Golden Era of Influencer Marketing
The golden era of Influencer Marketing is now. Attention will become increasingly fragmented due to an ever increasing number content producers. This will make it difficult to monetize a single Social Media Influencer. What will be left is micro brand advocates (with micro reward systems), and major brand Influencers.
Marketers need to create media companies within their organizations. Influencers need to go big via platform partnerships. Really smart people will create something to harness everyone as super micro influencers of niche attention silos.
Now, and in the future, brand's marketing departments will look more and more like media companies. I'm convinced one-off KOL campaigns will die. Social changes lightning fast, with the rise of Snapchat, private messengers, and everyone as a content producer ( especially via live streaming) means that "KOLs" as we know it will fade from the scene for "whales" and super micro influencers (normal people, interacting in normal ways). The guys that create systems for super micro influencers, these are the next super rich.
We have a clear path to monetizing this era and the future. Our Influencer brand Melilim Fu is going big, as big as possible, and in China, that means partnerships with social media and content distribution platforms. Then we will sell/lease our IP (Melilim Fu the brand and the personality) to a single brand or small group of brands.
Co-founder of a China Beauty Influencer - www.melilimfu.com
Marketer | Strategist | Consultant | Podcast Host
7 年Definitely a helpful article for market entrants and also pre-existing entities
Stylist
7 年I couldn't agree more. I feel like "influencers" are just receiving pay checks to post about any product from what ever brand that reaches out more than they are actually influencing.
Global E-Commerce CRO, Entrepreneur, Strategy and Partnerships lead, X-Sina/Weibo (微博/新浪), Poizon (得物), BorderX Lab (别样) & Lucky Pacific (1st Asian Performance Network)
7 年I agree with the basic premise of the article though in China there is space for a lot of whales and every wechat user is a micro-influencer due to the high number of average posts (3x the US average). Another important question is determining the purpose of the KOL interaction, to build brand, drive online sales or drive b&m store visits. If the see now buy now model is to work influencers must have purchase functionality on their platform, or at least a very tight conversion path for the inspired shoppers to become buyers.
Brand Strategy, Media Innovation & Communications Planning Consultant | Recipient of the Tech Nation UK Entrepreneur Visa for Exceptional Digital Talent
8 年Elana Levin this is exactly what I was taking to you about during SXSW (aka focusing on tribes of influence).