You know an industry has come to some level of maturation when trade organizations begin to form. Last year, the American Influencer Council was started by a group of creators and brand marketers to try and bring some advocacy for creators to the industry. And one of the key players in that happening was AIC founder Qianna Smith Bruneteau.
Bruneteau is a familiar name to those who watch social media case studies. She previously led social media teams at Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue and the U.S. Tennis Association. Bruneteau might also be the person with the most Shorty Award nominations in history. She’s won two and been nominated seven times. She was also one of the early practitioners of social media for Time, Inc., and Essence Magazine.
Bruneteau wound up in publishing because she began her digital career as an influencer. A blogger to be more precise. Back in the day when social networks weren’t the primary publishing platform for everyone. That background as an influencer and content creator gives her a unique perspective working from the brand-side of the equation.
It’s that perspective that helped her see that a trade organization like the American Influencer Council was needed. We talked about the role of the AIC, what benefits it provides creators and touched on a lot of the issues that face the industry.
Give it a listen and share with someone who might benefit from what AIC has to offer!
Find more about the American Influencer Council on its website. The organization is also on Twitter and Instagram. Connect with Qianna Smith Bruneteau on LinkedIn.
This episode of Winfluence is made possible by Podchaser Pro, a media database that is solely focused on podcasts. Find and prioritize podcasts for media planning, public relations or influencer outreach and discover each podcast’s audience size and demographics. It’s about time podcasts — which reach over 100 million Americans each month — had proper media planning information available to brands and agencies. Now they do. Go to PodchaserPro.com/falls to sign up and reach more and more relevant customers through podcast sponsorships and outreach. Be sure to go to the URL PodchaserPro.com/falls so they know you heard about PodChaserPro here.
I also start off the episode with a couple of exciting book-related announcements. The official publish date for Winfluence: Reframing Influencer Marketing to Ignite Your Brand is set for February 23. Pre-orders are already available. Just jump over to Get Winfluence here on the site and find links to pre-order via Entrepreneur Press, Amazon and Barnes & Noble. There will also be an audio book, voiced by me! (I’m very excited about that!) The audio book will be available shortly after the book launch, or so I’m told.
Winfluence Transcript – Qianna Smith Bruneteau – American Influencer Council
Jason Falls
Hello again friends thanks for listening to Winfluence – The Influence Marketing Podcast and welcome to our first episode of 2021! Happy New Year!
Jason Falls
Before we jump into the interview today, I’m happy to let you know that we have a publish date for the book. Winfluence: Reframing Influencer Marketing to Ignite Your Brand is due February 23 from Entrepreneur Press. And you can already pre-order your copy. Just go to Winfluencebook.com and you’ll have options to pre-order directly from Entrepreneur Press, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and more. As you might expect, we’ll be talking a lot about the book in 2021. But in ways that will only make the book more valuable to you. It includes worksheets that will help you with your influence marketing, planning and measurement, great case studies that will bring to life by interviewing those involved here on the podcast, and certainly the discussions we have with thought leaders in the influence marketing space will reinforce the strategies and perspectives the book has for you to consider. Winfluencebook.com is the place to go pre-order copies for you, your colleagues and clients. And the book will eventually be available as an audiobook. So for you Audible and audio book enthusiasts, that’s coming as well and I’m excited I get to narrate it. That’ll be a lot of fun. And hopefully that fun will translate to the audio book experience. Lots of goodness coming in 2021 for sure.
Jason Falls
Okay, let’s kick off the year with some of that goodness. You know an industry has come to some level of maturation when trade organizations begin to form. Last year, the American Influencer Council was started by a group of creators and brand marketers to try and bring some advocacy for creators to the industry. And one of the key players in that happening was AIC founder Qianna Smith Bruneteau. Now if you keep an eye on social media case studies, you may have heard that unique name a few times over the years. Qianna has led social media teams at Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, and the U.S. Tennis Association among others. Qianna might be the person with the most Shorty Award nominations in the history of the award. And she’s one two and has been nominated seven times. And she was also one of the early practitioners of social media for Time Incorporated, and Essence Magazine.
Jason Falls
She wound up in publishing because she began her digital career as an influencer — a blogger to be more precise — back in the day when social networks weren’t the primary publishing platform for everyone. And that background as an influencer and content creator gives her a unique perspective, working from the brand side of the equation. And it’s that perspective that helped her see that a trade organization like the American Influencer Council was needed. Qianna and I talked at length, in fact, technical issues forced us to record the episode three different times. So we’re besties now, but we talked about the role of the AIC, what benefits it provides creators, and touched on a lot of the issues that face the industry. We’re kicking off 2021 in a big way. Qianna Smith Bruneteau is next on Winfluence.
Jason Falls
So you like podcasts? Why would you be listening if you didn’t, lots of people like podcasts In fact, podcasts reach 100 million Americans each month. Your business or if you’re at an agency your clients business should be exploring podcasts as a possible place to reach customers. But there’s no good place to see media and audience data about podcasts. Until now. PodchaserPro is a media database that is solely focused on podcasts. I’ve used it to find listener counts and demographic data for my clients. And you know, I work with clients in the spirits industry, right so that age demographic is critical. And I can find it with PodchaserPro. PodchaserPro helps me identify great podcasts by topic, prioritize which meet my audience targeting needs, and even contact the right person to discuss either a media buy or to pitch a guest. It’s invaluable for media planning and Uber useful for public relations and influencer outreach. Yes, podcasters are influencers! Targeting podcasts is smart marketing, not just because over a third of Americans listen to them, but because most podcasts are about very specific topics. You can hyper target very certain interests, making your media spin more efficient. I mean, you’re listening to a podcast on influencer marketing. That’s pretty specific. The cool thing about PodchaserPro is that the regular Podchaser platform is used by podcast fans to find great podcasts that is free to use. You can sign up now and go browse podcasts right now without paying anything. When you want to dig into a podcast and see its demographics, audience numbers and all that important decision making data, sign up for PodchaserPro and make smart decisions for your business. Go to PodchaserPro.com/falls. That’s PodchaserPro.com/falls. Use that URL so they know you heard about it on Winfluence. You love podcasts, there’s a good chance a lot of your customers and prospective customers do to find the ones they listen to and reach them more effectively, PodchaserPro.com/falls.
Jason Falls
So Qianna take us through the first of all, let’s just start out with the American influencer Council. What is the purpose of the organization and and who should be a member who should join? What’s it for?
Qianna Smith Bruneteau
Yeah, so the AIC is a trade association for professional influencers and career creators. We launched on global influencer day, which was the 10th anniversary of Mashable’s Global Influencer Day, which was pretty awesome. And that was at the end of June this year. And we launched with 12 founding members, and the council strives to sustain the integrity and viability of influencer marketing in the United States. And we leverage the collective expertise of our members to share knowledge and develop consistent consensus based solutions based on our five mission pillars. So we are really education focused. So learning and development is really our crown jewel, mission pillar. And we launched several programs under that mission in Committee, which is led by Eric Hercules, and Summer Alabarcha. And those programs have been AIC in the classroom, which was our first program as a trade association. And that’s where we bring creators virtually in COVID conditions, into the classrooms of UCLA, Woodbury college, North Carolina State University has been some of the schools we’ve partnered with so far. And we’ve done everything from virtual lectures, to now we’re working on crafting, helping one of our member advisors who’s a professor working on a course and advanced influencer marketing course for UCLA extended program for next year. So, you know, we’ve done a lot of exciting stuff in in our six months, which we’ll get at the end of this month, which is really exciting.
Jason Falls
So now, just to be clear, you know, you talk about developing courses for influencer marketing and whatnot. And I think if I’m, and correct me if I’m wrong, the AIC is really a resource and an education place for content creators and influencers for people who want to be influencers, as opposed to we’re going to teach brands how to, you know, run influencer marketing campaigns. Is that is that accurate?
Qianna Smith Bruneteau
Absolutely. You know, I think it’s, you know, we have, we have a three pronged membership. So we are a creator-first council, and we were really established to give creators a seat at the table. And so we have organizations and member advisors, and these individuals are coming from fortune 500 brands and talent agencies and analytics firms and some past platform executives. And the reason why we structured the membership in this way was so that this, you know, it’s really an interconnected relationship. And, you know, brands would be able to, you know, have intimate conversations, you know, closed door, you know, roundtable discussions, because when I was at Saks Fifth Avenue, you know, I would I brought creators to meet some of our C suite executives. And that’s how I was able to build a business case for, you know, the reason why we needed to have a, you know, invest in this really, you know, new type of media and advertising. And I think that when executives are able to hear from creators who are really the new advertisers of today, and allow them to have a stage to talk about what they do as an entrepreneur, what they do as not only a creator, but you know, a micro publisher, I think it changes the perception of these marketers.
Jason Falls
You know, it’s it’s obviously a very valuable resource for for content creators, and certainly a great connection point for brands and the vendors and whatnot in the industry. I noticed recently, you guys have kicked off a COVID-19 and vaccine safety sort of resource suite of materials on your website. And certainly, this is a public health issue that we’re all facing and having to deal with, take me a little bit through what that set of resources is and why it’s there.
Qianna Smith Bruneteau
Yeah, I mean, everyone has been impacted by COVID. And I think, with social media, the spread of intentional and unintentional information, has just impacted the global health community in an unprecedented way. And so with the approval, first of the Pfizer vaccine, and now, you know, we have a second FDA approved vaccine, we, as the leadership team, and our board of directors, we felt it was imperative that our resource hub, have an all encompassing place of information where creators can find, you know, COVID-19 vaccine recommendations from the CDC, you know, travel creators can easily find the latest guidelines from the CDC, as we are in this holiday period, that we had, you know, the latest updates coming from, you know, all of the top federal agencies involved with vaccine safety and pushing to the forefront, the science of these endeavors. And so we curated, you know, all of the top resources available so that creators wouldn’t have to do the work, we as a team did the heavy lifting, and we’re working on launching in q1, which I’m so excited a health and safety, Task Force, and we’ll be doing some lives and our Creator Lunch and Learn, which is part of initiative part of our Learning and Development Committee, we’ll be having some cool and exciting conversations cuz creators in the health care, which I’m sure you’ve seen, Jason, this sector for creators has been so relevant and so important. And they’ve also found a new voice. So many doctors and nurses have just become so relevant. And, you know, consumers and users have turned to them. I’m following so many doctors right now. And I never did that, you know, before COVID. What about you?
Jason Falls
Yeah, it’s the same way. I mean, I obviously, you know, I have some high risk individuals in my family. And so we’ve been very conservative in terms of, you know, how often we go out, we always wear masks, etc. and I live in honestly live in a part of the country where, you know, there’s probably a split between people who are following the, you know, the CDC guidelines and the orders of various governors and elected officials. And then there’s, you know, the other side of the aisle of people who are, you know, ignoring them, maybe not intentionally, most of them, but I think some of them are certainly anti maskers, or whatever. So I live in a strange part of the country but I have definitely been been in tune a lot more with health care professionals and other medical opinions during this whole thing, because I’ve got so many high risk people in my family that I want to make sure that I’m willing for them. So this sounds like this resource sounds like a fantastic place for any content creator, obviously to go and, and access it. And it’s it’s open to anyone you can, you know, go to your website at American. It’s americaninfluencercouncil.com and go to the resource tab and find that. So I’m curious though, and I almost started to touch on it in my answer to you, back to you. But I want to ask this question, because this is obviously a public health issue. And when you, you know, it’s it’s strange that we even have to have a debate over this right now. But a lot of people are going to look at this as a political stance from the American influencer Council, it certainly walks into the territory of trying to clean up misinformation about issues on social media, is public health where AIC is gonna draw the line, or can you see the organization having a role, in fact, checking and disseminating, you know, accurate information resources for other topics, too.
Qianna Smith Bruneteau
I think, you know, when you look at what the platform’s are doing with their policies, and that’s something that myself and the team spend a lot of time is making sure that creators are aware of the policy updates, because it impacts them with the content that they’re pushing out. Because, you know, their audiences are also looking to them too, because all of a sudden, you even you don’t even need to mention the word COVID, the AI technology on the platforms is hyper intelligent is and it can even just read images, you know, you saw that with the election, and especially on Twitter and Instagram, where, you know, you had the misinformation, warning labels pop up. And so I think it’s really important that we make sure our creators understand like, why your content might have a warning label, why, you know, Twitter introduced misinformation, labels or warning messages in May, and how that impacts you with your captions and your images. So, I think we’re always going to be updating the creator community, any time the platforms are making policy changes, I think, you know, we as a trade organization, you know, we issue public service announcements as a way of spreading public goodwill for our trade and to also educate and so with our give it a shot. PSA, you know, this is truly a bipartisan PSA, just look at Obama, and George W. Bush, and Clinton, and Dr. Fauci all coming together. And so many members of Congress rallying around the importance of just the scientific integrity, vaccine technology safety, I just think that, you know, the more education we at scale can provide is important in this very critical stage of the virus in this country, when you think that there’s over 17 million people infected. And so, you know, it’s impacting, you know, so many people in every shape and form and I think, if we can help flatten the curve by, you know, helping creators know where to go to locate the right information from the US Department of Health and Human Services from the National Institutes of Health, you know, from the FDA and the WHO, I think that you know, this all helps in a small way to to stop the info-demic, and umm the misinformation impact.
Jason Falls
Did you Did you just say info-demic?
Qianna Smith Bruneteau
Yes.
Jason Falls
I like it. That’s like, that’s a good way of putting it. You know, there’s last by the time this airs this will we can say it this way last month, Josh Bernoff posted a wrote a nice article in The Boston Globe. That basically said social media killed America and here’s how to fix it and why of what he was talking about there was this, you know, sort of polarization of the country through misinformation and social media, people disseminating the wrong things. So I think it’s obviously, you know, a very valiant and worthwhile thing the AIC is doing to give creators and influencers a resource to find that information. I want to quickly point out to though, to the influencers and creators out there listening, that the other resources there are really, you know, useful in, you know, learning how to build your business as an influencer. So there’s lots of great resources there at americaninfluencercouncil.com. So go check that out when you get a chance. Now, Qianna, I want to I want to ask you this question, because I think it confused me when I first started to kind of read about you and understand your bio. So I want to ask you to clarify it. You are heading up a trade organization of creators and influencers. But your reputation in the industry is based on the fact that you are a brand side strategist. You mentioned your work at Saks Fifth Avenue, you’ve worked at Nordstrom, you’ve worked with the US Tennis Association, you helped Asia’s Top Model become the number one show in Asia, like you are a kind of a brand side strategist. What is a brand side strategist doing creating a trade organization for creators?
Qianna Smith Bruneteau
You know, I think that, um, you know, looking at my, my career, it’s always been rooted in influencer marketing, you know, some of my career achievements, things that I’m proud of have been, you know, all around. creators, like my shorty award was for, you know, best celebrity influencer campaign on Snapchat. And, and so I think that just the the work that I’ve done, when we launched at Saks in Canada, the campaigns that I crafted to open those stores or influencer campaigns, I always find that, you know, telling the having, you know, real individuals who have incredible stories, and giving them a platform to, you know, do their thing always works, because there’s nothing like, you know, real people, as opposed to models, which we all, you know, have been there done that, um, creators offer a new dynamic, and so be being on the forefront of that I’ve just been really lucky in my career to be able to tap and work with some of the most amazing creators in this space. And so looking at just the opportunities I’ve had in corporate environments, and knowing creators are often operating alone, or, you know, unless you’re a mega creator, who has a team or an agency, you know, the nano to macro creators, which is really the majority of our industry, you know, they don’t have the resources or the professional support, that can help accelerate their growth. And that was the inspiration for creating the AIC. I just have been lucky. You know, at Saks, I was involved with social media.org. And at the USTA was a member of the Association for national advertisers. And those two organizations provide incredible trade resources. And they just have the most amazing professionals and my and peer group and I just loved my experiences, I always give those two orgs a shout out. Because what they bring to our industry is just phenomenal. And so I just feel like if creators could also experience the power of networking and knowledge sharing, that they would also be able to, you know, achieve their dreams because I’m all about, you know, the sky’s the limit, right. I think when you work in a startup space you kind of can like dream and do things you never thought were possible. And I just love that about our industry. I think you Jason as like a podcaster. You know, like, did you even think podcasting could be a full time gig, right?
Jason Falls
No, I didn’t. And but I hope one day it will right now, it’s not I wish I had 47 sponsors lined up out the door. But But yeah, it is for some people, though. It absolutely is.
Qianna Smith Bruneteau
Yeah. And so I think that our industry is one where you know, it, it can offer incredible opportunity. And so just to give back, um, in a way, and so I think, you know, with our founding members, a lot of us really wanted to give back and to build something to help the group that needs help the most. And so a lot of our all of our resources are for free our lunch and learns our creators in conversation, everything we do is really to empower a group who wouldn’t necessarily have access.
Jason Falls
Nice. So I want to ask you this, I’ve had a couple of conversations recently with some influencers who had been approached by brands and sort of, you know, proposed one way of, of engagement. And I’ve actually talked to a couple of brand managers recently and thrown this question at them a little bit, to get their perspective. And I, if, if you’re reading the tea leaves in sort of the execution of influence marketing programs, in some spaces, I think you’re starting to see brand managers are tending to prefer to build programs that are more performance based on you know, CPMs, or CPCs or you know, some other, you know, way of measuring what they would pay to an influencer, what the engagement might look like. And so performance based, obviously, is going to be something that a lot of brands prefer. But that’s really not the model that most brands and or influencers are going by normally, there’s some sort of scope of work, I’ll estimate how much time it’s going to take me or what I’m going to charge you for this. And then there’s some exchange there. And then that’s really a kind of the mega level. And then in the micro and nano level, it’s more Well, I’ll exchange your product or some other thing for, for the content. I’m curious if you personally or the AIC, as an organization, has a perspective or will develop a perspective over time of how to appropriately value an influencer or creators content. And how that influencer or creator should be paid in certain circumstances, because I think that’s one of the muddy areas out there for, for brands and for creators right now is, you know, how much can I make? What’s my value? How do I negotiate this? And I know that, you know, ASC is not a union necessarily, but I wonder if as a rep, an organization that represents creators, if that sort of, you know, on the agenda to think about and maybe try to bring some industry agreement to?
Qianna Smith Bruneteau
You know, I think when it comes to you know, it’s funny, because we just participated in a survey with influencer, the London based marketing and advertising agency, and they hold a group of industry leaders, from brands to creators to even platforms you had Instagram and tick tock involved. And the white paper is called on social media embracing on social metrics, the new way to win at influencer marketing and it looks at vanity metrics and in affiche inefficiencies and how best to analyze influencer marketing strategies, I think at at a high level, you know, industry wide marketers need to re evaluate what is, you know, success, and how are you defining success when it comes to your campaigns because so many marketers are still looking at passive actions, you know, likes and comments and, you know, you’re still also the integrity of your followers. You know, I think when you look just back when Instagram purged a lot of the accounts, and you had, you know, big celebrities losing hundreds of 1000s of followers, and you know, that brought a lot of light that people were buying followers, and it’s still an issue in our industry. And then now with Instagram, putting such a heavy hedging its bet on in app shopping and short form video, you know, the two metrics you sort of can’t, you know, have any type of follower. You know, you have to have follower integrity, is with purchase intent, if you have built an Instagram with fake followers, how can they buy anything? How can they watch a video, right, and so you are just seeing this, you know, resurgence in just the platform and the behavior just with like, tick tock, you know, and reels. If Instagram is flooded with a community or ecosystem of fake accounts, how can Nat space monetize, because you need real humans to purchase, you need real people to watch videos, you need real people to convert. And so I think even just, we need clean platforms, we need people to understand, you know, what is a passive action versus an active action. And then once we can clean that up and industry wide, get more marketers aligned, then I think, you know, creators can have a better understanding of the value they can drive from the content that they’re creating, and you won’t see, you know, younger influencers, doing things that sort of jeopardize the integrity of the whole industry, because you have, you know, younger creators who are doing things like, you know, buying fake followers writing sponsored on content that’s not sponsored. Um, you know, there are a lot of things happening in our space that are really tricky. And then this impacts rates, right? Because how are you able to show your value when you have people engaging is, you know, kind of scams.
Jason Falls
I wonder, I’m curious, though, as you’re saying that, and I love where you’re going. And I agree that, you know, the cleaning up of the industry certainly needs to happen. But I’m curious if the AIC’s perspective is to sort of, it’s a, you know, it’s a it’s a trade organization of creators. And I would think if you’re, you know, pro creator, then you want creators to make as much money as possible, I suspect, that if we get into this sort of cleansing, you know, process of the industry, you’re gonna see a lot of creators who’ve been making really good money not make as much money because I don’t think they’re going to perform well, with those active actions versus passive actions. Am I? Am I off base there? Or is it just we need to clean up the industry anyway?
Qianna Smith Bruneteau
I think you’re really off base, because I think if you if it also depends on which channel because if you take a platform, like tic tock, which has a creator first algorithm, you know, you have, you know, take like a Charlie Demillio, who reached 100 million followers, you have creators who are growing at a rapid speed and building tremendous communities, who are, you know, very loyal, you know, when you are able to build a community that’s very loyal to you, and then you’re able to then, you know, get brands to tap into that very loyal community, that’s going to drive purchase intent, right? Um, you know, you’re going to, you’re going to be able to leverage that hyper active community, and why do consumers turn to creators, it’s to see products in action. You know, I think a lot Lot of consumers and another influencer report done I think it was in q3. You know, that was a top reason why consumers followed creators. And so if you think about creators being, you know, tastemakers, and really, you know, consuming so many different experiences and testing those experiences, and, you know, consumers having the opportunity to, you know, see, you know, where to go from a travel aspect, or even, you know, travel creators diving into their archives, to inspire during this pandemic, you know, and brands turning to travel creators and buying creators archives. I think that, you know, I don’t I think the relevancy of influencers, in this pandemic, has, it’s one of the few industries outside of q1 and q2, that really remained strong. If you look at the earning reports from the platform’s, I think that this industry, from a creator standpoint, is just so strong and headed into 2021. You know, it’s, it’s just looking incredible. So no, I don’t think I think creators who are engaging in tactics that, you know, prevent that pollute the space, you’re always going to have some bad actors. But overall, I do believe that, um, different platforms, like even with clubhouse, you’ve just seen so many different personalities take off with clubhouse, and I think when you got a platform that has your early adopter disguise, kind of delimit there? No?
Jason Falls
I would agree with that. And even if even if I am, right, which, you know, and maybe I’m not, and that’s fine, but even if I am right, and I have a little bit more of a pessimistic view of the overall landscape of you know, I think, you know, if we cleanse the industry, I think more, more often than not, you’re gonna see influencers, you know, who don’t perform as well as they, in order to make the same amount of money. Now, if, if the worst case scenario, if I’m right, then it’s all about attitude. I think an influencer in that situation says, Okay, what do I need to change? What do I need to adjust in order to be able to drive those active actions versus passive actions, so that I can get back to an earning place? And so I think it’ll be, you know, a little bit of a cleansing out of people who are either bad actors, or who aren’t able to drive those active actions and make those active actions, certainly a higher priority. So even if I am right, which I may not be, ultimately going to be good for the industry and good for creators, too.
Qianna Smith Bruneteau
And I think you’ve seen diversification, right? You know, with the play on commerce, you’ve seen, you know, illustrators who might have just been solely leveraging Instagram to just share their art, starting commerce and selling their prints. You know, you’ve seen photographers go into their archives and start commerce. You’ve seen creators start thinking more entrepreneurial, what are ways I can expand my business? Maybe I should start merchandising, you know, social justice creators have also come on top, you know, coming out with slogan, sweatshirts and T shirts, phone cases, you know, that people have really resonated who needed, you know, inspirational phrases to get them through these COVID conditions. You know, so you’ve had, you know, from the merchandising standpoint, creators who didn’t even think they could merchandise are now selling in a different type of way. And I also think that diversification instagramers now really coming on to YouTube, and trying to own that space and get into video because creators are now realizing I can’t just post still photos, you know, to stay relevant, or even podcasters you know, VOD casting. You know, I’ve seen a lot of podcasters on Snapchat doing a bit of video casting, which I, you know, I think is so smart. And I’m also seeing this with bloggers too, you know, taking a lot of their great blogging pieces and then adding an audio element, which is why clubhouse has taken off in in unprecedented way. And so I think you know diversifying what you’re doing as a creator, not staying to one channel, even Charlie going to Triller. You know, she, you know, you have to be smart. This is a business, this is an enterprise
Jason Falls
It is. And it’s amazing that you know, the ones that are good adjust and go with the flow and make the changes they need to change to continue to be successful. Well, I’m glad they have the American Influencer Council to rely on as a resource, and even a voice for creators out there. I’m super happy to have connected with you. And I hope that the rest of the creators that are out there listening do as well, so they can get involved with AIC.
Qianna Smith Bruneteau
Oh, we’re not done, Jason, because everyone on this should know that this is our third attempt … I have a question for you. Why? Yes. So we have tried three times at this podcast. And so I’m flipping the flipping the script. What do you think will be the big trend in 2021, um, from influencer marketing, like, what are you excited about?
Jason Falls
I’m excited that the the maturation of the industry continues. And there’s two things that are happening that make me really happy. One is, I really think that we’re that brands and agencies are starting to focus more on how do we influence a group of people as opposed to who with big followings? Do we go higher? And so it’s, it’s it’s actually kind of the impetus for my book was, we have to start thinking about influence marketing without the R, rather than influencer marketing, because it’s not about the person, it’s about the action. It’s about the the the persuasion that you’re trying to communicate to an audience to take action. So I think we’re getting more strategic, from a brand and agency side perspective on the programs that we’re developing. And that’s only going to improve. And the other thing that I really like about the industry is the vendors and the software companies that are out there, sort of helping the brands and agencies along and helping the creators along, are starting to sub categorize influencers and say, Hey, you know, a social influencer isn’t the same thing as a primary content creator, which isn’t the same thing as an industry analyst, which isn’t the same thing as a brand personality, someone who’s an influencer because they’re at a company. So I love the fact that we’re maturing, to kind of get granular and understand. There are lots of different types of creators and influencers out there that brands can use for very different reasons. So the diversification of the marketplace, and the maturation of the marketplace, is naturally happening, and I’m excited about what that’s going to bring.
Qianna Smith Bruneteau
I love that couldn’t agree more. Just like I totally believe there is a difference between a creator and a career creator.
Jason Falls
You’re absolutely right. Well, if I hit stop on the recording here in a few seconds, and it didn’t take I don’t know what we’re going to do because as Qianna said, This is the third time we’ve tried to record this podcast episode. We’re even using a different platform this time, so I’m pretty sure it’s going to work. But for the record, hopefully this will be on the recording. Qianna where can people connect with you and the American Influencer Council online?
Qianna Smith Bruneteau
Yes, please engage with us on Twitter at AIC underscore tweets (@AIC_Tweet) and tap on over to Instagram at @AmericanInfluencerCouncil and you can find me at Qianna underscore Smith (@qianna_smith). Same handle on both IG and Twitter.
Jason Falls
Awesome. Qianna. Thank you so much for the what is this the fourth hour that we’ve been talking to each other over.
Qianna Smith Bruneteau
I just adore you! I mean, I think we’re besties
Jason Falls
Yeah, I think we are I think we’re at the point now to where we’re we’re, you know, we’re real friends, not just people who’ve connected online. That’s good. I like it.
Qianna Smith Bruneteau
I like it too.
Jason Falls
Awesome. Thank you so much for the time.
Qianna Smith Bruneteau
Yes. Appreciate it’s been fun.
Transcribed by otter.ai
The Winfluence theme music is “One More Look” featuring Jacquire King and Stephan Sharp by The K Club found on Facebook Sound Collection.