Brand Manager: 3 Ways to Make Influencer Marketing Work For You

As a content marketer interested in how influencer marketing works, I've found two articles on the topic that my fellow marketing professionals will find interesting. I've had my fair share of experience with influencer marketing as both the brand and as the influencer and these articles make a great case for the benefits of utilizing influencers.

Source: https://www.thenational.ae/lifestyle/comment/bloggers-or-floggers-social-media-moves-to-wise-up-on-influencers-1.720130

Article one, titled “Influencer Marketing: How To Make Human Connections Work For Your Brand," comes from Forbes CommunityVoice contributor and founder & CEO of Sway Group Danielle Wiley. Wiley starts with the facts: 82% of those in the U.S. trust recommendations from people they know, according to Nielsen's Global Trust in Advertising report. So why do consumers trust the buying advice of influencers, who are often total strangers? Well, when influencers build genuine, human connections with their audiences, their audiences in turn come to respect and trust the influencer's opinion, as if they were a friend. Wiley argues that the reason influencer marketing can be so successful is because the personal connections that influencers can build on behalf of you will connect your brand with consumers in a way you can't do on your own.

Source: Shutterstock

Article two, titled "Why Influencer Marketing is the Game Changer for Business," comes from Entrepreneur contributor Amber Dermoudy, senior social strategist, APAC, Spredfast. Dermoudy posits that the days of push marketing are over; consumers are too savvy. Now, consumers pay less attention to a brand unless it is being promoted by a trusted source or friend. In fact, 92 percent of consumers say they trust an influencer more than traditional advertisements. Dermoudy argues that influence social media stars already have over their audiences is a game changer for businesses.

Based on the above articles and my own experience using influencer marketing - as well as being a microinfluencer myself - I have developed three recommendations you should consider the next time you’re thinking about whether influencers can help your brand.

-       Get Personal – Creating familiarity with an audience is key to engaging in deeply personal, meaningful ways.

-       Be Authentic – Genuine stories and images are more interesting than brand imagery.

-       Use Influencers – Consumers today are smart and rely less on traditional marketing and more on their peers to make buying decisions.

Madison Blanchard is a senior at Northwestern University studying journalism with a focus on digital marketing. Follow her on Twitter | Connect with her on LinkedIn 

Big Data Scientists: Netflix is not maximizing its recommendation systems, are you?

As a Big Data Scientist, it is imperative today to develop recommendation systems which turn insights about customers and prospects into relevant recommendations and quality leads. As a graduate student in Northwestern University's Medill Integrated Marketing Communications program, I have been researching big data issues and have found two articles which address this challenge - using Netflix as an example.

In the article "Putting Big Data in Context", Scott Gnau(@Scott_Gnau), president of Teradata labs pointed out that best decisions and recommendations are made with a combination of data analytics and human intuition. Two mistakes companies tend to make when dealing with big data are: 1. over-reliance on what data tells us; 2. become too enamored with certain types of new data, or look at data in silos. For example, Netflix's recommendation system relies too much on past behavior data while failing to incorporate context data such as real-time emotion and situation individuals are experiencing.

source: Who knew? Big Data is a Social Beast!

Nestor Bally(@NKBailly)  mentioned the restrictions of current recommendation system in "Build A Better Algorithm(With A Little Help From Your Friends)". He said rudimental recommendation algorithms made largely ineffective predictions based on similarities in items and the premise that people with similar historical preferences are likely to share future preferences. However, this led to a low degree of diverse content and a self-amplifying vicious cycle. For example, Netflix does not recommend films based on film fanatics' watching list or what friends are watching, and thus restricts the spectrum of the recommended content. To build a better algorithm, companies should leverage the power of social influence. 

Based on my analysis of these two articles and my classes on social marketing and big data analytics in the Northwestern Medill IMC program, there are three actions you need to consider when developing your social and contextual recommendation system.  They are:

1. Think in context. Consuming content online is an emotional behavior as well as a rational one. You need to get data about people's current emotions, like what Spotify does, and incorporate the contextual data into the recommendation algorithm.  

2. Leverage social. You can provide more personalized recommendations without entering the self-amplifying vicious cycle by integrating the power of social influencers such as experts and friends.

3. Data is not the problem. As a big data scientist, you should not let what data you have restrict what question you can answer. It is critical for your team to think out of the box and disruptively innovate your recommendation system by integrating more varieties of data. 

A better recommendation algorithm can become the competitive advantages of any companies in the long run. HBO just announced that it will join the digital distribution space along with Hulu, Amazon and Apple, Netflix's future will largely depend on whether they can disruptively innovate the recommendation algorithms to provide a more customized and social network for digital content consumers. As a big data scientist, your company may face similar challenges as Netflix. It's time to reinvent your recommendation algorithms and stand out in the big data competition.

Joyce Liu, a marketing wiz and film fan, is pursuing a Master degree of Integrated Marketing Communications at Medill, IMC. I specialize in digital marketing and social analytics. I have helped financial and CPG companies transform their marketing practice in the digital space. Connect with me on Twitter(@Joyce_xinranLiu) and LinkedIn.

Moms Try On A New Hat – Blogger

What television did for Jersey Shore and the Kardashians, the Internet is doing for moms. With almost 4 million moms and counting, mommy bloggers are the next big thing on the web, and as their influence grows, so does the attention of companies looking for new ways to get the all-important mom approval. Most interesting, however, is that these aren’t just your average moms. They’re well educated, high-earning women who have passed up lucrative job opportunities to tell the world about their experiences. Check out some stats H&R Block collected about today’s mommy bloggers:

·      On average, they earn $14,000 more a year than their nonblogging peers

·      They are 52% more likely to have a college degree than the average mom

·      They represent 14% of American moms

And those numbers only tell part of the story. With wide-reaching networks of followers, and affiliations with strong blogging collectives, mommy bloggers wield buying power influence that rivals a celebrity endorsement. Companies from McDonald’s to Kraft to P&G are using mommy bloggers as the new advertisers; replacing generic banner ads with interactive blogger experiences. These multibillion-dollar companies are standing behind their products and letting bloggers write whatever they want about the free products they’re given. Mommy bloggers have tipped the hand of power when it comes to promoting products, and with new moms starting blogs everyday, companies will have to continue to reach out to these networkers and community leaders to gain traction with a target concerned about buying only the best for their families and themselves.

The mommy blogger is no passing fad, like the soccer mom before her, she represents a highly influential purchaser and makes some of the most important family budget decisions. Companies can harness this influential power by partnering with mommy bloggers (who are notoriously picky, but endlessly loyal to a select few companies), giving them the freedom to write about products however they want, and letting them spread the word about those products organically. The mommy blogger typifies the new power consumers hold over companies. No company will be able to force mommy bloggers into endorsing a product they don’t like or want and that’s the key to their power – they don’t need companies, but the Fortune 500 sorely needs them.

Justin Alsop is a graduate student in the Northwestern Medill IMC marketing program. He’s interested in how web influencers are changing the Internet business model and their impact on the future of e-commerce; you can find him at @JDaneA.