I was down in Texas last week meeting with a client & had some time to kill after the day’s work and didn’t feel like heading back to the hotel. So, I took a quick drive down the road and made my way to a local legend of a store by the name of Buc-ee’s.
It’s kinda hard to explain really, it’s almost like if a Walmart met a truck stop.
But Buc-ee’s is not the point of this story, the guy I saw walking around shooting video with his mobile phone in front of him is. “I’m here in a store called Buc-ee’s….blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda.” OK, He didn’t say that last part but I lost interest after I figured out he was one of these quote-unquote “influencers”… or at least trying to be.
It’s understandable why people want to become Influencers, I mean it’s a big business, what with brands spending $4.2 Billion/yr on it.
On average someone with 10k-100k followers on Instagram can expect to make $88-$500 per post.
But why do the Buc-ee people spend this kind of money on influencers? Because, sadly enough, it seems to work and the reasoning behind it is pretty simple.
People trust what they know and like.
Not so much on a personal level as much as they like them for the content they put out and know them from the videos that they watch; and when they suggest they buy something because they themselves use it, well shit, now they can be like them too!
But influencer marketing is a delicate balance. As much as you can benefit from someone with a wide base of followers and can appeal to them too, you also are associated with them if something goes wrong as well.
Take Jared for example.
We all know the story of Subway Jared by now.
Once a huge fat guy ate a bunch of Subway, lost a ton of weight, became the spokesperson for Subway, and then got busted for child pornography.
Not a great look for Subway.
Or look at PewDiePie, one of the most popular YouTubers of all time, clocking in at 111 Million subscribers… and has recently shared some anti-Semitic content.
Or, last example – Logan Paul with 23.5 Million subs, released a video from their trip to a well-known Japanese forest, showing a man who had hung himself from a tree in an apparent suicide. Probably not something you’d want to attach your brand to???
Like everything, there is a risk/benefit with influencer marketing.
Benefit? You get in front of a potentially huge audience with similar tastes and likes as the person you are sponsoring.
At risk, they could turn out to be a total dirtbags.
So, if you want to explore the risks/benefits involved with influencers and other marketing strategies, give us a shout. It’s not as simple as looking up the number of followers that someone has.
Trust us. We know things… and are probably the most influential people in our own office building. (Sorry Cindy, Brian, Tom, and Brook!)
Plus… we don’t suck and are pretty easy to get a hold of!
