A Peek at Influencer Advertising
Fifty years ago, there were brand ambassadors. Today we call them influencers: someone well-known with charismatic heft who can snap a photo, craft a pithy caption and break the sales needle on the latest pair of athletic sneakers or the trendiest restaurants. They create cultural trends and engage with their audiences, made up of Gen X, millennials and increasing numbers of Gen Z. But just how lucrative is the influencer game?
According to a Statista, ad spending in the international Influencer Advertising Market was forecasted to top $35 billion in 2024. And the T&T brand market is following that trend. Market leaders like Roxanne James @itsroxyjames or Jamel Sampson aka Certified Sampson, command high fees while working with some high profile companies.
“Influencers are earning from $0, because some of them don’t know not to take a PR pack [in exchange for their work] to as much as $30,000 TT to do one job or one video,” said Anil James. He is the creator of Mr & Mrs James, a power couple on T&T’s content creator landscape with nearly 178,000 TikTok followers and 8.2 million likes to date. They have ongoing creator relationships with companies like Digicel and Rituals and to say their fans adore them would be like saying that water is slightly wet.
Anil maintains that their success is because their content is family content: “It’s all about adding some kinda value or substance to the society by being a healthy example of what a family should be. Both small businesses and large businesses have seen growth in what we do, which is why they continuously come back.”
It helps that there’s a common bond of trust between the influencer and their audience. Authenticity plays a key role and the figures prove it: the US-based Trust In Influencer Marketing Report says just over 60 per cent of respondents trust a sponsored post from an influencer as opposed to a regular celebrity endorsement. But due to the over saturation of social media content that we all experience, influencer fatigue might soon become a thing if brands aren’t more mindful, according to CreativePool. “The influencer/marketing tie-up is getting a bit messy. Just paying an influencer to promote your product doesn’t result in magic. You need a strategy.”
So, what’s next on the horizon in influencer evolution? Research suggests that influencer marketing, allied with AI, earns compounded reach and impact. As AI capability evolves, so too will content creation, ideation and analytics. AI’s analytics can also tell which content will align most closely to the diverse needs of an audience, boosting success rates. How do local content creators see AI as part of their process? Anil already uses it as a tool for better and more streamlined editing. “But when it comes to content creation, AI can’t take that over for the creative genius of one person. People don’t buy a product, they buy a person most times. What I do with my family; AI can’t recreate that. That’s life.”
Three Rules Of Influencer Engagement
1 Be strategic in your influencer choice. For example, here at The BUZZ we use Sunny Bling as a brand influencer for Island Finance. Sunny’s direct yet entertaining comedic style has led to new applications monthly.
2 Build a relationship with the right influencer rather than expecting one video to go viral. We should all know this by now: there’s no formula for virality.
3 Don’t be afraid of experimentation. And trust the influencer’s judgement on what will work for his or her audience. The best marketing textbooks can’t replace an influencer who vibes with his or her audience daily.
So what do you think? In what ways do influencers influence you?
