Rachel Clay of Matter of Form says Influence Marketing is essentially Social SEO — That is, making sure when someone looks for your brand or type of product on sites like Instagram, there’s plenty of great content there to surface you. It’s a smart way to translate influence marketing strategy to brands that perhaps think in terms of search.
She shared that opinion during an interesting conversation for Winfluence. We discussed influence strategy, how brands are starting to follow the leading edge companies and think more long-term about their influencer relationships. Clay comes from the PR world, but works primarily on influencer marketing efforts with luxury brands, which she says are a bit more mature than others in the influence world.
We also discussed the differences between the marketplaces in the United Kingdom, where she is based, and the United States. She says the U.S. is far more robust and mature as an influencer marketing ecosystem than what the U.K. offers. She explains more as to why in the discussion.
Give it a listen and be sure to share the episode with someone you know who could use the inspiration.
You can find Rachel Clay on LinkedIn or connect to Matter of Form on its website.
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And for the record, 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 – Rachel Clay – Matter of Form
Jason Falls
Hello again friends thanks for listening to Winfluence – The Influence Marketing Podcast. I had the honor of hosting a panel discussion recently for the Influencer Marketing Show, which is run by the Talking Influence folks out of the United Kingdom. They’re also the people behind the Influencer Marketing Awards. It seems like the UK is a step ahead of the US in certain aspects of influencer marketing, at least to me, but Rachel Clay disagrees. She was one of the panelists on that discussion I hosted last month. Rachel heads up influence campaigns for a firm called Matter of Form which is based in London. She says the US is far more mature than the UK market. I guess they just have a better awards show.
Jason Falls
I caught up with Rachel recently to talk about the differences in the marketplaces here and there. But we wound up talking about so much more. Rachel even laid a really smart perspective on me. She says brands should think about their influencer marketing as a social SEO strategy. Listen for that part of the interview. Very interesting way of looking at it.
Jason Falls
Rachael mostly works with luxury brands. So we start out talking about that segment’s use of influence marketing, which is more advanced in many ways than other verticals. She sends light on how and why, plus gives us a nice overview of how to approach influence marketing strategy for a brand or for you agency folks out there. Rachel is brilliant. And that’s not just my opinion, Talking Influence named her one of the 50 most important people in the influence marketing industry. Get out your notebooks, gang smarts, from Matter of Form’s Rachel Clay, come next on Winfluence.
Jason Falls
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Jason Falls
Rachel I know you started off in PR and have spent a good portion of your career focused on luxury brands I’ve always felt like luxury brands particularly beauty and fashion brands have been ahead of the game in the influencer world. Looking back can you pinpoint when it was that social media influencers really became a thing for luxury brands or have you just always known them to be?
Rachel Clay
I think based on my experiences you say I’ve been fortunate enough to spend a lot of my career focused on working with luxury brands. They have always been in existence and I but I kind of hesitate to say that slightly because influencers as we know them now, and have not always been kind of how the luxury industry has defined them. So when I say they’ve always been in existence, what I think luxury brands have always been very good. good at and what has I would say put them ahead of the curve is understanding that actually working with influencers and building out social and online communities is exactly that. It’s about the community that you create, it’s about the stories that you tell. It’s about the heritage in the legacy that you can share. It’s not a direct sales channel. It’s not about buying space on somebody’s feet, so that they can promote your product and hip swipe up. And that’s where the relationship starts and finishes, they have a much more long term view. And they really do value the communities that they create through that approach.
Jason Falls
So if if they’re different now than they were, you know, say 5-10 years ago, what what’s changed? What is different about luxury or fashion, beauty influencers today than maybe what people think is the case?
Rachel Clay
I think there’s a lot more, and the luxury brands are a lot more comfortable working with influencers now. And there’s a lot more kind of understanding that actually, yes, you have to collaborate with these people who you choose, because they themselves offer great creativity and added value to your brand, as opposed to saying, Okay, well, we really want to work with this pro person, because they’ve got a great audience. But actually, we want to give them really stringent guidelines on what they can and can’t say, or how they have to showcase our product or what it can and can’t be seen with all of these other things. And I think there is an increasing understanding now around the need to value the expertise that each individual influencer has an engaging their own audience and interesting them to tell your brand story.
Jason Falls
Interesting. Another point you made a second ago, you know, brands in the beauty and fashion style space. I think you indicated, you know, understand today that it’s not a transactional, you know, renting space on on someone’s channel. And yet, I think there are a lot of brands out there, you know, maybe certainly not your clients. But there are a lot of brands out there that still think of influencers as a very transactional channel, it’s, I’m going to pay you and you’re going to post and, and that’s the extent of it. And my perception of the beauty brands and whatnot. Admittedly, I don’t work with a beauty brand myself, and I don’t work with a lot of luxury brands myself, at least at the current time. But my perception of that sort of consumer product, good category broadly, not just beauty and fashion, but retail and consumer product, product, good category, my perception is always that they have a tendency to lean toward the transactional space. Is it the luxury brands, the ones who are sort of long in the tooth in the industry now that are shaping it into more of a community relation based thing? Or? Or am I missing something?
Rachel Clay
I think it’s a good question. I think it’s an interesting question. I think actually, this kind of elevated approaches, I would almost kind of like to call it and sort of longer term thinking and appreciation of the real value that influence marketing convene probably exists at Intuit extreme. So yes, I think it does exist within the luxury space. And with brand, really understanding that working with very targeted profiles who are really going to engage the watch community. So your passionate watch collectors, as an example, is a very strong community on social media. And at the other end, regardless of whether the brand positions themselves as luxury or otherwise, brands that take a social first approach, I think, also have this understanding of the real value that influencers can offer and see it as beyond just, we pay you to post about this once or twice, and we’re done. And I think those two may be kind of coming together and converging and sort of crushing out that middle space and the brands that exist there. Or educating them perhaps a better way to, to explain that will be when we start to see influences really, really fulfilling that potential.
Jason Falls
Nice. Estee Lauder’s CEO came out last year and said that his company, which I think I’m pretty sure they’re a client of yours, I’m not asking for any inside scoop or anything, so just bear with me on this one. But I think Fabrizo Freda, I believe, said Estee Lauder spends 75% of its marketing budget, on influencers from a broad level. That seems like a profound endorsement for the practice. But I wonder if it doesn’t also underline a profound problem with other channels of reaching consumers. I know you probably can’t speak directly to Estee Lauder because of the client relationship. But do you think of company like that spending that kind of budget on influencers is a bit of a tealeaf that all brands should be paying attention to?
Rachel Clay
Absolutely, I do. I do. I think it’s a great endorsement on the industry. And I think it’s a great position for us to, to take in terms of positioning their own company and group of friends as being very innovative and forward thinking around the marketing channels that they’re focused on. I think what’s a bit of a shame? And although I understand obviously, why they haven’t gone further as explaining the thinking behind that decision, and the education that goes with that, which I think will really move forward the industry a lot more than that headline figure of the investment and the shift that they were that they made towards the influencer space.
Jason Falls
Well, well, you know, you could you could put in a good word and have him come on the show and explain it. I would love that.
Rachel Clay
No comment. No, but I do, I very much believe that, that influences have huge added value to business and increasingly to the future of, of businesses, yes, they can absolutely sell products, and if that’s what you want them for, and that’s as far as your thinking goes, then, you know, there are quick wins to be had there. But I think when you start to think much more strategically, not only about the influencer space, but social media in general, and the role that that will start doing well, increasingly, I believe, play and in your marketing method in your brand, mix it in your customer relationship management program and everything else, then you really start to see, as you know, these are it’s a real consideration our influencer strategy, I often say to our clients, they need to consider their influencer marketing strategy as akin to a Social SEO strategy. So you know, if you, if you have a website, you work with Google on an SEO strategy to understand all the keywords and all the tips and tricks to beat their algorithm to make sure that when people are looking for you, they can find you on Google, you now need to have a similar thinking and a similar approach to how people are going to find you on Instagram. So Instagram is commonly used now I believe, as a search engine, people who want to know more about your brand, your product, your restaurant, whatever it might be, we’ll use Instagram as a search that and they’ll either go straight to your profile page, or they’ll go and follow a relevant hashtag that’s related to you. And therefore, if you’re thinking about changing media consumption habits and consumer behavior in this way, what’s really going to keep your page your brand, your products, your messaging high and people’s Instagram feeds, is going to be working with relevant strategically selected profiles that are going to link back to you.
Jason Falls
Wow, I love that that approach in that insight, that’s that’s definitely something that I think many brands and many agencies can benefit from understanding that’s a that’s a, that’s a refreshing look at things. So you and I connected recently through the influencer marketing show where we were on a panel discussing social commerce, how much of your time or I guess what portion of the influence marketing campaigns that you’re designing, are focused on driving direct sales through those influencers? I think that’s a big challenge for a lot of brands, and obviously, to our earlier conversation about, you know, brands being focused on building that relationship. How does that jive? How does that balance of making sure that influencers are being, you know, attributable for revenue?
Rachel Clay
With any other kind of marketing strategy or campaign, it very much depends on the objectives that our clients are working towards. So if you’re in a very established brand, you’re launching a new product, you’ve got sales targets you want to hit, then the objective will be much more ROI based. And we will be looking at using or the kind of the tips and tricks or swipe up links and the discount codes and the links in what we do as far as we can some kind of very innovative things, and to try to encourage sales. And we certainly again, do you try to educate our clients to consider sales despite everything that I’ve said about it being short term, I think in isolation it is but as part of a longer term commitment to working with influencers, no, absolutely does need to figure that and but on the other hand, if we’re working with a new brand, that’s trying to establish His presence, a brand that’s trying to enter a new market or target a new audience group and then much more focused on brand awareness, and they’re at that stage of the funnel, then we wouldn’t necessarily often we wouldn’t look so much to include all of those, you know, tips and tricks that are going to secure your sales.
Jason Falls
In terms of the tools and the techniques and things that are out there to you know, help supply influencers with the ability to drive sales and now we we’ve talked about shoppable images and other other items like that. What are the the tools and techniques out there and it could be third party applications or it could just be approaches, you know, that you’ve seen that are most effective, what’s working to drive commerce through influence What’s your relations these days?
Rachel Clay
My short slightly tongue in cheek answer these days as Coronavirus. it I mean, but it’s true. You know, it was what started off as a trend and what a journey that we were probably all at the beginning of about 12 months ago has been incredibly expedited in terms of online shopping and e commerce and social media consumption to is through the roof. So and, but to speak more practically, I mean, everybody knows about shoppable tags, everybody knows about swipe up links, links in bios, everybody, I think even now knows about all the advancements that Facebook implemented into the Instagram platform throughout this year to support the increased functionality around shopping via that platform. And I would encourage all businesses of any size to look into those if they are considering social commerce seriously, and particularly if they’re looking to future proof their business and educate their audience that even if right now you can’t complete your sale within the app, and you still go to the website, blah, blah, blah. And within about three to five years in the in the Western world, I absolutely think you will be able to. And there’s a lot again, a kind of smart things you can do. What’s been interesting throughout this year is dependent on kind of where we’ve been with the Coronavirus, lockdown and different restrictions, particularly within the UK market. The objective and the call to action for our campaigns is varied. So obviously, a lot of the time it’s around driving direct online sales, but increasingly, marketing teams are looking to support footfall into store that has been closed for for much of the year. So then we have to get quite creative. And it’s you know, we’ve been fragrance campaigns where we’ve asked influences followers to vote on their favorite image, that image has been turned into a postcard, a scented postcard with the fragrance which is sent to them. And they can then take that into score. And that’s their discount code. And do a lot of creative kind of fun things, depending on the objective that you’re trying to meet.
Jason Falls
Very good. I’ve started to circle around the idea that follower count really no longer matters. The thought being if I find the right content creator, who has great content and community engagement around that content, I can put paid spin behind that which is smarter, in my opinion, then spending money on a mega influencer, who typically, you know, they typically aren’t as invested in their community, individually or what or are they’re not as engaging just because, you know, it doesn’t scale well, that one to one, engagement doesn’t scale very well, in your world would an approach of of the follower count doesn’t matter fly with clients? Why or why not?
Rachel Clay
No, I think is the short answer. And, and there’s many reasons for that from a client perspective. And more generally, I think within the industry, because you know, the influencer space in a grew up kind, not exactly overnight, but very quickly, a lot of people are still catching up with it and is still learning. And I don’t think there’s quite maybe the the understanding and the experience with the approach that you are proposing and to support kind of mass adoption of air. With that also said, I say maybe from my own point of view, whilst I understand what you’re saying, I would possibly argue that as long as the people or for the influences that you’re selecting to work with, have been expertly cast, and we have kind of a three step approach to do that, and briefed appropriately. And you’re only working with influencers that have strong performance metrics. An audience that mirrors your target audience and they’re truly engaged in the project and your brand and selling your key message. influencers of any size will work or should work and depending on follower size will offer you different benefits. So if you are working with a top tier influencer, with a large highly engaged following, they are going to get you more visibility than a middle micro influencer is with that said it’s probably not sustainable to work with them on a longer term basis. And certainly not when you consider it all. You know, the image rights and the exclusivity and all the other things that go along with working with somebody of that size, mid tier influencers are a great option. They really can be your ongoing brand ambassadors, your content creators really drive that community for you. Micro influencers are often the star of most campaigns, because their audiences are so much more engaged naturally as engagement rate is a ratio depending on follower size, their engagement should be higher, they can target really nice groups. And you can work with them on mass for a much more affordable fee. So It always depends on your objective. And I guess your understanding of the market to an extent, but I wouldn’t say discourage any influencers solely based on their follower size. I’d also say putting spend behind an influencers post may not be the best use of that media budget. And it might be at the detriment to that actual influencer, you might be better off just working with more profiles.
Jason Falls
Hmm. And what why would it be a detriment to that influencer? I would think that the additional exposure, especially if you’re targeting it to audiences, that that influencer might not have to get that content in front of new people would be beneficial because it can potentially grow their audience.
Rachel Clay
Yes. But if there is a profile that is boosting content on an ad hoc ad hoc basis, Instagram learns that you are willing to pay for visibility. So equalizes your organic reach with through the algorithm.
Jason Falls
Well, that’s a valid point. Very good.
Rachel Clay
Yeah. So if you’re engaging someone on a three month campaign, and we say we’re going to boost one of your posts, and that’s all you’re going to do, in six months time, there’s no organic stats for probably has something to do with it.
Jason Falls
Interesting. By the way, congratulations on being named to the talking influence list of Top 50 industry players from 2020. That’s big.
Rachel Clay
Thank you. Yes, no, that was a real honor. They had some great names on that list. And I was really excited to be considered amongst them.
Jason Falls
The, you know, it’s it’s funny, obviously, talking influences based in the United Kingdom. And I’ve I’ve had conversations with, you know, Alistair Wheate, who used to be with Onalytica and just went over to Brandwatch recently about this. And I wonder, from your perspective, because I think you’re kind of a public relations professional, you know, sort of in the history of your work. I’m curious if you if you would agree with this. When I look at public relations in the United States, versus public relations in the UK, I think comms and PR is handled slightly differently in the two different markets. I don’t know how much if any exposure you have to PR in the United States, but I wonder if that rings true with you from what you do know? Or is am I imagining things?
Rachel Clay
My PR days, I have to confess for a long time ago now. So you are right before my career in PR. And and I worked with NPR for five years. And it was with a global kind of viewpoint. But they it has been much longer now that I’ve worked in the influencer space. So I will be kind of loath to comment on the state of PR in the UK versus the US currently. What I would say if you compare the two marketplaces from an influencer point of view, the US is way ahead. It really it’s way way ahead in professionalism in kind of organization is way ahead in terms of growth and adoption. I think by brands, you have kind of hugely inflated sort of follower figures compared to what we would say, oh, there’s a micro mid a top tier influencer here in the UK, much more adoption, I think of the new and network near the TIC tocs. And the twitch and things. There’s a lot of innovation there. There’s a lot more expense. That’s for sure. There’s a lot more regulation. And it’s, dare I say, a little more cutthroat.
Jason Falls
Yeah. That That seems that that’s interesting. I’ve, the conversation I had with Alistair, which sort of inspired the question. It was really based around the fact that I feel like public relations and comms in the UK has more often than not been based on building relationships, kind of like, you know, sort of our philosophies of building relationships with influencers, whereas in the United States and Alistair, on the episode I had with him, he even acknowledged because he used to work with scission, which is a big, obviously PR tool. He said that the tendency for public relations professionals in the United States was to blast the message out and hope people pick it up. Whereas in the United Kingdom, it’s much more of you can send your press release out. But the real work is the relationship building and reaching out to people and following up phone calls and things like that. So I’ve just, I’m poking around that because I see some differences that are subtle, and I’m trying to figure out maybe what they are and why. And it could just be that, you know, Americans are impatient and selfish and that, you know, that happens.
Rachel Clay
No, I don’t think I would say that it’ll I think his observations are probably correct. Yes. If I do think back to my PR days yet sending out the press release, and then you just you hit Send and you’ve got your press list. And you know, that’s the easy part, but it’s making sure people open it and it’s making sure they open it because they know who you are. They like you, they’re interested in what you have to say they know you’re going to send them something relevant, that adds value to them, too. And so yes, it’s much more around the relationships that you have. I do wonder if there are some just kind of cultural, do you know, the UK market is tiny compared to the US, Mark, you know, you do have to cover so many more ground than we do. So perhaps we need to have, and a bit more of an upfront approach, shall we say?
Jason Falls
Yeah, that could that could have something to do with it. I’ll put that in my little hopper to think on some more, and maybe we’ll follow up for it at a later later time. So Rachel, what’s the one piece of advice or request, maybe if you had their attention that you would have for influencers? Or those aspiring to be influencers and working with agencies and brands?
Rachel Clay
I’m good question. I would say still, and I really hope this doesn’t come across as patronizing at all, but be professional. And, and really understand why it is you want to be an influencer, because it’s really not about certainly this year, it’s really not about going to great parties and being sent free things. And is a, in my opinion, as we’ve discussed, it is a strategic discipline, you are responsible for managing really a one on one personal relationship with every one of your followers. And that is a huge responsibility, I believe, to continue to, to nurture and grow that community and then to take on the role of brand guardian for the brands that you work for. And, and to make sure that that is a collaborative partnership that is mutually beneficial for both you and a brand is, is again, a responsibility and requires a skill set.
Jason Falls
Love it. And then if you could flip the tables and talk to other agency or brand side influence marketing professionals, what advice or request might you have for them?
Rachel Clay
It would be similar, really, but just in the reverse that really understand what you’re doing, really, really understand the value that it offers. And, and, again, really do your research. Don’t waste people’s time, you know, make sure you’ve written a considered brief, make sure you’ve done your due diligence in your approaches data lead, and you understand that actually, the influencer that you’re going to approach about this campaign is actually likely to say yes, and be aligned with you. You there’s so many examples of Yes, people just really taking a very lazy approach.
Jason Falls
Excellent. Rachel, thank you so much for the time and the insights. It’s it’s been great getting to know you a bit and work with you a little I have a feeling we’ll be chatting a lot more in the future. But where can people connect with you online if they want to find you?
Rachel Clay
LinkedIn is the best place.
Jason Falls
Very good. Well, we’ll make sure your LinkedIn URL and links to Matter of Form and whatnot are in the show notes. Rachel, Thanks again so much for your time. I really appreciate the chat today.
Rachel Clay
Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.
Transcribed by otter.ai
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