If you haven’t heard, Marketing Magazine now has a podcast! In each episode, we sit down with some of the biggest names in marketing and communications and talk about their insights, developments, and goals. It’s not soooo serious, but it is just serious enough. 

Most recently we spoke with Taryn Williams, founder of WINK models, theright.fit, and the Influencers Agency. In part one of the interview, which you can listen to on Spotify, Taryn discusses how influencer marketing has evolved and become such an important part of brand strategy. 

In part two, coming out this Friday, Taryn shared some key insights about how influencers are, well, influencing the election. 

Taryn’s newest project is Climate 200, a crowdfunded political initiative aiming to boost independent candidates across the country. Climate 200 worked with Taryn’s company theright.fit to find influencers who were interested in politics and get them engaged with candidates. 

“[Climate 200] is a really fascinating foray into political social media influencers,” Taryn said. “When people think about doing a political campaign using influencers, they think, ‘is that in alignment? What do influencers know about politics?’” 

In Taryn’s view, they couldn’t be further off the mark.

“That is everything that is wrong about the judgement of influencers. We have incredibly savvy influencers out there who are incredibly aware about all the important topics that we’re talking about in this election, whether that’s climate change, or equal rights for women in the workplace, or supply chain issues. . . there’s influencers for all of those sectors.”

“It’s been fantastic to see how open [Climate 200] are to embracing that, and they see that this is a really viable channel, and they see that there’s a whole generation of people who have felt disengaged or disenfranchised or disempowered in the voting process,” says Taryn. 

“Those people are active on social media and can be engaged that way. They want to be informed, they want to be entertained, they want to learn more about who the candidates are. This is a really sustainable way to do that. Handing those people a flyer in the street outside their local post office is not the way to engage them.” 

Taryn believes that social media and influencer marketing will be a big part of elections in the future. Social media platforms like TikTok and Twitch have a lot of potential to engage voters that aren’t politically motivated and could be key to getting new voices in office.

“There’s these new platforms and new channels that can really take them on a journey and inspire them and God knows after the last two years that is exactly what we need. Some positive inspiration and stories and hope. And I really love that’s what [Climate 200 has] chosen to focus on in their campaign.”

Go listen to part one of the Not So Serious podcast’s interview with Taryn Williams now, and be sure to follow the podcast on Spotify so you don’t miss part two when it comes out this Friday!