Influencer Marketing

The Evolution of Marketing Agencies

7 June 2022 No Comments

Marketing has evolved tremendously over the decades. Earlier, the system was production-centered. Later, it went through phases and evolved into relationship-based marketing. Modern marketing ultimately refers to the concept of business development. It again narrows down to business development through persuasive relationships. Science and technology have changed the way people live. This further affected the way they do business, sell, and purchase.

Through print, television, and social media, marketing has changed over the past decades from the simple act of informing customers to influencing people to become potential customers. It comes as no surprise that the evolution of marketing and advertising has directly affected the evolution of marketing agencies. There are two main factors that have affected the evolution of marketing agencies.

What Do Customers Want?

This refers to the customer’s needs in the business environment. The demands of consumers have changed over the years. What they wanted in the past is irrelevant to what they demand today. If a business fails to keep up with its customers, then its marketing efforts will fail. So customer needs are one factor that directly affected the evolution of marketing agencies.

Marketing Technologies

In the beginning, print advertising was the only communication medium for marketers. Today, the world of digital marketing technology offers a vast variety of opportunities to brands and businesses. Everything is possible for marketing agencies, from email marketing to influencer marketing. Marketing technology is another strong aspect in the evolution of marketing. It teaches marketing agencies what to do and what not to do.

What Should Be the Business Objectives of Marketing Agencies?

Good marketing campaigns aim to facilitate impactful messages that create result-oriented calls to action. The success of any marketing agency depends upon their ability to develop relevant business objectives. They should be able to act as business managers in order to understand the client’s requirements effectively. Before setting up the strategies, the account department must understand the client’s demands. The agency must also possess working knowledge in the area of interest. The executive team primarily measures success on the basis of sales. There are also other aspects of marketing that should be valued.

The customer acquisition rate
Profit margins
Investor interest
“Strategic product development”
Distribution and technology partner agreements

The Future of Marketing Agencies

The world of marketing is evolving at an exponential rate. The digitalisation of the business environment has forced marketing to evolve and adapt accordingly. Social media has further pushed this, and now brands are engaging with consumers in a very human way. At the same time, the role of marketing agencies remains the same: they help brands increase their sales and loyalty. One of the major challenges for agencies is going to be the innovation and implementation of big ideas. A person who uses various modes of communication is a different consumer in each medium. Consumers are not the same when they are using smartphones as they are on any other device or television. Agencies should be able to come up with creative solutions for a better call to action for marketing messages. Also, with the advancement of technology and connectedness, marketing agencies will be challenged to prove their results.

Influencer Marketing

How Does a Marketing Audit Make Difference?

5 June 2022 No Comments

Every company conducts regular financial audits. Conducting regular marketing audits is equally important. Why? It’s crucial for all businesses to consider marketing audits to evaluate the current marketing activities of a company or business.

A marketing audit is the overall analysis of the marketing environment of an organisation or business. It involves evaluating everything from targets and strategies to certain marketing campaigns or activities. The whole process aims to facilitate an entire overview of the competencies of an organization in order to trace weaknesses and opportunities.

It is a systematic and comprehensive analysis of the business marketing environment of a company. An ideal marketing audit should cover an organization’s goals, principles, strategies, and objectives in order to identify any problem or opportunity related to its business environment.

Who Conducts a Marketing Audit?

There are typically three options for any business to conduct a marketing audit.

One or more internal teams
The current marketing agency of your organisation
A third party agency

An intern team can access the company’s information easily. They are aware of the businesses and available resources. The marketing agency is already involved in the business activities. They could have all the relevant information to interpret results accurately. A third party agency can be relied upon for the most objective audit.

How Does a Marketing Audit Help a Business?

A good marketing audit facilitates a benchmark for observing future marketing activities. It can also provide insights into the performance and efficiency of the company’s business activities. The key elements covered in a marketing audit help a business grow.

SWOT Analysis: SWOT analysis is a framework used to evaluate an organisation’s competitive position and to develop a strategy. The framework SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The method used in the marketing audit provides better results.
Market Research: Thorough market research, customer behaviour analysis, and prospects can provide insights into the business’s success. This would help to improve products and services further and also help with brand positioning.
External Marketing Environment: Considering the external marketing environment is equally important while conducting a comprehensive marketing audit. One of the fundamental approaches to analyse the external environment is the PESTLE analysis. It’s about taking the political, economical, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors into consideration and identifying how they are impacting the overall marketing landscape of the organisation.
Competitor Analysis: Another key aspect of the marketing audit is competitor analysis. It is related to comparing your organisation with competitors in areas related to the business environment. It also involves the analysis of their website, Google ranking, and other online activities.

Benefits of Marketing Audit

Conducting an efficient marketing audit gives you an in-depth understanding of the current business environment and how to manage marketing activities.

It gives an understanding of what works great and what needs improvement.
An ideal audit can detect problems and fix them before they cause serious problems.
Conducting an audit helps to plan the future marketing strategies.
An audit can identify it if something has gone wrong in the previous marketing session. After the audit, there will be recommendations for improvement, and this can help build a foundation for major changes in the future.

In short, a marketing audit is a “back to basics” approach that helps businesses grow further. A marketing audit is essential, particularly for small and medium sized businesses. It helps a business understand where it’s heading and gives a marketing perspective.

Influencer Marketing

How to Choose the Best Digital Marketing Agency for your Business?

3 June 2022 No Comments

Digital marketing is crucial for any business in the modern world. Navigating digital marketing is an extra effort for most business owners. Also, the increasing number of digital marketing agencies has made the process of selection difficult. Choosing the right digital marketing partner is crucial because the wrong one can immediately drain your budget and can negatively impact the branding of a company. Considering the competitive nature of digital marketing, certain factors need to be considered before choosing your digital agency.

Your Budget

Something very basic is to be clear about your budget. And the same should be conveyed to your digital marketing agency in order to avoid future hazards. Understand your budget and let the agency know how much you are willing to spend. Especially for small businesses, it’s important to comprehend needs and budget allocation. After all, there is no set price, and a good marketer must be able to work within a reasonable budget.

Your Needs

Just like the budget, understanding the needs is also important. Not only does the company understand its business needs, but they must be able to communicate them properly with the agency. Most of the digital requirements, such as a website, graphic design, social media, advertising, and search engine optimization (SEO), demand high-quality results for better business and branding. The better one can explain their business needs, the better off the company will be in terms of digital marketing.

Choose an Experienced Agency

Choose an agency that is capable of doing your project. This doesn’t mean that you ignore new companies. Regardless of the type of service you want, it’s essential to select an agency with the right team members. For example, if you want more traffic for your edtech, hiring an agency with content marketers isn’t enough. You have to make sure that they have an SEO specialist as well. You may do a little research about the company before the final decision is made. You can go to their about session and see the details and experiences of the team members. You can also use LinkedIn to search for the agency details.

Check the Industry Reputation

This is part of your research about the agency. Good digital marketing agencies are proud of whom they work with, so they would display the past clients’ details. As you do the research, find out about their past clients and what the agency achieved. If you are a small-scale business or a start-up entrepreneur, then you may not have to be picky about the agency’s reputation. Also, if you are on a budget, it’s OK to go for beginners. However, the past clients’ list is a good indication of the agency’s reputation.

It is difficult to select the best digital marketing agency for your company. But with adequate research and some guidance, you can finally select the right agency. Once you choose the right agency, the next thing is to get them involved in the business of digital presence. Above all, communication should be consistent. Also, some other factors need to be considered.

Prepare the Team: It’s important to make sure that everyone is on the same page. It’s good to have proper communication with all the team members about the new project and the agency.
Understand the Process and Timeline: Every digital marketing project follows three stages: research and discovery, planning, execution, results, and offboarding. It’s important to lay out the details of each step to the agency and the team to make everything clear.
Be Collaborative: Some digital marketing agencies are more collaborative than others. Your ideas, thoughts, and inputs might accelerate the project in the right direction. So, be collaborative with an open mind.
Give them Control: Every digital marketing agency is good at what they are doing. So, giving them complete control over certain aspects may provide good results.

One of the fundamental things to keep in mind is to ask questions. Asking about the things you are unsure about is a great way to learn more. Choosing the best digital marketing agency is the same as making the best choice for your business.

Influencer Marketing

How to Become a Successful Influencer?

3 June 2022 No Comments

Have you ever looked at a content creator’s social media profile and thought to yourself, “Oh, this is interesting; I could be one.” Well, influencers and content creators rule over social media nowadays. In fact, you can not be online for a day without having an encounter with at least one influencer. With the transitory growth of social media, people are more determinative about a career in content creation. Similarly, they are certain about the scope of influencer marketing and how brands desperately seek influencers from their niche.

The largest percentage of youth (from Millennials and GenZ) are curious about how to start a career as an influencer. They are increasingly seeking all the resources they could have in order to pursue their dreams, especially the youth of GenZ. They are hard-working, pragmatic, financially-minded, and politically progressive. The question is how to become a successful influencer. It is natural for amateurs to think that content creation is all about doing videos. Well, fundamentally, yes, you need to have videos or some sort of content to begin with. But building a community of devoted followers is not an easy job. There should be a consistent effort from the content creator.

Influencers are social media personalities with an engaged social following. They could be celebrities with a huge number of fan followings or local content creators with loyal and engaging social followings. For fans, influencers are their role models, and they will do anything that their favorite influencer recommends. Influencers are often considered authority figures and experts in a particular niche. Money and fame are the two main factors that drive the attention of youth towards social media influencer careers. Money comes from various sources, like marketers, brands, ads, etc. And fame will be there once you are an established influencer or content creator. After all, people love the power of influencing others.

Just like any other profession, you require talent and hard-work in order to excel as an influencer. At the same time, there are certain rules and strategies that would guide you towards success.

Find Your Niche

Do you want to be an influencer? Then create a business account or channel, but before that identify your area of interest. Nowadays, you are allowed to choose one or more categories from fashion, lifestyle, travel, beauty, food, sports, gaming, entertainment, health, and fitness. It is important to choose what you love and are genuinely interested in. Once you choose your niche, try to stick with it. You are also allowed to experiment with your content. But to have that privilege, first you need to be an established influencer.

Select Your Platform

First, you decide what type of content you want people to see. Now decide where you want to show your content. Choose whether you want to be an Instagram influencer or a Youtuber. Find your medium of communication as well. Be a blogger or vlogger, it’s all up to you. But certain platforms might be better depending on your niche. For example, if you want to be a travel vlogger, YouTube could be a better choice since people spend more time on Youtube watching long videos.

Establish Your Aesthetics

The way your profile or content is perceived improves your personal brand recognition. The way your page looks, its colour, layouts, etc are important. If you are a vlogger, the way your video starts, its camera angles, presentation, narration, everything defines you as a personal brand. So make sure you establish your own aesthetic for your content.

Pay Attention to the Audience

When you start something new, people are going to criticize you. You decide to be a content creator, and you may see your own friends teasing you and laughing at your videos. After all, a certain group of people choose to hate you no matter how good you are. On the other hand, you will definitely cultivate a large and genuine audience. Listen to them, pay attention to your legit audience. As an influencer, you need to create content that your audience wants. You may have to pay attention to the comments and messages you get for your content. It’s beneficial to have a strong rapport with your fan base.

These are the fundamental rules or guidelines you need to follow if you want to be in the social media influencer game. There are many external factors you need to consider while starting your social media influencer career. You must maintain consistency with your content. Take a particular time frame to upload your content and stick with that schedule. This will keep the audience anticipating your next video or post. Respond to your followers often to create a strong engagement. Going live, running giveaways, collaborations with other influencers, etc. are other strong ways to connect with your audience. If you really want to be an influencer, start today.

Influencer Marketing

How Do Small Businesses Get Benefitted Through Influencer Marketing?

3 June 2022 No Comments

Influencer marketing has become one of the most effective marketing tools for big companies, established brands as well as small businesses. Influencer marketing is where brands and businesses collaborate with social media influencers in order to promote or endorse their products and services. The volume of sponsored content on social media has spiked tremendously over the past few years.

The latest trend is that one-quarter of small businesses use influencer marketing to scale up their sales and digital presence. It is also being found that small businesses benefit from micro influencers (a type of influencer with a small, but more engaged social following). Brands generally use influencers to build trust with potential customers, increase brand awareness, improve sales, and many more. Small businesses focus more on micro-influencers because they are affordable and cost-effective. Influencer marketing is a strong social media marketing strategy, and there are multiple ways small businesses can benefit from it.

Increased Sales

The primary goal of any business is to achieve more sales. For small businesses, influencer marketing is one of the best ways to boost their sales. When influencers endorse a product or service, they are actually encouraging their followers to purchase it.

Brand Awareness

Almost 90% of marketers agree that influencer marketing helps to boost brand awareness. With the help of influencers, brands can promote their products and services to a wider audience, and this helps in getting immediate exposure for the brand. Choosing the right influencer similar to the brand niche is essential for turning the audience into potential buyers.

Affordable and Cost Effective

One of the most consequential benefits of influencer marketing for small businesses is that it’s affordable and cost-effective. Start-ups and entrepreneurs usually have limited budgets, so they can choose micro-influencers instead of the traditional paid ads.

Affiliate Marketing Program

Another benefit of using influencer marketing is the advantage of having your own affiliate marketing program. This is a great way to increase sales for small-scale businesses. Brands may facilitate commissions to influencers on the basis of purchases, sign-ups, and other factors. Similarly, small business owners can gain immediate traffic growth to their websites as well. This will again accelerate the chances of more sales and revenues.

Strong Digital Presence

For any new business, or start-up, gaining a strong social media presence is vital. Influencers are the kind of social media figures with loyal fans or audiences. Influencers are essential to spread the word about your business to a new audience. So, by choosing influencer marketing, you are immediately bringing a new audience to your business. Chances are high that later they could become the potential customers and buyers of your business.

In short, influencer marketing is the best choice for start-ups and small businesses. It allows the business to reach a larger audience, build trust, and increase brand awareness. It is also a cost-effective way to market your business. Similarly, choosing the right influencer also matters for business growth as they act as your brand ambassadors. It would be wise to conduct ample research before getting into the whole influencer marketing game.

Influencer Marketing

Guerilla Marketing

3 June 2022 No Comments

If marketing is warfare, guerilla marketing is the most eccentric combat strategy. It is an unconventional way of marketing for brand awareness among large audiences. The term was first used in 1984 by Jay Conrad Levinson in his book ‘Guerilla Advertising’. It was inspired by guerilla warfare which is a kind of irregular tactic strategy practiced by the armed civilians.

Guerilla marketing is commonly used to drive public attention and brand awareness by promoting a product or service using unconventional methods to evoke wonder, shock or surprise among the audience. This marketing strategy is aimed at striking the consumer at a more subjective and memorable level.

Guerilla Marketing is Creative

Guerilla Marketing is an investment of time and effort. The real investment is intellect and creativity. This alternative to traditional marketing thrives on imagination and original thinking. In 2002 Sony ran a unique marketing campaign, where hired actors would roam around the city asking people to take a photo of them. During the interaction, actors take out their new phones, and would start talking widely about their features and uses. This was guerilla marketing, which is particularly known as undercover marketing or stealth marketing. Some other types of guerilla marketing are as follows:

Graffiti
Reverse graffiti
Stencil graffiti
Flash mobs
Stickers
Treasure hunts
Publicity stunts

Guerilla Marketing: Urban Environment & Online

One of the most effective marketing strategies is associated with the existing environment and having physical presence or interactions with the public. Making use of the urban environments or spaces around the public is part of clever guerrilla marketing strategies. On the other hand, the whole world has become one, connected online with the global village concept. As the whole marketing game has acquired its online presence, guerilla marketing has also found its way into the internet. Some of our daily interactions with online guerilla marketing campaigns are:

Creative landing pages
Viral videos
User-generated content competitions

Guerilla Marketing is Budget-Friendly

Advertising and marketing don’t have to be expensive. As the idea of guerilla marketing is to create a buzz through word of mouth or social media, this type of marketing demands creativity more than investing money. It is perfect for small and medium businesses to promote their products and services. Guerilla marketing is fairly low-cost in nature. At the same time, for big companies, it is a high-risk, high-reward strategy. Big companies are already established, hence they would always go for proven conventional marketing methods to avoid risks. If it’s successful, guerilla marketing can capture more market share for large companies. But if it fails, it could damage the whole company’s brand image.

Pros & Cons of Guerilla Marketing

Every marketing tactic has a risk factor. Similarly, guerrilla marketing to has advantages and disadvantages.

They are cheap to execute, whether a simple graffiti or sticker, guerilla marketing is cheaper compared to conventional advertising.
It relies heavily on word-of-mouth marketing. It makes people talk about the company or brand.
Similar to word of mouth, the publicity guerrilla marketing gets is like a snowball. If the event or activity goes viral, it will be picked up by local news sources and bring even more publicity.
One of the most common disadvantages of guerrilla marketing is authority intervention. Some events/ activities may require permissions such as street graffiti, flash mobs, treasure hunts etc.
Also, unpredicted events may ruin the campaigns, like rainy weather, or traffic jams.

The changing marketing environment has gracefully adapted to guerilla marketing. More creative ideas are being exposed to the digital world. From guerrilla marketing in crypto to marketing in the metaverse, things have drastically changed in the marketing landscape. The future of guerilla marketing is as exciting as the future of digital marketing.

Influencer Marketing

How Much Does an Influencer Charge? What are the Factors Considered for Remuneration?

3 June 2022 No Comments

It has been proven in the current marketing scenario that influencer marketing is not only effective but has become the favourite marketing choice for brands. Brands and businesses are investing substantial amounts into influencer marketing. With respect to this new age of social media marketing, what small-scale brands and businesses want to know is how much influencers are charging. Or what are the factors affecting the remuneration of influencers?

Many factors are to be considered in order to compute how much an influencer charges. The costs may vary depending on the platform, industry, brand goals, and influencer tier. An influencer could be a celebrity, travel blogger, stand-up comedian, or any sort of content creator with a dedicated social following. In a broader term, any social media user with a large number of followers is considered an influencer. At the same time, the impact one could make is based on other factors such as engagement ratio, medium of communication, social media trends, etc. Above all these, the proportion of influence matters the most. An influencer should have the power to persuade his/her audience and make the followers take some sort of action. The power to influence the audience, whether to make them buy a product or service or sign-up on a site/event, is what makes an influencer powerful.

A brand must choose an influencer who is relevant to the brand’s industry. Also, the influencer should meet the brand values, and possess similar audience demography. Recent industry graphs show that a brand has to pay between $500 and $1 million for a sponsored post.

Collaboration Cost of Influencer Marketing

As discussed, there are various factors to be considered when determining how much an influencer charges. The parameters that impact influencer rates are as follows:

Engagement and Reach: This is basically the number of followers and subscribers that an influencer has. There are different influencer types, like micro, mega, macro, nano, etc. all based on the social following. The wider the audience, the higher the engagement rates.

Content Platform: The amount a content creator charges per post depends on many factors, including the social media platform they choose. Every social media platform possesses a different audience type. Influencers may also charge the same amount per post regardless of which channel it is posted on.

Type of Content: Every content requires the time and energy of the content creator or influencer. The more time and effort they take to create the content, the more money they can demand, or at least expect. Then again, the quality of content matters.

Industry Niche: A brand looks for an influencer who fits into the niche of business. The content creator must be industry-relevant. Popular niches have more influencers, so the rates are likely to be lower than niches with fewer influencers.

Types of Influencers and Rates

The average payment cycle of different influencers are as follows:

Facebook

Mega-influencers: $25,000+ per post
Mid-tier influencers: $1,250–$12,500 per post
Macro-influencers: $12,500–$25,000 per post
Micro-influencers: $250–$1,250 per post
Nano-influencers: $25–$250 per post

YouTube

Mega-influencers: $20,000+ per post
Mid-tier influencers: $1,000–$10,000 per video
Macro-influencers: $10,000–$20,000 per post
Micro-influencers: $200–$1,000 per video
Nano-influencers: $20–$200 per video

Instagram

Celebrities: Starts with minimum $1 million
Mega-influencers: $10,000+ per post
Mid-tier influencers: $500–$5,000 per post
Micro-influencers: $100–$500 per post
Macro-influencers: $5,000–$10,000 per post
Nano-influencers: $10–$100 per post

Though an average amount can be assumed based on industry research, the accurate cost of an influencer will always be based on the discussed factors. For brands, stepping into the world of influencer marketing is a great idea. At the same time, the early struggle they are going to face is finding the right influencer with whom they can afford. Brands may either depend upon influencer marketing tools or they can approach a good influencer marketing agency

Influencer Marketing

Kerala’s Top Tech Influencers

3 June 2022 No Comments

Just like any other Indian state, Kerala has also witnessed a rapid growth in the use of social media recently. Hence, many social media influencers have come up with different types of content. The way the pandemic has affected the lives of people online had a similar impact on Kerala’s digital users. It is no surprise that as the influencers increased, many influencer marketing agencies have also expanded their reach in Kerala. Agencies like Brandaware, and Spiderworks have developed a comprehensive platform for brands to connect with their influencers.

Most influencers irrespective of their niches prefer video content in order to reach a large audience. Kerala has witnessed a rise in influencers who focus on multiple niches including technology. Especially influencers and bloggers with tech-informative content, gadget reviews, tech news, unboxing, tech-infotainment, etc. Let’s find out some of the top tech influencers from Kerala.

Sujith Bhakthan: He may probably not fit into the usual tech influencer tag. But Sujith Bhakthan is one of the first YouTubers in Kerala who has evolved into a strong influencer. A decade ago, he switched from blogging to vlogging under the ‘Tech Travel Eat’. As the name indicates, he creates content for a multi-niche community. He is one of the popular vloggers in Kerala with more than 1.7 million subscribers on YouTube.

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2. Mr. Tech Perfect: Nitin Raj is a YouTube tech content creator/ influencer with around 689k subscribers on YouTube. He is known by the name Mr. Tech Perfect and he uploads pure tech videos in Malayalam. He creates technology-based YouTube videos like gadget unboxing, comparisons, reviews, upcoming gadget videos, tech explanation videos, tips, and tricks, etc. He is loved by his fans for the simple and detailed presentation.

YouTube Instagram Facebook

3. PratapGTech: He is known for making videos on unboxing, reviews, and mainly tech news. PratapGTech is one of the influencers who introduced tech news and have been actively facilitating updated information in the tech world. Pratap G is doing quite well as a tech influencer with 869k subscribers on YouTube.

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4. Jayaraj G Nath: The channel by Jayaraj himself is one of the most subscribed tech channels from Kerala with 1..57 million subscribers. He started to upload tech videos on 24th October 2015 and became an active influencer by posting the content very frequently. He is also known for giving gadget reviews and unboxing the latest products.

YouTube Instagram Facebook

5. Tec Tok by Hareesh: His channel is known for providing high-quality videos on technology including the latest products and gadgets. He is a tech vlogger and film-maker with 123k subscribers on YouTube.

YouTube Instagram Facebook

6. CallMeShazzam: Shaz Mohammed AKA CallMeShazzam is known for posting short-form videos where he acts as a mobile brand. He gives honest reviews on new gadgets and tech reviews. CallMeShazzam is an active influencer who has picked up the use of both YouTube and Instagram for brand building. He has a YouTube channel with the description Tea, Tech, and Sarcasm with a subscriber count of 692k.

YouTube Instagram

These are some of the popular social media influencers of Kerala right now. In the past few years, all these influencers have developed a strong network of followers. They have the ability to reach and influence a large audience and eventually influence their buying decisions.

Influencer Marketing

New Rules and Regulations of Influencer Marketing

3 June 2022 No Comments

So much is changing in the online business world, as for influencer marketing. It is one of the only marketing mediums that has shown sustainable growth during the COVID pandemic. Influencer marketing is a kind of marketing where brands collaborate with social media influencers to market their products or services. As the business is booming, the governing bodies have imposed certain rules.

Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has unveiled new guidelines for influencers. The final guidelines came into effect on June 14th, 2022. The new guidelines are applicable to all influencers who post content on various social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook (META), Instagram, etc. You might have noticed that influencers are now adding disclosure labels for their paid advertisements and collaborations. This has been strictly implemented so that a consumer, follower, or viewer does not miss it. The program and advertisement can easily be distinguished on television and in newspapers. But the fact that people might miss out on social media has led to this new rule. For sponsored videos of more than 2 minutes duration, the disclosure label must stay for the entire duration of the video. The government has also come up with a digital domain that would monitor influencers, agencies, and marketers. ASCI has made it clear that every influencer must review the product or service before promoting it on social media. As social media consumption has increased, the distinction between paid advertising and the actual content has become crucial. The new guidelines are encouraged to educate influencers and brands about ethical obligations. By imposing the rules, ASCI helps brands, influencers and consumers ensure that the interests of all stakeholders are preserved through a self-regulatory approach. Similarly, the Australian Marketing Council (AIMCO) released its first influencer marketing code of practice on July 1st, 2020. The code affects everyone associated with the influencer marketing industry, like influencers, talent agencies or managers, PR agencies, platform service providers, etc. The codes are categorized into four sections.

Selection & Qualification: The brands and marketers should be able to access and review the influencer’s details and audience demographics for authenticity. Similarly, brands should take compulsory action to ensure that the brand is safe and authentic.
Advertising Disclosure: All posts must follow the rules under the Australian Consumer Law and must not make false claims. A disclosure label similar to ASCI should be given, where all posts must feature #Sponsored or #Ad so that people would be able to differentiate between paid posts and regular posts. For video ads, it should be declared within the first 30 seconds.
Contracts and Brief: A valid contract must be put forward and practiced by influencers and brands. It should cover the areas like industry code compliance, brand safety, and reputation, remuneration, intellectual property rights, etc.
Metrics and Reporting: Both the brands and influencers are required to facilitate metrics and sources in order to ensure consistency.

Government bodies around the world are imposing certain rules to monitor the business under influencer marketing. However, all social media platforms come with their own set of rules and regulations. Instagram has its own sponsored content guidelines. Every influencer wants to establish trust with their followers. The more transparent an influencer is, the more authentic their profile becomes. The new rules and regulations for influencer marketing are not only urgently needed, but will also benefit influencers, marketers, consumers, and related agencies in the long run.

Influencer Marketing

What are the Changing Dynamics of Influencer Marketing?

3 June 2022 No Comments

Influencer marketing is all about creating the buzz on a brand and the impact should reach out to millions. As the whole digital marketing trends have shifted to the front gear, influencer marketing has emerged as a significant game-changer. Influencer marketing is also considered effective when it comes to boosting a brand’s digital space. Influencers are gaining adequate attention from social platforms, especially on Meta (Facebook), YouTube, and Instagram. Brand awareness is being built through long-format videos, IGTV, blog posts, and reels. Even putting a story on the influencer’s profile could impact the market behavior. The latest study by the experts has shown that influencer marketing can gain 11 times the ROI of traditional advertising. But creating and sustaining influence will take more effort than just posting selfies and shots. Brands look for influencers who could facilitate maximum brand exposure, reach, and engagement. Brands strive to maintain a relationship of trust with the audience. When a brand approaches an influencer, marketers expect nothing less than brand visibility.

As social media platforms continue to evolve, more people are becoming influencers. Let’s say social media influencer marketing has begun with written blog posts. As social media changed, the kind of content influencers was making also changed. Video content has become the most popular content for influencers. Be it Facebook, TikTok, IGTV, or YouTube, all have shown the real power of video content. At the same time, influencers will also take advantage of new and innovative platforms. Very recently the audio-only app ClubHouse was trending, and influencers were using it for growing popularity. On the other hand, the way contents have been created has also changed. Influencers started sharing more of their personal life through social media. They have shown the importance of losing for future success. The vulnerability has been celebrated and the impact is significant. Influencers are more trusted by their followers. People love authenticity and that has been the biggest success of influencers of this generation. Influencers showing their reality have made their profiles more authentic and trustworthy. This makes the profile more strong and more engaging. These characteristics are suitable for micro-influencers and other levels of influencers that come after micro-influencers. They won’t necessarily be having a huge social following. Their audience is limited but they will be having a niche community. The number of followers could be lesser but the engagement rate is higher. In short, bloggers, niche-market personalities, and industry experts are the new game-changers in the arena of influencer marketing.

Finding the right influencer for a brand could be complicated. It is even more difficult to connect with them as you don’t know which profile is legit and fits the brand. The involvement of an agency has existed for the last couple of years. An influencer marketing agency is responsible for connecting brands with relevant influencers. An agency bridges the gap between an influencer and the brand and both the parties are benefitted from an agency. An inevitable trend of choosing influencer marketing agencies has lessened the burden on marketers.

The publishing frequency of content creation is on the rise and video becomes the medium of choice for many influencers. They are leveling up their video posts and finding new ways to connect with the audience.

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