Allison PR is an agency that I have a lot of respect for and they represent a bunch of awesome accounts that I know many of you would love to work with. This includes: Toyota, Jansport, Moe's Southwest Grill and more. As a PR Agency they are sort of stuck in the middle (along with most of us honestly). How should brands work with Inflencers, what opportunities for providing value to we represent to their clients. This is a murky space but I - James from ManTripping.com - was honored to be part of the survey that they just released. Let's take a look at some of their results ...
The Allison PR influencer study found that despite becoming a staple in today’s marketing mix, there is a divide between marketers and influencers holding back the true potential of influencer marketing. The divide spans the spectrum from the length of an ideal engagement to the essential question of return on investment. The study also sheds new light on what each think will bridge that gap, as well as how putting more rigor around process and measurement will help increase effectiveness and credibility for the craft.
Based on their conversations with influencers as well as brands, here's ways that Influencers can improve their relationship with marketers:
OBJECTIVES: What does success look like and how do you get there?
- Always know the goals of the campaign and what you’re being measured against so you can create your content with that in mind. A goal of engagement or awareness is much different than that of downloads.
- Know how much content and what type of content you need to create to help with those goals.
- Don’t limit reporting on objectives to the end of the campaign.
AUTHENTICITY: Look beyond the numbers to verify authenticity.
- Know your follower demographics and don’t work with brands who don’t appeal to your audience.
- Stay true to yourself, don’t join the competitive race to get the most numbers. Don’t but followers or engagement.
- Only work with brands you really enjoy. Do not work with too many brands. Bigger brands want more authenticity and exclusivity.
PARTNERSHIP: Move from a transactional relationship to a partnership.
- Be open to a variety of different partnerships and be sure to you negotiate and create full packages for the brand.
- Be open to partnerships of all types, not all brands have the ability to sign you on for a year.
- If you’re creating a long-term partnership, ensure that you’re negotiating fairly.
- Share with marketers what type and tone of content performs best with your audience.
- Speak up if you disagree.
- Think beyond the creative brief.
OPTIMIZATION: Share what’s working and what’s not.
- Watch and monitor your content after it goes live, share questions you cannot answer with the brand and learn from your content while its live. Ensure you’re responding quickly and accurately about the brand and your experience.
- Learn from your content as it goes, if you can see it performed poorly or really well. Dive into comments to understand what happened and how you can optimize the next round of deliverables.
METRICS: Uncovering results is a two-way street.
- Create an objectives-based dashboard.
- Provide your marketing partners with as much data as you can. Always share your actual impressions, views, saves, etc. The more data you share, the better story they can tell to show that you were successful which could lead to longer term partnerships.
- Add content to the numbers. What insights do comments and engagements reveal?
- Don’t be afraid to show metrics of past campaigns upfront to show your value to the brand.
By communicating better, implementing more process and developing concrete methods to show value, marketers and influencers will be able to see the full and realized potential of their partnership.
Here's their infographic with more details from their Influencer Marketing survey ...
What do you guys think? Were there any surprises in here and do you think that Allison PR got things right or are there elements that you wish had been better represented about the work we all do?
