The influencer marketing space is increasingly being challenged with respect to how it works and how brands can leverage it to improve their consumer journey.
The Digital Marketing Institute reports that marketers believe in its impact. Others have been reticent about onboarding influencer marketing as a platform and channel as part of their marketing efforts to further drive brand communications.
Today’s contemporary consumers, particularly the Millennial and Gen Z, are the largest consumers of social media platforms. They have admitted to having made brand purchases based on influencer recommendations that have trialed and tested products. This advocates for the legitimacy of the influencer marketing space, and serves as a proof point that influencer marketing does positively impact the bottom-line.
Talent vs content creators vs influencers
As this industry grows, however, it is important to understand its evolving nature and the different role-players that shape and mold it.
Recently, there is a developing language and terminology that is used interchangeably. At times, this causes confusion among practitioners and marketers with respect to the different functions performed by each pillar.
Below we unpack what each pillar means and how brands can continue to leverage them to enhance their consumer journey.
Talent
Talent refers to the individuals used to bring to life the brand narratives used in brand advertisements to appeal to consumers across traditional and new age digital media platforms. These comprise thespians, musicians, fashion designers and other specialists in their craft. Consumers are able to draw parallels with what brands are aiming to communicate when talent uses the brands’ platforms to collaborate. An example of a ‘talent’ could be TRESOR, whose legacy empowerment partnership with inBroadcasting – Jacquel Culture House, is collaborating with Hunter’s in the Hunter’s x Jacquel Culture House collaboration.
Content creators
Content creators are celebrated for their talent, which is often used to capture and share content across social media channels in a highly specialised manner. Their unique selling proposition, however, is that they do not necessarily create content for social media likes and engagement. Instead, they create content that is aesthetically appealing like art, design and photography which is appreciated by their community.
Brands can leverage content creators for creating brand content that centres their product in a highly specialised and authentic manner which they can further use as part of the marketing assets. An example of a ‘content creator’ is Nikiwe Dlova who is an African multi-disciplinary hair artist as well as Trevor Stuurman who is a contemporary African visual artist. Both have collaborated with various brands and platforms globally to share their craft.
Influencers
Compared to talent and content creators, influencers are far much more interested in building and establishing a large, engaged, and growing online community that will help them achieve their objective of aligning with brands that require them to review, advocate and provide recommendations for their product.
They may not be as specialised in their approach to creating content, but they are able to use basic platforms and channels to create exceptional content their followers will respond to. Examples of leading influencer in South Africa across the macro and micro categories are Mihlali Ndamase and Masa (Tom) Diamon, both who continuously work with brands advocating for their superiority and legitimacy.
Image sourced from //www.instagram.com/nix_indamix
Which category one should be more appealing to brands? Well, all!
While they may have different roles to play, they ultimately are all working towards one common goal – to sell product in their unique ways. What we would further argue for is a hybrid approach which looks at finding talent that is great at content creation with brand product and is able to influence their high volume following into buying into a particular lifestyle.
Leveraging talent, content creators and influencers
As a start, it is important to have clear objectives and to understand the KPIs of the campaign and how they relate to content creators and influencers.
If the brand needs content over and above the campaign collateral, they should lean into content creators in creative industries like photography, painting, visual art and graffiti. Then they can leverage, not only their audience for extended reach; but also bank content to use in the campaign at a later stage. If the objectives are awareness and reach, then working with popular influencers will achieve that aim quite easily.
What we find is that a hybrid of the two can not only extend the reach of the campaign but also goes to further drive awareness above paid media. These hybrid creator-influencers are also able to follow the brief or mood-board to create content that the brand can leverage in creative ways on social media.
Image sourced from //www.instagram.com/trevor_stuurma
The Millennial audience – and to an extent – the Gen Z audience, care about authenticity when it comes to brands and products and trust the opinions of their peers. This relates to the badge-worthiness of a brand; “…is it worth posting this brand on Instagram and do my friends love the brand?”.
Essentially, what you buy and what you post speaks volumes about who you are. This is where the power lays in influencer marketing, by tapping into peer-to-peer marketing. Thus, it is important for brands to choose hybrid content-influencers who resonate with the brand.
Too often we find brands that work with popular influencers who do not consume or use the brand, and that inauthenticity comes across in the content. Once the audience picks up on this it goes to further distance the brand from its target consumer.
The ultimate takeout
While the influencer marketing journey is on a growth spurt, and one which is still being challenged, the industry should not lose sight of the fact that consumers shape the platforms and channels that marketing should invest in.
Talent, content creators and influencers are contributing to its growth that cannot be ignored. Finding the perfect balance between content creators and influencers will give brands much more reach and engagement which could meaningfully improve the bottom line.
Khangelani Dziba: From MA candidate to graduate. With qualifications in journalism and now his Masters in Creative Brand Leadership, Khangelani has worked for notable consultancies and agencies including Fleishmanhillard, DNA Brand Architects and Group Africa Marketing across multiple blue-chip clients in various industries including but not limited to Standard Bank, Nestlé, Vodacom, USAID, Clark & Sons, Bongang Matheba and Penrod Ricard. He is based at RAPT Creative’s Johannesburg headquarters but will work closely with all business units across Cape Town, Johannesburg, UK and Ukraine.
Winslow Schalkwyk: Winslow Schalkwyk is a Content and Strategy leader at RAPT Creative, who has – by working in various fields from fashion to food – gained invaluable insight into creating content that appeals to different audience demographics. As a writer and a poet they have been a featured writer for various online publications ranging from visual art to crowdfunding. While working as a facilitator and project manager in the NGO sector, Winslow has gained extensive training in leadership development and brings these gifts to the fore when working with groups or when developing and growing teams.
References:
Digital Marketing Institute (2021). 20 surprising influencer marketing statistics. Retrieved 30 August 2022 from: //digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/20-influencer-marketing-statistics-that-will-surprise-you
Trend (2022). Content Creators vs Influencers – Similarities and Differences. Retrieved 30 August 2022 from: //www.trend.io/blog/content-creators-vs-influencers#:~:text=While%20content%20creators%20are%20in,influencing%20an%20audience’s%20purchasing%20decisions.
GWI Report: How to reach millennials in 2021. Retrieved 30 August 2022 from: //www.gwi.com/reports/millennials
