Influencer Marketing is a Lie

How important is influence with digital marketing? Most professionals would say influence is pretty important, especially when it comes to social media. The notion is that a few key people can spread an idea to their audiences and networks, causing a brand’s content to “go viral” or at least gain more substantial distribution than if the content were promoted to the every day social media Joe and Jane.

Defining influencer marketing solely as pursuing the “big influencers” alone, is probably one of the biggest lies on the web.

Put aside the challenges around how to find the right influencers for your community, customers and brand, and consider what “influencer” actually means. To me, it’s someone that has earned ongoing attention of an audience or community and the ability to motivate others to action. There’s often a disconnect between the appearance of influence and those in a position to act on it.

Mass influence exists, but it’s often confused with popularity. They’re not the same thing.

A similar disconnect exists between those who have domain expertise and influence and those who behave as influencers. Not the same thing. Not at all.

Influencers with mass appeal are easy to find and get found often. They get pummeled with requests by others to do things: share this, promote that. Some of them take up those offers and lose credibility by over-promoting. While they have a significant community watching and listening to them, the ability to inspire action is often lost over time.

Niche influencers or "micro-influencers" are what companies have begun considering more. Rather that just going after the big fish, target those that have closer, more intimate and meaningful connections with their networks. 

In fact, why not extend the universe of consideration of what an influencer is to include your own employees (think employee advocacy programs), your broader community in the industry, customers and especially prospective customers. Think about the impact of developing relationships through content collaborations with a base of super specific influencers in combination with just a few "brandividuals" and you'll have a perfect influencer content recipe.

I think marketers that see influence solely as popularity need to stop lying to themselves (and to others). Say goodbye to the idea that if you could just get that one famous person to say something positive about your software on Twitter, or LinkedIn or on a blog, then things are going to happen. They probably won’t.

Go after a quantity of quality and make sure influencer/brand values align. Go after different niche influencers (community, customers, employees, prospective customers). Not just the big fish in the industry. I think that truth will set free many successful influencer marketing programs.

My day job is CEO of TopRank Marketing where I get to put things like influence and content marketing into practice for clients like SAP, Dell and LinkedIn. Be sure to follow me on Twitter @leeodden and visit our blog, Online Marketing Blog for useful insights on a variety of content, influence, SEO and social media marketing topics.