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There’s been an evolution in business-to-business (B2B) influence marketing lately. Both software companies and agencies are pushing the idea of brands creating influencers out of company executives. Mel Carson was an early company-based influencer, long before we were talking about all this. He was a digital evangelist at Microsoft in the mid-2000s whose whole job […]

Freakonomics’s two-part radio and podcast episodes called “Does Advertising Actually Work” (Part 1, Part 2)has raised a few eyebrows from agencies and clients alike. It’s one thing for a research scientist to present at an academic conference saying ads are a waste of money. It’s another when real experiments with real brand advertising budgets are […]

The landscape of influencer marketing tools is wide and varied. We’ve talked to some of the software company executives here on the show. The IZEAs, Onalyticas and Mavrcks of the worlds are large databases with a high-touch managed services that sit on top of them. I’ve used several of them and they’re great. There are […]

Aaron Anastasi has one of those faces you think is very familiar, but you can’t quite place it. Until you do. He’s a working actor who has played parts on shows like Bosch, 9-1-1 on Fox and others. But if you have ever searched YouTube for singing lessons, you definitely know him. Aaron is the […]

Connecting brands to influencers has become a big part of my job. But part and parcel to that is working the other way and connecting influencers with brands. My preference is always to build relationships and that means I get to know the influencer I work with — where and when I can — and […]

Influencing people isn’t just creativity and content mixed together. It’s the by-product of the way our brains function. As we experience that content or creativity, hormones release into our system that make us feel safe, happy, sad, angry or any of the other range of emotions. People are subject to their own brain chemistry and […]

For years now, one business-to-business, or B2B, marketing tactic has been to build executives of the company up as thought leaders. Reframing that purpose you could argue what B2B companies have been doing for years is building their executives up as influencers in their industries. Carter Hostelley and his team at LeadTail have been building […]

If there is a beat writer for the influencer marketing industry it has to be Joele Forrester from Talking Influence. Her whole job is to interview the movers and shakers, break the news about new software product launches and industry trends, analyze the implications of influencer unions and legal interpretations for the industry and beyond. […]

A few weeks ago on the show, we talked to Emily Ho, the marketing strategist behind Authentically Social and a fashion influencer in her own right under the monicker Authentically Emmie. In that episode we talked about influencer fraud, comment pods, buying followers and the like. I even mused, “When is someone going to create […]

We’ve talked about a handful of books on influencer marketing here on Winfluence. While we await the publishing of Winfluence (the book) in early 2021, I couldn’t help having more great discussions with smart people in the space, even other authors. Justin Blaney is a professor at the University of Washington and the chief innovation […]

Kroger was the first company to launch a branded TikTok challenge. They have also successfully engaged influencers for events like Hispanic Heritage Month and partnered with publishing platforms like Funny or Die to product share-worthy online content. But the brand also has built incredible social media success in its own right and much of all […]

As we survey the web for the best influencers for our influencer marketing campaigns, our tendency has always been to prioritize influencers by their follower count. If you haven’t heard it yet, let me say this loud and clear: Influencer follower count doesn’t matter.  Now, let’s break down why you’ve been told it doesn’t matter, […]