How Much Money Brands are Spending on the Wrong Influencers

We’ve all seen the statistics oi the successes of influencer marketing. The recent Influencer Marketing Hub State of Influencer Marketing 2019 survey found that firms received an average earned media value of $5.20 per dollar they spend on influencer marketing. But that is just an average. Not all firms succeed with their influencer marketing. Some brands spend far too much on the wrong influencers, and then wonder why their influencer marketing didn’t bring the successes they expected.

You know something is wrong if you see firms complaining about paying influencers in the press. Clearly, the businesses haven’t got their influencer selection processes right. And unfortunately, if that is their only experience of influencer marketing, they are left with a bitter view regarding the industry.

When Brands Spend Money on the Right Influencers

The figures from that Influencer Marketing Hub survey are correct. The average business that participates in influencer marketing generates an excellent return for their spending. The vast majority experience a positive ROI. That’s why influencer marketing has grown in popularity over the last few years.

But it’s not a set and forget type of marketing. You must know what you’re doing, and it helps to take advantage of the tools available to help you, such as SocialBook. If you select the right influencers, you can work with them to improve your brand awareness, and very effectively reach your target audience. In most cases, influencers can reach far more potential customers than you can by your own efforts.

But that supposes you have selected the right influencers. You will hopefully know your target customer. There is little point working with influencers who don’t have an audience of people like your target customer. It would be like a home improvement firm choosing to place its TV advertising during the children’s’ programs. No matter how many wrong-targeted people see your promotions, they aren’t going to spend money on your products.

Brands that select influencers with the “right” followers, however, have a ready-made audience of people who will take an avid interest in your product. There will already be a level of trust between the influencer and his/her audience. If an influencer was to recommend a product, his/her followers are likely to sit up and take notice. In this situation, it is more comparable to a home improvement firm choosing to place their TV advertising during a home renovation show, like The Block.

We recently wrote about how the key to influencer marketing success is to select the best influencers for your goals. You need to establish the purpose of your campaign, and what are you hoping to achieve. You can then choose the best influencers who can help you attain that goal.

Don’t Mistake Celebrities for Influencers

It is true. Influencer marketing grew out of celebrity marketing. Brands have paid celebrities for decades to say positive things about their products. Even Mark Twain promoted a brand of pens as far back as the early 1900s. Some of the earliest “celebrities” weren’t even real people, but fictional personas created by advertising agencies, such as The Marlboro Man.  

Too many brands pay mega- influencers sizeable money for doubtful benefit. Sure, celebrity influencers have vast numbers of followers. But how much real influence do they have over the purchases of their followers? Do you buy products just because your favorite musician or sports star promotes them? Sure, you might buy a guitar because of a Justin Bieber recommendation, but would you consciously choose the brand of paint for your house based on one of his social media posts?

The Line Between Celebrities and Macro-influencers Blurs

Brands are beginning to understand that offline celebrities don’t necessarily make the best influencers. However, there can even be a problem with some large online influencers too, who have made themselves online celebrities. This is particularly so with influencers who have made their name from entertaining their audiences.

The essence of a successful influencer is somebody who comes across to his or her followers as being totally authentic. In that case, the person can genuinely influence his/her followers. The problem is that the larger an audience an influencer attracts, the fewer genuine followers he/she has. At some point, people begin to follow the influencer simply because he/she is seen as trendy, rather than because he/she meets a genuine need. The later followers may be entertained by the influencer’s’ posts/images/videos, but that is all. They don’t have enough interest in the subject matter, to take on the influencer’s suggestions. 

Mallory Walsh of Forbes describes it well: ‘“Influencers,” as we think of them today, are closer to reality TV stars than they are to your average consumer.’ This doesn’t describe every influencer; however, it is a problem faced by the online megastars.

The Problem of Fake Followers

Basing your choice of influencer on follower numbers can lead to disappointing results. Quite apart from the fact that mega- influencers and celebrities may not really influence their followers, there is an issue with over-reported and fake followers. The problem is that fake followers lead to fake success.

Genuine influencers don’t grow their following overnight. Unless they have already gained celebrity status through offline activities (and we’ve already seen the problems of that for influencer marketing), influencers begin with a just small following like everybody else. They only gain their influencer status through the quality of the material they create and share. Genuine influencers gradually build up a reputation and eventually gain authority status. The supporters of real influencers actively look forward to new content from the influencer, whether it be informative blog pots, exciting photos, or entertaining YouTube videos.

But people can’t become influencers by buying followers. You can easily buy a follow. But you can’t purchase somebody interested in your content, and who is prepared to take notice of your opinions and suggestions.

Influencer Marketing Gone Wrong

In most cases of disappointing influencer marketing, the main problem is a lack of results. Assuming the brand sets goals for the campaign (and the absence of these is a problem in itself) most unsuccessful campaigns simply result in the goals not being reached. In these cases, the brand managers and marketers, may simply shake their heads and decide influencer marketing is not for them. In some cases, the brands realize that they went into their campaigns unprepared and try again, hopefully, more successfully.

There have been a few high-profile influencer marketing disasters, however. Hopefully, they can provide a lesson to other firms of the pitfalls to avoid.

Pepsi – Kendall Jenner

In some ways, it is unfair to highlight this campaign. Pepsi is a large mass-market product and can probably justify working with a big-name celebrity/reality TV star/ mega- influencer like Kendall Jenner. Jenner also probably feels that she made a real effort in the campaign and worked to earn her money. She made something that looked like an ad, and she never attempted to mislead her followers otherwise.

The main problem is a mismatch in values and a corresponding lack of authenticity. The ad features a multi-cultural crowd of protestors, being “controlled” by police. Jenner comes in and offers a policeman a can of Pepsi. Suddenly, everybody is happy. The ad implies that all it took to solve the world’s problems was to have a can of Pepsi, handed out by a famous, wealthy white woman, completely ignoring the then hot controversy surrounding police treatment of African Americans.

The ad/ influencer promotion backfired, and for a time it had a profoundly negative effect on both Pepsi and Kendall Jenner.

Bootea – Scott Disick

This was another match made from Hell involving a member of the extended Kardashian-Jenner family. It is an example of a brand picking somebody because they are famous, rather than because they have any significant influence on the buying habits of their audience. Scott Disick probably learned the importance of taking good care if you are paid to promote a product so that it doesn’t damage your reputation with your audience.

Bootea employed Scott Disick to promote their products. They probably tried to control the campaign too much and gave Scott Disick precise instructions on what he should post and when. Unfortunately, he took the instructions too literally and copied the entire message, including Bootea’s instructions: “Here you go, at 4pm est, write the below Caption: Keeping up with the summer workout routine with my morning @booteauk protein shake!”

Multiple Brands – Logan Paul

Logan Paul is an example of a YouTuber who pushes the boundaries. If your market is cynical teenagers, predominantly male, then perhaps he is a suitable influencer for you. His antics are less likely to scare your audience away. Unfortunately, many of the brands whose advertising appeared on his videos didn’t target that type of audience, and they rapidly tried to disassociate themselves with him.

Paul has always been somewhat controversial, but he caused quite some upset in early 2018 with a video, “We found a dead body in the Japanese Suicide Forest.” As its title suggested, the footage depicted Paul standing next to a dead body. It sparked a public outcry. YouTube pulled the video, and multiple brands pulled their advertising. He made an apology tweet:

Snap – Luka Sabbat

Luka Sabbat partnered with Snap Inc’s PR firm to promote the company’s Spectacles product in a $60,000 deal. He agreed to endorse Spectacles with one regular Instagram feed post and three Stories posts of him wearing the glasses.

The problem is that despite taking $45,000 upfront, Sabbat only uploaded one feed post and one-Story post and failed to don the glasses at the Paris and Milan Fashion Weeks. This led to a lawsuit, which caused embarrassment for both parties.

While Sabbat doesn’t come out of this with glory – he didn’t make the contracted posts, after all, the public nature of the lawsuit also hurt Snap. It didn’t take people long to realize that Snap had paid Sabbat to make his posts on archenemy, Instagram Stories, rather than on Snapshot.

How to Avoid Your Influencer Marketing Going Wrong

The key to successful influencer marketing is working with the right influencers for your product. Ideally, you want your influencers’ audience to match the target market for your product. You also want to ensure that your influencers have the same values as your company. Disney, for instance, follows family-friendly policies. They certainly would not want to be involved with somebody like Logan Paul. 

It is vital that you set goals for each campaign. These should significantly impact on your choice of influencers. Don’t be too descriptive with your influencers, though. If they are genuine influencers, they understand their audience better than you do. They will know what interests their followers, and what comes across as fake. Never try to be too prescriptive. Otherwise, you are in danger of a Scott Disrick – type disaster.

You need to be realistic about the budgets you set for influencer marketing. You can’t expect cheap influencers to have the same feeling for the campaigns that you do. One concern made about working with smaller influencers is that they often take on too many clients to help pay the bills. In some cases, they take on competing firms. It makes it hard for fans to take these influencers seriously if they make it look like they are making your promotion for the money. You need to pay influencers enough that they aren’t going to start looking at your competition.

If you can’t afford a large budget for influencer marketing, target micro-influencers who have established expertise in the sector where you market your product.

Above all else, do your homework. Use a toolkit like SocialBook to help you find the best influencers for your campaign. SocialBook provides you with up-to-date statistics about potential influencers, not outdated numbers. You can search by numerous audience demographics to find the right people for your business. We even give you an estimated price range, so you don’t waste time chasing after influencers who are beyond your reach. Likewise, we highlight other campaigns they’ve been involved in, so you don’t accidentally approach an influencer used by one of your competitors. Using a tool like SocialBook makes it so much easier to compare influencers to find the most suitable ones for your brand, ensuring that you won’t make the next version of this list of influencer marketing fails.