Do Older PR Pros Ignore Influencer Marketing?

My pal Arik Hanson offered up a theory on his excellent PR and communications blog Friday. His theory is that older public relations professionals, “completely detests and doesn’t trust the influencer culture.” He then proceeded to prove the theory with fairly trustworthy facts and statistics, convincing me it’s more than a theory.

Arik termed these older PR pros “Boomers,” probably out of convenience rather than definition. He wrote he was talking about people over 40, and certainly those over 50. I’m over 40 and almost 50 and am not a Boomer, but I digress.

The key statistics he used to illustrate the problem were ones I’m very familiar with as I, too, used them in Winfluence – Reframing Influencer Marketing to Ignite Your Brand. He pointed to the Edelman Trust Barometer and PR industry research from Cision and PR Week. The Edelman information I report in the book is, according to the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer, 58 percent of Americans have admitted to purchasing a product based on discovering it through an online influencer. Arik shared similar stats.

Then he cited the Cision and PR Week data surveying public relations and media relations professionals. When asked how much of their PR efforts are focused on mainstream media versus influencers, three out of four—74 percent to be precise—said mainstream media. When’s the last time you saw data that indicated media coverage of a product or service led to someone purchasing it?

Instead of just posing my own reactions to Arik’s wonderful piece, I called him up and we chatted about it on a special episode of Winfluence – The Influence Marketing Podcast. I played devil’s advocate a bit just so we could gut-check both his and my assertions and assumptions, but I think you’ll enjoy the discussion and the “what now” ideas we came up with.

Find Arik Hanson’s original piece over at ACH Communications where he blogs. You can connect with him on Twitter or LinkedIn as well. Oh, and Arik co-hosts a pretty darn good communications podcast along side Kevin Hunt of General Mills called The Talking Points Podcast. You should subscribe!

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Winfluence Transcript – Arik Hanson – ACH Communications

Jason Falls
Hello again friends thanks for listening to Winfluence – The Influence Marketing Podcast. And welcome to a special Monday edition of the show. The reason for today’s episode is kind of a hot topic. Arik Hanson wrote an article on his blog Friday that posed what he called a theory, but then he backed that theory up with stats that make it far more than just a guess. The title of the article was, “Theory: Boomers in PR don’t Trust Influencers or Influencer Culture.” He used statistics from Cision and PR Week that indicated traditional public relations professionals still do most of their work in mainstream media relations. Almost three fourths of their time is focused on television, radio and print journalists. Just 26% of the time is focused on influencers. But Edelman’s Trust Barometer says 63% of consumers trust influencers for product recommendations. Only 49% of people say they trust the mainstream media. Arik Hanson sees a huge disconnect there.

Jason Falls
Arik and I have known each other for about 10 years or so. So I called him up and said let’s explore this a bit more on the podcast. Fortunately for me, his Sunday ski outing with the kids didn’t worry about too much. And we did just that. a hot topic discussion. Do older PR pros ignore influencers? And do they do so at their own peril? I dive in with Arik Hanson next on Winfluence.

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Jason Falls
Okay, so Arik — Boomers in PR Don’t Trust Influencers or Influence culture? How did you kind of come across this revelation? Because number one, I agree with you. And number two, the facts that you back it up with in this article are spot on. But how did you sort of settle on this this idea?

Arik Hanson
Well, it was just kind of, I mean, much like you have been working in industry now for Geez, I hate to say this out loud, but 25 plus years now. So So, that’s a lot. It’s a lot of years of observing. And especially the last I mean, you know, I don’t know less, four or five, six years since influencer culture really has thing and increasingly bigger thing recently. Just observations, really. Just noticing how people react to certain information online. noticing how people react in certain meetings that I have with whether it’s clients or friends, or whatever it is partners.

Arik Hanson
Like I said, it’s almost it I hate I hate to it said, I don’t want to generalize, but it is generational a little bit because younger people kind of grown up with this, right. So they it’s like second nature to them, they accept that there’s influencers, they know, they matter. A lot of us people are influencers, or they follow them. Whereas, you know, people our age and maybe a little older, like, they didn’t grow up, we didn’t grow up with that, you know, it’s new to us. So, you know, I say, for people like you and I, and a lot of people we know, like, we embrace it, because we were early adopters and social media culture, but a lot of people weren’t and especially like, I hate it, I hate the six hour old PR guy, but like, a lot of PR people, they just they just don’t and and they they fall back to what they know, which is fine, which is Media Relations, and that’s where it got me thinking about Okay, well, this isn’t adding up to me because the stat like the stats I shared in the in the blog post, it’s just not making sense why why this won’t be more broadly and based by an older audience.

Jason Falls
Right. So to just kind of touch on the stats you point to PR Week and Cision recently released 2020 comms report. And the stats there are when and the and these I think this is a survey of PR professionals, communications professionals. And it says when asked how much of your current engagement efforts are focused on mainstream media versus influencers 74% of the respondents which is a significant, you know, amount, said mainstream media and just 26% said influencers. When asked which group had the single biggest impact on consumer behavior. 26% said mainstream media 6% said bloggers and 6% said micro influencers. So they really weren’t, you know, zeroing in on influencers as a whole anyway on that. And then you counter that, with the fact that I think you you pulled some stats from the Edelman Trust Barometer and Pew as well. I know in the Edelman trust barometer barometer from, I think it was 2019, only 49% of the American public trust the mainstream media, or maybe that was the 2021. And then 37% of consumers between 35 and 44, have been influenced to purchase a product or service on TikTok 27%, on YouTube in 24%, on Instagram, and I’ll throw another one at you in the 2019 Trust barometer, which is a stat that I quote, in the book, which is coming up here in another month or so for people to be able to read 63% of consumers trust influencers for information about products, services and brands. And 58% say they’ve been persuaded to buy something based on an influencer. So your, your, your article is this is a theory. I don’t think this is a theory, man. I think this is proven.

Arik Hanson
If it might be I mean, the stats don’t lie, right? Like, there they are with her. And here’s the thing, and I, you know, I said this before, like, when was last time, Jason, you saw evidence of purchasing decisions based on media placements, you know, we never that we’ve been wanting that for 30 years. And, and, and let’s play devil’s advocate a little bit here too. And and, you know, to sort of be somewhat defensive of, of mainstream media. I don’t think that any surveys ever, ever really asked that question Edelman doesn’t ask, Well, have you ever purchased anything based on something you saw on a news article? And you and I both know, that if I read an article about something, whether it’s in, you know, delta sky magazine, as I’m flying, or if I you know, pick up US News and World Report, or whatever, and I’m reading an article, and it mentions a product, and that interests me, I’ve been influenced to buy things from from traditional media as well. So we have to throw that in there, too. But you’re right. I mean, we don’t see those stats, I wonder why not? Right? Why don’t we see those as well. And I would argue that these stats are only going to increase because with the rise of e commerce, specifically on Instagram, right, these numbers are gonna have a feeling they’re gonna go even higher, because it’s going to become easier for people to buy online, after they see the influencer using the product, right? So it’s gonna be like, it’s gonna be See, click by, you know, boom, boom, boom, which hasn’t been the case in the past, and now it’s just gonna, it’s just gonna make the process easier. So I have a feeling when they do these surveys, you know, 2-3-4, or five years from now, the numbers are gonna go up,

Jason Falls
I would probably anticipate that as well. So one of the sort of my theories that I threw out there in the book, and one of the sort of conclusions that I’ve come to in influence marketing is that we’ve been backed into a corner and I want to ask you this question. relative to this issue for the older PR professionals who may be you know, detest influence culture or don’t trust influence culture, and therefore, probably ignore it. A little bit. Do you think the reason that they do that is because mainstream media has really, I think painted us into a corner to say influencer marketing means duck lips and peace signs and look at my lunch superficial people on Instagram and YouTube. And they’ve never characterized it in a business sense strategically as influence marketing, which is what I argue it should be called in the book instead of influencer marketing, where you’re looking at influencing an audience of people, which can take all sorts of different context. Do you think that sort of, you know, painting us in the corner of this happens on Instagram and YouTube might be to blame here?

Arik Hanson
Yeah, I mean, I think a little bit Yeah, because you’re right, I don’t know that the media always does the best job of that. And it’s really not just even the media, it’s, it’s a lot of people, it’s again, it’s the older generations that are saying, you know, there and I even I’m guilty of it a little bit with my kids to like, hey, you’re watching that this joker on on YouTube. But to my 13 year old daughter, it’s not she’s not a joker on YouTube. That’s someone that she that resonates with her. And to be honest, like, she buys stuff all the time, because of what she sees on, on YouTube on the vlog, she follows so it’s, it’s happening in real time in my house, over and over again.

Jason Falls
Yeah, it’s the same way in mind, the when it when the light bulb went off for me that, oh, my goodness, I see what’s happening here. My daughter who is now 12, she was then I think, maybe 10 or 11, she had just really started following, you know, watching YouTube on a regular basis at that point. And my daughter is real big into organization and, you know, highlighting things in books and, you know, doing organizational productivity type things. So I walk in one day from cutting the grass and she’s watching Amy Landino, on a video and, and, and, and I looked at it because Amy Landino, like speaks at marketing conferences. Like I’ve met her. I know her She’s a friend of mine. And I walked in said, Katie, what do you What are you watching? She’s Oh, this is one of my favorite YouTubers. She’s all about productivity and time management and whatnot. And so just for fun, I like FaceTimed Amy and said, “Hey, Amy, say hello to my daughter.” And Katie freaked out. It was kind of fun.

Jason Falls
But that’s when it kind of, you know, flipped a switch for me. And I was like, kids are looking at YouTubers, the way we watched 60 minutes or CBS Sunday morning or, you know, read People magazine or whatever.

Arik Hanson
For sure. I mean, they’re not only they’re not like influencers, they’re, they’re I don’t know how to the people that admire and respect, you know, your, they’re, they’re media personalities really at this point.

Jason Falls
Well, and it comes down to that word, you know that the Edelman Trust barometer is asking this question, because consumers trust influencers, and that’s certainly reflected in the statistics. And so I wonder, I wonder, though, why if I mean, the the one resource out there that the older PR crowd should, you know, lend some credence to his Richard Edelman’s name and the Edelman trust barometer? I wonder why they’re not paying attention?

Arik Hanson
I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to that question. I mean, I just think it’s, it’s, it’s so there’s a lot of history involved there, right? Like this new stuff came around, and people are fearful of stuff they don’t know is what it comes down to. I think a lot of times, it’s like, the, if you think about it, the people still controlling the purse strings are, you know, boomers really are actors like us. And like I said, we grew up with this stuff. And if you didn’t embrace it early on, you might have felt like you’re behind and then you just again, you just revert back to what you know. And then you might have a junior person on your team that handles some of this stuff, but but you don’t know all of it, and you’re scared, you don’t wanna be exposed in a meeting, you don’t want to be, you know, laid out to dry by a colleague in a meeting or whatever. So, I do think a lot of it’s, you know, a segment of it is fear based, but you know, I’m hoping it’ll change here in the near future, because just becoming too big to ignore, you’re going to get some millennials and more X-ers that have had background of this and leadership positions here in the next you know, I don’t know 2-3-4 or five years, I mean, it’s gonna shift, I feel like quickly

Jason Falls
Is this the same you know, kind of push back the same sort of problem we had in you know, 2005-2006 when, you know, PR professionals and even advertising professionals were like, Oh, this social media thing is just a fad that we don’t pay attention to it.

Arik Hanson
Yeah, it does feel a little bit like that. Right. I agree. And and a lot of the same things people like remember in the early days of social media it was it was you know, what they say about influencers now, it’s like the Wild West out there, right? It was like the wild world when Twitter was you know, it was fun.

Jason Falls
Yeah.

Arik Hanson
And then and then and now it’s not it’s been destroyed. But But anyways, but influencer culture is very same, right? Like everyone says, The Wild West, it’ll, it’ll become a mature industry eventually, right? Like it’ll get, you know, it’ll we will weed out the, the the people that that aren’t necessarily adding value there, which is a lot of times the people that the, the older generations are kind of poking fun at and not taking seriously, to your point about painting us in a court paying the influencers in a corner, like if, you know, if you really took a close look at it and take a look at who’s really influencing out there in different industries, a lot of cases that these, you know, kids, it’s adults, you know, it’s like your friend, Amy, I mean, it’s it’s adults, it’s not, you know, necessarily all 22 year olds and, and people of that nature. So, yeah, I think I think things will change here in the next few years.

Jason Falls
So you, you run ACH Communications, which is a, you know, a public relations, you know, communications firm, they’re in the, in the Great Lakes, the great the the 10,000 Lakes region of the world up in Minnesota. I’m curious overall, in the programs that you do, the clients that you work with, how much of your sort of output or their requests and maybe they differ is sort of traditional media relations based PR programs, versus what I would call modern PR, which is more content marketing, influencer marketing, you know, own social media channels with media relations mixed in, what kind of a mix Do you see, and I’ll sort of preemptively put an asterisk out there for the audience. Because, you know, Eric is, you know, a social media sort of guy, right? You You’re an IT getter, you are a leading edge guy, so you’re going to be different than a traditional PR person. But I wonder what the breakdown is in the work that you do it at a CH communications.

Arik Hanson
It’s probably like, at least 80-20, if not 90-10. So I have one client, where I do pretty traditional media, b2b Media Relations for them. But that client, like the client will ask me a lot of questions about and asked me for advice all the time on, you know, what I would call digital marketing, ideas and strategies that they’re considering I don’t usually get asked to, to execute those for various reasons. But But even that one, you know, I still get pulled into it. But the rest of my clients, yeah, it’s all it’s all, either strictly social media marketing, or like you said it modern digital, PR, whatever you want to call it. I mean, I just, I just think the days, I mean, and that’s not to say that works that out there, I have lots of friends up here that do a lot of you know, hardcore Media Relations work, the work is certainly still there. But I mean, for me, personally, I just I choose to zero in on some of that more, you know, the digital social related work.

Jason Falls
Right, yeah the the Earned channels and the, the well, the earned media in, you know, public relations, Media Relations placement is, you know, it’s harder to do. And it’s harder to be consistently successful with, then I can control my own channels on, you know, my social networks and my blog and my website. And if I can, you know, get build up enough, you know, trust in an audience that they’ll keep coming back to me, then I can kind of replace what I used to, you know, depend on the traditional media for.

Arik Hanson
Right. And that’s just it. I mean, the days of, I mean, it’s like the, I mean, a lot of people still come to me for that, that PR stuff. And it’s like, and a lot of times they’re wondering, they’re almost it’s weird, because the seal feels like such a like a 2004 question, but like, what, you know, who do you know, in the national media, or, you know, what’s your Rolodex look like? Like Rolodex like I haven’t even said that word out loud in 20 years. You’re like, okay, maybe I’ll move on to the next thing here. I can pass it on to someone else.

Jason Falls
Yeah, if you still have an actual Rolodex, I think the markets past you by a bit, just a bit. I don’t think I ever actually had one myself to be honest with ya.

Arik Hanson
No.

Jason Falls
That’s funny. So, so I’ll tell you that let me share this story with you from a traditional media relations perspective, and I did traditional media relations in the sports industry for 15 years. So you know, I’ve know I know a little bit about it. I had a client come to me not too long ago, a couple of years ago. And they said, you know, we, we want to make a big splash about this, you know, this anniversary for our company. And, and they said to me, and I said, Well, what do you cover it? You know, what’s the one thing that would make this just absolutely Grand Slam home run for you? And they said, Well, we would love it if if we were covered in the New York Times. And I said, Okay, I can get you in the New York Times. And and they said, Really? I said, Yeah, I can guarantee I’ll get you in the New York Times. And they said, How can you guarantee that I said, because I’m going to come up with a PR stunt that’s so ridiculous that they can’t cover it. Because that’s really how you get in the New York Times these days is you do something amazing. And long story short, they said well, so what is it going to take? And I said, well, it’s gonna take a lot of money, and probably some legal, you know, court case kind of stuff is gonna follow and they said, What do you mean? I said, Well, what I My idea is is to take like your, your logo, put it on a hat and make the hat, you know, huge and hang it on the Statue of Liberty, we’re all going to jail, but you’re gonna get in the New York Times.

Arik Hanson
[LAUGHS] Oh, that sums it up not doesn’t it? Yeah. And that’s the Yeah, that’s I mean, and I think about even I had a similar situation where I had a client years ago where we got got him in, I got him a placement HBR Harvard Business Review. Back when they were accepting a lot more submissions. Well, nowadays, in case you haven’t noticed they don’t. It’s very hard to get in there. Oh, very. Yeah, very. So stuff like that. Like there’s so many facets to the media world right now that make you write make the job very, very difficult. That’s why I distanced myself from that. I just don’t, why would you set yourself up for failure when you can set yourself up for success doing something else?

Jason Falls
Exactly. Let me ask you a question on that. So the the traditional media, as it has shifted online, there are several, you know, like you mentioned, the Harvard Business Review, you used to be able to submit articles and probably get them published with some, some regularity. But one in particular, and I don’t mean to pick on one in particular, because there’s three or four that do this. But Forbes is one that I know of lately, where it seems like everybody who has a pulse and can type a sentence can get a guest article post thing going on Forbes. And I wonder if you might think I have my own opinion on this. But I wonder if the fact that a traditional media outlet like that lets their online space kind of turn into a zoo? Does that hurt the credibility of the overall organization?

Arik Hanson
I for sure, I’ve I’ve thought Forbes is a joke. Here’s the interesting about Forbes, I think you and I probably agree on this. It’s a joke. It’s complete joke. But the clients don’t think it’s a joke, right? So they still wanna get in there and it’s like … What? Have you looked at Forbes recently? Like, it’s, I think exactly the same as you I see the people who are getting by lines in them, like, okay, it’s either pay for play or they’ve just made it a free for all, because, like, there’s no credibility to beat them forwards anymore, because I’ve seen the names. I’ve seen the people I’ve seen the opinions. It’s trash, it’s complete trash.

Jason Falls
Yeah. Oh, I love the articles where it’s like, here’s the you know, the 10 best things or, or someone will say, well, I was named and I’ve done this before, too. You know, I was named one of the 10 most inspirational business people by Forbes. And then I look and it’s some, you know, random SEO blogger hack who somehow submitted something and just picked a random 10 people to put in there

Arik Hanson
Correct? Yes. Well, even the opinion pieces I mean, they’re not even the they’re not even salt. They’re not even solid well thought out substantiated opinions. You know, they’re just it’s just it’s just garbage.

Jason Falls
Yeah. Now and not to just single out for because there’s others that do it. I’ve seen the same thing happen on on several websites. In fact, for a while there, Huffington Post got a little weird because anybody could really submit something it’s gotten a little bit better I think over the last year or two but yeah, there’s there’s plenty of them out there that are that are strange. So Eric, where can people connect with you online? I’m going to obviously share a link to the article that inspired this podcast episode, but where can people find you online and connect with you if they want to find out more about you?

Arik Hanson
Nah … you can find me at ArikHanson.com. You can subscribe to my newsletter or my blog there or my podcast I’m sorry there as well. Or you can find me on Twitter @ArikHanson and spelled weird – A R I K H A N S O N.

Jason Falls
Very good. And yeah, the podcast is is fantastic talking points your buddy, you and your buddy Kevin hunt. Do that on a regular basis. I listen on a regular basis as well. And I certainly recommend that to anybody who’s interested in marketing and comms, you guys do a great job of that show.

Arik Hanson
Thank you. Thanks for having me, too.

Jason Falls
Arik. Yeah, thanks for thanks for writing the article. Thanks for you know, kicking up the dirt and giving us something special to podcast about this week. This is kind of a special Monday edition of the podcast and it’s great to have something cool to talk about.

Arik Hanson
Yeah, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. Good to talk to you.

Transcribed by otter.ai

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