companies.

Unlike consumers, businesses are likely going to take their time considering business purchases, so maintaining conversations over a longer period of time is key to generating sales in the future. And because businesses often select industry experts or thought leaders as part of their influencer campaigns, their target audiences are usually confident that the product or service being marketed to them is of value and are more likely to follow through with a purchase

Additionally, similar to the rise of nano- and micro-influencers in the consumer space, smaller, more niche B2B audiences can be preferable to a business than a vast audience with less relevance. In fact, TopRank found that 87 percent of B2B brands consider a relevant audience as a must-have when identifying influencers.

As B2B influencers tend to focus on specific verticals, whether it be marketing, fintech, or IT, to name a few, they bring with them this selective social media following that businesses are looking for.

Challenges of B2B influencer marketing

Leveraging influencers as part of B2B marketing strategies can yield seriously good results, but there are challenges that come with doing B2B influencer marketing right.

As mentioned, B2B influencers often specialise in a certain field. Conducting diligent research to ensure influencers not only align with a brand’s mission and have the same target audience but actually understand the product or service they will be promoting, can take up valuable time and company resources. On top of this, evaluating an influencer’s followings to validate that their audiences are legitimate is another onerous task. On every social media platform, accounts can be inactive or even fraudulent (bots, fake profiles, etc.), so it is imperative that influencers are vetted for having genuine followers.

Adequately communicating with B2B influencers can also prove to be difficult for businesses. Finding the right balance between personalised messages and transparency when it comes to paying, timelines, and content expectations are crucial to the success of securing an influencer partnership.

Many of these challenges can, however, be addressed by leveraging influencer marketing technology to help manage influencer marketing campaigns. Several artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) platforms exist that can allow businesses to streamline the outreach process, analyse influencer accounts (including engagement rates, post impressions, growth metrics, and audience insights), and monitor campaign progress.

The future of the B2B creator economy

Even with the accelerated growth of B2B influencers since the start of the pandemic, B2B influencer campaigns still only account for a fraction of total influencer marketing spending. The number of B2B brands tapping into the creator economy will only continue to increase over the next few years. With this, we will also see the number of those self-identifying as B2B influencers soar, creating an overcrowded pool of B2B influencers that we currently see in the B2C space.

Employee influencers, that is, employees who promote the products or services for their own company, will be another trend that consistently gains popularity. Employees acting as influencers are trusted sources of information for target audiences and also create positive brand images, potentially even aiding in recruiting initiatives.

Lastly, B2B influencer marketing has the potential to become less formal and more relatable moving forward. Many may think of long, structured LinkedIn posts detailing the benefits of software or professional service when they think of B2B influencing. But soon, more and more businesses will use humour, short-form content like TikTok or Instagram Reels, and memes to make more of an impact on target audiences, engaging with them on a more personal level.

The B2B influencer space is still fairly new and there is a lot that is still uncertain in terms of how it will evolve. However, the one sure thing is that it is here to stay.

Alex Frolov is the co-founder & CEO of HypeAuditor, a company providing influencer analytics and discovery for global brands and agencies. Alex is one of the Top 50 Influential Industry Players according to Talking Influence and is leading the way in improving transparency within the industry. He created the most advanced AI-based fraud-detection system to set the standard for making influencer marketing fair, transparent and effective.

HypeAuditor’s top four predictions for the influencer marketing industry in 2023

Sophie Berrill — Tue, 27 Dec 2022 23:00:10 +0000

Despite the economic slowdown and reviewed marketing budgets, influencers can breathe a sigh of relief that their industry is not showing signs of slowing down in 2023, at least according to HypeAuditor.

The platform, which helps marketers discover and analyse influencers on YouTube and Instagram, expects that brands will continue to invest in influencer marketing in the year ahead.

What exactly will that look like? Which direction will the influencer marketing industry go in 2023?

Here are HypeAuditor’s top four predictions:

1. The evolution of the influencer marketing industry and what the economic slowdown means for the sector

While overall marketing budgets may be revised downward, brands are likely to invest more in their partnerships with influencers to reduce their overall marketing costs. The reason is that influencer content is the cheapest form of branded content. 

As a result of this shift in priorities and this greater focus on influencer marketing, Hypeauditor is also expecting that brands will increasingly move their activities with influencers in-house. Instead of focusing solely on one-off sponsored posts, as this has often been the case over the years, marketers will be encouraged to put their influencer marketing strategy at the centre of their overall objectives. There are multiple reasons for this, but essentially it comes down to ensuring the success of influencer marketing campaigns. 

Indeed, with consumers increasingly tightening their purse strings in the face of higher costs of living, marketers will need to ensure that their collaborations with influencers remain relevant to them.

But aspirational content from influencers is likely to continue to attract a wide audience on social media. According to HypeAuditor data, lifestyle related posts, for instance, tend to attract the most engagement from users in terms of likes and comments on Instagram. The engagement rate for this category is higher than average.

Despite the bleak economic context, consumers are in fact more likely to welcome sponsored posts for temporary escapism, offering an excellent opportunity for brands to connect with their audiences. 

2. Gaming Influencers gain momentum

Gaming influencers are a rapidly growing segment of influencers, globally, with a large audience on most social media platforms. They can range from skilled players who stream their gameplaying to millions of fans to professional video game players who compete in the up-and-coming esports space.

Gaming influencers are more accessible than they may seem at first glance. Their fans not only follow them for their high-level video game skills, but also for the tight-knit sense of community they have built both with the influencer and fellow fans.

This phenomenon is also encouraged by the legitimacy esport has gained. Overall, esport is estimated to grow at least another billion by 2025. Thanks to funds from advertising and sponsorships, prize money at national and international competitions has become significant, for example, the International 10 hosted by Valve, offered $40 million in pooled prize money.  

Marketers will increasingly prioritise partnerships with gaming influencers, even if no obvious direct ties to the gaming community exist. While the gamers’ main platform might be Twitch or a similar streaming service, they often have a following on other social media platforms, such as Instagram. For instance, Samsung, Red Bull, and even Hershey are some of the brands that already have partnerships with Ninja, a top gaming streamer on Twitch. In 2023, more brands are expected to follow this path.  

3. TikTok and Instagram’s reign continues

Two platforms remain the leading ones for brands when it comes to influencer marketing: Instagram and TikTok. Instagram’s reputation remains undisputed when it comes to influencer marketing. It continues to offer brands the most potential for their influencer marketing strategy.

But competition remains sharp with the ever-growing popularity of TikTok among Gen Z. TikTok’s continuous hype comes down to the many opportunities for influencers and users to express themselves creatively.

For a long time, marketers have understood the potential for these two platforms to authentically connect with their target audiences. But in the next year, they will increasingly adapt and diversify their marketing strategy to the specifics of these two platforms to fully reap the benefits they offer.

On Instagram, for example, the number of followers an influencer has remains a key metric to evaluate their popularity, however brands need to continue to be mindful of bots and inauthentic accounts before agreeing to any partnerships. According to HypeAuditor data, only 60 per cent of accounts on Instagram are estimated to be owned by real people.

Short format videos are the most successful on this platform as they effectively catch the short attention spans of audiences across all demographics.

TikTok ticks differently: on this platform, marketers should prioritise creative and entertaining content to generate the most engagement. The focus is more on the content rather than the influencer. “Authenticity” is in the foreground at TikTok, which is why nano- and micro-influencers are increasingly taking the reins. 

4. The advantage of live shopping

Recently, live shopping has gained momentum and Hypeauditor expects retailers to increasingly prioritise live shopping in the year ahead.

Hypeauditor says it’s a “necessity” to provide a seamless omnichannel experience and adaptability of traditional retail features on social media platforms. TikTok and Instagram do provide good creation tools that retailers can rely on, but they also need to ensure an optimised integration with their own website.

It’s great to attract new customers in addition to the ones already retained in their website, but this also means retailers will need to be able to handle the increase (sometimes quite substantial) in numbers of users and generated orders. Scalability needs to be at the heart of their live shopping strategy.

Finally, companies will also need to make internal adjustments in terms of how they work transversally with their colleagues. Sales teams will need to be even more integrated with marketing teams in order to ensure the success of their live shopping strategy.

If retailers manage to achieve all this, live shopping is bound to turn into a major source of revenue for them in 2023.

Influencer Talk: How much do they really get paid?

Benay Ozdemir — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 03:24:58 +0000

From the early days of advertising, businesses have worked with celebrities in hopes to reach a wider audience – creating the basis of influencing.

But, since the rise of the digital age, influencers have sparked from all over the world becoming a new type of brand ambassador. Undoubtedly, the 2016 ‘beauty YouTube’ era saw an uprising in influencer marketing – bringing in millions of dollars profit to big beauty brands.

The glamorous side of being an influencer showcases receiving products for free – in which they share their honest or biassed view on the product to their followers. But a survey that researched social trends by a social media management platform, Hootsuite, found that social marketers are experiencing a defining moment in history. The power of promoting brands are in the hands of influencers – professionally known as content creators or social media influencers.

The not so glamorous side of influencing

But creators aren’t receiving as much money as you think. The survey found that most organisations do not go through agencies to find influencers. It indicated that, “28 percent of brands that work with creators do so through agencies or third-party platforms.” This means that for small businesses, they are less overhead and more in control of who they choose to hire as a content creator allowing them to negotiate.

On average, influencers get paid less than US$100 for each post. The survey results outlined that without paying the creators fairly, “marketers jeopardise their future of the creator economy.” However, it also outlined that for small businesses, creators are cost effective as they are able to research the market for creators within their budgets.

Shockingly, most influencers accept products or freebies as a means of getting paid for their content.

Director of integration strategy of Energy BBDO, Leah Gritton explains the reasons why small businesses are reluctant in incorporating influencer marketing. “ With the recession, with COVID, and just being more financially pinched… marketing dollars always get cut. When we’re strapped for resources, creators become a very appealing tool for marketers.” But the survey highlights that small business owners should lean on the creators that might be abandoned by large businesses due to cuts.

“Our main challenge is the volatility of pricing, especially on TikTok,” says head of influencer marketing at Student Beans, Ruby Soave.

“There’s such a lack of standardisation over how much work should cost that negotiating good prices gets complicated—we treat influencers as a media buy within a media plan, and we price accordingly,” says Soave. “Student Beans also has proprietary pricing benchmarks, based on the media value of a creator: which helps us – and our clients – overcome the inconsistency of creator/agency fees across TikTok.”

Abbie Chatfield’s empire knows no bounds and she releases beer

Liv Croagh — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 04:05:52 +0000

She’s conquered TV and then she conquered the airwaves, and now reality star turned influencer turned entrepreneur, Abbie Chatfield, is conquering booze.

In her latest business venture, Abbie Chatfield has announced a new competitor to the growing beer market. On 16 November, Chatfield took to her Instagram account to spruik her own beer brand, Spill Easy Going Lager. The beer has been made in conjunction with the Australian Asahi Beverages’ team and is based on a single vision: “If you don’t like beer, you’re drinking the wrong one.”

Abbie Chatfield and her rising profile

Chatfield’s latest announcement is the most recent in a string of the influencer adding more strings to her own bow. From launching a size inclusive fashion label this year known as Verbose to collaborating with sex toy company Vush in the early stages of the pandemic and releasing a vibrator. The star is showing no signs of expanding her empire.

But Chatfield’s star prowess is not limited to collaborations or physical purchases. Her podcast It’s A Lot is one of Australia’s top rated, with sell out shows around the country. Chatfield’s on air skills went on to land her a drive time radio slot. It was from here that she landed two TV gigs, the first hosting Love Island’s after party and then as a panel judge on reality competition The Masked Singer.

The influencer continues to grow her brand into a self-branded empire.

This latest project is breaking through to another market. A market of beer drinkers, or soon to be beer drinkers. Chatfield understands her direct influence and almost cult-like following, and is making the most of it, from fashion to to sex toys to beer and at one stage even teasing a book.

But it leaves the rest of us with the question: is there anything that Chatfield can’t do?