Why Kanye is the Secret to Scaling Influencer Marketing

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Influencer selection can all too often feel meticulous, nuanced, and confusing. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the thousands of possible influencer choices for your campaign, you’re not alone: 73% of marketers agreed that selecting influencers was their biggest challenge. This challenge can be overcome by understanding The Scale of Influence. Influencers come in all different shapes and sizes, so it’s vital to understand each type of influencer’s unique strengths in order to leverage their clout in the most beneficial way for your campaign.

We’ll use Kanye West to explain how The Scale of Influence works — the scale can be segmented into four types of Influencers, and each type of Influencer will be represented by Kanye West at different stages of his career. Based on what your campaign goals and budgets are, you could in theory activate all the different “types of Kanye” to scale your campaign needs.

1. Micro: 90s Kanye

Best for: Niche-specific content creation, driving action

Activation Type: Experiential, conversational, reviews

Compensation: Free product and/or financial

Challenges: Small reach, low impact

Think of a micro influencer as humble, young Kanye during his teen years producing beats for burgeoning local artists in his bedroom. 90’s Kanye was relatively unknown to those outside of his modest, local music community, and had a small but very tightly knit following. If 90’s Kanye was a social media influencer, marketers would find his impactful relationship with fans as an attractive selling point because brands love to hyper-target their messaging through an influential figure who possesses a strong, familiar presence. 90s Kanye is also very similar to a micro influencer in that they both are creators simply showcasing their interests, talents, and artistry merely from a place of passion.

So why would brands want to work with such a small influencer, or the early unknown Kanye? Simple: Micro influencers typically endorse brands and products that they actually like, which, in turn, results in their sponsored content to appear more authentic and their messaging to highly resonate with their followers. Micro influencers see a higher level of consumer trust due to the loyalty of a niche following.

2. Mid-Tier: College Dropout Kanye

Best for: Driving action, credibility, audience discovery

Activation Type: Contest, content distribution, endorsements, product placement, experiential, conversational

Compensation: Free accommodations, free products, and/or financial

Challenges: Time consuming creative management, content can vary from professional to amateur

College Dropout Kanye, like a mid-tier influencer, is an up and comer who is on the precipice of outgrowing his local scene and has gathered a decent following outside of his niche fans — and similar to mid-tier influencers, he sometimes collaborates with more widely known names who run in the same circle of artists with similar style or taste. Mid-tier Kanye has name recognition but is still far from being a widely-known individual. At this point, he’s reached a balance of reasonable cost for his services while still wielding significant influence amongst his followers — Mid-tier Kanye is pretty much the sweet spot for marketers who want to drive high performance for a low cost.

3. Social Celeb: 808s & Heartbreaks Kanye

Best for: Driving action, brand awareness, audience discovery

Activation Type: Content creation, content distribution, endorsements, product placement, experiential, conversational

Compensation: Financial

Challenges: Too many options, competitive pricing, low participation

808s & Heartbreaks Kanye is a well-known fixture in the music community during this era, and similar to social celeb influencers, he may not be an international A-lister but is on the fast track to celebrity status. As a definitively recognizable name with a huge following, the popular demand for more Kanye leads him to book top venues and appearances; however, he’s still not quite at the level where he can license out his name as his own personal brand (think of Kanye before the launch of his clothing brand, Yeezy). In addition, although Kanye’s time is highly exclusive, it’s not impossible to book him as long as you’re willing to pay competitively.

Influencers also function similarly in that they are able to make themselves available for campaign work if marketers can make the compensation well worth their time. Like Kanye, influencers are also excellent powerhouses for producing original, compelling content. As a result, this attracts marketers who want social celebrity influencers to endorse their products and drive followers to take action like buying a product or following a brand.

4. Celebrity: Yeezy

Best for: Brand awareness

Activation Type: Content distribution, endorsements, product placement

Compensation: Financial, equity

Challenges: Low participation, high cost

As a huge internationally acclaimed celebrity, Kanye West is a well-known household name whose millions of followers, if they were citizens of a country, would have a higher collective population than that of Cuba on Twitter alone.

In theory, if Ye posted to his Twitter account about how much he loves, for example, “Hometown Brand Frozen Waffles,” you can bet that millions of people would develop a wide scale awareness of the brand or product. However, his endorsement would come with a hefty price tag. Because Celebrity Kanye has a massive following with multiple sources of income, and is most likely being approached by hundreds of other brands wanting to leverage his influence, Yeezy has the advantage to be incredibly picky and pass on the scores of deals he doesn’t feel are up to par with his asking price or public image because HE’S FREAKING YEEZY. There isn’t a shortage of collaborative brand campaigns coming his way, so it’s not likely he’ll participate on your project unless he’s handsomely compensated or strongly believes in your vision.

Celebrity influencers are also similar in that they have name recognition and established income, therefore, possessing more leverage when taking on campaign work. Also similar to the Yeezy brand, Celeb influencers often use their own name to produce their own brand of product or merchandise. This also explains why social media influencers who go on to achieve celebrity status receive a lower trust rate from audiences — fans are keen to catching on when their favorite celebrity suddenly goes off the cuff and endorses a product that isn’t their own or hasn’t been regularly mentioned throughout time. Although effective in reaching a wide audience, celebrity influencers aren’t efficient in mobilizingaudiences to take action due to this lack of trust.

In conclusion, Yeezy has taught us that influencers exist in many shapes and sizes, so it’s vital to remember to use the best influencer types to reach your KPI goals. Are you trying to raise wide scale awareness? Then a celebrity or a social celeb is right for you. Are you trying to drive efficient engagement rates? Then a mid-tier or micro influencer is a good fit. Just remember that if you ever have trouble remembering the types of influencers, your friend Kanye will help you remember.

Want to know more on how to best work with influencers? Here’s another helpful article on Getting the Most Bang for your Buck with Influencer Marketing.