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Probably the most frequent quality of influencer selection I’ve talked about in the last month or so is brand alignment. Does the influencer match your brand in terms of values, aesthetics and beyond. The more aligned your influencers and content creators are with your values, your brand voice and perhaps content pillars, the easier their […]

Instagram announced last week it was testing new affiliate marketing tools for influencers. Many influencer marketing software solutions have begun integrating affiliate marketing components into their softwares as well.  The reason is brands have been clamoring for them because brands think the affiliate model of marketing is going to magically make influencer marketing cheaper. They’re […]

One of the reasons I started blogging years ago was to help small businesses figure out all this digital stuff I was working in every day. When I talked to small business owners, or marketers at smaller businesses, I was surprised how intimidated they were by the web. Couple that with my knack for being […]

We’ve thrown around the term micro-influencer a lot on this show. The term refers to someone with generally around 5,000 to 50,000 followers. They’re probably not quite to the point of making a living doing it, but they have an impact on a fair number of people. Lots of brands love micro-influencers because they can […]

I know what brands want from influencers. But what brands say they want from them and what they actually want from them are different things. Ask a brand manager what they want from their influencers or influencer programs and they’ll say things like: Engaging content Enthusiastic endorsement Or the stomach-turning authentic collaboration But brands are […]

It’s always a treat to get insight from influencers on the show. My research and analytics tell me most of you are brand-side marketers or agency folks that serve the brands playing in the influencer marketing space. So, when we have the opportunity to hear from a content creator, there’s a lot of insight to […]

The underlying theme of my book Winfluence – Reframing Influencer Marketing to Ignite Your Brand, is that we have to stop thinking about this practice as all about influencers and think of it in terms of how to drive influence. That can come from online influencers with big followings, but it can also come from […]

One of the biggest challenges for brands in influence marketing is tying all these wonderful content collaborations with creators back to the bottom line. Not only do brands not often have full or direct exposure to an influencer’s analytics, but many don’t sell direct to consumer, meaning sales data is often in the hands of […]

As the influencer marketing space evolves, so will the tools, platforms and services out there that make things better. We’ve interviewed some folks behind some of these startups here on the show already and we’ll continue to do so. I like to think we’re keeping an eye on what’s out there in case a better […]

Two weeks ago I spent several hours judging entries in an influencer marketing awards contest. Part of the submission was for the brand or agency to describe their organization’s unique selling proposition. Every single entry had some version of the following in their answer: “We focus on authentic, transparent and human connections with our … […]

We recently had a conversation with Brandon Brown of influencer platform Grin about CGI influencers—computer generated avatars that seem to be real people posting influencer-like content and gaining followers. That conversation opened up some discussion about using the influencer landscape as a palette for creativity. We joked that Kentucky Fried Chicken should create a Colonel […]

My previous commentary that focused on the idea that Words Matter pointed out a flaw in semantics with how HypeAuditor reported fraudulent behavior. That semantic difference—a simple poor choice of words—lead Campaign U.S., a popular advertising industry publications, to post the statement that more than half of Instagram influencers—”engaged in fraud”—with 45 percent of accounts—”fake.”  […]