• Social Media

  What I learned from being a marketing influencer; More Failures!

  Posted by lazymentors on October 19, 2023 at 12:07 pm

  To give context; I work in social media marketing, and being a marketer + influencer at the same time helped me a lot.

  Some of you may be familiar with my posts in this community about “what happened in marketing”.

  #1/ Content isn’t about value.

  I was also like all the marketing gurus saying producing valuable content is the key. No, it’s not, true on both the influencer and marketing sides.

  Valuable Content is undisrupted, it’s only feeding your audience more dosage of dopamine. It’s like after a while an addict forgets the difference between good vs bad sh*t.

  It’s all about behavioural tracking, your job is to know your audience and then use metaphors, subjects to bring them to your brand story.

  **Spoiler Alert;** I failed at this, I was so deep into give them more value stuff. The audience forgot how to value future products & launches.

  That’s why I believe it’s important to do the math of your valuable content to know where your audience is headed.

  #2/ Escape Strategy

  Most influencers have an escape strategy after the virality is gone. They will either choose formats & niches that last long. Ex- Beauty Tips, Fitness, cooking & Fashion.

  Kind of goes the same for influencers in marketing. For longevity you have to transform into Speakers and LinkedIn influencers. I didn’t, A mistake from Money POV.

  If you ask the audience, they want the influencer to stay the same. But to get paid, influencer marketers demand formats because It’s still a young space filled with many beginners.

  To a huge extent, Influencer marketing is 99.9% video marketing. Because who’s tracking influence? Unless you trust & understand the influencer.

  #3/ User Behaviour; F**k man.

  I do think you can stop growing as a influencer or marketer on apps like LinkedIn or Instagram. The Algorithm is designed to only bring Yes, Yes to your content.

  And Platforms like Reddit & Twitter, even TikTok can demotivate you. But you should learn from critics and trolls. Ignore trolls and appreciate critics as much as you can.

  But the biggest lesson was how the behavior changes when the same follower of yours on Reddit moves to Instagram. Anonymity changes behaviour, people act different.

  UI/UX changes user behaviour, which in exchange helps or impacts the sales growth of a business. I wish I had the resources to experiment more & survey creators.

  #4/ Are Influencers overpaid?

  I use a factor called “audience fatigue”, it is simple. Everytime an influencer promotes something that audience buys into, the audience goes into fatigue and needs time to recover for next promotion.

  Internet moves fast, the audience consumes a lot. The audience grows out of fatigue, just look at the latest Tube Girl. More than 10-20 collaborations in past 2-3 weeks.

  I use it, most marketers don’t. Influencers aren’t overpaid but the budgets are structured wrong to lead marketers to hell.

  In 2023, This quote; Any type of exposure is good exposure doesn’t apply. Any type of exposure isn’t exposure at all on social media. It’s like a wind, Gone in milliseconds.

  Brands should structure influencers into three categories:

  1. Demand Influencer; The ones answering questions and raising discussions. Choose them for purposeful marketing. Pay: $$
  2. Trend Born Influencers; These were born from a trend, use them for integration marketing. Be early to partner with them. Pay: $
  3. Residents of Social; Long-time influencers, these are expensive but best for product launches. Pay: $$$

  **Small Thoughts;**

  1. Influencers build up their own word of mouth and branded search. Like I did with my newsletter, but not a single brand expect Ahrefs mentioned they were trying to build WOM.
  2. Follower counts & engagement is becoming more and more of a vanity metric as users consume more content. The idea of engagement is changing.
  3. It doesn’t start a creating better content, you need to create basic content too for authority and niche building.

  **PS; feel free to ask me anything about influencer marketing and state of B2B influencers.**

  lazymentors replied 1 year, 6 months ago 2 Members · 1 Reply
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  Guest

  October 19, 2023 at 12:38 pm

  Interesting read, but I’d argue that valuable content still matters. It’s not about dopamine doses, but rather about consistently delivering content that resonates with your audience. Yes, behavioral tracking is important, but without value, you’re just another noise in the cacophony. And that’s not a sustainable strategy for any brand, influencer or not.

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