Grace Lau

It pays to be a social media influencer. Literally. From companies endlessly sending samples to your doorstep and asking to do collaborations that reach thousands, having a large sphere of social influence is just as valuable as creating amazing content. Companies pay social media influencers to post about messages on social media networks to help extend reach and influence in a world where millions of messages are sent out frequently. There are a few classes of social media influencers such as celebrities, bloggers, and brand advocates.

Take for example this infographic on how much a celebrity influencer is paid to tweet

Source: Huffington Post Infographic

However, paying a social media influencer to write a sponsored post can seem quite tacky at times.. that’s where networks such as Klout come in handy.

Klout is a network that scores people based on social media influence and offers Klout Perks to those who qualify for them and fall within  targeted demographics of their client companies. The interesting thing about Klout is that the receivers of the Perks are not obligated to write about receiving these. However, since perks are free with influence and users must claim them. it seems to create a positive effect in which WOM is generated.  Some past Klout Perks have included Cadillac Test drive ( occured in 2012-early 2013), blog review of this on Eager Beaver Web Werx Blog  and many others such as a recent Samsung Note campaign at various US university campuses.

These Klout Perks aide in generating unique views and impressions and generally are quite successful at helping a brand grow awareness and equity in the ever changing social media space.

Here is a snapshot of what the Samsung Campaign looked like:

The power of utilizing bloggers to promote product launches is demonstrated greatly by the  success of brands such as Holt Renfrew utilizing the reach of influencer PS I made This aka Erica Domesek in a recent collaboration:

Bloggers generate buzz around a brand and help bridge the gap between a corporate entity and its customer base. Bloggers have built up a following of loyal readers who trust their opinions. It is common practice for savy shoppers to google reviews for a product such as nail polish before buying in store.

As much as social media is powered by the content, content creators who influence others cannot be ignored. There is definite opportunity for leveraging positive word of mouth through influencers  and it is important to realize with the myriad of automatic technologies, all readers still crave genuine human connection — whether it be through a honest review or recommendation through a tweet or Instagram post.

With the amount of content that is on the internet these days it is a tough feat to achieve ” virality” through views and shares.
Through harnessing the power of Youtube content creator Casey Neistat – Brands like Nike and Mercedes Benz have experimented with a different style of video to get people talking.

Nike #Makeitcount:

Amassing an astonishing 9.8Million views since it was first posted, this is what I would call a viral video success. Shooting a commercial with the pretense it is not a commercial and that they took Nike’s money and went on a trip around the world until it ran out is quite a clever way to reach out to Nike’s adventurous and fitness conscious consumers. Nike definitely reached out to the right person for an excellent end product that spoke to their consumers. Great, relevant content gets shared; virality is  just the cherry on top.

Mercedes recently also reached out to Casey Neistat resulting in a rather daring offbeat commercial for their CLA car.

Dubbed the Mercedes CLA project, a series of videos detailing the behind the scenes of the making of the commercial lead up to a final finished product.

Final Commercial:

Part 1 CLA Project

Part 2 CLA Project:

Part 3 CLA Project:

Verdict? I think this video series was great at crafting a story. Although the actual “commercial” definitely veers away from Mercedez Benz’s classy, elegant style, I think this is a great example of a brand trying, testing and listening and not being afraid to create interesting, thought provoking content. Difference sparks discussion.

Neistat’s style is journalistic, and at times raw–but this seems to resonate well with viewers as it gives more of an unbiased, daredevil experimental approach.

Ad spend trends are promising results too: advertisers are moving more dollars away from broadcast media to non traditional social video mediums such as Youtube.  Ad spend for digital is increasing; in the case of these examples above, it definitely makes sense. Youtube is free and brands do not need to pay to put videos up. The beauty of using an influencer who creates unique videos with a story telling aspect is that these videos have an “unlimited” worldwide reach and it is up to viewers to spread the videos around if they deem them worthy.

taken from eMarketer