The biggest influencer that I follow on Facebook is “Juggling The Jenkins.” She shares funny videos about motherhood, addiction, marriage, and adulting. The videos are mostly targeted at married women with children. Currently she has 3.4 million followers on Facebook and over 3 million likes. Recently she partnered with Grove Collaborative, a cleaning product company.
“Influencer. A word that is key in anything social media. Where PR has traditionally been reliant on building a rapport and nurturing relationships, social media is a gateway to instant communication to the people who matter.” (Ryan, 2015 p.177) The power of the hashtag first started on Instagram but now is blowing up on Facebook and Twitter. When someone creates a hashtag, this is an outlet for companies to view any mentions of their product and answer questions, provide feedback, or troubleshooting issues that the social media user may have. This type of marketing is extremely effective because social media allows you to position your brand exactly where you want it to be. What I notice about this type of marketing is a random person starts a social media webpage to get followers and then once they get a certain amount, of followers that’s when companies want to partner with them to market their brand. This style of marketing works because they know exactly who their target is based on the followers.
The strategies that these companies are employing are the influencer promoting products to their online followers. For example, in the 60-minute, article Logan Paul mentions “The biggest companies in the world have come to me to help sell their product to the younger generation. And I speak the language of millennials, and they respond to my content.” (Whitaker, B., 2016) The strategies that companies use are quality content and measuring the accountability of social PR.
The role that the influencers play in marketing is simple, they partner with large companies to promote that brands product. The company pays them for how many views their video has as well as a percentage of the product that is sold. The more followers an influencer has the more money they will make. This use of marketing perspective could impact the relationship between the company and consumer negatively or positively. For example, the negatives are Facebook or YouTube channels have numerous failed attempts to encourage people with ‘uploading this’ and get a free product or ‘share this’ and get 20% off. These failed attempts led to not just disinterest of a product but also angry consumers. If the company chooses the right partner and follows the right steps, they will be successful with marketing their product.
References
Ryan, D. (2015). Understanding Social Media: How to Create a Plan for Your Business That Works (1st ed.). Kogan Page Limited.
Whitaker, B. (2016, October 23). The Influencers. Retrieved April 13, 2019, from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-kim-kardashian-logan-paul-social-media-influencers/