Influencers In Advertising: How Do You Judge Its Value?

I love sneakers, and I don’t buy a pair—EVER—without first consulting with the person who is my key influencer in all things sneakers and hoodies. I am lucky that our relationship is so deep that I can Facetime him and show him the goods before I ever purchase so much as a shoelace or a T. 

And, no, I’m not bragging or showing off my close relationship with Kanye or LeBron…I don’t know either of them. My key influencer is my grandson Henry, whose sense of this is second to none and who is my singular source when I buy. 

The point is that I trust people who are genuinely close to me; close in a real-world sense—as in no degrees of separation—my inner circle, if you will. It is that inner circle of my family and close friends that I rely on the most, occasionally allowing for an extension of the intersection of their close friends’ word of mouth (WOM) as well.

To be fair, I’d be a liar (pants on fire…nose growing…you get it) if I didn’t admit that once in a while, I’m influenced to buy because I see some celebrity rocking a look I like or sporting some new doodad or whatever. 

On the other hand, I can swear, hand to heart, that I am never swayed by the obviously paid “influencers” of social media who mistake their own antics for true WOM. 

However, as I always warn in meetings where clients tell me what their significant others think, the survey of one is never really good. Ergo...I discount myself.

Nevertheless, crazy amounts of money are allocated to pay social influencers to influence us. 

Money that, BTW, can’t really be tracked (see my prior posts). So while brands struggle to remain relevant (see another post), they know they need to stay in the game—even if the ROI isn’t always straightforward. It’s a public board’s nightmare.

Frankly, many of these paid posts are the equivalent of a “Make me go viral” request. I’m sure you can see the blindly obvious connection between the two. But as my loyal readers know, that’s why I call it DIGIBABBLE. 

To get a better sense of this dilemma, I asked (in my singularly non-scientific poll…but highly and accurately directional/insightful nevertheless…) a simple and direct question: Is it really worth it if the influencer doesn’t use your product or service?

Or, at a higher level:

“Are You More Likely to Make a Purchase When You See An Ad Coming From An Influencer?”

And, no surprise, a whopping 75% of you said, “NO!”

As usual, it's the comments that I call your attention to because that’s where the insight is found.

• “When Ninja was pushing Samsung and Microsoft, they (3 teen children) didn’t believe the authenticity. They’ve seen him with an iPhone on Twitch.” —MY
• “General answer would be no, unless it's coming within a certain ‘real’ framework….when a person who you follow and trust…is actually using the product and enjoying it.”— EF
• “When it comes from a friend.” —IFR
• “Look at follower quality/alignment. Are you paying your influencers to advertise to 6 million bots or real engaged users?” —CB
• “Even if people answer, they aren’t influenced…how do we know whether they know?”—DS
• “We are influenced most of the time without even realizing it.” —AS
• “The influencer trend has made people more cautious.” —MS
• “Snake oil salespeople.” —MK
• “There are so many of them, now, in this space, doing the same thing…believing is tough.” —SKB
• “We are inundated with digital marketing.” —BR
• “When I see someone I know.” —RH
• “Eventually, this will backfire.”— RG

Many of the sentiments were repeated, two specifically. 

Yes, from people I know and trust. 

No, the internet is oversaturated by influencers. 

BW posted with good marketing wisdom: “Focus on the influencer’s audience instead of on who is doing the reaching.” In other words, more insight.

Then there was a great reminder by BP, “Bunch of fibbers voting on this poll…most people don’t like to believe their decisions on buying products can be swayed by an ‘influencer,’ when in actuality, it's the opposite.”

There you have it.

Most of us would like to believe we think independently, soliciting advice as necessary from people we know and ignoring the manic shills online and elsewhere. 

Okay, I admitted my weakness….

So, what do we learn? Each of my points requires good internal discussion. It’s too easy to get caught up in paying a Kardashian an exorbitant amount for one post, then bragging about the reach...only to later wonder why nothing actually happened. It could be the right strategy (see below), but then again, maybe not. 

Here’s my advice:

1. Decide on your influencer KPIs upfront—before you decide on your influencers. Are you looking for sheer volume based on their total audience? Are you determining engagement to be re-shares? Do you have a brand metric you track? Are you looking for increased traffic to your website or sales? 
2. When you look for influencers, what are your criteria? What is the size of their audience? Do you calculate specific relevance to your product and category?  Do you care if they really use, wear, or buy your product? Are they credible in general? How many other products or services do they represent? Do they represent too many products?
3. Set a budget. It’s easy to get sucked into overpayment hell. See one and two above. ROI on whatever metric you set is critical.
4. Stay on top of it. Make sure the ask is clear and clean. Be 100% sure they delivered and you received what you expected.

 Hey…if all else fails…Henry might be available if he actually likes and uses your products. He has integrity and wouldn’t mind earning a few bucks…

What’s your view?