Marketing Roadmaps

influencer engagement

On Cannes and the marketer backlash against influencers

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The early news out of Cannes, where the glitterati of the advertising world have gathered to rub shoulders, quaff rosé, do deals (or at least talk about doing deals) and generally celebrate their own creativity and business acumen in the hopes of snagging business from the legion of CMOs taking advantage of what has to be the best boondoggle on the planet, is that a marketer backlash against influencers is growing. At least according to Digiday’s piece on June 20th.

The basis for the argument is the announcement by Unilever CMO Keith Weed on Monday that the company is pushing for greater transparency in influencer marketing to combat fraud, create better consumer experiences and improve measurement.

In a prepared statement, Weed committed the company to not working with influencers who buy followers, to never buy followers itself and to prioritize partners committed to increased transparency and eradicating bad practices. He dramatically concluded with:

The key to improving the situation is three-fold: cleaning up the influencer ecosystem by removing misleading engagement; making brands and influencers more aware of the use of dishonest practices; and improving transparency from social platforms to help brands measure impact. We need to take urgent action now to rebuild trust before it’s gone forever.”

This is noble, and I commend Unilever for taking a position.

HOWEVER,

I take exception to the idea that we can have backlash against our customers. Influencers, true influencers, are our customers. People who love our products and want to share their opinions with their friends, family and fans.

So let’s reframe this accusation before we go too far.

What we are reacting to is fraud, perpetrated largely by automated systems in the search for scale. Yes, people bought followers to make their numbers look better. But the root cause — and this is true for many digital fraud issues —is the holy grail of scale over all else. Reach as many people as you can at the least possible cost. The volume ensures a certain percentage of buyers. Except at some point, the volume becomes the goal, not just the means to the goal.

We’ve been seduced by delivery metrics, taking shortcuts that promise to deliver more, for less. It’s a cycle of inflation that “looks good” but doesn’t actually deliver to our objective.

Why are we always so surprised when the shortcut turns out to be a dead end?

The problem isn’t influencers, who are, after all, your customers. It’s the never ending search for scale without a similar commitment to authenticity and performance metrics.

I suggest (and have for years) that we think about consumer to consumer marketing differently.

Relationships
Ground your influencer marketing strategy in authentic relationships with customers who want to advocate for your brand. Don’t neglect those with smaller follower numbers; sometimes they are your most effective evangelists.

A good influencer marketing strategy activates customers with all degrees of influence, using tactics that take best advantage of both the customer’s passion and her platform.

Performance metrics
The performance that matters is conversions. Everything else is a delivery metric. Even engagement. Although it can be a conversion metric for some objectives, for the most part, it too is simply a way to measure the delivery of a program.

Make sure your program has a conversion metric, and a way to get there. You can’t convert without a call to action.

Link back to sales. You can be super sophisticated using modern marketing platforms. Or you know, simply start tracking sales over time against marketing activity, including influencer.

How de we avoid fraud in influencer marketing?

  • Stop chasing scale and start working with your friends.
  • Measure what matters, not everything that moves.

Cheers!

Influencer Marketing and Instagram: The peril of quantity over quality – MediaKix’s fake Instagram project

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Earlier this month, influencer marketing company MediaKix released How Anyone Can Get Paid To Be An Instagram Influencer With $300 (or Less) Overnight, a project it undertook to prove whether was possible to game the system of influencer engagement on Instagram. In short, how easy is it to create fake Instagram profiles, purchase followers and then get offered sponsored content opportunities by the major influencer marketing platforms?

Turns out, pretty easy, at least for the two profiles the firm created – one focused on beauty, and the other on travel, not coincidentally I am certain, two content areas where Instagram is particularly strong, and the demand high for influencers with scale.

This has spawned a great deal of coverage in the industry trades over the past week, including AdWeek, PR giant Edelman  and Digiday. All bemoaning the fact that it is possible to game a social network and artificially inflate followers and engagement.

I’m mostly surprised that anyone IS surprised. The demand for volume, for more, more, more – bigger reach, more likes, more clicks — is bound to lead to both fraud and waste. It did in advertising, in search of the almighty click, and it has in social, in search of likes, comments, shares AND clicks.

Let’s take the two problems separately. Fraud is the intent to deceive by artificially inflating numbers, whether buying followers or engagements. Waste is the natural by-product of scale. Not every legitimate viewer/reader of a message is the target, no matter how good our demographic and behavioral targeting. Even today, with the phenomenal matching made possible by programmatic advertising, there will be waste, and targeting on social is a mixed bag. You can do it within a social platform like Facebook, but not across platforms.

In my opinion, the platforms are responsible for posting the first level of defense against fraud in influencer marketing. The social platforms, to police the activity and manage fraudulent accounts effectively. The influencer platforms, to build similar checks and balances into their technology so brands can trust their influencer recommendations.

Managing the impact of waste, however, is part of the influencer marketing strategy. Our best offense is to put scale in its proper place in the strategy. Quantity – followers, likes, comments, shares, clicks – is not the only metric that matters. Quality of engagement is just as important. In the long run, perhaps more important. That means balancing your strategy, and including tactics that lead to deeper engagements with your current and potential customers as well as broader, more volume-centric microinfluencer tactics.

Remember: the influencer who matters is your customer. Always. That’s why influencer marketing works.

FTC .Com Disclosures Guidance: What’s new for bloggers and social media influencers

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Disclaimer: Still not a lawyer

Earlier this week, the FTC released an updated version of its .Com Disclosures guidance for digital advertising, originally published in 2000. While there is some new information here for bloggers and social media influencers who produce sponsored content for advertisers (and I will get into that below), the document’s principal goal is to provide guidance for proper disclosure of advertising claims in digital, and especially mobile, advertising in light of new technologies. Much like the changes in the endorsement guides in 2009 that were prompted, in part, by the rise of social media and blogs.

Simply put,  the FTC is making sure that, as ad delivery technology changes, claims are properly disclosed and not “lost” in the translation from web to mobile displays.

From the social media perspective, most of the information related to accuracy of claims and disclosure of relationships is the same as is covered in the 2009 Guidance on Endorsements and Testimonials. In other words, there isn’t all that much new here. You still  need to disclose material relationships with brands, in a clear and conspicuous manner proximate to your endorsement, and both you and the sponsor have an obligation to be accurate in your claims about a product. Read my detailed analysis of the examples in the 2009 guide if you want more detail.

Is there anything new here for bloggers? Why yes. It’s not a lot but it’s very nice. The .Com Disclosures document includes new examples that will make it easier for people creating sponsored content to comply with the FTC Guidelines, as well as clarity on the proper ways to disclose additional required information about product claims.

The examples:

Where and how to disclose. As far back as 2009, the FTC was already publicly recommending that disclosures not be buried at the bottom of a post or on a separate page (Once More With Feeling: FTC guidelines, bloggers and companies). Now, however, we have an explicit example.

Takeaway: Do not put your disclosure solely at the bottom of your post.

Recommendation: Include a brief disclosure at the top and if necessary, provide additional details at the bottom.

Note that the FTC also explicitly stated that the form of the disclosure should match the content. If it is a video or sound file, the disclosure should be done in the native format — ie in the video or recording, not simply included in a post or annotation on a social site. The disclosure needs to travel with the content.

However, the exact words you use to disclose? Still up to you.

How to disclose in short-form environments like Twitter. The FTC has always said that the disclosure must be proximate to the endorsement. While common sense would indicate that this means in every sponsored Tweet or Facebook post in which an endorsement appears (and that’s certainly how we handle it at BlogHer), that’s not what was happening on Twitter. Not by a long shot. So, the .Com disclosures have a series of terrific examples of the wrong and right ways to disclose on Twitter. Key points:

  1. The disclosure must be in every Tweet. You can’t tweet a single disclosure that covers the whole conversation; there is no guarantee that readers will see the disclosing statement.
  2. The hashtag #spon is not sufficiently clear.
  3. The word “ad” is sufficiently clear, but needs to be in a prominent place. The FTC also suggests not using a #ad hashtag after a URL or shortlink as it could be overlooked.

Recommendation for a best practice:

  • Do include an “umbrella” tweet or post that explains the sponsored content you are about to tweet/post. It is good information for your followers, but as above, not sufficient in itself. For example: “So excited to be here as a guest of #BIGHOTEL at the Super Duper Event #ad”
  • Use #ad to disclose along with any hashtag the sponsor has requested, but NOT proximate to any URLs in your tweet/update. Make sure the disclosure stands out.

The .Com Disclosures also included one other tidbit that was clearly aimed at advertising disclosure of claims, but is valuable for bloggers as well. When an advertising  claim merits a longer disclosure than is practical for the format, a hyperlink to  additional information is acceptable, provided that anything material, or “triggering” is included in the original advertisement and  the link is clear and conspicuous.  In other words, you cannot bury CRITICAL disclosures in hyperlinked pages, but you can provide additional details.

“Hyperlinks allow additional information to be placed on a webpage entirely separate from the relevant claim. Hyperlinks can provide a useful means to access disclosures that are not integral to the triggering claim, provided certain conditions (discussed below) are met. Hyperlinked disclosures may be particularly useful if the disclosure is lengthy or if it needs to be repeated (because of multiple triggering claims, for example).
However, in many situations, hyperlinks are not necessary to convey disclosures. If a disclosure consists of a word or phrase that may be easily incorporated into the text, along with the claim, this placement increases the likelihood that consumers will see the disclosure and relate it to the relevant claim.
Disclosures that are an integral part of a claim or inseparable from it should not be communicated through a hyperlink. Instead, they should be placed on the same page and immediately next to the claim, and be sufficiently prominent so that the claim and the disclosure are read at the same time, without referring the consumer somewhere else to obtain this important information.” — from the .Com Disclosures Guide. Emphasis mine.

This could be extremely useful for sponsored programs for products and services in highly regulated industries. The sponsored post would still have to meet all the requirements for accuracy, with any critical product claims disclosed in the post, but bloggers wouldn’t have to include all the “fine print” in their posts.

So, some nice clarity for some critical areas. But nothing to get too worried about.

Unless you are creating deceptive mobile ads for weight loss products or jewelry!

Additional resources:

FTC FAQ on the Endorsement Guides (2010)

Eleven Urban Myths about the FTC Guidelines

Lookin’ for Adventure

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For real!

I was lucky enough to be hosted, along with 11 BlogHer Network bloggers, at a 2 day event at Harley-Davidson headquarters in Milwaukee earlier this week.

Here on Marketing Roadmaps, I will be sharing some observations about the event and the impeccable execution of the Harley-Davidson team. And over on my personal blog Snapshot Chronicles, I will share my personal experiences over the 2 days as well as some amazing tidbits from Harley history. Watch for these posts over the next week or so.

Disclosure: I am a BlogHer employee and attended this event as a representative of BlogHer.

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Should you work for free?

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The social media “industry” is built on the back of people doing “stuff” for free. The business models of most social networks — Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Flickr, YouTube etc. etc. — depend on consumers using the free/”freemium” services and thereby creating both the free content that attracts and retains users, and more importantly, a mine-able database. People. Topics. Linkages (who are your friends, what do you like, where do you go). Marketing gold. And the companies are reaping the benefits of our “work” in potentially ginormous valuations, as discussed in this Businessweek article.

You could argue that posting on Facebook or sending a tweet isn’t work per se. We, the users, are getting something in exchange for our activity — the use of the network to accomplish a personal objective. The question is whether the value is balanced — are we getting enough from our participation in exchange for the value we are helping these companies build?

Honestly, that’s a question that each person must answer for themselves. Participating on Facebook DOES mean that you are surrendering some of your personal privacy, and a great deal of personal information that is going to be aggregated, analyzed, mined and sold. Every Facebook item you post, link or share is going to earn money for Facebook and its investors somehow. Maybe ad revenue. Maybe data mining revenue. But certainly revenue. Facebook is a business, not a public service.

Is it worth it to you? If yes, play away. If not, don’t.

And of course, you can figure out ways to monetize YOUR participation in the networks. Use them to promote your business. Or yourself. It’s all about extracting the value you require from your participation.

The other “work for free” model prevalent in the social media space is influencer relations, which owes its structure to the earned media model inherited from public relations. I’ve written about this before — Is earned media an anachronism?

In a nutshell, the idea is that companies and brands can have such compelling stories that consumers will write about them, share them on their social networks, for free, without compensation. And you know, sometimes that’s true.

Sometimes a product is so compelling that we are happy to harness our word of mouth for no other reason than we love the product. Perhaps Apple products are the only ones that can generate widespread mass word of mouth at the mere whisper of a new version, but we all have things we love that we’re happy to share just because we love them.

I’ll use myself as an example. Recently I bought a SpotBot Pet, a little spot carpet cleaner from Bissell that I first learned about at the BlogPaws conference. It is TERRIFIC, and eventually I will get around to posting a review on my personal blog.

But… products we are intrinsically passionate about are few and far between. Certainly far fewer than the number of firms reaching out to bloggers asking them to work for free on behalf of the brand. To write about a new product. Or attend an event and tweet it up. And so on.

So here’s where I draw the line. If it is work — if you are asked to do a specific thing in a specific fashion or to a deadline — you should be compensated for your time and expertise. Because if you are not paid for your work, it is volunteer work, and if you are going to volunteer for something, it should be something that you care about personally and passionately. I’m pretty sure cereal and motor oil don’t qualify. At least for most of us.

Is a free product adequate compensation? In my opinion, it all depends on what you are being asked to do. Try the product and participate in a short survey? Or leave a comment on a Facebook page? Probably yes. Try the product and write a 500 word blog review? Unless it is use of a car for a year or some other equally large “in kind,” probably not. It’s your call, but remember that the FTC and the IRS do not distinguish between cash and “in kind” compensation. You get a free product, you must disclose, and if you get enough of them, you probably should be reporting the “income” on your taxes. Disclaimer: not a lawyer, not an accountant, consult yours if you have questions about your legal obligations, especially for taxes, which unlike the FTC guidelines, DO have defined penalties for getting it wrong.

So, if you are working in exchange for free product, whatever it is, best to make sure it is something you actually want. Because you may have to pay taxes on it. If it is not something you need or want, cashy money probably would be more useful.

A final point on working for free. I am not saying you shouldn’t volunteer your time, skills or blog content to causes — or even brands — that you care about and want to support. Everyone has to make their own decision on that score. However, if you do work for free, if you give it away, don’t expect the recipient to turn around in future and say, wow, you are so great I should be paying you. Volunteering in the hopes of a paying gig is a losing proposition. It is VERY unlikely to happen.

So when someone asks if they could just pick your brain, or could you just post about this thing on this day and include the following three points, or whatever, understand that you have just created a non-paying customer. And no one can afford too many of those.

Finallly, there’s a fine distinction that I don’t want you to miss. Doing something of your own volition — whether writing a blog, sharing a link or posting on Facebook — is very different than working to someone else’s specifications or timeline. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference when the email box is overflowing with “opportunities.” All I can advise is to consider the value to both parties in the exchange. If it is an even exchange of value, if you are getting what you need to make it worth it (whether cash, products, connections or feeling good about helping out) and so is the other party, go for it.

If not, you may just want to say no.

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Disclosure: I work for BlogHer. We pay the bloggers who write for us.

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