ARE INFLUENCERS RELATABLE?
EPISODE 59
A recent article announced an agency that claims that the average American “often can’t relate to influencers.” We discuss this thought and what it means to us. Here are our takeaways:
We believe that this headline was sparked by a marketing play rather than thought leadership about the influencer space. Differentiating yourself in the influencer marketing space is difficult and to us, this headline simply means “we work with nano and micro influencers only.”
Nano and micro influencers are a great avenue to use in any campaign. In crafting and strategizing an influencer marketing campaign, many sizes of influencers can be involved to hit niche audiences across specific interests and demographics. However, working solely with nano and micro influencers can put you at a disadvantage in many cases.
This agency’s argument for sticking to nano and micro is that the average American is unable to relate to “larger” influencers. We think it’s important to point out that the most popular influencers are successful because they represent the norm. The reason influencer marketing works is because large audiences are able to connect to and form a relationship with the influencer.
On the other hand, brands oftentimes want influencers to be aspirational, and not average. For a great campaign, you want to have a large enough scope of the market, that you can identify the right influencers to fit that specific campaign for that specific brand — whether that be “average,” aspirational, or both. Limiting yourself to such a small part of the market, only diminishes your potential for campaign success.
We believe that it is important to find influencers that connect with communities that matter for YOUR brand! Influencers can come from anywhere, and often the fact that they can be relatable to large quantities of people is what makes them “normal.”