There has been a lot of talk about so-called social influencers and their ability to manoeuvre consumer behaviour and the path to purchase.
The trend of influencer engagement was recently highlighted in a report published by the Middle East Public Relations Association, according to which it had the highest growth — by 12.4 per cent — in the region’s marketing communications industry.
Data by Arabian Marketer shows that the Middle East comes in second after the US in terms of viewing time on social media, with Saudi Arabia boasting the highest number of mobile YouTube views (65 per cent versus the global average of 55 per cent).
It also has the highest number of content creators on YouTube today. The supremacy of these creators lies in their whopping fan bases, which is counted in the millions in some cases.
But how ‘unwavering’ is the loyalty of their fans, how ‘unparalleled’ is the engagement they are able to drive and how cost-effective and measurable is the impact brands desire to achieve as a result of partnerships with social influencers? In an era of increased transparency and yearning for authenticity, how inspired and emotionally engaged can consumers feel by them?
Opinions are divided. There are marketers and decision-makers at corporate communications departments out there who advocate social influencer campaigns for their brands. Willing to spend significant slices of their budgets to partner with popular bloggers, their intent is to leverage their popularity and the advent of social media to create a halo effect for their brands and drive favourable word-of-mouth publicity.
In fact, according to an October 2015 report by Augure, 75 per cent of marketers in the US use influencer marketing.
On the other side of the scale, there are those who are more sceptical about the whole thing. Because the challenges associated with influencer marketing according to the same report are prohibitive to the successful outcome of such campaigns.
For example, the same marketers who said that they use influencers admit that identifying the right influencer for their brand is the main roadblock (75 per cent), or that finding the right tactics (69 per cent) and measuring the performance of such programmes (53 per cent) are issues that they haven’t yet figured out.
According to a social influencer specialist, businesses are making strong returns from influencer marketing, generating $6.50 (Dh23.88) in revenue for each $1 spent. The argument it uses to provide credibility to this finding is that influencer marketing attracts higher quality customers to their business because social media users tend to be more affluent and more likely to recommend products to family and friends. Seriously?
The same specialist at least agrees that according to their own research 18 per cent of businesses using social influencers fail to generate any revenue as a result.
As in most cases, the truth lurks somewhere in between. Paying royal amounts of money to social influencers while expecting a return on investment in terms of revenue is unrealistic if not utopian. Paying them while investing heavily in the surrounding infrastructure required for a social influencer campaign to have a successful outcome is a more effective way to engage with audiences.
The way I see it, the problem with both approaches hides behind one word; paying. If the fundamental premise and appeal of social influencer marketing is due to the alleged unbiased, third-party endorsement brands are seeking for — with a recent report by Nielsen suggesting that 92 per cent of consumers trust earned media and word-of-mouth recommendations above all other forms of advertising — then the credibility of this form of marketing has long been lost in the influencers’ bank accounts and the invoicing software of the brands who pay them.
Unfortunately for marketers, consumers are learning fast and know how to discern between authenticity and kitsch, for the lack of a more appropriate antonym.
As is always the case, every cloud has a silver lining. In this case, social influencers’ grip on marketers cannot continue clouding the judgement of discerning consumers who have grown to only trust influencers who can authentically showcase how passionate they are about a brand or an issue, and inquire about how much first-hand experience they have with the product as opposed to how many millions of fans or followers they may have.
The writer is Head of PR and Social Media at Al-Futtaim and author of Back to the Future of Marketing — PRovolve or Perish. Follow him on Twitter @georgekotsolios
