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Brand-influence relationships used to be as simple as a YouTuber standing next to a man dressed as a giant language. At the very first edition of Vidcon, in 2010, the Orabrush language scraper company sent a bumpy pink mascot to the convention center to establish near-impromptu interactions with early influencers such as iJustine.
When you make a quick head start with megawatt influencers today, who regularly sign six-figure deals with giant global brands to promote products to their millions of followers on Instagram and YouTube, a stuffed tongue looks strange. For brands and influencers, the stakes and risks of the partnership are now incredibly high. These relationships are often unhealthy, and when brands are withdrawing their money, it's a new on the Web: controversies on YouTube, such as Pewdiepie's Hitler cosplay, Logan Paul's suicide forest misadventure, and the Racist comments from Laura Lee, beauty guru, about the brands that once lined the pockets of these creators.
These scandalous fall-out accelerated a pivot already in progress. Endorsements are no longer the only domain of the megawatts' very popular star. Instead, companies want to work with smaller, more specialized Internet personalities, whom they call "micro-influencers," that is, more than 50,000 people. Limiting the scope of a potential scandal is only one of the advantages of working with a micro-influencer. Analysts argue that intimate and engaged micro-influencer communities are more likely to trust and buy what the influencer recommends. Others refer to brands' results: influencers who are still struggling to become big will work harder, and for smaller wages.
Brands have begun to realize that betting big on a single star does not always pay, according to Ryan Detert, CEO of Influential, an AI-based service that connects influencers and brands. If you're an iconic brand – like Ford – the advertising logic is the same, you should work with the biggest star you can find, which will enhance your brand recognition. But millions of fans do not necessarily bring you millions of car sales, because no one trusts the car evaluations of, say, the YouTube Smosh comedy-comedy duo.
"We arrived with data and metrics saying [companies] should choose several relevant people to create a conversation, "says Detert. "And at the same time, brands have begun to ask themselves the following question: why should I choose a big name that will betray me for a few months? We are now at the point where virtually all types of brands, from automotive to entertainment, have embraced the idea of working with more smaller scale influencers. "
Influencers have been taxonomized: brands will require macro-influencers (people with a few hundred thousand followers), micro-influencers (between 2,000 and 50,000 followers) or nano-influencers (2,000 followers or less). Micro-influencers are a kind of commitment, because engagement is really an unwise word for emotional attachment and trust. The megastars have superfans, but they also have legions of occasional viewers who do not care much about the shoes they wear or the soda they drink. Micro-influencers have a scope small enough to appear (sorry) "authentic". "It's like buying something from your local hardware store," says James DeJulio, chairman and co-founder of Tongal, which connects brands and influencers. It's less a generic endorsement of celebrities than a recommendation from a trusted friend. When they say that they like something, you believe them and you buy it.
Yet, these twinnings require precision: it will not work if you ask a new mother among 2,000 other new mothers to promote Juul. Thus, a whole industry conceived in a simple way connects the good brands to not only one, but to many relevant influencers. Vidcon organizes meetings with creators and speed-dating style brands. Tongal works like an inverted kickstarter: a brand is in demand and some of its 200,000 creators come back with pitchs. Influential uses the IBM Watson API to badyze creator data and play matchmaker. "The influencers think we are troubling readers. We will approach them and they will say, "How did you know that I adore Adidas?" Explains Detert. "And we say 'Because you talked about it!'"
But moving from the formalized studio system to the wild nature of social media is a change that accompanies growing pains. "The balance of power had changed," says Lennon. "It's not like booking a movie star, telling them what to say and paying them a flat rate." Advertisers realize that to work with influencers, they have to accept control of surrender. "At the time I worked at Paramount, we only worked with a very small number of people," says James DeJulio, co-founder and president of Tongal, a company that connects brands and influencers. "But we are in the age of mbad democratization tools. You do not need a specific area code to participate in the creative economy, and brands must recognize it. "
All this seems like a great outsider story: send the brand down to the people who actually use it and enjoy it. But it's also another power grab. "[Advertisers] are more comfortable with micro-influencers because they generate less risk and a higher return on investment, "said Lennon. "Micro-influencers are also willing to do more for less and to answer more requests than big names." Lennon, she often explains in front of micro-influencers putting #ad on unsponsored publications, in the goal of commercializing these small players can be a way for brands to profit from despair. "We have so many contracts that we know it will not work and will be pbaded on to the micro influencers," she says. "Then, when the poorly designed plan does not work, it is imputed to the platform, or to the micro-influencer."
Nevertheless, this failure may indicate the way forward. Brands that try to take advantage of the creator's audience without considering that they also buy their personality have not worked. Handling the smallest creators to do exactly what they ask for does not seem sustainable either. Perhaps the solution is for brands to be fully badociated with creators, big and small, who match the products, the tone and the goals of the company. Lennon thinks that this change will take place again in a few years; To invest more in social media marketing, you need to divert funds from more robust and more traditional advertising sites. And when the marketing budgets of influencers will eventually increase, brands will want to work with bigger names again. In the meantime, congratulate (and pitiez) the micro-influencer.
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