Four tips for nurturing authenticity within the creator economy
Authenticity: it’s something that consumers expect from content creators – and something brands often fail to convey in creator partnerships. Here are four points to remember about influencer marketing from experts at Advertising Week.
Creators aren't spokespeople, don't treat them as such.
1. Do not equate content creators to spokespeople
Many marketers try to project the spokesperson model – whereby they feed someone a script – onto content creators. This doesn’t work in a space whose audience knows an influencer on a personal level. Creators are “not there to read the words somebody wrote. “[They are] there to tap into this extraordinary following,” said vice-president of Meta Nada Stirratt.
2. Let the influencer do their job
Marketers hire creators because they have the authenticity and consumer relationship they seek. That means creators know the best way to relay powerful messages and brands will benefit if they let them take control. “Give the creator room to be themselves,” Kristen Wu, global lead of partner marketing at TikTok, told The Drum after a panel discussion. “That’s how you get the most rewarding things back that lean into new trends on the platform. You won’t get that if you keep your mind closed and tell the creators exactly what to do.
Advertisement
3. Don’t underestimate the power of micro-influencers
Marketers often enlist the influencer with the highest follower count, and as a result, their campaigns often miss the mark. This is because there’s no way to create relatable content for an unfathomably large audience with no clear demographics. A micro influencer, on the other hand, “knows exactly who follows them [like] whether they’re male or female … [and] all of that matters.” Coco Rocha, a supermodel and entrepreneur, said in a panel discussion.
4. Partnerships with ‘unsexy’ brands do surprisingly well
Brands in somewhat bland industries, like finance, should not shy away from creator partnerships. In fact, those often work best, according to Pablo Rochat, a creative director and artist with over 1mn Instagram followers. This is because it allows the creator “opportunity to be surprisingly interesting,” he said at a panel discussion. “Sometimes it’s harder to make interesting content for an already sexy brand.”
For more, sign up for The Drum’s daily US newsletter here.