Welcome to the blog of Dr. Lisa Burns' Media Studies senior capstone class (Section A) at Quinnipiac University. If you're looking for the latest on media industry trends and insightful media analysis, you've come to the right place.
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
Lifestyle & Niche Media Blog 4, Question 3 (Feb. 21st)
How are brands and advertisers using
social media influencers to target audiences? What are the plusses and minuses
of using YouTubers and Instagram stars to promote products? Limit:
8 responses
Brands and advertisers are using social media all the time to influence target audiences, a lot of times without us even realizing it. YouTube is home to thousands of influencers who are signed to networks such as Studio71 and Disney’s Maker Studios. Studio 71 goal is to “help brands find the exact right influencers to work with, removing any guesswork in the process” (Main). They aim to help brands find the best YouTuber to promote their product in order to get the best return on their investment. But there are a lot of positives and negatives towards this type of advertising, I have worked in the beauty industry for Ulta Beauty for the past 5 years and within the past year or two, I have noticed a huge rise in brands using social media influencers to promote their products. “Beauty Gurus” have always been on YouTube, promoting a lipstick or blush that was sent to them by the brand and was very rare to see a person do a full on sponsored video. Within the past few years brands have stepped up there social media game, with the help of studios like Studio 71, to promote their brand in a whole new way. Similar to Viktor & Rolf approach to reaching their audience through post with influencers in them, brands such as Benefit Cosmetics and Tarte are constantly reaching new audiences through social media. They fly out influencers to their headquarters or to a destination, and during this time the influencer is posting on Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube their experience bringing a ton of awareness to the brand. Tarte recently partnered with “fitfluencers” to promote their new athlesiure makeup (Raphael). I think that this is a great way for brands to reach an audience since so many young adults use social media everyday, so much that they often times have profiles and pages that they follow and keep up with. Brands collaborate with influencers and sell limited edition products that fans go crazy over. They trust what these people are posting and will support them.
A negative about using YouTubers and Instagram stars to promote product is the abuse of trust. With the rise in sponsored videos and post, people start getting annoyed and tired of seeing #sponsored at the end of every post they see. Studio 71 three tools for placing the right influencer with the right brand seem to be a good way to combat this. There have been times where I see a post from a YouTube star about a product that makes no sense for them to be posting about. With Studio 71 three tools they are able to measure “social media velocity and consumer reaction” and “reallocate assets in real-time if part of a campaign is performing better n Instagram than on Facebook”. The steps that Studio 71 is very innovative, they are able to show the brand why influencers are so relevant.
Raphael, Rina. “Athleisure Makeup Has The Cosmetics Industry Breaking A Sweat.” Fast Compnay. N.p., 06 Feb. 2017. Web. 16 Feb. 2017.
Main, Sami. "This Fragrance Company Teamed With Social Influencers for This Widely Successful Whimsical Campaign." Adweek 8 Feb. 2017.
Main, Sami. "This Multichannel Network Is Growing Thanks to Its Success Connecting Influencers with Major Brands." Adweek 15 Feb. 2017. Web.
Throughout the past few years, we have seen a huge change in technology and social media. Nowadays, most people have a smart phone and use it on a regular basis. Whether one uses it for text messaging, making phone calls, or emails, one thing that all millennial are using it for is certainly social media. One of the biggest parts of social media is the advertising and branding that comes along with it. Everyday I wake up and scroll through my instagram and twitter newsfeeds. It has become a daily routine. When I use social mediums such as instagram and twitter, I see advertisements by some of my favorite celebrities/social media influencers. Brands and advertisers are constantly using social media influencers to target their audiences. When I think of social media influencers, I automatically think of celebrities. Using celebrities in advertisements is one of the smartest things a company or brand can do. Everyone in society has that one celebrity that influences him or her the most, and if you see your favorite celebrity endorsing a product, you will most likely want to use this product. Kim Kardashian recently endorsed a hair product on instagram called “sugar bear hair”. She took to instagram to promote this product, leading to thousands and thousands of fan reactions. The New York Times recently reported, “For marketers contending with consumers who use ad blockers online and have cut the cord to their TVs in favor of streaming services, social media has become a way to reach an elusive audience” (Maheshwari). Using social media influencers such as Kim Kardashian to promote products is absolutely brilliant, because her fans and followers will go out and buy that product. Interestingly enough, instagram recently came up with a new allotted time for advertisements on the newsfeed.
“Mirroring more traditional TV spots, Instagram is now letting brands run ads up to 60 seconds in length. To date, the Facebook unit has capped video ads at 30 seconds”, reported Social Media and Marketing Daily (O'Malley). Since Facebook was one of the original social mediums and has been around the longest, this is a huge step for instagram. The article also makes predictions as for Instagram’s future. “By 2017, Instagram’s ad revenues will grow more than four times in size to reach $2.39 billion... By then, the mobile-first social network should represent nearly a third -- or 28% -- of Facebook’s total mobile ad revenues” (O'Malley). Advertisements on instagram are becoming even more and more popular, and the social media influencers are helping out big time. There are various pros and cons of using celebrities and stars to promote products. One negative aspect of social media influencers promoting a product is how he or she represents themselves. If someone is interested in a product and looks up the person promoting it, they may become uninterested after what they see. The best way to exemplify this is with YouTube star PewDiePie. Adweek recently reported, “After The Wall Street Journal revealed that PewDiePie had posted videos with anti-Semitic messages, Disney and YouTube distanced themselves from digital media’s biggest celebrity” (Main). This then causes problems for the brand promoting him, as well as himself. On the other hand, there are various positive aspects of using a social media influencer to promote a brand or product. I believe the main pro to using a social media influencer or celebrity is the fact that once you see someone you like promoting a product; this gives you one more reason to buy it. From personal experience, if Ariana Grande is promoting something, I am guaranteed to go out and try it.
Maheshwari, Sapna. "Endorsed on Instagram by a Kardashian, but Is It Love or Just an Ad?" The New York Times. The New York Times, 30 Aug. 2016. Web. 16 Feb. 2017.
Main, Sami. "PewDiePie and the Potential Dangers of Social Influencer Marketing for Brands." – Adweek. N.p., 14 Feb. 2017. Web. 16 Feb. 2017.
O'Malley, Gavin. "Instagram Ups Ad Time For Brands." 02/05/2016. N.p., 4 Feb. 2016. Web. 16 Feb. 2017.
Brands and advertisers are using social media influencers to market brands to the millions of followers influencers already have. Brands and advertisers are choosing influencers that relate to a specific brand, so that their followers will be interested in the brand influencers mare marketing. Often times, such as with celebrity endorsements, consumers are more likely to take interest in a brand or product if a social media influencer they follow is interested in a brand or product. Using social media influencers can also be more effective than using a celebrity because audiences often feel closer to social media influencers since they are more “normal” than celebrities. Social media influencers aren’t considered “A-list,” so they can seem more down to earth and form a closer relationship with audience members. Consumers forming connections with certain brands is incredibly important and “the most valuable weapon of any brand or agency is undoubtedly its people” (Box, 2017). Brands can’t hire just anybody to market their product, but they need people who are dedicated, creative, and are in tune to what consumers are looking for. Brands that are successful using social media influencers are successful because “they’ve evolved a real culture and a brand lifestyle that they use to connect to customers’ everyday lives” (Box, 2017). Audiences hate advertisements, so if brands want customers to even consider taking a look they need to create a bond with those customers and relate to them in an authentic way, which is what social media influencers are capable of; “influencers understand how important that relationship is [between themselves and their fans], and they don’t want to abuse that trust” (Main, 2017). As important as it is for brands to find an influencer that can adequately market the brand, it is just as important for the influencer to market a brand that matches their values and what they want their viewers to see.
There are pros and cons to using social media influencers to market a brand. “Influencers become inextricably tied to brands that advertise with them” (Main, 2017), which means that if a social media influencer receives bad publicity, most likely so will the brand; this is what happened with PewDiePie. Youtube removed PewDiePie from the Google Preferred list and he also lost his deal with Disney because the companies did not want to be linked with the influencer’s anti-Semitic messages in his videos. There is always a risk when a brand chooses to use a social media influencer, which is why it’s important for “marketers to spend time vetting influencers before placing ads against them or working with them for sponsored content to make sure their values are well aligned” (Main, 2017). If a brand partners with an influencer who has a different audience following than the product being marketed, the influencer runs the risk of losing followers and the brand runs the risk of missing its target audience and losing money. Studio71 is a company that could be essential to brands because the company is focused on helping “brands and creators make valuable connections” (Main, 2017). By using a variety of tools, the company matches brands to creators that will best market the product in an effective way. This is one of the pros to social media influencers because when they hit the target not only do the influencers benefit, but the brand benefits as well and everybody wins. Another pro to using social media influencers rather than A-list celebrities to market brands is that because influencers are lower on the radar, they often get into less trouble than celebrities so a brand is not at as much of a risk of receiving bad publicity. However, it is still possible because “even as influencer relationships are proving to be less risky for brands, they still face similar criticisms as celebrities. It goes down in the comments sections now, rather than in the tabloids” (Main 2017). Overall, if a brand partners with an influencer of similar values, the benefits can be massive for both parties involved.
Social media had become a very popular tool that brands and advertisers have been utilizing to target audiences. Social media influencers are a growing industry in which brands turn to social media icons to endorse their brands. Brands need to stay relevant to the ever-changing world that we live in, thus utilizing an influencer’s already established fan base might be just what their company needs to reach that target audience. “Social media gives consumers a special, inside-look at a brand. And if you look at the brands that thrive on social- it’s because they’ve evolved a real culture and a brand lifestyle that they use to connect to customers’ everyday lives,” making social media an excellent way to attract the target audience due to its lifestyle appeal (Box). These social influencers already have established audiences, thus if a brand finds an influencer who’s following consists of their target audience they are then able to advertise specifically towards them. Also, brands are able to target their audiences by using the social media influencer’s already established popularity. It is not their brand that is bringing the consumers to that influencer’s page, their fans come there to connect with the influencers.
Though, with using YouTube and Instagram stars to promote products comes with some pros and cons. Sadly, YouTube is not as popular of a social medium as it used to be. The beauty industry is the only one that I feel has been overly successful on YouTube due to beauty blogs and instructional videos. Also, sometimes having the influencer be the one in control could be damaging. “With celebrities, they might appear as a spokesperson for a fragrance one day and end up on the front page of a tabloid for falling down drunk outside a club the next day,” having someone who shows up on the tabloid in a bad light might not be your ideal brand ambassador (Main). Brands are using influencer’s good image to sell their products, thus if they get a bad image for their wild actions then the brand can also be affected. The minus that I found for using YouTube and Instagram stars to promote their products would be that they have to make it actually seem like an authentic relationship. If it looks like they are getting paid and do not actually like the product, it is less likely for the influencer’s followers to actually want to buy said product. “Brands must keep in mind that customers can sniff out an inauthentic partnership from miles away, and if your brand doesn’t weave seamlessly into the lifestyle of an influencer, while the reach may be there in pure audience numbers, the engagement won’t be,” making having the influencer actually like the product be a key part in the partnership’s success (Main). With the bad also come the good. Utilizing these Instagram and YouTube stars’ already established fan base has given advertisers and brands easy access to a defined demographic. Using an influencer is a lot less risky than you think. “Even as an influencer relationships are proving to be less risky for brands, they still face similar criticism as celebrities. It goes down in comment sections now, rather than in the tabloids,” making using a social media star a better option than a celebrity who may go wild like Britney did in 2007 (Main). Brands can capitalize on the already established fans instead of having to create their own. “We’ve seen strong brand performance on Instagram, with a majority of our brand partners moving spend to the platform,” Instagram’s success can only help those companies continue to succeed (O’Malley).
Box, Toni. "Here’s What to Expect in Social and Content in 2017." Adweek 9 Feb. 2017. Web.
Main, Sami. "PewDiePie and the Potential Dangers of Social Influencer Marketing for Brands." – Adweek. N.p., 14 Feb. 2017. Web. 16 Feb. 2017.
O'Malley, Gavin. "Instagram Ups Ad Time For Brands." 02/05/2016. N.p., 4 Feb. 2016. Web. 16 Feb. 2017.
Many brands and advertisers are using social media influencers as a tool to market intended products to target audiences. Brands and advertisers are using many well-followed “influencers” to promote their brands on social media platforms such as Instagram, Youtube and Twitter. With its millions of active users spending large amounts of time, Instagram is a popular place for advertisements, influencers, and brands seeking both. Influencers are not easy or cheap however, with “The most successful demand $10,000 and up for a single Instagram shot. Long-term endorsement deals with well-known Instagrammers, such as Kristina Bazan, who signed with L’Oréal last year, can be worth $1 million or more. Big retailers use influencers, as do fashion brands, food and beverage companies, and media conglomerates”. (Bloomberg)
Currently working with L1 Goalkeeper, I am looking to promote the brand and grow their social media presence. I have created a website, Instagram, Facebook and several blogs to help ‘get the name out’. To cover all areas of growth, I have been contacting several well-know goalkeepers that are generally active on social media (influencers) and offering them contracts to help promote the brand. I am currently in the process of creating contracts for these “big time” goalkeepers who will be sporting the L1 brand, giving them several free pairs of gloves each season. In return, I require each goalkeeper to post numerous images on different social media platforms in order to gain followers and attraction to the L1 Brand. So far we have three professional ladies goalkeepers and one professional male goalkeeper from England. Since each of them posted their first images with the gloves, we have attracted daily 3 times more activity on our site.
L1 goalkeepers also recruits the influencers very carefully and performs great research to find appropriate ‘walking billboards’. “Studio71 intends to go to great lengths to ensure the right brand-influencer match. How? It has created “three, custom-built tools,” said Mike Haggerty, previously svp of research at NBCUniversal.” (MAIN) Similar to Studio71, I have performed many steps and procedures before contacting goalkeepers to represent the brand. The influencer firstly must be appealing at likeable. This goes without saying, because if he wasn’t either, he would not be much of an influencer. Next, the influencer must be well behaved and not represent or advertise anything that is against our brands image (by our brand I mean L1, however this is the sixth time I’ve said this and from now on I am gong to stick with “our” instead of the. I’m invested!). Finally the influencer must be well-followed on social media! For many, influencers only need to be well-liked, but for my purposes in growing the companies appearance on social media, it is important that I can gain some of his loyal followers. Therefore, similar to Viktor & Rolf, we “carefully select influencers who “match our consumer and embody our brand,” (MAIN).
A minus of using my Instagram stars to represent L1 is their ability to post what they want. As mentioned earlier, we are paying close attention to every step attempting to create a well-known company with a great representation and following. Not personally knowing any of the influencers we do not know much about their personal life (religion, hobbies, personality, etc). This can sometimes be dangerous for a company that is attempting to take off, and one questionable post could put our rep in damage. “The world’s biggest YouTube star has lost deals with Disney and Google after it was revealed that some of his videos used anti-semitic language and imagery.” (MAIN)
Samimain. "This Multichannel Network Is Growing Thanks to Its Success Connecting Influencers With Major Brands." – Adweek. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2017.
Samimain. "This Fragrance Company Teamed With Social Influencers for This Widely Successful Whimsical Campaign." – Adweek. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2017.
Chafkin, Max. "Confessions of an Instagram Influencer." Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg, 30 Nov. 2016. Web. 17 Feb. 2017.
Current technology has given people new ways to stay in contact with each other via social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Consequently, brands and advertisers have also taken to social media in order to stay in contact with their customers. In addition to keeping in contact with their current customers, brands and advertisers have strategic social media posts and campaigns designed to attract new customers to their brand. With brands and advertisers constantly transforming and innovating in order to stay relevant to the customers rapidly evolving lifestyle, there have been several different creative ways to reach consumers via social media; one example is chat bots or online messaging for enhanced customer service. Brands have done things like using the chat bots on Facebook to help consumers find the perfect gift or even creating a mobile concierge service to help mall guests find what they were looking for throughout the mall (Box). Aside from chat bots, a brand’s social media presence can allow a consumer to get an inside look at a brand, giving them an experience that connects them with the brand beyond a product level and further confirms the brand’s authenticity; which is what consumers crave (Box). According to Box, consumers can sniff out an inauthentic partnership from miles away, and if the brand doesn’t weave seamlessly into the lifestyle of an influencer via social media, brands and advertisers will not get the engagement that they are seeking.
In an effort to seamlessly appeal to a target market in the most authentic way, brands and advertisers have started to utilize popular YouTube and Instagram presences to advertise their brand, referred to as social media influencers. As with any new approach, brands and advertisers have faced upsides and downsides with this tactic.
Another way that brands and advertisers are using social media influencers to target audiences is by connecting with their audiences directly on visual platforms such as Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook. “In many ways, particularly on visual platforms, social media gives consumers a special, inside-look at a brand. And if you look at the brands that thrive on social, it’s not because of their boring, static imagery and lack of personality–it’s because they’ve evolved a real culture and a brand lifestyle that they use to connect to customers’ everyday lives” (Box). I think this method will continue to grow because these sites get a huge amount of traffic everyday so a real opportunity is presented to advertisers to get in touch with their consumers. Works Cited Fairley, James Dean. "The Pros and Cons of YouTube Business Marketing." LinkedIn. N.p., 31 Mar. 2015. Web. 20 Feb. 2017. .
Main, Sami. "PewDiePie and the Potential Dangers of Social Influencer Marketing for Brands." – Adweek. N.p., 15 Feb. 2017. Web. 20 Feb. 2017. .
Main, Sami. "This Multichannel Network Is Growing Thanks to Its Success Connecting Influencers With Major Brands." – Adweek. N.p., 15 Feb. 2017. Web. 20 Feb. 2017. .
Over the past few years, the rise of social media has opened up so many doors for so many people, businesses, products, etc. The growth of social media has added new jobs to the job market; social influencers are now able to make a living solely off of their social media platforms. This is because advertisers and brands have turned to these social media influencers to target specific audiences.
Not only have these social media influencers created a large viewership on their pages, they have also created a literal following. Many have followers that almost worship them and will go to great lengths to be like these influencers. Brands and advertisers are using social media influencers to target consumers because their platforms reach a large amount of people and a decent amount of these people are greatly influenced by them (hence the influencer title). These followers have made the choice to follow and pay attention to the influencer’s content. They have decided that the influencer’s content is important enough to follow. In Sami Main’s article, This Fragrance Company Teamed With Social Influencers for this Wildey Successful Whimsical Campaign, she states that this is one of the reasons that make influencers so powerful. “Their fans, or audience, have chosen specifically whose content to pay attention to, whether its funny memes or twee photos of barns. Influencers understand how important that relationship is, and they don’t want to abuse that trust,” (Main). This is something I can personally attest to as well. I follow a few influencers and their dedication to being honest to their followers is very prevalent. It gives followers more reason to trust the influencer. This is one of the many pros of using social media influencers to target audiences.
Another pro of influencer marketing is its low cost. Instagram direct ad campaigns have been said to range from $350,000 to $1 million per month of the ad. According to Francis Trapp, “Influencer marketing can be much more cost efficient and in some cases, cost nothing as was the case with fashion brand Zara, which built their Instagram presence to over five million without the ad spend,” (Trapp). Brands and Advertisers can pay as little as nothing to have their product featured by an influencer. At my past internship, one of my duties was to find fashion bloggers that would be willing to post about one of our clothing lines. Most of the bloggers we connected with received a payment in free clothes; however, if we came across a blogger with a more prominent following, say upward of 6 figure followers, we would negotiate a price. When you get into bigger brands and bigger influencers (for example Danielle Bernstien of @weworewhat) brands and advertisers are going to have to pay more to have their products featured.
One con of influencer marketing is the heavy reliance that is placed on the influencer once the deal is made. Brands go through an extensive process to find the right influencer for their product and once that choice is made its hard to go back. For example, YouTube and Disney just recently had to distance themselves from big time influencer PewDiePie because he had posted videos with anti-semitic messages. A way to combat this is to invest time into vetting influencers. (Main).
With all pros, there are some cons. However, influencer marketing has shown a lot of success. It has shown to be a great tool and as it grows I only expect it to become better.
Celebrities have always been the ‘go to person’ if you wanted someone to be an ambassador your product. The temporary bliss and need to feel connected to that particular celebrity usually influenced sales. But with new desire for authenticity, this has created a trend shift with brands and advertisers. The popular thing to do is not enticing people with celebrities, but more so social media influencers. These influencers such as PewPieDie, a Youtube star, come with millions of loyal and crafted audiences. PewPieDie, for example, has about 53 million followers. These social media influencers make sure they meet their audiences needs. By maintaining their audience, including these influencers makes it easier for brands and advertisers to access the latest demands and desires. While celebrities have their own distinct value and style, having an influencer can make the audience connect more on a personal level. Even though social influencers have made it easier to connect on a personal level with an audience, they also come with downsides similar to celebrities. If a celebrity screws up, it could effect a brand poorly if that celebrity is endorsing its products. For example, Michael Phelps, an American Olympic swimmer was on contract with the cereal brand ‘Wheaties’. While being in contract with Wheaties, Phelps was busted for smoking marijuana; resulting in his Olympic medals to be extracted from him. After this become known it hit the tabloids ad news hard, immediately reflecting on Wheaties. Wheaties then dropped Phelps from their contract. If an influencer messes up it doesn’t reach the tabloids and headlines, but will still receive the same harshness within the comments section underneath the ad. This can be shown through the example of PewPieDies anti-sematic video messages. After he received major backlash, he also was dropped by Disney.
Main, Sami. "PewDiePie and the Potential Dangers of Social Influencer Marketing for Brands." Adweek 15 Feb. 2017. Web.
Brands and advertisers are using social media all the time to influence target audiences, a lot of times without us even realizing it. YouTube is home to thousands of influencers who are signed to networks such as Studio71 and Disney’s Maker Studios. Studio 71 goal is to “help brands find the exact right influencers to work with, removing any guesswork in the process” (Main). They aim to help brands find the best YouTuber to promote their product in order to get the best return on their investment. But there are a lot of positives and negatives towards this type of advertising,
ReplyDeleteI have worked in the beauty industry for Ulta Beauty for the past 5 years and within the past year or two, I have noticed a huge rise in brands using social media influencers to promote their products. “Beauty Gurus” have always been on YouTube, promoting a lipstick or blush that was sent to them by the brand and was very rare to see a person do a full on sponsored video. Within the past few years brands have stepped up there social media game, with the help of studios like Studio 71, to promote their brand in a whole new way. Similar to Viktor & Rolf approach to reaching their audience through post with influencers in them, brands such as Benefit Cosmetics and Tarte are constantly reaching new audiences through social media. They fly out influencers to their headquarters or to a destination, and during this time the influencer is posting on Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube their experience bringing a ton of awareness to the brand. Tarte recently partnered with “fitfluencers” to promote their new athlesiure makeup (Raphael). I think that this is a great way for brands to reach an audience since so many young adults use social media everyday, so much that they often times have profiles and pages that they follow and keep up with. Brands collaborate with influencers and sell limited edition products that fans go crazy over. They trust what these people are posting and will support them.
A negative about using YouTubers and Instagram stars to promote product is the abuse of trust. With the rise in sponsored videos and post, people start getting annoyed and tired of seeing #sponsored at the end of every post they see. Studio 71 three tools for placing the right influencer with the right brand seem to be a good way to combat this. There have been times where I see a post from a YouTube star about a product that makes no sense for them to be posting about. With Studio 71 three tools they are able to measure “social media velocity and consumer reaction” and “reallocate assets in real-time if part of a campaign is performing better n Instagram than on Facebook”. The steps that Studio 71 is very innovative, they are able to show the brand why influencers are so relevant.
DeleteRaphael, Rina. “Athleisure Makeup Has The Cosmetics Industry Breaking A Sweat.” Fast Compnay. N.p., 06 Feb. 2017. Web. 16 Feb. 2017.
Main, Sami. "This Fragrance Company Teamed With Social Influencers for This Widely Successful Whimsical Campaign." Adweek 8 Feb. 2017.
Main, Sami. "This Multichannel Network Is Growing Thanks to Its Success Connecting Influencers with Major Brands." Adweek 15 Feb. 2017. Web.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBlog #4
ReplyDeleteThroughout the past few years, we have seen a huge change in technology and social media. Nowadays, most people have a smart phone and use it on a regular basis. Whether one uses it for text messaging, making phone calls, or emails, one thing that all millennial are using it for is certainly social media. One of the biggest parts of social media is the advertising and branding that comes along with it. Everyday I wake up and scroll through my instagram and twitter newsfeeds. It has become a daily routine. When I use social mediums such as instagram and twitter, I see advertisements by some of my favorite celebrities/social media influencers. Brands and advertisers are constantly using social media influencers to target their audiences.
When I think of social media influencers, I automatically think of celebrities. Using celebrities in advertisements is one of the smartest things a company or brand can do. Everyone in society has that one celebrity that influences him or her the most, and if you see your favorite celebrity endorsing a product, you will most likely want to use this product. Kim Kardashian recently endorsed a hair product on instagram called “sugar bear hair”. She took to instagram to promote this product, leading to thousands and thousands of fan reactions. The New York Times recently reported, “For marketers contending with consumers who use ad blockers online and have cut the cord to their TVs in favor of streaming services, social media has become a way to reach an elusive audience” (Maheshwari). Using social media influencers such as Kim Kardashian to promote products is absolutely brilliant, because her fans and followers will go out and buy that product. Interestingly enough, instagram recently came up with a new allotted time for advertisements on the newsfeed.
“Mirroring more traditional TV spots, Instagram is now letting brands run ads up to 60 seconds in length. To date, the Facebook unit has capped video ads at 30 seconds”, reported Social Media and Marketing Daily (O'Malley). Since Facebook was one of the original social mediums and has been around the longest, this is a huge step for instagram. The article also makes predictions as for Instagram’s future. “By 2017, Instagram’s ad revenues will grow more than four times in size to reach $2.39 billion... By then, the mobile-first social network should represent nearly a third -- or 28% -- of Facebook’s total mobile ad revenues” (O'Malley). Advertisements on instagram are becoming even more and more popular, and the social media influencers are helping out big time.
DeleteThere are various pros and cons of using celebrities and stars to promote products. One negative aspect of social media influencers promoting a product is how he or she represents themselves. If someone is interested in a product and looks up the person promoting it, they may become uninterested after what they see. The best way to exemplify this is with YouTube star PewDiePie. Adweek recently reported, “After The Wall Street Journal revealed that PewDiePie had posted videos with anti-Semitic messages, Disney and YouTube distanced themselves from digital media’s biggest celebrity” (Main). This then causes problems for the brand promoting him, as well as himself. On the other hand, there are various positive aspects of using a social media influencer to promote a brand or product. I believe the main pro to using a social media influencer or celebrity is the fact that once you see someone you like promoting a product; this gives you one more reason to buy it. From personal experience, if Ariana Grande is promoting something, I am guaranteed to go out and try it.
DeleteWork Cited
Maheshwari, Sapna. "Endorsed on Instagram by a Kardashian, but Is It Love or Just an Ad?" The New York Times. The New York Times, 30 Aug. 2016. Web. 16 Feb. 2017.
Main, Sami. "PewDiePie and the Potential Dangers of Social Influencer Marketing for Brands." – Adweek. N.p., 14 Feb. 2017. Web. 16 Feb. 2017.
O'Malley, Gavin. "Instagram Ups Ad Time For Brands." 02/05/2016. N.p., 4 Feb. 2016. Web. 16 Feb. 2017.
Olivia Dufault
ReplyDeleteBrands and advertisers are using social media influencers to market brands to the millions of followers influencers already have. Brands and advertisers are choosing influencers that relate to a specific brand, so that their followers will be interested in the brand influencers mare marketing. Often times, such as with celebrity endorsements, consumers are more likely to take interest in a brand or product if a social media influencer they follow is interested in a brand or product. Using social media influencers can also be more effective than using a celebrity because audiences often feel closer to social media influencers since they are more “normal” than celebrities. Social media influencers aren’t considered “A-list,” so they can seem more down to earth and form a closer relationship with audience members.
Consumers forming connections with certain brands is incredibly important and “the most valuable weapon of any brand or agency is undoubtedly its people” (Box, 2017). Brands can’t hire just anybody to market their product, but they need people who are dedicated, creative, and are in tune to what consumers are looking for. Brands that are successful using social media influencers are successful because “they’ve evolved a real culture and a brand lifestyle that they use to connect to customers’ everyday lives” (Box, 2017). Audiences hate advertisements, so if brands want customers to even consider taking a look they need to create a bond with those customers and relate to them in an authentic way, which is what social media influencers are capable of; “influencers understand how important that relationship is [between themselves and their fans], and they don’t want to abuse that trust” (Main, 2017). As important as it is for brands to find an influencer that can adequately market the brand, it is just as important for the influencer to market a brand that matches their values and what they want their viewers to see.
Olivia Dufault cont
DeleteThere are pros and cons to using social media influencers to market a brand. “Influencers become inextricably tied to brands that advertise with them” (Main, 2017), which means that if a social media influencer receives bad publicity, most likely so will the brand; this is what happened with PewDiePie. Youtube removed PewDiePie from the Google Preferred list and he also lost his deal with Disney because the companies did not want to be linked with the influencer’s anti-Semitic messages in his videos. There is always a risk when a brand chooses to use a social media influencer, which is why it’s important for “marketers to spend time vetting influencers before placing ads against them or working with them for sponsored content to make sure their values are well aligned” (Main, 2017). If a brand partners with an influencer who has a different audience following than the product being marketed, the influencer runs the risk of losing followers and the brand runs the risk of missing its target audience and losing money. Studio71 is a company that could be essential to brands because the company is focused on helping “brands and creators make valuable connections” (Main, 2017). By using a variety of tools, the company matches brands to creators that will best market the product in an effective way. This is one of the pros to social media influencers because when they hit the target not only do the influencers benefit, but the brand benefits as well and everybody wins. Another pro to using social media influencers rather than A-list celebrities to market brands is that because influencers are lower on the radar, they often get into less trouble than celebrities so a brand is not at as much of a risk of receiving bad publicity. However, it is still possible because “even as influencer relationships are proving to be less risky for brands, they still face similar criticisms as celebrities. It goes down in the comments sections now, rather than in the tabloids” (Main 2017). Overall, if a brand partners with an influencer of similar values, the benefits can be massive for both parties involved.
Olivia Dufault
DeleteWorks Cited
Box, Toni. "Here’s What to Expect in Social and Content in 2017." Adweek 9 Feb. 2017. Web.
Main, Sami. "PewDiePie and the Potential Dangers of Social Influencer Marketing for Brands." Adweek 15 Feb. 2017. Web.
Main, Sami. "This Fragrance Company Teamed With Social Influencers for This Widely Successful Whimsical Campaign." Adweek 8 Feb. 2017.
Main, Sami. "This Multichannel Network Is Growing Thanks to Its Success Connecting Influencers with Major Brands." Adweek 15 Feb. 2017. Web.
Social media had become a very popular tool that brands and advertisers have been utilizing to target audiences. Social media influencers are a growing industry in which brands turn to social media icons to endorse their brands. Brands need to stay relevant to the ever-changing world that we live in, thus utilizing an influencer’s already established fan base might be just what their company needs to reach that target audience. “Social media gives consumers a special, inside-look at a brand. And if you look at the brands that thrive on social- it’s because they’ve evolved a real culture and a brand lifestyle that they use to connect to customers’ everyday lives,” making social media an excellent way to attract the target audience due to its lifestyle appeal (Box). These social influencers already have established audiences, thus if a brand finds an influencer who’s following consists of their target audience they are then able to advertise specifically towards them. Also, brands are able to target their audiences by using the social media influencer’s already established popularity. It is not their brand that is bringing the consumers to that influencer’s page, their fans come there to connect with the influencers.
ReplyDeleteThough, with using YouTube and Instagram stars to promote products comes with some pros and cons. Sadly, YouTube is not as popular of a social medium as it used to be. The beauty industry is the only one that I feel has been overly successful on YouTube due to beauty blogs and instructional videos. Also, sometimes having the influencer be the one in control could be damaging. “With celebrities, they might appear as a spokesperson for a fragrance one day and end up on the front page of a tabloid for falling down drunk outside a club the next day,” having someone who shows up on the tabloid in a bad light might not be your ideal brand ambassador (Main). Brands are using influencer’s good image to sell their products, thus if they get a bad image for their wild actions then the brand can also be affected. The minus that I found for using YouTube and Instagram stars to promote their products would be that they have to make it actually seem like an authentic relationship. If it looks like they are getting paid and do not actually like the product, it is less likely for the influencer’s followers to actually want to buy said product. “Brands must keep in mind that customers can sniff out an inauthentic partnership from miles away, and if your brand doesn’t weave seamlessly into the lifestyle of an influencer, while the reach may be there in pure audience numbers, the engagement won’t be,” making having the influencer actually like the product be a key part in the partnership’s success (Main).
DeleteWith the bad also come the good. Utilizing these Instagram and YouTube stars’ already established fan base has given advertisers and brands easy access to a defined demographic. Using an influencer is a lot less risky than you think. “Even as an influencer relationships are proving to be less risky for brands, they still face similar criticism as celebrities. It goes down in comment sections now, rather than in the tabloids,” making using a social media star a better option than a celebrity who may go wild like Britney did in 2007 (Main). Brands can capitalize on the already established fans instead of having to create their own. “We’ve seen strong brand performance on Instagram, with a majority of our brand partners moving spend to the platform,” Instagram’s success can only help those companies continue to succeed (O’Malley).
Box, Toni. "Here’s What to Expect in Social and Content in 2017." Adweek 9 Feb. 2017. Web.
Main, Sami. "PewDiePie and the Potential Dangers of Social Influencer Marketing for Brands." – Adweek. N.p., 14 Feb. 2017. Web. 16 Feb. 2017.
O'Malley, Gavin. "Instagram Ups Ad Time For Brands." 02/05/2016. N.p., 4 Feb. 2016. Web. 16 Feb. 2017.
Many brands and advertisers are using social media influencers as a tool to market intended products to target audiences. Brands and advertisers are using many well-followed “influencers” to promote their brands on social media platforms such as Instagram, Youtube and Twitter. With its millions of active users spending large amounts of time, Instagram is a popular place for advertisements, influencers, and brands seeking both. Influencers are not easy or cheap however, with “The most successful demand $10,000 and up for a single Instagram shot. Long-term endorsement deals with well-known Instagrammers, such as Kristina Bazan, who signed with L’Oréal last year, can be worth $1 million or more. Big retailers use influencers, as do fashion brands, food and beverage companies, and media conglomerates”. (Bloomberg)
ReplyDeleteCurrently working with L1 Goalkeeper, I am looking to promote the brand and grow their social media presence. I have created a website, Instagram, Facebook and several blogs to help ‘get the name out’. To cover all areas of growth, I have been contacting several well-know goalkeepers that are generally active on social media (influencers) and offering them contracts to help promote the brand. I am currently in the process of creating contracts for these “big time” goalkeepers who will be sporting the L1 brand, giving them several free pairs of gloves each season. In return, I require each goalkeeper to post numerous images on different social media platforms in order to gain followers and attraction to the L1 Brand. So far we have three professional ladies goalkeepers and one professional male goalkeeper from England. Since each of them posted their first images with the gloves, we have attracted daily 3 times more activity on our site.
L1 goalkeepers also recruits the influencers very carefully and performs great research to find appropriate ‘walking billboards’. “Studio71 intends to go to great lengths to ensure the right brand-influencer match. How? It has created “three, custom-built tools,” said Mike Haggerty, previously svp of research at NBCUniversal.” (MAIN) Similar to Studio71, I have performed many steps and procedures before contacting goalkeepers to represent the brand. The influencer firstly must be appealing at likeable. This goes without saying, because if he wasn’t either, he would not be much of an influencer. Next, the influencer must be well behaved and not represent or advertise anything that is against our brands image (by our brand I mean L1, however this is the sixth time I’ve said this and from now on I am gong to stick with “our” instead of the. I’m invested!). Finally the influencer must be well-followed on social media! For many, influencers only need to be well-liked, but for my purposes in growing the companies appearance on social media, it is important that I can gain some of his loyal followers. Therefore, similar to Viktor & Rolf, we “carefully select influencers who “match our consumer and embody our brand,” (MAIN).
DeleteA minus of using my Instagram stars to represent L1 is their ability to post what they want. As mentioned earlier, we are paying close attention to every step attempting to create a well-known company with a great representation and following. Not personally knowing any of the influencers we do not know much about their personal life (religion, hobbies, personality, etc). This can sometimes be dangerous for a company that is attempting to take off, and one questionable post could put our rep in damage. “The world’s biggest YouTube star has lost deals with Disney and Google after it was revealed that some of his videos used anti-semitic language and imagery.” (MAIN)
Citations
DeleteSamimain. "This Multichannel Network Is Growing Thanks to Its Success Connecting Influencers With Major Brands." – Adweek. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2017.
Samimain. "This Fragrance Company Teamed With Social Influencers for This Widely Successful Whimsical Campaign." – Adweek. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2017.
Chafkin, Max. "Confessions of an Instagram Influencer." Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg, 30 Nov. 2016. Web. 17 Feb. 2017.
Current technology has given people new ways to stay in contact with each other via social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Consequently, brands and advertisers have also taken to social media in order to stay in contact with their customers. In addition to keeping in contact with their current customers, brands and advertisers have strategic social media posts and campaigns designed to attract new customers to their brand. With brands and advertisers constantly transforming and innovating in order to stay relevant to the customers rapidly evolving lifestyle, there have been several different creative ways to reach consumers via social media; one example is chat bots or online messaging for enhanced customer service. Brands have done things like using the chat bots on Facebook to help consumers find the perfect gift or even creating a mobile concierge service to help mall guests find what they were looking for throughout the mall (Box). Aside from chat bots, a brand’s social media presence can allow a consumer to get an inside look at a brand, giving them an experience that connects them with the brand beyond a product level and further confirms the brand’s authenticity; which is what consumers crave (Box). According to Box, consumers can sniff out an inauthentic partnership from miles away, and if the brand doesn’t weave seamlessly into the lifestyle of an influencer via social media, brands and advertisers will not get the engagement that they are seeking.
ReplyDeleteIn an effort to seamlessly appeal to a target market in the most authentic way, brands and advertisers have started to utilize popular YouTube and Instagram presences to advertise their brand, referred to as social media influencers. As with any new approach, brands and advertisers have faced upsides and downsides with this tactic.
Another way that brands and advertisers are using social media influencers to target audiences is by connecting with their audiences directly on visual platforms such as Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook. “In many ways, particularly on visual platforms, social media gives consumers a special, inside-look at a brand. And if you look at the brands that thrive on social, it’s not because of their boring, static imagery and lack of personality–it’s because they’ve evolved a real culture and a brand lifestyle that they use to connect to customers’ everyday lives” (Box). I think this method will continue to grow because these sites get a huge amount of traffic everyday so a real opportunity is presented to advertisers to get in touch with their consumers.
ReplyDeleteWorks Cited
Fairley, James Dean. "The Pros and Cons of YouTube Business Marketing." LinkedIn. N.p., 31 Mar. 2015. Web. 20 Feb. 2017. .
Main, Sami. "PewDiePie and the Potential Dangers of Social Influencer Marketing for Brands." – Adweek. N.p., 15 Feb. 2017. Web. 20 Feb. 2017. .
Main, Sami. "This Multichannel Network Is Growing Thanks to Its Success Connecting Influencers With Major Brands." – Adweek. N.p., 15 Feb. 2017. Web. 20 Feb. 2017.
.
9, 2017 Guest|February. "Here." – Adweek. N.p., 9 Feb. 2017. Web. 20 Feb. 2017. .
Over the past few years, the rise of social media has opened up so many doors for so many people, businesses, products, etc. The growth of social media has added new jobs to the job market; social influencers are now able to make a living solely off of their social media platforms. This is because advertisers and brands have turned to these social media influencers to target specific audiences.
ReplyDeleteNot only have these social media influencers created a large viewership on their pages, they have also created a literal following. Many have followers that almost worship them and will go to great lengths to be like these influencers. Brands and advertisers are using social media influencers to target consumers because their platforms reach a large amount of people and a decent amount of these people are greatly influenced by them (hence the influencer title). These followers have made the choice to follow and pay attention to the influencer’s content. They have decided that the influencer’s content is important enough to follow. In Sami Main’s article, This Fragrance Company Teamed With Social Influencers for this Wildey Successful Whimsical Campaign, she states that this is one of the reasons that make influencers so powerful. “Their fans, or audience, have chosen specifically whose content to pay attention to, whether its funny memes or twee photos of barns. Influencers understand how important that relationship is, and they don’t want to abuse that trust,” (Main). This is something I can personally attest to as well. I follow a few influencers and their dedication to being honest to their followers is very prevalent. It gives followers more reason to trust the influencer. This is one of the many pros of using social media influencers to target audiences.
Another pro of influencer marketing is its low cost. Instagram direct ad campaigns have been said to range from $350,000 to $1 million per month of the ad. According to Francis Trapp, “Influencer marketing can be much more cost efficient and in some cases, cost nothing as was the case with fashion brand Zara, which built their Instagram presence to over five million without the ad spend,” (Trapp). Brands and Advertisers can pay as little as nothing to have their product featured by an influencer. At my past internship, one of my duties was to find fashion bloggers that would be willing to post about one of our clothing lines. Most of the bloggers we connected with received a payment in free clothes; however, if we came across a blogger with a more prominent following, say upward of 6 figure followers, we would negotiate a price. When you get into bigger brands and bigger influencers (for example Danielle Bernstien of @weworewhat) brands and advertisers are going to have to pay more to have their products featured.
One con of influencer marketing is the heavy reliance that is placed on the influencer once the deal is made. Brands go through an extensive process to find the right influencer for their product and once that choice is made its hard to go back. For example, YouTube and Disney just recently had to distance themselves from big time influencer PewDiePie because he had posted videos with anti-semitic messages. A way to combat this is to invest time into vetting influencers. (Main).
With all pros, there are some cons. However, influencer marketing has shown a lot of success. It has shown to be a great tool and as it grows I only expect it to become better.
Works Cited
DeleteMain, Sami. "PewDiePie and the Potential Dangers of Social Influencer Marketing for Brands." Adweek 15 Feb. 2017. Web.
Main, Sami. "This Fragrance Company Teamed With Social Influencers for This Widely Successful Whimsical Campaign." Adweek 8 Feb. 2017.
Trapp, Francis. "Instagram Ads vs. Influencer Marketing: Deciding What." Adweek. Adweek, 10 Aug. 2015. Web. 20 Feb. 2017.
Celebrities have always been the ‘go to person’ if you wanted someone to be an ambassador your product. The temporary bliss and need to feel connected to that particular celebrity usually influenced sales. But with new desire for authenticity, this has created a trend shift with brands and advertisers. The popular thing to do is not enticing people with celebrities, but more so social media influencers. These influencers such as PewPieDie, a Youtube star, come with millions of loyal and crafted audiences. PewPieDie, for example, has about 53 million followers. These social media influencers make sure they meet their audiences needs. By maintaining their audience, including these influencers makes it easier for brands and advertisers to access the latest demands and desires. While celebrities have their own distinct value and style, having an influencer can make the audience connect more on a personal level. Even though social influencers have made it easier to connect on a personal level with an audience, they also come with downsides similar to celebrities. If a celebrity screws up, it could effect a brand poorly if that celebrity is endorsing its products. For example, Michael Phelps, an American Olympic swimmer was on contract with the cereal brand ‘Wheaties’. While being in contract with Wheaties, Phelps was busted for smoking marijuana; resulting in his Olympic medals to be extracted from him. After this become known it hit the tabloids ad news hard, immediately reflecting on Wheaties. Wheaties then dropped Phelps from their contract. If an influencer messes up it doesn’t reach the tabloids and headlines, but will still receive the same harshness within the comments section underneath the ad. This can be shown through the example of PewPieDies anti-sematic video messages. After he received major backlash, he also was dropped by Disney.
ReplyDeleteMain, Sami. "PewDiePie and the Potential Dangers of Social Influencer Marketing for Brands." Adweek 15 Feb. 2017. Web.