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Altimeter and TapInfluence Release The Influencer Marketing Manifesto; Study of Both Marketers and Influencers Uncovers How to Succeed in the New Social Capital Paradigm
TapInfluence,
the only influencer marketing SaaS (News - Alert) platform uniquely combined with a
high-performing marketplace and a services offering, and Altimeter,
a Prophet company, today released The
Influencer Marketing Manifesto, an in-depth study of both
marketers and influencers that uncovers how each party views social
capital, the why, where and how of investments in influencer marketing,
and what changes must take place to continue the category's rapid
growth. Resoundingly marketers feel influencer marketing is important as
it creates more authentic brand storytelling. Additionally, the channel
offers advanced targeting to consumers, greater ROI compared to other
marketing channels, is a meaningful alternative to traditional ads and
plugs brands into their digital communities, especially amongst
millennials and centennials.
This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here:
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160726005961/en/
The Separation of Influence: A View of Influence from Influencers and Influence Marketers (Graphic: Business Wire)
"Influencer marketing is promising in its ability to drive community
engagement and peer-to-peer action," said Brian Solis, principal analyst
at Altimeter. "As marketers experiment with digital influence, naturally
there will be many mistakes made and lessons learned. We all have
something to learn. And, we can do that by understanding the world of
influencer engagement through the perspective of influencers themselves.
We set out to do just that in this
study and the results are compelling and revealing."
Challenges to Expanded Investment
Altimeter's
research reveals that influencer marketing is on the cusp of
becoming one of the largest investment categories for today's marketers,
but that, in order to expand investment, corporations and brands need to
better understand their own internal structures to support these
efforts, listen to the influencers themselves and access metrics on
campaign ROI:
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65% of companies spend less than $10,000 per influencer marketing
campaign.
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54% of marketers cite lack of assigned budget as an internal challenge
towards greater adoption of influencer marketing, which likely stems
in part from fragmented departmental ownership.
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28% of brand respondents put ownership of influencer marketing under
social marketing, however 16% put it under marketing communications
and only 14% had a dedicated function.
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56% cited internal concerns around influencer marketing being new and
unproven as a challenge towards great investment. Data further showed
a lack of alignment around what's proven as effective with influencers
and what budgets are actually going towards.
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71% of marketers believe ongoing ambassadorship is the most effective
form of influencer marketing, yet ambassadorships are a lesser used
engagement type with influencers reporting that the number one request
they get from brands is for sponsored content.
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74% of brands are working directly with influencers (or their
managers) on influencer marketing programs with 21% stating that they
work with an agency to handle their programs.
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While brands succeed working directly with influencers 68% stated that
finding relevant influencers was their greatest challenge in working
in the fieldwith finding ways that help them engage their communities
while satisfying executive expectations and negotiating terms as the
second and third most pervasive challenges.
"Influencer marketing is evolving fast, making it an even greater
challenge for brands and agencies to effectively capitalize upon. The
legacy form of this market, which was the exclusive domain of
celebrities, is dead; from its foundational 'ashes' has risen the most
powerful marketing channel of the 21st century that is
delivering on the promises long-made by social platforms and content
marketing," said Promise Phelon, CEO, TapInfluence. "With Altimeter
we're hoping to accelerate the maturation process of this field,
encouraging marketers to get to know influencer needs better and define
strategies that will lead to long term relationships and material ROI."
Valuing Real Value
The largest misunderstanding taking place in influencer marketing today
isn't between brands and influencers, but internally at brands and their
agencies. The concept of "throwing too much money" at influencers did
not prove to be the case in Altimeter's
study as it surveyed marketers actively treating influencer
marketing as an integrated strategy. Brands buying celebrity
endorsements or expecting work in kind aren't investing in
well-thought-out programs targeting the audiences that matter: they're
not actually doing influencer marketing. Yet despite this industry-wide
education hurdle, budgets are still understandably a top concern for
marketers; Altimeter asked many questions related to influencer payments
and expectations:
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34% of influencer marketing campaigns are between $0-$5,000 and only
7% of campaigns are over $100,000 with 14% of marketers paying
influencers in product versus monetary compensation.
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For 55% of influencers, however, each engagement with a brand reaps
them under $500. 22% receive between $500-$1,000 and only 8% make
between $1,000-$5,000. As you can see, the value of a true influencer
(versus a 6-figure celebrity) is modest. This presents an opportunity
to build relationships early as many influencers are willing to work
harder when they have an established, ongoing relationship with a
brand.
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72% of influencers state that brands offering inadequate compensation
is the biggest mistake being made today. This highlights the
difference in working with a social celebrity versus an everyday
influencer. This is about impact. And impact isn't just about
potential impressions.
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Another interesting discrepancy and influencer frustration surrounds
the emphasis and implied overvaluing of social shares. When asked to
stack rank the most important platform for influencer content,
marketers listed their top five as: Facebook (News - Alert), Twitter, YouTube,
Instagram and then an influencer's personal blog. On the flip side,
influencers listed: personal blog, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (News - Alert) and
Pinterest when asked the same question. Overvaluing social sharing is
bothering influencers, many of whom have built their audience through
their personal blogs.
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38% of influencers surveyed stated that they consistently work with
brands who pay them to reach their audience, another 40% stated that
they sometimes do. Many online personalities and authorities are
indeed recognized and compensated for their online presence when it
comes to brand engagement.
Agreeing to What Success Looks Like
Marketers studied were clear on what kind of influencers were most
successful - a popular person with a significant and desirable audience
and those that are subject matter experts regardless of follower count.
Yet despite this, the prioritization of social channels by marketers
over owned sites (blogs) further complicated the issues around success
metrics tied to influencer marketing:
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When asked to stack rank how they measure success/ROI of influencer
efforts and data that they value, marketers' top five responses
include: engagement (comments, likes, shares, etc.), brand awareness,
sales lift, traffic and reach.
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Influencers presented with the same question answered: blog traffic,
shares of their blog post to social, social likes (or the equivalent),
getting re-hired by the same brand and impressions.
Influencers evaluate success based on traffic as they don't get the same
transparency as brands do on other metrics that matter. But the ROI of
influencer marketing can be vastly improved by first defining the "R"
(return) as related to cause and effect against a current measured state.
According to influencer marketers, it's important to consider how well
your brand, market, or product will resonate with a given influencer's
audience. Marketers reported that they were more successful when working
with influencers who are prolific on a variety of channels, as opposed
to those who limit themselves to predominantly one platform or medium.
Letting Go of Control to Win
Altimeter's
research looked into the motivations and needs of influencers and
how those are understood, interpreted and respected by brands. While
making money was the number one driver of influencers getting into the
business, and payments were an obvious area where influencers felt
brands could improve, other motivations and misalignments proved most
fascinating:
-
When asked what audiences love most about their work, 71% of
influencers stated that "I'm myself, honest, funny, open, and willing
to call it like I see it" as the number one reason. The second and
third most popular responses were: That I provide value by addressing
the things that they are interested in and that I interact with them,
listen and respond online.
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Yet when asked to stack rank the biggest mistakes brands were making
when working with influencers, the responses following compensation
included: overly restrictive content guidelines, not providing
adequate time and requiring too many social shares or sharing to every
social channel.
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41% of marketers responded that lack of control over messaging was a
challenge to further investment, marking a clear misalignment between
the two parties. Brands want to control messaging and content, and
influencers feel that marketers are already too controlling.
Influencers are powerful because of their authenticity, and, as
aforementioned, brands put "more authentic storytelling for our brand"
as the top reason why they believe influencer marketing is important.
Clearly, controlling the message is counterproductive to the ultimate
business goal and influencers are frustrated.
Download a free copy of The Influencer Marketing Manifesto here.
Methodology
This study was commissioned by TapInfluence to understand the current
state of influencer marketing. Research was conducted by Altimeter using
an anonymous online questionnaire between February 26, 2016 and April
29, 2016. In total, 1,753 influencers and 102 marketers responded.
About TapInfluence
TapInfluence's complete SaaS platform, coupled with an engaged
influencer marketplace and strategic services, is the leading solution
facilitating real conversations between consumers and brands. The
company enables Fortune 1000 brands to tap into the power of digital
influencers and their authentic, trusted voices. With its influencer
marketing automation platform, TapInfluence customers increase market
share and amplify revenue growth through scalable reach and optimized
engagement to achieve unprecedented ROI. In a recent independent study,
TapInfluence proved that influencer marketing drives 11x the return on
investment annually versus any other form of digital media.
TapInfluence's Fortune 1000 customers include Kraft, Horizon Organic,
Silk, and P&G, as well as top agencies such as Golin, RhythmOne and AMP.
TapInfluence is privately held, with headquarters in Boulder, Colo. and
Mountain View, Calif. The company is backed by leading venture capital
firms Noro-Moseley Partners, Grotech Ventures, Access Venture Partners
and Knollwood Investment Advisory. For more information, visit www.tapinfluence.com.
About Altimeter
Altimeter, a Prophet company, is a research and strategy consulting firm
that helps companies understand and act on disruption. In July 2015,
Prophet acquired Altimeter Group, to bring together forward-thinking
digital research and consultancy under one umbrella to help clients
unlock digital transformations. Altimeter was founded in 2008 by
best-selling author Charlene Li, focusing research in digital
transformation, social business and governance, customer experience, big
data, and the Internet of Things. Altimeter is based in San Francisco,
CA (News - Alert). For more information visit
http://www.altimetergroup.com.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160726005961/en/
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