We live in interesting times. The Chinese saying serves to remind us that the movements that remain in history are those considered interesting, for better or for worse. From a marketing and communication perspective, we live in interesting times for good. Global digitization, that began with the arrival of the PC and redefined humanity with the birth of the smartphone and hyperconnection, broke barriers and disintermediated human relationships. Every person with a phone can be, at the same time, a communication channel, a communicator, a consumer and a creator. AI comes to further empower individuals who want to take advantage of it for their productivity. With disintermediation, the economy of creators was born, or the "creator's economy", what, according to the trend research company Statista, should reach 32,55 billion dollars in 2025.
The creativity and charisma of creators are a seductive and powerful tool for any contemporary brand to connect with its audiences. The way they manage to capture the right way to communicate and engage with their audiences, besides the obvious inherent recommendation, builds results for brands and for businesses.
So, why does the statistic that bother so much, two R$ 2,18 billion per year moved by the influencer marketing sector in Brazil, according to data from Kantar Ibope Media and Statista, up to R$ 1,57 billion may be wasted by brands?
The answer may lie in a marketing axiom, "I know that 50% of my investment in communication is wrong", "I just don't know which 50%", that is attributed to John Wanamaker, one of the pioneers of retail marketing in the USA, but sounds strangely contemporary today, even considering that, no digital marketing, everything is metrified.
The reach metrics, engagement, satisfaction, click-through and conversion should serve the objectives that the brand and the business seek. More than metrics, they should be considered goals on the way to larger goals: knowledge, consideration, conversion, loyalty.
When it comes to creating an influencer marketing strategy, the fundamentals of any communication initiative still hold because the human being remains what it has always been: human.
More connected, more available, more accessible, but also more scattered, less attentive, harder to seduce in a sea of messages on your devices.
To succeed when developing the strategy, it is essential to have
Pertinentência
It is seductive to look for a content creator with a huge follower base and high engagement rates, but the first question might be: does this person represent the values of my brand or product? She is aligned with my position? She has authority in the industry I work in? Simple questions like these can help when selecting who the creators are that I will bring into my strategy. Once, we were launching an innovative platform for the capital market and the strategy I adopted was to seek an influencer from the market, spoke to the audience with knowledge and still had a cross-media presence, that is, beyond digital platforms. We not only set up a plan that takes advantage of his airtime on a TV channel, how we continued the conversation digitally, both on his platforms and on ours, and we also had the opportunity to have him as the master of ceremonies at the launch event. Result: we launched the brand with relevance and the endorsement of someone who was respected in the market.
Aderência
Connects with the story above. The creator must have adherence to connect with what the brand or product advocates so that you can convey a very important concept nowadays: authenticity. The human being is more cunning than it seems, even if not rationally, and you feel the distance when something is not true. Look for people who can talk about your business, product or brand with authority, otherwise, it will seem fake. Falsehood stimulates rejection instead of influencing.
Creativity
The creators have charisma, they know their audience and understand how to generate engagement and results on the platforms, even considering the algorithms. Resist the temptation to give a very structured briefing, let their creativity flourish. On one occasion, I was working on a project for a condom brand and we wanted to explore the music pillar. We went to find an artist who was relevant to the young audience and who, by coincidence, was still a consumer of the brand. The briefing was: We are a brand that promotes pleasure responsibly and we are democratic regarding people's choices. The solution was not a jingle, it was a song where the artist mentioned her name in the middle of the lyrics, so much that he identified with the brand and the discourse.
Consistência
Again,it is seductive to see creators with millions of followers and engagement and think that any initiative will already build immediate results (there are several cases that talk about a post that generated record sales, until the product runs out etc.), but the truth is that, in an era where people are bombarded by thousands of stimuli at their fingertips every second, seeking consistency is essential to build a connection with the influencer and thus be remembered when they create content, be it yours or others. Consistency generates connection.
Pé no chare
Finally, once again a maxim holds true: expectation is the mother of all disappointment. Set clear goals for your influencer strategy, always remembering that we live in interesting times and have various tools to build the outcome. With clear KPIs and realistic objectives, built sometimes with the creator himself, it becomes easier to stay in the statistics of those who have positive results with the use of influencers.
There are five simple points, that use common sense to bring a little more possibility and success. This is because we still have the issues related to each platform and the algorithms that govern them, but this is a topic for another reflection.
