Many businesses wish they could master the art of social media marketing. Unfortunately, using a social network like Instagram or Facebook to grow a customer base effectively is not easy. For an increasing number of businesses, the solution here means leaving their social media marketing needs to professional influencers.
Recent research shows that 60 percent of companies plan to raise their influencer marketing budgets in 2024. This suggests that businesses may be putting so much stock into influencer marketing that they abandon more traditional forms of marketing, such as public relations.
Influencer marketing is initially a sensible strategy for building a loyal following. After all, successful influencers have a proven ability to generate likes, views, shares, and comments on their posts, which can increase the visibility of brands. However, what isn’t immediately apparent from an influencer’s posts is whether they can help a business develop lasting consumer relationships.
While an influencer can attract attention to a product, it’s unclear if their endorsement leads to a durable impression on consumers. Can the company attribute a strengthened reputation solely to the influencer’s efforts? I think influencer marketing should be viewed as just another component of a business’s holistic marketing strategy rather than the core of the strategy.
Where influencer marketing falls short
Influencer marketing thrives on authenticity, which influencers often embody by seeming like genuine consumers who personally endorse products they believe in. This authenticity is appealing because it mirrors the trust we place in recommendations from friends or family, contrasting sharply with the perceived insincerity of traditional advertisements featuring actors.
However, while influencers excel at building their own brand identities and cultivating loyalty among their followers, their effectiveness at doing the same for other businesses is more limited. Unlike their personal brand, which evolves over time through consistent, authentic engagement, a company’s brand identity – its origins, principles, and future vision – are more difficult to convey through influencer marketing.
Influencers typically promote products rather than the ethos of the brands behind them. If they attempt to delve deeply into a brand’s identity, it might not resonate as authentic to their audience, who can usually discern when content shifts from genuine endorsement to paid promotion. This perception risks diminishing the influencer’s credibility and, by extension, the trust in their endorsements.
Given these challenges, relying predominantly on influencer marketing might not be the most effective strategy for businesses aiming to build a robust and authentic brand identity that secures long-term consumer loyalty.
Building brand identity
There’s no shortcut to creating and maintaining a brand identity. It requires a comprehensive approach featuring multiple aspects of marketing. Public relations, for example, provides the platforms to put a more genuine version of your brand identity right in front of your target audience. When brands publish thought leadership pieces or give interviews with the media, they don’t just talk about their latest products and service. They share their particular perspectives about ongoing issues in their industries while educating consumers with genuinely helpful advice.
This is how brands can establish knowledgeable and trustworthy reputations, distinguish themselves from their competitors, and reveal the humanity behind their efforts. In other words, this is how brands can build full, authentic personalities, just like the way an influencer continuously adds substance to their digital persona. The difference is that creating a personality and laying the groundwork for connection involves marketing content that goes much, much deeper than a mere product recommendation on social media.
Combining PR and influencer marketing
Influencers might not specialize in building long-term connections on behalf of other businesses, but they certainly know how to draw attention towards specific products or services. So, there’s no reason influencer marketing couldn’t become a vital element of an organization’s comprehensive marketing strategy.
To that end, influencers could theoretically do their jobs even more effectively in collaboration with company-side PR professionals. Under this partnership, PR pros can help influencers follow a documented strategy that portrays a company in a certain light and promotes the company’s brand identity in their content. Most influencers would likely agree that sponsored products and services are easier to promote when they have personality behind them.
Collaborating with PR pros will also make the influencer’s content more authentic. When an influencer gets a real sense of a company’s brand identity, they can connect with the company on a personal level. As a result, the influencer’s content won’t seem forced or disingenuous because the influencer won’t have to feign enthusiasm for the brand they’re promoting.
It’s crucial to understand that successful collaborations between PR professionals and influencers hinge on the willingness of influencers to follow strategic direction from the PR team. Influencers often command high fees for their services, which has been justifiable given their impact on brand visibility and immediate consumer engagement.
However, as more companies recognize that influencer marketing may not be the most effective tool for building long-term customer relationships, they might begin to question these high costs. Realizing this, companies could adjust their investment in influencer marketing, seeing influencers as one component of a broader strategy orchestrated by PR professionals who aim to assemble all pieces of the marketing puzzle into a cohesive brand narrative.
It seems clear that companies that rely too heavily on influencer marketing might miss out on opportunities to fully develop brand identities and connect deeply with consumers. These objectives require serious strategizing, which goes beyond the typical scope of influencers’ contributions.
For a company aiming to cultivate real loyalty and trust, the strategy should involve leveraging a diverse array of marketing approaches: social media, earned media, email campaigns, thought leadership, etc. While influencer marketing has undeniably reshaped the marketing landscape, building lasting connections is a complex endeavor that requires a multifaceted and sustained effort.
