Influencers are here to stay — and they’re starting to ask for big payouts from brands. But it’s far from a consistent landscape, according to a new story from PR Week. “It is still very much the wild west,” says Jenny Heinrich, senior partner for global digital and influencer strategy at Finn Partners. “I see it every day when connecting with influencers and their agents. There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to how influencers are setting their compensation rates.”
What are people looking for when they start following an influencer? It’s not about megawatt star power. In a lot of cases, it comes to down to everyday appeal. A new BazaarVoice study reports that “while normal consumers may not consider themselves influencers, they certainly are — everyone is. And the everyday social media user has become the preferred influencer to follow for over half of consumers (56 percent).”
Without trust, an influencer … has no influence! A new survey from Slicktext takes a deep dive into consumer trust levels. “One trend that was seen in this survey was that an excess of sponsored posts for the most part made consumers feel like a particular influencer might be behaving somewhat disingenuously with them,” reports Digital Information World.
Are influencer partnerships just for the big, well-established brands? TechCrunch doesn’t think so. “An often overlooked tactic for new brands is influencer marketing,” writes Jonathan Martinez. “If the value and power of influencer marketing were widespread knowledge, we would see more of an uptick. And it doesn’t help that we have a supply-constrained pool of marketers who understand how to unlock this lever.”
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