6 Hidden Dangers of Influencer Marketing

If you’re into marketing, you’ve probably heard about influencer marketing. Maybe you’ve even done it.

Influencer marketing depends on well-known individuals to promote a product or service.

It’s vital, especially in some niches. There are a lot of online marketing strategies available, but influencer marketing is different from all of them.

Why is it different?

Because it depends on individuals, rather than a systematized and metric-driven process.

This can be a good thing. We need all kinds of marketing techniques. After all, that’s what growth hacking is all about.

However, influencer marketing is volatile and has some inherent dangers.

I’ve decided to share these with you. I think being aware of risks and challenges you might face with any tool is crucial.

The Prevalence of Influencer Marketing  

Recently, AdWeek wrote “influencer marketing is the next big thing.” As a marketer, I’ve seen it grow. Google Trends shows how common the term has become, let alone its impact and implementation by brands.

Given this rising trend, we need a full understanding of influencer marketing, including why it might not work.

1. Influencer marketing depends on an outdated model.

You might be surprised to hear that influencer marketing has been around for a long time — about 75 years, to be precise.

Two sociologists, Elihu Katz and Paul Lazarsfeld developed the “multi-step flow theory” from 1944-1955. Their study of political communication led them to understand that influencers or opinion leaders can shape public perceptions.

In a simple diagram, it looks like this:

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In a more complex and multi-faceted model, it looks like this:

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Theoretically, this model makes sense. The problem is it’s outdated.

Why?

Because the primary disseminator of information is no longer “mass media.” What is mass media today, anyway?

Instead, news and information originates from a complex variety of sources. Opinions on these topics and events have their genesis in a complex social web that includes thousands of potential influences from dozens of sources.

While the multi-step model has merit, it is tenuous ground to build an entire marketing framework upon.

Does influencer marketing “work” apart from the model? Of course, but in a revised version that accounts for today’s media.

If you want a model for influencer marketing, you shouldn’t depend on a one size fits all explanation. Rather, you must fully understand the particularities your own niche, and act accordingly.

2.  Influencers are not invested in the success of your brand.

Let’s be real. Influencers really don’t care about your product or service.

Why not?

Influencers have their own product or service. They only care about your product or service to the extent that it helps them build their own business, net worth, or reputation.

You have to accept this risk if you are trying to leverage influencers to advance goals.

Remember, influencers are in it for them, not you.

Craig Page is the Head of Digital at Ogilvy & Mather, a large marketing and PR agency. Here’s what he said about influencer marketing:

For an influencer to be really “influential,” the relationship they have with their communities is based on a genuine, authentic interest in the topics that they talk about. When influencers partner with a brand or organizations where they do not share the same values, they invariably produce content that is seen to be disingenuous and can erode not only the relationship with their community, but the brand or organization itself.

If you’ve hired an artificial influencer, this might produce an “ummmmm?” moment.

Erosion of your brand isn’t what you were expecting when you onboarded that influencer. But that’s precisely what you might get if you hire an influencer who operates from the wrong mindset.

3. Individual influencers have an unique audience, angle, and approach.

Many marketers utilize influencer marketing from this vantage: “Oh, that blogger is really popular. Their audience looks like our audience! Let’s ask them to promote us!”

With nothing but some Buzzsumo data and a quick email exchange, they’re off to the races.

The risk here?

It’s the risk of the unknown.

You know a few things — the reputation of the influencer, her number of Twitter followers, the popularity of her blog, and the general industry she’s in.

You don’t know a few other things — why she’s appealing to her audience, how they perceive her, how engaged they are, and why the influencer is partnering with you?

Sure, you can do influencer marketing without knowing all of this halo data. But when you enter a marketing arena with little awareness of your surroundings, you invite a high degree of risk.

Let me illustrate this with an example that I witnessed personally.

One very large organization, let’s call them The Corporation, identified hundreds of influencers in a specific niche. The niche was related to their product.

These influencers had followings from 25,000 to 300,000 people (social and subscriber data).

The problem?

Unbeknownst  to The Corporation, these influencers were not very skilled bloggers. They relied on outdated SEO techniques like keyword stuffing. Many of them had blogs that were top-heavy with paid ads.

When The Corporation turned on the influencer spigot, they were expecting a stream of fresh customers. What they got instead was a rash of harmful backlinks to their website.

The sudden increase in low-quality blog backlinks triggered Google’s manual action penalty. The Corporation was stuck with a manual penalty that killed their rankings, and took them months to recover from.

Ouch.

If you want to engage in influencer marketing, do your homework. The more details you understand about a given influencer’s niche, the greater your ability to earn value from your efforts.

4. If there are few influencers, you will reach few customers.

You’ve heard the expression, “don’t put all your eggs in one basket”?

I think of that saying when I see brands doing influencer marketing. Yes, influencer marketing has some awesome upsides: you can gain trust, dedicated fans, viral potential, and a quick following.

But influencers are a limited resource. There are only so many of them, and their willingness to promote your product or service is limited, and the amount of people they reach is also limited.

Keep in mind that there are different kinds of influencers. Neophytes to influencer marketing may think of an influencer as someone with a big social following.

This is only partially true. Sure, an influencer might have a strong social following, but there are two other facets of the influencer’s personal brand that you have to consider:

• The nature of the influence
• The outlet for the influence

The nature of the influence could be complex. The influencer may not be best leveraged by directly promoting your product or service. Instead, the influencer might be a predictor, validator, persuader, or possess another variant of influence.

Here are the types of influence, plotted on a time-influence continuum.

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The outlet of the influence could be social, blog, webinar, or just a decal on a window.

The entire milieu of the influencer must be taken into consideration before you depend upon them for massive market reach.

The core idea is that influence is limited. As such, you cannot depend upon influencers as the sole source of marketing traffic and effectiveness.

5. Influencer relationships can sour.

What if one or more of your influencers drops out of the game? Worse, what if one of your influencers turns against you? What if she instead decides to warn customers of the danger of your product or service?

These are viable possibilities.

Here is yet another real-world example of the perils of influencer marketing.

One company I worked with reached out to a dozen influencers in their niche. They asked each influencer to write a blog post reviewing their service. In the case of one influencer, the service was horrible.

This influencer received rude, unprofessional, and unpleasant service. So what did she do? She wrote a scathing review of the company’s services. The burning review created a huge stir, and exploded virally in the company’s niche.

According to research, negative customer information travels fast and far. Negative-toned remarks earn higher followings.

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High-earning people (like influencers) are the most likely of all people to share bad customer review stories.

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In fact, a full quarter of customers who share their experience with a company do so because they want to punish that company.

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Here’s what you need to remember. Influencers are people. They aren’t machines. You don’t flip a switch and let them rumble.

Anytime you interact with people, there are innate risks.

6. The customers might not like your influencer.

Sour relationships are complicated, and potentially injurious. What if you influencer is cooperative, but your audience isn’t receptive?

What if your target audience doesn’t like your chosen influencer? What if promotion by a certain personality actually turns them off your brand?

A recent CMO piece, authored by Nadia Cameron, pointed out this exact risk:

Much like any social engagement, there’s also the risk of backlash for brands from consumers if they choose the wrong, or a less-than-scrupulous influencer to work with.

Again, this is risky. If you’ve engaged an influencer without understanding your customers’ attitude toward the influencer, then you run the risk of alienation instead of attraction.

Influencers can wield negative influence as well as positive influence.

If you are trying to attract Red Sox fans, and you use a Yankee player as an influencer, well, you’ve just alienated your customer base.

The better you understand the nexus between your audience and your influencer, the better you can choose and vet them.

Conclusion

Should you disavow influencer marketing? Should you flee its evils and reject its appeals?

Of course not. Influencer marketing does have value.

Like any tactic, however, its values are one-sided. There are risks, real and often hidden.

All this being equal, the best and safest influencer to market your product is you. That’s why I recommend growing your personal brand and producing high-value content that will attract eyeballs, win customers, and grow your business.

What’s your perspective on influencer marketing?