WatchPro – August 2019

new Paid Media stream we know as

influencer marketing.

According to Wikipedia, influencer

marketing “identifies the individuals

that have influence over potential

buyers, and orients marketing

around these influencers.” These

influencers can range from people

with a few thousand followers

on social media to a few million,

depending on the market niche they

operate in. Whatever the case, more

and more brands are clamouring

to work with them, with decidedly

mixed results.

So, what makes influencer

marketing such a challenging

and inconsistent medium to work

with? There are numerous possible

answers to this question. The four

points that seem to come up most

often are lack of transparency;

uncertainty around pricing; the

challenges of measuring return

on investment (ROI) in a coherent

and consistent way; and, the ability

to meaningfully scale influencer

marketing activities.

TRANSPARENCY:

Compared to a few years ago, the

general understanding of influencer

marketing has improved significantly.

Sophisticated analytics tools now

make it possible to interrogate an

influencer’s audience in more detail,

from the geographic make-up to the

level of engagement. In theory, this

should make it possible for brands

to determine if a collaboration will

result in exposure to the right target

audience. The reality, however, is

far more complex and agencies

are exploiting this knowledge gap

to rake in huge fees for campaigns

of questionable value and not

inconsiderable risks.

For a start, it’s well known that a

number of services exist that enable

the purchase of followers (real or

artificial) on various social media

platforms, along with comments,

likes, and so on. As these services

grow in their sophistication, it is

becomingly increasingly difficult to

differentiate between genuine and

fake audiences, particularly because

the two are often blended together.

Making this process even

more challenging is the fact that

the influencers themselves may

not be aware (or choose to be

wilfully ignorant) of how much

of their following is actually real.

That’s because, in order to appear

legitimate, these bots, or robo-

accounts, as they are sometimes

called, often follow and engage

with popular, genuine accounts.

Given that influencers are generally

rated on the size and engagement

level of their audience, they have

little incentive to weed out these

impostors. Which is why many

brands don’t rely on them to provide

accurate information about the

legitimacy of their followings.

This doesn’t mean the brands

aren’t asking the question though.

According to Zine’s 2019 Influencer

Marketing Report, 93% of brands

surveyed reported they engage in

some form of audience vetting and

73% do so completely manually

without the use of technology or

third-party reports. This can be

an arduous and time-consuming

process, and one that delivers far

from perfect results. For example,

just because an influencer has a

high-concentration of followers in

a specific geographic location (i.e.

India), doesn’t necessarily mean

these followers are fake. It’s all still

very arbitrary.

PRICING:

Another ongoing challenge in

this growing field revolves around

pricing. There is no industry standard

for influencer fees, and it is likely

to stay this way. The reason for

this is that a number of factors

come into play when negotiating

mutually agreeable terms, ranging

from the size of the audience to the

specific industry and the ability of

influencers to engage with a valuable

and hard to reach audience. Some

markets, such as fashion have a

high volume of influencers, allowing

brands a breadth of choice and

therefore more negotiating power.

In more niche industries, however,

it can be a different story. Watches

sit somewhere between the two,

depending on whether we are

talking high volume fashion watches

or top end mechanical masterpieces.

Likewise, many of the influencers

themselves don’t know what to

charge for their services. They’re

also wary of promoting brands or

products that may not resonate

with their audiences or reflect their

ideals. After all, their value is derived

from their integrity and their ability

to connect with their followers in

a meaningful way. It’s a fine line to

walk between paying the bills and

selling out. Many influencers have

found themselves on the wrong side

of this line due to inexperience, poor

judgement, or sheer greed.

ROI:

As brands look to invest more

money into their influencer

marketing budgets in 2019 and

beyond, they are confronted with an

increasing urgency to demonstrate

a strong ROI. A process that is

anything but straight-forward. Just

as there are no industry standards

for pricing, it seems there is also

significant debate around what

metrics should be evaluated and

how they should be measured.

On the one hand, brands are

heavily focussed on engagement

HOW TO GET AHEAD IN INFLUENCING

INFLUENCER MARKETING / WATCHPRO WORKSHOP

watchpro.com / AUGUST 2019 / WATCHPRO 37