It’s a recurring subject: is influencer marketing so last season or is it just shedding its skin only to reappear like a phoenix? There’s no denying, there is a lot of mistrust about the influencer industry among consumers.
And who can blame them when there are so many “influencers” who just want to skim the cream from the top with no regard to integrity whatsoever? But is it fair that a few rotten apples (some of them quite large apples *cough* Kardashians *cough*) muddy the whole pool for all of us?
Of course it isn’t! So, it’s time we stepped up to the mark! We must claim the space that should be OURS, not some celebrities’ who are only in it for the money.
Vix Meldrew has been doing a brilliant job educating her followers about influencer marketing on her Instagram. She’s bringing transparency to an industry that most people have no idea about. And transparency is exactly what consumers want these days.
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Consumer or influencer; who matters?
There’s another reason why it’s so important to give consumers a look behind the scenes of influencer marketing: It’s a lot of work! Influencer marketing is not just posing for photos and writing about your day. Hell no!
The content today must be first and foremost directed to the customer. And the customer rarely cares what an influencer did today unless it’s something that benefits them in some way.
If you’ve followed me for a while, you’ll know that I like to poll my Instagram followers on all sorts of subjects. This time I posed the question “Is influencer marketing over?” to my followers.
My aim was to see what they answered overall. But also whether the answers differ when the respondent is a content creator versus a consumer.
Here are my findings in regards to influencer marketing and how it’s perceived by my Instagram followers.
Has Influencer Marketing Come To Its End? I Asked You, Here’s What You Said
The whole point of influencer marketing is to promote products and services. How does it differ from regular marketing then when the promoting is done by a content creator?
First of all, a content creator on social media is a real person with a real life and real problems, just like the rest of us. Whereas the person on a TV ad is just an actor pretending to be something or someone that the advertiser is after.
Influencers create their own content. From taking and editing photos and videos all the way to negotiating deals with brands and chasing payments. Content creators often work alone whereas in traditional marketing there is a huge team behind one ad.
Q1: Name 2-3 things, what do content creators do?
I wanted to start my influencer marketing poll easy, and also figure out how many are “in it” and how many only see the final results. Here are the answers to this question grouped by whether they were a content creator or a consumer.
Content creators’ answers:
“Write blogs, create videos and photos for social media”
“Review/recommend products, inform, educate, inspire”
“Write / take photos / spread a message”
“Promote brands, write/video their opinions”
Consumers’ answers:
“Sell products”
“Review products”
“Active on social media”
As we can see, there’s a lot more depth in the content creators’ answer, which makes complete sense. After all, they know how the shiz works. But those looking in from the rafters only see the final edit of a project: the review, an ad or an expressed opinion.
There’s a lot that goes into influencer marketing behind the scenes before the final edit is brought out for the public to see, though.
When it comes to product reviews and ads, a deal has to made with a brand, a draft of the ad must be delivered and accepted, the content must be created and accepted, plus a price must be negotiated. All this must happen before anything comes out online.
The most time-consuming part is the content creation itself. No, it’s not just a quick snap taken with your phone camera! It’s dozens, maybe hundreds of shots taken with a professional camera, which are then also edited. And then comes all the caption/script drafting. All that is a day’s worth of work.
Q2: Would you / Have you purchased products because your favourite content creator promotes them?
The strength of influencer marketing is in the influencers themselves. Their authenticity and real personas. Consumers today are much smarter than 20 years ago and few of us trust the sparkly promises in traditional adverts anymore.
But the drawback of this relatively new industry is that there has been no regulation or any sort of rules for how things should be advertised. This has resulted in some taking on everything they’re given and losing a lot of their credibility quite quickly in the process.
Unfortunately just one content creator muddying the pool tarnishes the reputation of all influencers. Studies in 2019 showed that consumers’ trust in influencers had fallen significantly. Only 4% of consumers said they trust what influencers say online.
Since then, especially in Europe, there have been major changes in the industry in regards to regulations. This may have helped raise the percentage a little bit, but there are still a lot of people who do not grasp the importance of integrity and honesty in influencer marketing.
From my followers only 31% said they were ‘easily influenced’ whereas 69% said they might consider buying something that a content creator promotes. But it’s unlikely they would buy something solely because their favourite influencer recommends it. So, there are definitely some trust issues.
The interesting observation was that most of those who said they were easily influenced where content creators as well. Whereas those who thought it unlikely they’d be duped into buying something by an influencer were mostly consumers.
Q3: Is it fair that content creators receive loads of products for free?
For this question my followers gave a rousing acceptance!
- 78% of the respondents answered “Of course, it’s part of the job”
- Only 22% found it “a bit cringy”.
- Most of the ones finding freebies ‘cringy’ were consumers
- Most of the ones saying it’s just a part of the job were content creators. A very clear distinction there!
This question was an interesting one for me because this is the fact that seems to annoy consumers the most in influencer marketing. The fact that content creators get so much for free while they have to then pay for it. But the thing I want you to reconsider here is, is it actually free? Is anything in this world ever free?
At the end of the day time is never free. My time is never free! Kayleigh, a Scottish lifestyle blogger, summed it up pretty well:
“A lot of non-content creators think it’s just a case of get a product, snap a couple of photos and post. When actually it’s get a product, think ways to talk about it and plan postS, shoot content.
And depending on the agreement you have with the brand potentially write a blog post, which involves keyword research and for posts on Instagram hashtag research.”
And here we come to the point where influencers need to consider their own worth. Is the freebie worth your time?
If one is gifted cotton pads, they probably promote them because from sustainability point of view it’s important to get the word of this product out there.
From a financial point of view, the influencer loses in this scenario when we consider the cost of time and effort used to create the content. So, they could ask for payment for their work instead of just receiving a free product. It’s up to them!
Q4: Can you tell when a content creator is promoting something because they love it, versus when they just promote something for the money?
Another very interesting question for me. And the answers were rather split, which corresponds with the popular view: for many it’s hard to tell whether influencer marketing is legit or not.
57% of my respondents said that they can totally tell these 2 scenarios apart, whereas 43% admitted that sometimes they have no idea. The interesting thing was that the respondents were pretty evenly content creators and consumers for both responses. So, this really is a slippery slope.
And because it is a slippery slope I wanted to delve deeper into this. So, I asked the respondents another question in relation to this.
Q5: How can you tell whether a content creator is promoting something genuinely?
Obviously me being me, I couldn’t leave the previous question to that, but instead wanted explanations on HOW they knew. Here are the answers divided, again, into content creators’ and consumers’ answers:
Content creators:
“You get to know people’s personality (on social media) and can normally tell if they’re not being honest.”
“If they’re overly enthusiastic, it makes it seem false sometimes.”
“Sometimes it feel as if they’ve plucked brand deals out of thin air, like it doesn’t align with their brand or niche.”
“Through the photo itself (minimal effort, etc.) or the caption ‘I LOVE this!’. Okay, but why?”
Consumers:
“You can see when someone is genuinely passionate about a product rather than just posting a perfect image to sell something.”
“Most of the time the product is involved in some sort of lame story/post and then they mention 2-3 times how it magically “helped” the influencer to solve an issue (cosmetics, diets, etc.)”
“The ones in it for freebies tend to promote a wide variety of products.”
Influencer Marketing – Conclusion
From what I’ve read and researched, these poll answers correspond with the wider public’s opinions on influencer marketing quite well. Consumers are smarter about how influencers work today than what they were just 5 years ago. And authenticity in marketing is becoming the content creators’ superpower.
Being able to provide legit opinions and information to your followers in an interesting and engaging way is what will make or break you.
Promoting one mascara today and another one tomorrow is inauthentic and will be your downfall. Whereas choosing one’s brand deals with care and with one’s own niche in mind will take them towards bigger and more valuable collaborations and loyal followers.
The temptation to take on any collaboration, regardless of it’s value or relevance, is big. But we must learn to prioritize our own reputation and integrity instead of pure greed.
What do you think of these results? Do they correspond with your thoughts on the industry? Can you recognize when a content creator is promoting something for the joy of the product versus when they are just in it for the money? Let’s chat in the comments ♥
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