Dawn of the digital influencer event summary

The Dawn Of The Digital Influencer STIR

The Dawn Of The Digital Influencer How great a challenge to traditional brand advertising does the power of peer-to-peer recommendation pose?

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The Dawn Of The Digital Influencer STIR

The Event The first in Stir’s Enquirer Series took place mid-April in the form of a panel debate, exploring The Dawn of the Digital Influencer.

The panel included a selection of the UK’s most respected digital influencers: lifestyle blogger extraordinaire Anna Whitehouse, otherwise known as Mother Pukka, food fanatic James Thompson, whose Instagram channel @Food_ Feels has almost 100k followers, and fashion journalist turned digital influencer Katherine Ormerod.

Leading the charge from a brand perspective was Danny Denhard, Head of Digital Marketing at Just-Giving.

Anna Whitehouse Mother Pukka @mother_pukka

James Thompson Food Feels @Food_ Feels

Katherine Ormerod Work Work Work @katherine_ormerod

Danny Denhard Just-Giving @dannydenhard

SETTING THE CONTEXT

63%

Recent research from Bloglovin found 63% of surveyed marketing professionals with influencer strategies already in place, are increasing budgets this year

with another 32% stating influencer campaigns were essential to their marketing strategy

41%

32%

and 41% saying they have seen more success in influencer campaigns than in more traditional advertising efforts.

From a Stir perspective, the use of digital influencers as a core element of campaigns, has grown significantly over the last 6 to 12 months.

To explore the role and impact of digital influencers in today’s communications’ landscape, we put the following question to our panel and audience: How great a challenge to traditional brand advertising does the power of peer-to-peer recommendation through digital influencers pose?

What follows is a summary of the key themes that emerged during the session.

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The Dawn Of The Digital Influencer STIR

The Organic Rise Of The Digital Influencer: A number of influencers have developed their digital communication channels (blog, Instagram etc.) off the back of a career in editorial journalism. Once freelance, they focused on cultivating their own influence through credible content and in time created opportunities to monetize this, emulating a business model much like the publications they once worked for.

Influencers without a journalistic background very often begin ‘gramming, tweeting and blogging’ out of passion for their subject matter (food, travel, art, interiors etc.), rather than with the expressed objective of generating income from their influence. This authenticity provides solid foundations for ongoing audience engagement.

Both avenues have given rise to well respected digital influencers. Key elements that unite both groups and drive their individual (and collective) success in engaging audiences: ••

The Influencer has a focused and easily communicable set of their values, passion points and tone of voice

••

The influencer is consistent in their subject matter and authentic in their reporting and therefore has attracted a relevant audience that subscribes to and trusts the influencer’s opinion. “I expanded to travel, because that is something which goes hand in hand with food. But I never stray from these two themes, which ensures I retain a connected and engaged audience”. James Thompson, Food Feels

Why Digital Influencers:

Watch Outs:

“…they offer the chance for brands to penetrate these niche communities in a way that’s more impactful and with less wastage than a traditional ATL campaign.”

It is likely that as digital influencers become an established communications channel between brand and consumer, we will start to see influencers emerge with the primary objective of monetizing their output, without a clear purpose or set of values. This can result in a lack of authentic content and therefore fail to engage a defined audience.

Danny Denhard Digital Marketing Director

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“Working with influencers who don’t 100% chime with your audience can discredit your brand.”

The Dawn Of The Digital Influencer STIR

Collaboration: The Key to Brand and Digital Influencer Campaign Success Collaborative working between brand and influencer is a key component of a successful digital Influencer campaign. Content posted on a digital influencer’s channels, must be bespoke to the influencer, projecting the relevant tone of voice and personality of the writer/ content generator, to be perceived as genuine opinion by the influencers’ audience and, in turn, trust worthy.

Similarly, brands should look to share content generated by influencers on their behalf on their own brand channels.

Not only is this of benefit to the influencer in growing their following, it creates a harmony between the third party content and the brand that has commissioned it.

“I always share reports with the brands I work with to ensure they see my worth in terms of click-throughs/ comments/ engagement etc.”

Anna Whitehouse Mother Pukka

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Watch Outs: A copy and paste approach to broadcasting influencer content based upon the most engaged-with posts, makes for an uninteresting content feed. It is important to accept that some posts will get more engagement than others, with little or no explanation. The overall success of a brand-influencer collaboration should be based on the campaign as a whole.

The Dawn Of The Digital Influencer STIR

A Love Triangle?

The Working Relationship Between Brand, Influencer and Agency Just with any brand marketing activation, it is essential that the digital influencer has a core understanding of the brand and its communication objectives. The influencer requires an in-depth briefing if they are to produce content that will engage their audience (and in turn the brand’s target consumer). This can be done direct between brand and influencer, or through an agency, carefully briefed to manage communications and messaging.

“Agencies are essential. It’s a bandwidth issue. Working with digital influencers is time consuming as they require individual time and personal attention. Brand Managers don’t often have the luxury of the time required.”

Katherine Omorod Work Work Work

Watch Outs: Managing relationships with digital influencers should allow for an organic flow of creativity and brand knowledge. The relationship works best when all three parties are aligned and engaged in the process of the campaign.

“I nearly always work through agencies, but having face to face time directly with the brand, particularly in the briefing stages is really important to me, in order to understand boundaries and opportunities.”

Anne Whitehouse Mother Pukka

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Get In Touch To discuss how your brand might benefit from collaborating with a digital influencer to reach a target audience, contact Heather at heather.milner@hellostir.com A special thanks to Anna Whitehouse (mother pukka) James Thompson (food feels), Katherine Omorod (workworkwork) and Danny Denhard, (Digital Marketing Director at Just-Giving)

Subscribe to The Enquirer to be informed about all future events WWW.HELLOSTIR.COM @HELLOSTIR 7TH FLOOR, THE TEA BUILDING 56 SHOREDITCH HIGH STREET, E1 6JJ 020 7749 2637