How to Keep the Rights to the Content You Pay Influencers to Create for You

In the wonderful world of social media, user-generated content is a valuable resource for marketers. It helps address content production gaps, it increases follower engagement, and it’s an effective method of word-of-mouth marketing.

But with the multiplication of user-generated content on social media, there also come a barrage of questions about who owns the content, especially in the world of influencer marketing, where UGC is every creator’s bread and butter.

The truth is brands should NEVER be in a position where they have to FIGURE OUT who owns the rights to their sponsored content (even though they often are).

This is super important.

Content rights determine who has the legal right (the brand or the creator) to use and share the content a bloggers, influencer, or social media user creates. This is true even if a brand has paid a creator for the content and it features a brand’s products or services. A brand’s UGC rights still have to be established IN WRITING because in the U.S., copyright are automatically assigned to the content’s creator.

So, in this post, we’re discussing what you as a marketer need to know about the UGC rights, the challenges brands face with UGC campaigns, and tips for structuring content rights for your next UGC or influencer campaign.

The 411 on UGC

So, we’ve talked about UGC quite a bit over the years in different respects….

…. how to drive sales with UGC

…. how to get AMAZING UGC (cause all UGC ain’t amazing)

…. the 5 BIG benefits of UGC (and why brands clamor for UGC)

If you missed our prior memos, we’ll make this explanation short and sweet – user-generated content is the lifeblood of social media and influencer marketing. It’s the content created by contributors (whether solicited or unsolicited, paid or unpaid by the brand) and made accessible to the general public via social media. It includes both sponsored posts AND the stuff users post to their social media feeds about different brands – images, captions, videos, blogs.

At The Shelf, A LOT (like, MOST) of our clients are expecting great UGC from their influencer campaigns. Some brands run campaigns almost exclusively for the UGC.

In general, UGC is a good way for brands to get consumers involved in the content-creation process. It gives customers a chance to share honest feedback on the products. Plus, it creates a TON of content (some of it even great content) for brands to reuse across their own branded social channels (with permission, of course).

Not for nothing, but this form of content creation and word-of-mouth marketing is super effective. That’s the beauty of UGC.

Okay, So Let’s Take a Look at a Few Brands That Are Really Good At the [Free] UGC Game

You know we had to do it because we love examples, and color, and screengrabs that prove our point. So, we put together a quick-and-dirty list of some brands (our go-to UGC examples, no doubt) who are successfully integrating UGC as part of their normal content marketing strategy.

Coca-Cola

This legacy company kills it at creating user-generated content with their “Share a Coke” campaign. Coca-Cola first launched the “Share a Coke” campaign in the summer of 2014.

The campaign originally involved users posting about finding their names on bottles of Coca-Cola, and it worked famously well. Who wouldn’t want to share a personalized Coke? It makes us feel special and happy almost instantly.

The campaign has since evolved around the idea that when customers #ShareACoke, they’re sharing an experience with the people around them. You can go online and buy personalized Coke bottles, so none of your friends ever feel left out of the picture.

Running every summer in the years since its launch, the Share a Coke campaign is now a memorable marker for Coke drinkers around the world. “Once the campaign ends, people want to hold onto the memory,” says Jaideep Kibe, vice president, Coca-Cola Trademark, Coca-Cola North America.

Aerie

Aerie is an intimates brand connected with the larger retailer American Eagle. In the mid-2010s, public scrutiny around photo-retouching of women increased. Aerie made a name for itself by pledging to stop retouching the models in their product photo shoots.

On top of eliminating retouching, Aerie began the branded hashtag campaign #AerieReal. Aerie asked that women post un-edited photos of themselves in bathing suits using the hashtag #AerieReal, and in return they donated $1 to the National Eating Disorders Association for every photo posted.

Aerie tapped into the very real emotions of women around the world to not only highlight their swimsuits on real “models,” but also spark a change in the online fashion industry.

Wayfair

Wayfair is an online dropshipper that has become a staple of all things home décor. Much of Wayfair’s legend can be attributed to social media and UGC. Wayfair encourages customers to share photos on Instagram of their products in the customer’s home using the hashtag #wayfairathome, or in our case, #wayfairprofessional

For brands like Wayfair, allowing users to showcase interior design chops in its feed provides Wayfair with several powerful benefits.

First… It gives Wayfair access to a never-ending source of really great social media fodder. People who love Wayfair LOVE it, and they are more than willing to share the results of their deocrating projects with Wayfair’s massive audience.

Next… The UGC is a powerful method of social proof. It’s a great way for the brand to feature how its décor items can fit into any home or office décor style WITHOUT looking like a sponsored post.

Plus… Wayfair’s feed doubles as a sort of home decorating “look book” that people will follow and access as needed for design inspiration.

It’s win-win-win.

The Challenges with UGC Rights Brands MUST Address

Remember that one guy who said he fought the law and the law won? Assume that’s gonna happen if your UGC ducks aren’t in a row.

Creators Own the Rights… Accept That

We published a post not too long ago on the three social media laws brands and marketers need to know to do business in the influencer marketing space. You can read that post here.

Here’s the thing – with something like UGC, your brand is dealing with the creative output of another person or organization. By default, the U.S. Copyright Law grants ownership of any intellectual property to the content’s Creator – this is true EVEN IF YOU PAID FOR THE CONTENT!

For UGC (and any copyright issue), ownership rights MUST be transferred from the Creator to the brand in writing. At the very least, there should be something in place to outline how content rights will be shared between the Creator and the brand.

Creators like bloggers, foodies, photographers, and videographers (not an exhaustive list) want credit for what they create, and they should get it. A lot of brands understand intellectual property laws, but don’t readily equate social media content with intellectual property.

It is.

Here’s the takeaway that most of us learned as children: Ask for permission before you mess with anyone else’s stuff.

Getting Consent for Unsponsored UGC

Into the nitty-gritty for a second. Bare with us — you’ll appreciate it when you know how to get consent from your audience and avoid the possibility of a crazy lawsuit.

There are a few ways to go about getting consent. Let’s be real — nobody has the time and resources to reach out to EVERY individual whose content you want to use.

There are two types of consent brands can get before utilizing user-generated content:

1. Implied Consent

2. Explicit Consent

Explicit consent means the Creator explicitly gives you permission to use their content. For influencer marketing, the details of how content can be used is included in a contract.

For unsolicited, unpaid UGC, brands will often DM a Creator and just ask if it’s okay to use X piece of content for Y specific purpose.

Operative term there being specific purpose.

According to industry analyst Susan Etlinger, “Organizations must be honest with the user about when and how the content will be used, and whether it will be syndicated to other publishers or organizations.”

The copyright (which legally gives someone the right to publish, copy, edit/modify, sell, make derivative works from) belongs to the person who created the content. If you seek out their content and intend to use it, you better be clear about what you want to do with it and get permission first.

On the flip side, brands can obtain implied consent. Implied consent is good for brands that want to compile a huge library of UGC since you don’t have to reach out to individual content creators to ask for their permission. Score!

Implied consent is the type of consent associated with social media and things like hashtag campaigns and contests. It’s the notion that, by using a branded hashtag or tagging (not just talking about) a specific brand, a user is agreeing to the brand’s use of their related content.

You know what I’m talking about. I bet you see branded hashtags contests and campaigns on your own Instagram feed almost daily. These types of user-generated content campaigns are everywhere and they are GREAT at creating awareness around a product, brand, campaign, or idea.

If you decide to run a branded hashtag campaign on Instagram (as thousands of other brands do), you’re assuming that a consumer is implying their consent to the use of their content by using the hashtag needed to enter and sharing campaign-related content with their own networks.

Branded hashtags are HUGE for brands. Most of the hashtags used on Instagram (like 70 percent of them) are branded hashtags. Instagram posts with hashtags get 12.6 percent more engagement than those without, so many brands incorporate branded hashtags as a core part of the marketing strategy. Often, when we pitch clients, we pitch ideas WITH branded hashtags.

Final thought here… If there is ever a question about who owns the content – and that’s always the case when there’s no contract in place that explicitly lay out who owns what and how content can be used – ask before using someone’s content.

Tips for Structuring UGC Rights Policies for Influencer Campaigns

We know it’s not fun and it sounds pretty boring, but you have to have a UGC rights contract in place for any influencer campaign.

We typically negotiate rights for campaign content to be used by the brand as they see fit, across their social media channels. But the larger the influencer, the more likely you are to have resistance from the Creator. Sometimes that takes the form of an expiration date for the content, or the Creator being able to delete sponsored posts from their feed after a certain amount of time… it can get a little weird and a little complicated.

Still, it’s crucial that you iron out those types of details in a written contract because influencers are well within their rights to ask a brand to take down a post that was part of a sponsored campaign the brand has ALREADY PAID FOR if reuse is not clearly defined within the contract. In an absolute-all-out-worst-case-ever scenario, the influencer could actually sue for copyright infringement.

And FYI, if an influencer is repped by an agency, you can bet there are going to be content rights issues. Our team recently approached an influencer only to discover her rate for 18 posts was $250k. PLUS, the brand would have to pay an additional cost of $2,000 PER WEEK for any image it wanted to reuse in ads. #Facts

Clarity and Transparency Are Crucial

You ever see that episode of Friends where Joey takes a job as the spokesperson for City Free Clinic and ends up with his face plastered all over New York City (including Time Square) on a poster for VD?

THAT’S an influencer’s worst nightmare when it comes to sharing the rights to content that contains their likenesses. You have to remember Creators are working hard to build their brands just like you are… they want to protect their reputations, their audiences, and their future as influencers.

Source: YouTube.com

Clarity and transparency are KEY in negotiating UGC rights, both for brands and Creators. Creators need to know from brands exactly how sponsored content and other UGC will be used and how long it will be used for that purpose.

Contract Elements to Include

Now, like we mentioned before, the rights (and scope) of use for influencer-created content has to be negotiated in your influencer contract.

Think of influencers as their own companies. They are brands in-and-of themselves. So, influencers are looking to participate in campaigns that align with their brands. That said, the use of the content created during a campaign should also align with the influencer’s brand.

How much control will creators have when it comes to conceptualizing ideas and creating collateral for your campaign?

Is your influencer going to be posting directly to their social media channels or is this more of a takeover type of situation? We actually published a pretty comprehensive piece on takeovers that you can read:

1. The Flawlessly Executed Instagram Takeover

2. Four Epic Instagram Takeovers and Why They Worked

The Shelf platform includes a dashboard that allows brands to preview and approve sponsored content for influencer campaigns before it goes live.

Brands often leave creative control up to the influencer, but it’s also important for brands to set up strategies and the message before hiring influencers for their campaigns (that’s largely because the strategies you use and your message will play an important role in your influencer selection process).

Influencers have mastered the art of reaching THEIR audience, not really yours. So, it’s important that the influencer’s audience and the brand’s audience overlap to some degree.

Influencers can be particular about the content they leave on their feeds. If you’ve ever looked at an influencer’s Instagram, you know that they’re selective about how much sponsored content they have on their page. And duh! This makes sense. You don’t want to see sponsored post after sponsored post — it will ruin their authenticity with their audience.

Brands, on the other hand, also need the authority to take down or remove content that doesn’t meet the established brand guidelines. You can’t have bad or misaligned content that you paid for hanging out on the internet.

Include a section in your influencer contract outlining when an influencer can take down sponsored content, and clearly state that you reserve the right to remove any content an influencer produces for your brand.

It’s important for brands to get enlisted influencers to agree they won’t infringe on any other person’s rights, including copyright. Influencers should not incorporate the pictures, content, audio, or video of another creator’s work into any campaign. That’s uber-important.

To ensure you get what you paid for, we always list a set of DOs and DON’Ts because influencers (bless their hearts) will inevitably do weird things. So, you need a record of the hashtags to be used, any people or things that need to be mentioned in sponsored posts and the length of time the post is to stay published to a creator’s site or social channel.

Contracts also include things like confidentiality clauses that require influencers to keep your super duper top secret secrets a secret… and indemnification that keeps you out of court in the event a zombie apocalypse, Yeti appearance or freak accident happens during the creation of the sponsored content.

Contracts are crucial, and the details you include in your contracts can save you time, reputation, and tens of thousands of dollars in litigation. Our iron-clad contracts allow our clients to have stress-free campaigns…but trust us when we say every clause in our contract was the result of a hard-learned lesson.

Final Thoughts

Content rights are actually pretty straightforward – Creators own the content until they agree that they don’t.

For brands that want to include the use of paid or unpaid user-generated content in their marketing campaigns, you can avoid the headaches that will inevitably arise with UGC rights by getting permission to use the content ahead of time.

Not to toot our own horn here, but we’re pretty good at negotiating content rights for brands, and our platform has a built-in transparency that just makes the whole UGC/ post approval process super simple to navigate.

Stats, Facts and the Tips for Reaching Your K-12 and College Shoppers

Welcome to the 2018 Back-to-School shopping season!

Since publishing our first back-to-school post just two years ago, a lot has changed.  The strategies are essentially the same, but the numbers have changed, which means the strategies you used in 2016 are gonna need a little tweaking.

That said, this post is structured the same way Lauren structured the original post back in 2016.

If you’ve been to your local discount store or big box retailer, you already know back-to-school season has arrived. (I’ll do you one better – I saw a bunch of ceramic pumpkins lined up in front of my local grocery store yesterday.) It’s the time of year when most kids are technically still on summer vacation, but they get to go shopping for whatever is hip and happening in the world of school supplies, clothing, shoes and gadgets.

Technically, back-to-school is being renamed Back-to-Class season since the stats actually include both k-12 spending as well as college spending. But for SEO purposes, we’re still going to sprinkle in the term “back-to-school” until the world decides yea or nay on “back-to-class”.

This post is packed with every statistic out there that you’ll need to know as a brand or marketer if you plan to take full advantage of back-to-school spending.

Just How Big of An Opportunity Is It?

So, for the last few weeks, we’ve been sort of harping on Back-to-Class season being the 2nd largest retail holiday in the US. This year, total spending for back-to-school (which specifically refers to k-12 spending) and back-to-college (or back-to-campus) is expected to reach $82.8 billion, falling just a little bit shy of last year’s expected $83.6 billion in sales. That drop is easy to explain – there are actually fewer households with school-aged kids this year than last year, according to the National Retail Federation.

Still, if you’re anything like me, you may be wondering how backpacks and mechanical pencils generate nearly $83 billion in sales every year. But check out how it breaks down in the chart below:

• 29 million households participate in k-12 back-to-school shopping
• 54 million school-aged children
• B2S shopping season accounts for half of all school-related spending throughout the year
• Estimates there will be $27.6 billion spent on k-12 back-to-school shopping

Source: Deloitte

Take a look at the chart below. If you notice, college spending is expected to increase to $55.3 billion from last year’s $54.1 billion. This includes spending by parents who are sending their kids off to college, as well as parents and adults going back to college or pursuing advanced degrees. K-12 spending is expected to drop from last year’s $29.5 billion to around $27.5 billion for the 2018-2019 season.

Source: National Retail Federation

Just  in case you’re still scratching your head about that $82.8 billion, I came across numbers that make this claim a little more digestible.

In the fall of 2017, about 50.7 million students attended public elementary and secondary schools. Of these, 35.6 million were in prekindergarten through grade 8, and 15.1 million were in grades 9 through 12. An additional 4.9 million students were expected to attend private schools.

Which is a lot of kids…

During the 2017 back-to-school season, the average k-12 household spent $688 on clothes, electronics, shoes and supplies for the new school year, with the most money ($237) being allocated to clothing and accessories, followed by electronics ($187).  This year, the k-12 crowd is expected to spend about the same amount ($685) while college spending on supplies, clothes, electronics, and dorm furnishings is expected to total around $942 for the school year.

Spending also differs by the age of the student. Six in 10 college freshmen expect to spend the most money on new electronics like laptops, phones and computers. By comparison, the largest chunk of spending for high school students is on clothes, and for middle schoolers and junior high students it’s shoes, according to NRF’s Director of Industry and Consumer Insights, Katherine Cullen.

So even though Back-to-Class time isn’t the most obvious of contenders for that #2 slot, if you look at the numbers, it becomes crystal clear that it is a massive retail event.  Nearly 70 percent of third quarter retail sales are school-related, and more than 17 percent of a retailer’s total sales for the year come from Back-to-Class purchases.

Timing Matters

Kids go back to school in JULY, folks!

It’s the end of July, and the kids in my neighborhood – a small town just east of Atlanta – have already gone back to school. We’re outliers though. Most of the kids in this state didn’t start this week. They will start next week.

If you happen to be rolling out a Back-to-Class campaign, you’ve already missed me. We’ve got French Toast uniforms, some  and composition notebooks. We have burgundy Vans (went to four stores to find those) and rainbow Chacos (searched high and low for those before a friend stepped in a recommended a cool mom-and-pop shop a few miles away that specializes in unflattering high-end sandals – didn’t know there was such a thing). The scientific calculator is safely tucked away. All that’s left are the few items teachers tell me to pick up once class starts.

Interestingly enough, I didn’t go big box retailer this year. We did the malls, but left empty-handed. Instead we shopped local businesses that had competitive prices and fantastic selections. Lucky me – I ended up spending about half what I thought I would for my preschooler.  But more important, I found a new store to shop that is awesome.

My point here is not to brag about being done. It’s to alert you that it’s July and I’M DONE with my school shopping! That’s because many of the kids in this part of the country start school at the end of July through the first week in August. So, the retailers with whom I spent my Back-to-Class dollars probably got my attention (or my daughter’s attention) around Fourth of July.

The U.S. is one of the few countries that doesn’t have a standardized start date (according to Wikipedia), so it’s not just my neighborhood that’s ending summer vacation early. Kids in Arizona and Indiana have been back to school a week already.  And by mid-August, most kids in the U.S. will be back in school.

That means if you’re doing localized marketing campaigns, you will need to know when the kids in that market head back to class.

Back-to-Class shopping goes in waves

Seventy-seven percent of k-12 back-to-school shoppers plan to start shopping at least three weeks before school starts. The same is true for college shoppers.

But… starting and finishing are two different things. So… 89 percent of shoppers – even early shoppers – still have shopping to do when classes start at the end of July. In fact, folks are picking up supplies through early fall.

My point: Back-to-class shopping goes in waves. Even if you miss the first one, you still have time to catch the second one.

Most shoppers continue buying stuff even after school has started because inevitably, there will be a million little random items missed on the first go-round.

…. blue erasers instead of red

…. 1.5-inch D-ring binders, instead of the three 1-inch O-ring binders you already bought

…. Papermate blue or Bic blue? There’s a difference.

If kids don’t get this info emailed to them over the summer, parents have to head back to the stores during the first few weeks of school to buy missing supplies for each class.

Shoppers buy different supplies at different times

Which brings me to my next point: Different types of Back-to-Class supplies are purchased at different times. For instance, clothing and school supplies see significant action in July and August while food & snacks see their peak in August. This is super important when you’re vying for attention. You want to put your brand in front of shoppers at the right point in the Back-to-School shopping cycle.

Let’s look for a moment at what’s being bought. Here’s a breakdown of how money is being spent on Back-To-School products. It’s no surprise apparel, footwear, and backpacks are leading the pack… kids like to look cool.

The Role Pricing Plays

One huge factor that affects purchase decisions is the shopper’s unyielding desire to find the best price. Shoppers are now – and always have been –  deal-hunting machines, online and offline.

It’s interesting to note that shoppers are picky when it comes to finding deals. By that I mean, they’re more neurotic about price when it comes to clothes and shoes, but prefer to pay a premium for quality when it comes to school supplies and snacks.

Forty-six percent of shoppers say price is one of their top deciding factors when it comes to Back-to-Class purchases. Sixty-two percent of Back-to-Class shoppers expect to spend less this year than they did last year.

Brand managers would be smart to remain mindful of these stats when planning their marketing strategies.

Now, if price is this big of a deal, you can bet couponing (though not extreme couponing like the people on The Learning Channel) is not far behind. In this hurried generation of two-family incomes, play dates, and successive extra curricular activities, I will let you venture one good guess on how couponing is done today.

If you guessed mobile, you guessed right.

People search for coupons not only on their mobile devices, but they are searching for coupons while they shop! A recent study of online coupon-searches found that 59 percent of the searches performed online containing the word “coupon” were made using a mobile device. When the search query included a top-brand name, they had an even larger percentage that came from a mobile device.

For instance, of the shoppers online hunting for Hobby Lobby coupons, 88 percent of those searches came from a mobile device. For J.C. Penney, 87 percent of customers’ coupon queries were performed using a mobile device. You can bet a fair number of those searches were performed in the store, maybe even in the checkout line.

Online Retail is Super-Important for Back-to-School

The wisdom of the Digital Age says online marketing is absolutely non-negotiable for most brands. But “online” is a pretty sizable place, so the best thing any of us can do as marketers is to figure out where the eyes are.

First things first: Online shopping

E-commerce is a big part of the Back-to-Class season. While I still have a hard time believing e-commerce makes up less than 10 percent of total retail sales in the U.S. (I’ve actually seen reports that put e-comm anywhere from 8 to 13 percent of total U.S. retail sales),  I think the bright spot here is when we originally published this post in 2016, only 7.9 percent of shopping was done online. In the last two years, e-commerce has grown by about 15 percent. In the UK, the number is as high as 17 percent.

That said, about half of back-to-school shoppers (55 percent) and back-to-college shoppers (49 percent) plan to go online for at least a portion of their shopping. In all, Deloitte reports that upwards of 20 percent of that $27 billion in back-to-school spending may happen online.

Both the k-12 group and the college-bound group give preference to department stores, online retailers, and discount stores. But college shoppers actually rank online retailers over brick-and-mortar stores.

The number of purchases that are happening online is not nearly as important as how the online experience influences a consumer’s Path-To-Purchase.

Back in the day, the Path-To-Purchase used to be a very clear map of the journey consumers took on their way to making a purchase. And here’s what it used to look like.

Back then, the journey was a simple one because it excluded the messiness that the digital world introduced.

This is what it looks like now.

Much less like a path, right? Looks like a timed maze.

Consumers bounce around, across various channels, mixing in-store experiences with the chaos of the online world without any sort of discernible pattern. And because of this chaos, brands need to get a firm grasp on Omni-Channel Shopping, which is the idea that buyers need to be presented with a seamless experience across all channels, allowing discovery, research, consideration, and eventual purchase to happen with fluidity between the digital and “real world” experiences.

Wordtracker posted a really cool infographic a few years ago that runs through how this type of experience affects holiday marketing.

And for a slightly different take on this concept, HubSpot published a post earlier this year that explains how multi-channel experiences should focus on nurturing existing customers… keeping them in the loop, engaging with them. Plus, cool examples of how brands like  Disney and Bank of America are doing just that. Brands should seek to be their customer’s go-to option. Instead of just some random store a customer shops by happenstance on a given day.

Back-To-Class usage patterns for mobile devices drive home the point that online sales is not necessarily your end goal. Sales are happening offline, but the online world is a huge part of those offline purchases

Okay. We have the stats. Let’s see how we can turn stats into store traffic.

How to Harness the Power of Omni Channel Marketing

Figure out who’s really making the purchase, and segment

Most brands target the most obvious demographic while ignoring the ones that actually matter. When it comes to Back-to-Class shopping, Moms might be the ones whipping out their credit cards, but the kids are calling the shots. In our 2018 Summer-Fall Influencer Marketing Guide, we did a pretty good job of sussing out the key players.

For back-to-school season, you’re mostly going to be dealing with Millennial Moms and Alpha kids, which we talked about in Part One of the Summer-Fall Guide.

For high school and back-to-campus marketing, you’re talking Gen X Moms and their Gen Z kids, which you can learn more about in Part Two of the Summer-Fall Guide.

Here’s why you need to target both: Deloitte estimates children influence $21 billion out of more than $27 billion in k-12 back-to-school spending. That’s 76 percent!  Yet brands are still targeting mainly moms.

Why would a marketer assume the most effective method for marketing to tech-savvy kids who are perpetually online is through their moms? That’s just crazy!

You know who else gets overlooked? Men.

On average, dads will spend 37% more money shopping than moms. Why? Because saving money requires research and time many dads just aren’t willing to invest. College-bound men spend about $115 more on back-to-college supplies than their co-ed classmates.

I would bet most dads just want to get in, win, and get out. And still, despite dads being big spenders and kids being a huge motivating factor as well, most brands target women exclusively when dreaming up their back-to-school marketing campaigns.

Step up your game, marketers!

Find them online to get their attention

So we’ve talked about how the omni-channel style of shopping has forever altered the journey that buyers take when making a purchase. But what does that mean to you as a marketer?

Well,  it means you’ve got your work cut out for you. It means you need to figure out what your customers are up to online while making purchase decisions, and you need to set up your presence and marketing gameplan around the digital hot spots that affect meaningful portions of YOUR specific target demographic.

In 2016, more than 11 million people in the U.S. saved almost 45 million back-to-school-related ideas on Pinterest. Take a gander at a few other important stats:

• Mondays. Those are the high-traffic days with regard to website pageviews of back-to-school items.
• Mobile makes up 50 percent of pageviews for back-to-school products.
• 27 percent of shoppers plan to organize their shopping lists via Pinboards.
• 25 percent say that they will be using Pinterest for lunch and snack ideas.
• Facebook is the most influential platform when it comes to guiding parents’ fashion purchase decisions. A Rakuten Marketing study conducted in the UK showed that nearly one in four parents consult Facebook when looking for inspiration to fill their children’s closets.
• Blogs and social media are now generating as many purchases as the traditional methods like television and magazines.
• User-generated content accounts for 25% of search results.

There are many routes you can take to get your product in front of the right audience –  banner ads, Facebook ads, Instagram ads… Each platform can commandeer a notable portion of a brand’s marketing budget to help products get traction during seasonal pushes. You may say, “Simple. I’ll buy up a bunch of online ads” without taking into account that almost 25% of mobile users AND almost 200 million people are using ad blockers around the world. The inconvenient truth is online ads aren’t getting quite the mileage that they used to get.

My advice would be to tap into the audiences of influential bloggers and social media creators within your space, à la influencer marketing.

If you’re not sold on the notion of influencer marketing, I will direct you to this awesome post we wrote a little while ago describing influencer marketing and why you need it. NOW.

If you’re already sold on it, we’ve got some fun ideas that you can incorporate into your last-minute back-to-school campaigns.

So, listen. Since Back-To-School has already started, it’s going to be hard (not impossible) to slap together your influencer marketing campaigns in time. But we’re the experts over here at The Shelf. And the campaigns we run are beautiful!

Seriously.

So get in touch with Sabrina (sales@theshelf.com) if you want to talk shop. We can help you take advantage of the 2nd LARGEST retail holiday by launching your epic back to school campaigns!

Five Features You Should Look for In an Influencer Platform to Better Target Your Campaigns

Never let it be said that we don’t play well with others. Over the years, we’ve gotten the opportunity to learn about other influencer marketing platforms to see what all the hubbub is about. As well, when we talk with new clients, they often share with us the many ways their previous agencies and influencer platforms kicked butt… along with the ways they didn’t.

We’ve arrived at one main conclusion: For all the numbers, science, and wins on record, influence marketing is still a technique that many brands and marketers need demystified.

How do you choose the right influencers? How do you get them to do what needs to be done? How much [more] time do you have to invest in this? How much is your marketing team supposed to do versus what you’re paying the influencer to do? What exactly ARE you paying an influencer to do? Do you really need to use an influencer platform like TapInfluence or The Shelf to do it?

I would venture a bet that most brands don’t understand this space well enough to be able to confidently answer questions like those. So, it’s that much harder for them to choose influencer platforms, let alone influencers.

We create tons of content to help demystify things like…

…. blogger outreach (wrote about that in this post here)

…. building a campaign (here)

…. uncovering vanity metrics (here)

…. getting enough user-generated content during your campaign (here and here)

…. measuring the performance of your campaign (good one here)

…. vetting influencers (here and another one we penned here for SocialMediaToday.com) and

…. leveraging social proof to help your brand get better overall results (here).

In this post, I want to focus more on how brands can use influencer marketing platforms to deploy an array of different strategies because – let’s just face it – the technology available on The Shelf and other influencer marketing platforms makes it way faster, and much simpler to effectively utilize influencer marketing.

Handling Influencer Marketing In-House

You may be wondering if influencer marketing is something you can handle in-house. And the answer is yes… if you have the right technology to effectively vet influencers, launch campaigns, and measure their performance. Time and again, those are the top pain points brands identify as their biggest challenges with influencer marketing.

If you don’t have access to technology that can help you sort through and analyze the data – and you plan to do something else with the rest of your life besides click-and-view Instagram profiles looking for keywords – you’re going to want to use an influencer platform like The Shelf or TapInfluence (which is on target to be acquired by Izea  by the end of this month) to maximize your outcomes so you don’t waste time and money doing busy work and hoping for the best.

Be honest: Do you really want to conduct branded hashtag searches across Instagram’s one billion user accounts using just the search function on Instagram?

Only 194 million Outfit of the Day posts to choose from!

The right influencer marketing platform with the right influencer marketer at the helm of your campaign can help you yield amazing results, and reach those all-important business goals (yet another top pain point for brands).

The Influencer Platform Features That Build Successful Influencer Campaigns

Okay… so, most influencer platforms are very similar. They’re a lot like cars in that respect. The differences between influencer platforms aren’t the big things like search engines and filters. No, the differences are actually in the nuances. Here are five basic features most influencer platforms have, along with the back-end enhancements that can make the difference in your campaign.

#1 Influencer Database

Every platform comes with a database of social media users and influencers that brands and agencies can tap for influencer marketing campaigns. The size and depth of the database makes a difference, however. Here’s why the database is important:

I recently had an acquaintance of mine email me and ask me to take a look at a list of influencers an agency had recommended to deploy his influencer marketing campaign. He was launching an app targeting time-pressed, working Millennial women in New York’s five boroughs who valued their appearance and who had disposable income. He really didn’t know how to suss-out influencers for himself (nor did he have the time), so he hired an influencer marketing agency.

The agency recommended five influencers – none of them members of his target demographic. Three of the five were in high school. One was a reality TV actress, and the other was a rising actress who had been in a handful of commercials. He got pictures of the girls, a one-line bio, and a link to their Instagram accounts.

No mentioned of fraud detection.

No explanation as to how the girls were selected (they really were girls, I’m not being politically incorrect here).

Just pictures of pretty faces.

I didn’t really need audience demographics, though. I know a 30 year-old Millennial woman who’s paying off student loans, maintaining a social life, enjoying date night with her partner and possibly learning to see life through the eyes of a toddler, all while climbing the corporate ladder isn’t looking for makeup tips from high school sophomore. She’s just not.

Turns out, this particular influencer marketing agency was more of a talent agency that pulled from its client roster to get them “gigs” as brand ambassadors. My acquaintance – the guy I know – wasn’t provided audience demographics because the agency didn’t have them. Who knows if it even knew he would need them to run an effective influencer marketing campaign?

How ever long the agency’s client roster was, it wasn’t long enough to provide him with a list of proven, age-appropriate influencers for his campaign. Nor did the agency’s team understand the influencer marketing space. That part was obvious.

Of course, I told him to run, and run fast. He was surely about to waste his time and money.

Well, legit influencer platforms like The Shelf have a database of millions of influencers. We don’t have influencer client rosters. That means we can find and recommend the influencers who would make the greatest impact on your campaign based on highly objective data, not talent contracts.

The Shelf dashboard can identify 98 million Instagram influencer profiles alone, and we can take that number from 98 million influencers to say, 30 or 40 influencers using all sorts of filters, in a matter of seconds… which brings me to my next important feature…

#2 Influencer Search and Discovery

The number and complexity of the filters you can use is typically another distinction between real influencer platforms.

For example, global brands need to be able to target audiences in different parts of the world with their products. So, it’s good for an influencer database to have access to influencers outside the Americas the UK, and Australia. We’re able to pull influencers from all over the world.

For instance, we have access to more than six thousand influencers just in Brazil alone, and we can add to or pull from that number depending on the goals of a client’s campaign.

#3 INFLUENCER AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHICS

Most platforms can search for influencers using several different filters, including location. That’s crucial to the success of your campaign. But you also need to know the location of an influencer’s followers.

Case in point: A few weeks ago, as I researched African Influencers from 24 countries across the continent, I noticed something interesting about a popular Ghanaian influencer. She is a social activist and professional living in Ghana. I noticed her audience is heavily concentrated in North America.Curious. Is this a glitch?

I checked out another influencer, this one a fashion and lifestyle blogger in South Africa, to ensure audience distribution isn’t the same.

Just to be doubly sure, I compared those two audiences to another African influencer on my list of 17, a Nigerian influencer and podcaster. Her audience is scattered around the globe – Nigeria, North America, South Africa, Australia, South America… big difference in audience distribution between these two influencers.

To launch an effective social media marketing campaign, brands need to know not only who and where the influencer is, but also where the influencer’s followers are concentrated.

Our platform analyzes dozens of data points about infuencers, from engagement ratios to brand affinity to actual prices of the products they mention. If you want your campaign to work and to be effective, you have to be able to analyze the data other platforms and brands don’t.

The Shelf also has the ability to filter data through Boolean searches (searches with combined keywords and modifiers like AND and NOT) for deeper targeting.

#4 Campaign Management Tools

Campaign management tools are pretty standard with the heavy hitters in this space. These allow you to monitor the progress of your influencer marketing campaign from start to finish. I would say the big differentiator here is the flexibility you may or may not have in making changes to your campaign once it starts.

So, we’re all about running always-on campaigns at The Shelf, because we understand that marketing is about testing. It’s not a set-it-and-forget-it type of thing. Each brand is different, so each campaign is different.

That means if the campaign starts and we figure out some things are working better than others, we can go in and tweak a live campaign, down to changing the deliverables you’re getting from one influencer without affecting the deliverables you’re getting from the others.

It also means having this change automatically reflected in an updated digital contract.  Each influencer contract is customizable for each campaign.

In addition to digital contracts, which can be accessed and modified from the dashboard, brands can also download every image created for their campaign to be used as they wish across their own social media accounts. No more screenshots (Yay!!).

#5 User-Friendly Dashboard

Influencer platforms also include dashboards that the influencer agency, the brand or client-agency, and the influencer can access. Here, utility is the differentiator.

You can have all the bells and whistles in the world on your dashboard. If the influencers and brands can’t navigate the darned thing, something’s going to get left undone.

And so it is with influencer marketing platforms. The Shelf is an influencer marketing platform with an agency attached. Our team uses and shapes the features that we roll out, and the rest of the input on which features we should have come directly from our clients (the brands). In fact, if a client asks for a feature that we believe would benefit other clients, we can often have the feature fully functional on our platform in a matter of days.

Our goal is always to make the platform the most useful tool it can be, and we continue to update The Shelf so the software stays in front of ever-changing API issues from Instagram and other social media platforms. We provide our clients with a robust set of features, more than any other SaaS in the space.

If you’re ready to start working with influencers, we’re awesome at data-driven influencer marketing. And we can help your campaign make you money.

23 of the Coolest, Quirkiest Father’s Day Stats

Fathers are awesome. The entire concept of nature providing a gatekeeper who instructs, protects, directs, and loves you is a stroke of genius. The fact that many dads are also willing to battle zombies, soccer coaches, bullies, and morning traffic to keep us safe is also quite cool.

For the 76 percent of Americans who plan to celebrate Father’s Day, finding the best way to represent your undying love and appreciation by presenting him with a gift on the third Sunday in June can be a challenge.

I am one of millions of daughters who will have to come up with a gift idea far cooler than a new tie to go with my dad’s suits. Coincidentally, my dad doesn’t wear suits and if I stuck to buying ties, he would have 40 ties for the same two suits – one tan and one gray. Multiply that by 5 kids, and 11 grands and…

Too many ties.

While we have a few days before we demonstrate our love with a new fishing pole, a riding mower, or a road trip to South Beach (my dad’s a pretty good-looking guy), let’s all take a quick breather from our Groupon frenzies and set aside a few minutes to be inspired, amused and educated about fathers and Father’s Day.

No lame turn-of-the-century biographies or black and white photos. No mind-numbing stats that you stop paying attention to after the first few. Just awesomesauce and funky, dad-goodness.

Here’s how babies get to name their own fathers

Two years in Mrs. Willie Bell Gibson’s English class taught me that in order to understand a word, I must know the etymology of the word. So, I looked up the word “dad.” Most of us can see how the word “father” looks a lot like the word “pater” – noun from Old English “paeder” which refers to a man in relation to his natural child or children – which was made famous by British Pop group Simply Red in the song “Holding Back the Years” (46 seconds in).

As it turns out, the words “dad” and “father” are completely unrelated. The word “dad” is believed to be adapted for use by fathers based on the first sounds a baby makes when she begins vocalizing front-of-the-mouth, consonant sounds. Dad is a remix of the sound “daaa” or “dada”. Pretty clever move, Dad.

Almost half the men in the US are fathers, and more of those fathers are staying home with the kids

About 46 percent of American men (18 years and older) are fathers. According to census numbers, there are 70.1 million fathers in the U.S. and about 152 million men. Nearly 25 million fathers are part of married-couple families while 2 million fathers were single fathers. (Fatherhood.gov)

Six guys were on the SAHD list in the 1970s

There are 214,000 married fathers with children under the age of 15 who are dads staying home primarily to take care of their kids while their wives work. The Huffington Post had an interesting piece about stay-at-home dads. Do you know that in the 1970s, only six men – SIX – identified as stay-at-home fathers? One, two, three, four, five, six guys.

Dads don’t really want ties for Father’s Day, yet…

Let’s just go right to it. A necktie is the most popular Father’s Day gift, not the most desired, just the most popular. Truth bomb: Your father probably isn’t looking forward to another tie. In fact, only 19 percent of dads want any clothing or apparel at all for Father’s Day.

Another quick tip: Just in general, an e-card is not the answer to any Father’s Day question.

The ages of the most recent youngest and the oldest dads will amaze – and maybe terrify – you

Eleven years old. That’s how old one British boy was when he impregnated his 15 year-old next door neighbor. Their baby boy was born one month after the father’s 12th birthday in 1998. I am intentionally refraining from listing their names, but I grabbed the headline for that story from Daily Mail.

The oldest first-time father, Ramit Raghav, was 94 when his baby boy was born to him and his then-52 year-old wife in October 2010 in Haryana, India.

Most dads bring home the bacon. Literally

More than half of the fathers polled say they are the primary grocery shoppers in their household. There are a handful of things to know about Dads who who shop:

1. Dads research products they buy more than moms. About 11 percent of moms research products compared to 24 percent of dads.

2. Men will spend more for products if they are of better quality.

3. While Dad may be okay with researching products, men are not generally coupon clippers. And they are most definitely not extreme couponers.

Millennials are probably going to spend the most money per person on their dads again this year

In 2014, Millennials between the ages of 18 to 34 spent the most money per person on Father’s Day gifts, shelling out anywhere from around $134 to $162 for a Father’s Day gift.

In 2015, Millennials spent even more, having each purchase come in at $160 to $165.

Old school TV dads are more popular than these young whipper snapper TV dads

I found two surveys – one by TiVo, the other I found at Ranker.com – which sought to answer one critical questions: Which TV dad do you wish was your own?

While the lists contained essentially the same fictional characters, the order of the lists differed. Ranker.com calculated results based on more than 50,000 votes from 4,000+ voters. It looks like the list is clearly skewed toward Gen Xers. I want to share with you the top 15 answers, in no particular order:

• Sheriff Andy Taylor (The Andy Griffith Show)

• Pa Ingalls (Little House on the Prairie)

• Howard Cunningham (Happy Days)

• Ward Cleaver (Leave it to Beaver)

• Jim Anderson (Father Knows Best)

• Mike Brady (The Brady Bunch)

• Tim Taylor (Home Improvement)

• Reverend Eric Camden (7th Heaven)

• Danny Tanner (Full House)

• Philip Banks (The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air)

• Peter Griffin (Family Guy)

• Dan Conner (Roseanne)

• Gomez Addams (The Addams Family)

• Homer Simpson (The Simpsons)

I will be honest here. I have never seen Father Knows Best as I had a very strong aversion to watching TV shows that were in black and white when I was growing up. Except awesome Japanese action shows like Godzilla. My favorite TV dad, Martin Crane (Frasier), played by the late John Mahoney, just missed the list.

Almost a third of Americans shop online for Father’s Day gifts

Come on, Groupon deals! Daddy needs a new pair of… ?? (That’s the part many of us are still trying to figure out.)

While 39.9 percent of Father’s Day shoppers will still head to department stores to pick up their gifts, the next best place is the Internet, with almost 34 percent of shoppers buying their gifts online, followed by discount stores (27 percent), specialty store (24 percent) and local small businesses (17 percent)..

Are we obligated to buy Father’s Day gifts for all the men close to us who are fathers?

No. Not at all. In fact, 52 percent of Father’s Day beneficiaries were fathers and stepfathers. The other 48 percent of Father’s Day purchases were split between gifts from wives to husbands, parents to sons, siblings to brothers, and grandkids to grandfathers.

The outdoors type, a tech dad, the home organizer: How does your dad self-identify?

A good way to figure out what to get your dad may be finding out how he self-identifies. A quarter of dads consider themselves outdoor adventurers. Twenty-four percent think of themselves as either modern, fashionable, or gadget lovers.

My brother-in-law is like that. He once hacked my computer while I was in the middle of talking smack to him. Or more accurately, because I was in the middle of talking smack to him.

Twenty-one percent of dads consider themselves home organizers.

Most dads who use social media use it, at least in part, to become better fathers

Sixty-one percent of fathers who use social media apply the information and advice they get from social to be better dads.  Social media is a great parenting resources for many fathers today.

Dad wants to hang out with you on Father’s Day

Sweet and simple. A beer subscription is great, but it would be better for him if you drank it together. And who wants to play with a drone alone? What good is a flying drone if he can’t make it chase you? By and large, the number one thing dads want for Father’s Day is your time – quality time with the kids.

But if you can’t be there, he’ll take money

It’s the truth, folks. If your father is anything like the men answering these polls, he doesn’t want another tie. He doesn’t want the cufflinks. He doesn’t even want those expensive leather shoes with the tassels.

According to Entrepreneur.com, 37 percent of fathers want gift cards and 29 percent want electronics, or a gadget of some type. Only 8 percent are okay with you taking the liberty to buy a gym membership, and only 7 percent would be happy with a magazine subscription – even one to a sports magazine.

And if you don’t give him money, get him a Harley

Dads are loyal to the brands they know and trust, according to Adweek. Nearly half (48 percent) of dads say they are loyal to brands compared with just 39 percent of moms. Eighty-one percent of fathers are even okay with brands sending them location-based mobile offers, and most (58 percent) have taken action on a mobile offer they receive.

There are 10 top brands that get the Dad Seal of Approval:

1. Apple

2. UnderArmour

3. Nike

4. Netflix

5. iPad

6. Lexus

7. Lego

8. Levi’s

9. Kobalt

10. Harley-Davidson

Twenty-eight percent of dads said they always buy top brands without concern for the price.

Millennials are handing out experiences this Father’s Day

Brunch, paintball, wine tastings, spa weekends, hunting trips… Millennials are far more likely to buy “experiences” for their dads this Father’s Day than things that need batteries.

In 2015, two in five Millennials were planning outings with Dad on or around Father’s Day, which represented 22 percent of Father’s Day shoppers.

Daddy’s home!

Today’s fathers spend double the amount of time they spent with their kids in 1989, and almost triple the amount of time with their kids as fathers did back in 1965.

Men use social more after becoming fathers

While moms still have dads beat on creating a digital footprint, 61 percent of men say they started using social media more after having kids. Dads report getting product tips from social media:

• 44 percent get product or service recommendations from other dads on social

• 70 percent get product or service recommendations that would benefit the entire family

• 71 percent get recommendations for stuff for their kids

• 37 percent say they ask other dads for recommendations on products and services

Seventy-one percent of dads also use social media to keep the rest of the family up-to-date on what’s going on with the kids.

The one thing most people will do, whether they buy a gift or not, is call home

An actual phone call – not a text – is still one of the most popular gifts to give Dad on Father’s Day. Hopefully, the call is verifying the arrival of a gift.

Father’s Day is the busiest time of the year for collect calls

Collect calls? That can’t be right. I pulled this fact from a list published on MSN.com during Father’s Day 2016.

87 million greeting cards will be flying off the shelves for our 70 million dads this year

Totally makes sense. Last Father’s Day, I spent $20 just on greeting cards for my dad, my husband, and my ex-husband. It took us 2 hours to pick out the perfect Father’s Day cards, and the only card that saw any mantle action was the one my preschooler made in daycare.

Most dads don’t feel guilty about leaving the family home and going to work, but they do get a little sensitive when they have to take time from the family to get some much-needed gym time

We know that regular exercise helps you keep the extra pounds off, helps regulate your body to minimize the risk of getting metabolic disease, promotes mental clarity, helps stabilize your mood, and delivers an overall sense of well-being. Even still, Dads feel guilty for using what could be family time, or time with the kids, to do something as “selfish” (many fathers view self-care as a selfish act) like going to the gym.

The most popular Father’s Day gifts are…

In 2016, shoppers spent more than $14 billion celebrating Father’s Day. According to the National Retail Federation and Entrepreneur, the top buying categories were…

• Greeting cards, of course – $833 million on greeting cards

• Special outings – $3.1 billion on activity-based gifts of experiences like concerts, ball games, brunch

• Clothing – $1 billion in Father’s Day spending

• Gift cards – $1 billion in gift card purchases

• Electronics – $1.7 billion in consumer electronics purchases were planned for Father’s Day last year

Influencer Marketing and GDPR

In just a few days, the European Union is set to roll out the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a law designed to protect the personal data of EU citizens, and enable them to retain control over what happens to their personal information when it gets in the hands of well… merchants and marketers. That’s not all it covers, but for our purposes, that’s what matters.

GDPR makes it plain that regardless of who you are or where you happen to live and work, if any aspect of your day-to-day existence puts you in contact with the personal data of an EU citizen, GDPR applies to you.

In my last post on GDPR (which you can read here), I provided you with a comprehensive overview of the law itself. If you’re like me, the better you began to understand GDPR, the more questions arose in  your mind.

Well, what about email lists?

What about databases? Do I have to put a time limit on how long prospects stay on my list?

Do I need to get permission a second time if I didn’t use a double opt-in the first time?

Data portability? Wha…???

For the sake of convenience, I will recap the finer points of GDPR here before moving on to how it will impact influencer marketing, direct marketing, email marketing, and the sales cycle.

The 5 Big Takeaways of GDPR

The EU General Data Protection Regulation is designed to make sure the data that organizations collect from EU citizens is kept private and properly protected.

Roles

A data  controller is the person or entity collecting personal data and determining how to use it. A data processor hangs on to the data after its been collected and uses it as the data controller sees fit.

Interestingly, GDPR also requires ALL marketers to have a Data Protection Officer, someone who is knowledgeable about data protection and who will take responsibility for data management. No, you don’t have to hire someone new. Sole providers may be their own DPO, but someone on your team needs to be on record as the person to contact with GDPR-related issues.

Proof

Data controllers must be able to document when, where, and how an EU citizen gave permission for you to collect and use their data.

Control

EU citizens (also called data subjects) retain the right to control how their information is used. Consent can be revoked, and objections can be made by the data subject. The data controller must respond to any change requests, modify, or remove a person’s information quickly, and without financial cost to the data subject.

Portability

Data must be portable, meaning data subjects have the right to view every piece of data you have on them and transfer their personal data from the data controller’s database in a format that is usable for the data subject.

Accountability

Data controllers are responsible for informing local EU authorities of any data breaches that happen within the controller’s database OR within their processor’s database within 72 hours of learning of the breach. Data subjects affected by the breach must also be informed shortly thereafter.

Why GDPR is a Game Changer for Influencer Marketing

The power of social media is that people can find and engage with like-minded individuals from all over the world using topic-related hashtags that are NOT location specific. For marketers, that means the right influencer can give you immediate access to a group of people that you know are interested in what you are promoting, which can expedite a prospect’s move through your sales funnel. Under GDPR, before a marketer can engage further with a prospect (or officially put someone in their funnel), the marketer still needs to get explicit, documented permission from any prospects who happen to be citizens of the EU.

Consent vs. Legitimate Interest

Under Article 6 of GDPR, there are six – and only six – reasons to process the data of an EU citizen.

1. the data subject has given consent to the processing of his or her personal data for one or more specific purposes;

2. processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which the data subject is party or in order to take steps at the request of the data subject prior to entering into a contract;

3. processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which the controller is subject;

4. processing is necessary in order to protect the vital interests of the data subject or of another natural person;

5. processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller;

6. processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the controller or by a third party, except where such interests are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject which require protection of personal data, in particular where the data subject is a child.

As a marketer, your strongest position is to go with Reason #1 by getting explicit, willful permission from the EU citizen to collect their data.

Reason #6 also applies to marketers, but do not get it confused. Legitimate interest is the prospect’s documented interested in your content, goods, and services, not the other way around. So, legitimate interest is not a government-issued permission to cold-email people you think may be interested in your content or products. In fact, it is best applied to your right to continue emailing people who have already opted in to your list without any previous attempts to unsubscribe.

As a matter of practice, GDPR requires data collectors and data processors to enact data protection by design and by default.

A Follow Is Not Consent!

Isn’t a follow a type of permission? Yes, it is permission, but no it’s not the same as explicit consent to drop down into your sales and marketing funnel. A social media follow is one user giving consent to the platform for the platform to show the user your content. It is not consent for you to necessarily send them on a sales journey.

Followers are people who have agreed to be shown the content you create for that specific social media platform. But that is the extent of the permission. It is not permission for you to gather more information from them, or to contact them via email or instant message. Even if they don’t mind you marketing to them, if the person you’re targeting is an EU citizen, your contact with them needs to follow the rules of the General Data Protection Regulation.

You Need a Positive Opt-In (No PRE-CHECKED BOXES!)

The caveat in this whole thing is that marketers need to make positive opt-ins the foundation of targeted digital marketing. A positive opt-in is one in which your prospect has given YOU explicit and willful permission to contact him or her at a later date. There are four key elements of a positive opt-in:

1. A prospect, subscriber, or follower must manually provide their information to you

2. A prospect, subscriber, or follower must manually check any boxes on your opt-in form indicating they want to receive information from you – the box cannot be pre-checked

3. A prospect, subscriber, or follower must confirm the subscription, probably via a double opt-in email, this is how you will get a record of their consent

4. The opt-in cannot be compulsory, meaning it cannot be a situation where there’s verbiage somewhere that says something like: “By joining this Facebook group, you agree to also receive a subscription to our newsletter. ”

For these reasons, a social media follow is not (and cannot) be considered consent for future marketing on another platform. GDPR requires you to get permission from an EU citizen specifically for marketing. People can no longer default to being in your funnel just because you happen across their information, or are in the same group, or they follow your brand on Instagram. Converting a follower into a subscriber requires the subscriber to know and agree to that conversion.

GDPR-Compliant Email Marketing

Transparency

Another important part of converting followers to subscribers, or getting them into your funnel is your EU subscribers now have to know exactly what they are agreeing to when they subscribe. Lead magnets are an industry standard – the free assessment, the free ebook, the free worksheet, the free webinar. But prospects must also know what you have planned for them after the lead magnet.

Now, this isn’t the metaphorical spot where the villain captures the hero and reveals his diabolical plan just before the hero breaks free in time to stop the plan. It’s much more laid back than that. This is more like:

“We’re going to comb the web for the best in biohacking, and dump all that goodness into your inbox every single Sunday night. Without fail. Rain or shine. Super Bowl or Grammy’s. And all you have to do is let us know who you are and how to find you. To do that, complete the form below.”

Or something much simpler, like this neat little CTA bar for the Hustler’s Digest on the homepage of GaryVaynerchuk.com.

Notice how the button is easy to see. There are no tricky boxes pre-checked. The summary statement of what the subscriber will get and how often he or she can expect to get it is detailed right above the form. Simple stuff.

Suppression Lists

Subscribers have the right to be forgotten, which I discussed a bit in the previous post on GDPR. Brands and marketers need to have a way to ensure that when a subscriber chooses to stop getting emails from you – either partially or altogether – he or she gets removed from whatever list they were on, and that they don’t get emails related to that list ever again.

Few things in digital marketing irk me more than going through the hassle of subscribing from someone’s list only to continue getting daily emails from them.

A suppression list is your list of ex-subscribers who have unsubscribed. They were previously on one of more of your lists, but took steps to opt out. Having a suppression list will help prevent accidental correspondence in the future.

Existing Subscribers

One bit of good news is that you do not have to re-qualify your existing EU-based subscribers. Your existing relationship and their engagement as members of your list falls under legitimate interest.

A Buyer’s Right to Be Forgotten

Say goodbye to your fattened database of old contacts that used to do business with you. Article 17 of the GDPR covers the Right to Erasure (right to be forgotten). In addition to your subscriber having the right to unsubscribe from your list and be completely removed from your database, GDPR also has a built-in “necessity” factor, which can make remarketing a little tougher. The regulation states:

“The data subject shall have the right to obtain from the controller the erasure of personal data concerning him or her without undue delay and the controller shall have the obligation to erase personal data without undue delay where one of the following grounds applies:

• the personal data are no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which they were collected or otherwise processed;”

The GDPR requires brands to tell data subjects what they can expect to receive via email.  Article 17 goes on to say that once that task is fulfilled (i.e. the person has received your digital book or 30-day email course, or whatever promise you made), you should delete the buyer’s personal information from your database. That means regularly purging actual buyers from your list, OR having them opt-in to your newsletter separately after the purchase.

Why not during the purchase? Well, to make sure the newsletter subscription and the purchase decision remain separate, so it doesn’t look like you roped someone into an ongoing relationship when they were only trying to buy your lipstick.

Data Protection By Design and Default

I want to conclude with this: Every element of GDPR that I’ve talked about thus far has been in an effort to support Article 25 –  Data Protection by Design and Default.

Data protection by design and default means taking an accurate assessment of what information you need, why you need it, and the length of time for which it is needed BEFORE collecting personal data. It means that even before the very first interaction, you have procedures in place to protect your subscribers’, followers’ and prospects’ personal information.

Data controllers must be able to demonstrate that at every instance of data processing you are actively adhering to this core principle of data protection by design and default. Data controllers must implement technical and organizational measures that ensure personal data is protected during collection and processing activities. Not doing so can trigger those hefty non-compliance fines I talked about in the first post.

So, you must ask yourself and your team the question: “Is there a less intrusive way for us to accomplish this?” And then, “How do we keep this person’s data private and secure?”

That end is what the General Data Protection Regulation seeks to accomplish.

*    *    *    *    *

Wait! We have a disclaimer!

On behalf of the fine folks here at TheShelf. com, it must be said that we are not lawyers. Please do not consider this post legal advice. If you are dealing with GDPR issues, or joining the rest of the digital world in the mad scramble to become GDPR compliant, you should seek appropriate legal counsel to assist you. Also, while GDPR has far-reaching impacts the world over, this particular post is geared toward our North American readers.

Do you want to work with influencers in 2018?

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How to Use Facebook Dark Posts for Greater Reach

With billions of active users logging on each day, marketing teams are constantly uncovering new ways to boost their efforts on Facebook. One growing trend is the use of “dark posts”. Their somewhat ominous title might be off-putting at first, but we promise – they’re not as shady as they might sound! And, since we had a few clients wanting to know more about the practice – we thought you might too. So here is our run-down on exactly what dark Facebook posts are, and how they can help build your business when used with influencer marketing.

What is “Dark Facebook”?

The term “dark Facebook” is sure to conjure up images of shady goings-on and underhanded techniques. (Or, if you’re like me, it conjures up images of Darth Vader sharing selfies). But, thankfully, this isn’t the case. In fact, these kinds of posts are an increasingly popular way to help streamline your page’s feed and target your posts more effectively. Let us explain.

Why is it called Dark Facebook?

Simply put, dark Facebook posts are posts that haven’t been published on a page. See? We told you they weren’t so scary. In fact, even though we now call them “unpublished posts”, “dark posts” used to be their official name. I’ll give you three guesses why they changed it.

Despite their sinister name, there really is nothing wrong with using these posts as part of your Facebook marketing strategy. But wait, I hear you cry, how can unpublished posts do anything for my page?

The benefits for your business

On Facebook, you can leave a post unpublished, but still spend some money to promote it to your chosen audience. While this may sound strange and unnecessary to some of you, it can actually be a great tactic to keep your feed streamlined, and your posts targeted.

Using dark posts can be incredibly beneficial if your target audience exists in fairly distinct segments. Say, for example, you work globally and have an audience in various countries, with a range of different languages. You don’t want someone coming to your page and seeing the exact same post repeated in five different languages, do you? That would just look messy and unorganised.

In these kinds of situations, using something like “dark posts” allows you to send out these targeted promoted posts, without spamming your entire audience with unsuitable content. Instead, you can create a selection of posts, adjust each posts target audience, and promote them to the right people. Campaigns like this are much more likely to bring you a greater ROI than any kind of blanket marketing posts.

How to use “Dark Posts”

I’m guessing that, as a social media marketer, you’re probably already fairly familiar with the inner workings of Facebook’s pages and ad manager tools. But, even if you’re not, creating these dark posts is still pretty simple to wrap your head around.

Step one: Log into ad manager

If you’re running a page on Facebook, and don’t already use Business Manager to keep it in check, drop what you’re doing and go fix that. Then, log into the ad manager section ready to create some dark posts.

Through the hamburger menu in the top left corner, select “Page Posts” under the “Create and Manage” menu. Then, from here, select the “Ad Posts” option from the left-hand side, and finally, click on “Create Post”.

Step Two: Create Your Post

You should now be greeted with a pop-up window where you can create your post just like you usually would. You can add images, video, links – the whole shebang. So go on and create your awesome Facebook post to bring in those leads and link clicks.

Then, you have two options for how you want the post to be used: “Only use this post for an ad”, or “Use this post for an ad. It will also be published on the Page later”. Selecting the first of these two options will make your post a “dark post”, and reserve it for ad status only.

Step Three: Using your “dark post”

Finally, you want to go into Ad manager and create your marketing campaign. Set the budget, target audience, and duration as you normally would. When you get down to choosing the content you’ll be using, you can simply select “Use existing post” and your recently created “dark post” will be sitting there waiting for you.

It really is that simple and easy to do, and there’s nothing shady about it!

When to use “dark posts”

We already touched a little on why “dark posts” can be beneficial for your business, but let’s delve a little deeper into when and how you should be using these in your marketing campaigns.

A/B testing

“Dark posts” are fantastic for carrying out some good, old-fashioned A/B testing. With these hidden posts, you’re able to discreetly test which image, copy, or incentive works best for your audience, without clogging up your feed with multiple versions of the same post.

With this method, you can test for the best creative, best targeting, and best posting time – without anyone even noticing what you’re doing. Perfect.

Local targeting

Having the ability to only show your posts to certain segments of your audience is an awesome way to carry out some local market targeting. Let’s look at a couple of examples of why this can be a good idea for your business page.

Your audience is global – In this instance, you might only want to run your ads in certain countries, languages, or timezones. People in the UK aren’t likely to care about your special weekend event in China, are they? Using “dark posts” can help to avoid this problem by only showing your post to the relevant local audience.

You want to run a store-specific campaign – Maybe one of your cafes baked too many carrot cakes and you need to run some kind of discount to get the stock sold. You don’t want to have to reduce the price at every store, so you run a “dark post” to only target customers of your selected store. Enabling you to sell your extra stock without costing you money.

Hiring new staff

When you need to hire new staff for your business, Facebook can be a great way to attract newapplicants. But, you don’t want to bore your fans with news of your HR endeavours, so using “dark posts” can be a great way around this. You can also be a little bit sneaky and retarget people who have visited your careers page to redirect them back to applying.

Using Facebook’s targeting features, you can make sure to attract the cream of the crop by showing your posts to people already in the industry with great experience. In other words – your ideal candidates.

Different audience segments

Most marketing teams will already be working with specific audience segments when targeting their promoted posts. But, with “dark posts” you can take this a step further. By only showing your posts to your chosen audiences, rather than to everyone who follows your page, you’re able to use that targeting even more effectively.

For example, if you’re a clothing store running a big blowout summer sale, you can create ads that showcase your crop tops and platform shoes to the fashion-obsessed millennial customers, your smart shirts and work shoes to the 30-something professionals, and your yoga pants and sports shoes to the wellness lovers. Working with this kind of super-specific targeting means you’re likely to see better click-through rates than traditional posting.

When NOT to use “dark posts”

While they can be an amazing marketing tool, as with anything else in the digital world – they won’t work for every brand or every campaign. There are a few instances where using “dark posts” won’t be the best path to take for your brand. So, let’s explore these together.

Limited budget

If you’re working with a pretty limited budget, then you’ll probably already know how vital it is that you put your money into the most effective channels out there. As “dark posts” have to be run as ads, you are going to need to spend some money on them for them to be effective. Especially if you’re hoping to use them to run some A/B testing.

If your budget is really restricted, then your money is likely going to be better spent on a traditional influencer marketing campaign, as you know they’re going to bring you in higher reach and engagement rates than you can achieve on your own.

Time Constraints

Creating effective “dark posts” requires time. They aren’t being posted to your feed, so they are in addition to the usual social media posts you will be creating. This means extra work, extra manpower, and extra time.

You will also need to have the time to dedicate to tracking and analysing these posts once they have gone live. There’s no point in running any kind of marketing if you’re not tracking the results. This is especially important if you’re using “dark posts” for A/B testing. You need to be able to dedicate the time to really dig deep into the results of your testing to determine which worked best. So, if you’re short on time right now – dark posts probably aren’t for you.

How it works in Influencer Marketing

While dark posts can be an effective for your own brand’s digital marketing, teaming these posts with an influencer marketing campaign can help to bring in an even higher ROI. Of course, we’re pretty big fans of influencer marketing here at The Shelf – it’s what we do after all. And, using the two methods together can be a fantastic strategy for your brand.

Niche targeting

If you’re working with an influencer who has an audience that spreads across more than one niche, then using dark posts on their page can be a great way to get the most out of your partnership. This way, you can be sure that your brand is being seen by the best segment of their audience to bring in the best results.

For example, if your influencer straddles both the fashion and travel niches, and your brand is all about travel luggage then this method could be perfect for you. They can design an ad that specifically targets their travel audience and help you reap the highest rewards for your brand.

Post Sponsorship

Unfortunately, Facebook doesn’t currently allow brands to directly sponsor an influencers “dark posts”, but this is easy enough to work around if you plan for this from the start. In your initial agreements with your influencer, you should be clear that you wish for them to create a “dark post” and that the budget for the promotion is included in their fee. This way, they can create and sponsor the post directly from their own account, and help you reap the rewards of using a “dark post”.

But, what about the algorithm change?

Of course, like any other social media platform, Facebook is constantly updating and changing its algorithm. If you read our article on the latest Facebook algorithm change, you’ll know that business pages are being targeted especially, and that it’s led marketers to explore new strategies to bring in results.

How it affects “dark posts”

Thanks to the ever-growing trend of “fake news” and the recent revelations surrounding the outcome of recent elections, Facebook has been forced to take steps to make the platform a safer, and more reliable place for its users.

This includes changes to how marketers can utilise “dark posts”. While you can still use this method to just target specific audiences, people can now choose to see all of your published ads – even the dark ones. There is now an option for users to see all the ads your page has run, whether you published them to your page or not.

This is unlikely to affect how marketers use this method in their campaigns, but it does mean that spying on what the competition is doing with their own marketing is now easier than ever. Now, you’ll be able to check in with what your competitors are doing on Facebook, and use this information to adjust your own strategy.

The algorithm change and your feed

The biggest change brought around by the algorithm change though, was that business pages were seeing their reach drop significantly once more. It is now more essential than ever before to spend some money to promote your posts and reach a higher percentage of your audience.

So, now that Facebook is becoming much more of a “pay-to-play” platform, “dark posts” are likely to grow in popularity as marketers realise how effective they can be at targeting and influencing specific audiences.

Dark posts on other platforms

Facebook doesn’t get all the fun when it comes to dark posts though. This form of marketing magic exists throughout the world of social media. And, while Facebook may invented them – they’re not the only ones who are using them anymore.

Instagram

Every ad that you post on Instagram is technically a dark post – and you don’t need to do anything special to create them. All ads posted on the photo-sharing platform only show up as ads – not in your actual feed.

These dark posts will look just like any other Instagram post, but will also contain a small “Sponsored” tag at the top, as well as a call to action button of your choice at the bottom. You have the same kind of freedom as you do with usual posts too. You can post images, videos, a carousel, or a Story. You also have a great selection of targeting tools to work with including location, interests, and behaviours.

And, because Facebook owns Instagram, those “dark posts” you create on Facebook can be instantly shared in the same here over on Instagram. Making the whole process super easy for you!

Twitter

While the term “dark posts” has never officially been used over on Twitter – they do still exist here as “ promoted only posts”. Much in the same way as Facebook, you can create tweets that will only go out as ads, and only be shown to your chosen audience.

These tweets will not show up on your profile, and will only be shown to the audience you chose through targeting. They will also appear in the same style as any other tweet, but will have a line that says “Promoted by [brand name]”. Other than that, everything is the same, and users can like, reply, and retweet it like any other post.

LinkedIn

And finally, you can also create these “dark posts” on the professional network, LinkedIn. Here, they are known as “direct sponsored content”. Again, they work in pretty much the same way as they do everywhere else. The posts won’t appear on your company page, only in the feeds of your chosen audience.

And, when it comes to choosing an audience, you have similar options to other social networks too. Here, they call it “audience matching” and you can select demographics such as job level, location, and age.

While many blogs are touting the end of dark posts thanks to new transparency measures introduced across social media – as far as we can see, these posts will continue to be a great way to promote your brand online. So, the next time you want to run a super-targeted ad, split test your creatives, or keep your local audience in the loop – why not consider running your own dark post campaign?

Come join the dark side. We have conversions.

Here’s a Neat Little Timeline Chronicling the History of Influencer Marketing, from the Chicago World Fair to Social Media

For over 100 years, marketers have been cashing in on the power of influencers and brand advocates to promote everything from pancake mix to cigarettes to umbrellas. Of course, the world of influencer marketing looks different nowadays than it did in the late 19th century, but its principles are still pretty much unchanged.

How Do We Define Influencer Marketing?

So, all this talk about the 19th century has probably got you scratching your head in confusion. Instagram didn’t exist back then, so how could influencers even be a thing? Well, influencer marketing isn’t tied down to operating solely on social media – that’s just where it’s ended up in recent years.

Who are Influencers?

In simple terms, an influencer is someone whose opinions are trusted by those that follow them. They could be a celebrity, a blogger, a sport personality, heck – even the Queen of England is technically an influencer!

They are the people who, when they say how awesome something is, you want to listen, and you want to try it, too. They can be trusted because how that product fares in terms of sales, makes no real difference to them or their lives. They don’t directly benefit from the success of the product. They just get paid – in one way or another – to talk about the product.

If you’re still unsure of exactly what an influencer is, we have an awesome guide that describes it in the easiest way possible (even an 85-year-old Grandfather understood what we were talking about!), so go check that out and then come right back. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is when brands utilize influencers to promote their product, instead of doing it themselves. Ninety-two percent  of consumers trust reviews and recommendations from friends, family, existing customers, and trusted advisers (like influencers) over corporate ads.

Brands leverage influencer marketing as a way to forge inroads with new prospects and customers faster. When they’re on their game, influencers can significantly shorten the sales cycle, increase engagement, drive sales, increase basket size, and deliver measurable sales lift, according to the Forbes Agency Council. At the end of the day, trust and authenticity beat a clever sales pitch every time.

1890 Welcomes a Pioneering Influencer You Still Buy From Today

Now that we’re all down with the lingo, let’s travel back in time to when the first influencer (that we have on record at least) appeared in the media. Let me set the scene – it’s the end of the 19th century (no, really – it is), and advertising has slowly moved away from its reliance on neighbor-to-neighbor word-of-mouth. Newspaper print ads, posters, and catchy slogans are starting to become the norm. For the first time, brands were actually telling the consumer what to buy.

One brand though, didn’t just want to rely on a few well-chosen words in the papers, they wanted a face for their brand that people could trust and believe in. And so, Aunt Jemima was born.

Aunt Jemima

The Davis Milling Company was one of the first companies – if not THE first company – to introduce an influencer into their marketing efforts. This influencer was called Aunt Jemima, a jovial woman with a big grin who appeared on all their packaging and advertisements, even to this day.

To further personify their brand, they brought in Ms. Nancy Green to act as a real-life Aunt Jemima for the company. Ms. Green continued to play this role for over 30 years, until her death in 1923. There have since been a string of different women hired to portray the now well-loved character, with the last making appearances as late as the 1960’s.

Even today, Aunt Jemima pancake mix and maple-flavored syrup remain a staple product in many kitchens across the country. I’d say she’s one of the earliest examples we can find of influencer marketing in modern history.

(Image source)

A Royal Endorsement

While Aunt Jemima may have been the first real influencer that we know of, even before she came along, one person was influencing the buying habits of their loyal followers – the King of England.

In the 1760’s, King George III endorsed the pottery of Josiah Wedgwood, giving it his royal stamp of approval. Mr. Wedgwood used his newfound “celebrity” endorsement to advertise and sell his products. The King’s endorsement boosted Wedgwood’s reputation above that of other potters who were in the market at that time. To this day, Wedgwood pottery is a popular and trusted brand – all thanks to influencer marketing.

Influencer Marketing Gathers Speed

As we head into the early 20th century, we begin to see more and more brands adopting influencer marketing and cashing in on its ability to appeal to the general public in a way that traditional advertising just couldn’t do.

Sports stars started to become linked to products and brands at this time, more so than any other type of celebrity. For the most part, household names like Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb were chucking in their lots with tobacco companies across the country – and cashing in some pretty hefty checks to go with it.

Coca Cola and Christmas

But, arguably the most famous influencer of them all was first utilized in the 1920s,and that somebody was Santa Claus. Coca-Cola began including Santa in its holiday print ads, except with a twist. Before Coke’s 1930s marketing campaign using Santa as their silent pitchman, Santa Claus usually showed up in drawings, marketing collateral, and art work looking more like an elf than the jolly patron of joy we see today.

Artist Fred Mizen first painted the  bearded, cherub-faced, Santa we know and love today. And he was drinking a Coke when he showed up on our radars. Needless to say, Coke used Mizen’s rendering painting of Santa for years to come, and essentially reshaped our idea of Santa.

Now, while Santa was, of course, already a pretty big name before Coca Cola came along, they harnessed his popularity so well, that even today whenever we see Santa, it’s the Santa Coca-Cola sold us in the 1930s.

Coca-Cola transformed a typically strict character into a truly jolly fella, who both children and adults could fall in love with. People became so invested in him as a person that it wasn’t uncommon for arguments to arise over his lack of wedding ring, or the way he wore his belt – he was an influencer alright, and one of mega proportions at that.

Brand-created characters

With the success of Aunt Jemima and Santa Claus, many brands began creating their own characters to act as advocates and influencers for their products. Building your own character meant you had total control over their image and how it represented your brand.

While these characters were owned by the businesses themselves, they gave a friendly face to big corporations, making them more approachable and trustworthy in the eyes of the consumer. This is one of the core benefits of influencer marketing. Characters like Kellogg’s Tony the Tiger have been around for nearly a century, and and still doing grrreat!

(Image source)

The 20th Century Births Celebrity Endorsements

As we enter the middle of the 20th century, celebrities begin to have larger followings, and a stronger image around the world thanks to TV, radio, and ease of travel. From the 1950s right up to the turn of the century, celebrities were key to great marketing campaigns.

The Marlboro Man

In the 1950’s, one of the biggest figures of the decade first appeared on billboards and in newspapers – the Marlboro Man. Played by a string of various actors right up until his demise in 1999, he was the tobacco company’s attempt to make smoking more “macho”.

(http://www.firstversions.com/2015/02/marlboro.html)

They were showing customers that if they smoked a Marlboro cigarette, they could be just as cool and manly as the Marlboro Man himself. This is when we began to see advertisers leaning towards selling “lifestyles” rather than products, and celebrities were the perfect way to do just that.

Big Names, Big Brands

As the 20th century rolled on by, you would be hard pressed to find a big name brand that wasn’t linked to a celebrity influencer in some way. The age of the celebrity influencer was truly upon us. And it wasn’t just actors, singers and sport personalities that were getting in on the action. Even former president Ronald Reagan became a spokesperson for Chesterfield Cigarettes.

Fast forward a few years and you have the likes of Tiger Woods promoting Rolex, and Britney Spears, P!nk and Beyonce all sipping on Pepsi cans on the TV. The bigger the celebrity was, the better.

(https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/news/447960/as-jls-say-their-final-farewell-20-things-we-will-miss-about-them/)

There was even a big surge in celebrity product collaborations, where the influencer was taking the partnership a step further by creating their own versions of products under existing brand names. The more unusual examples of this would be Rihanna creating her own umbrella with British company Totes after the success of her number one single “Umbrella”.  British boy band JLS produced their own brand of condoms with Durex.

Why CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENTS WORK

Celebrity endorsements were not all that new though. The first record we have of this kind of partnership is Fatty Arbuckle in 1905, a silent film actor, who worked to promote Murad Cigarettes. But what had changed was how prevalent these celebrities were, and how popular they became.

Everyone wanted a slice of the glamorous and exciting life that these celebrities seemed to lead. And, since most people don’t have their own penthouses and private jets, sometimes a Pepsi would have to do.

And so, whether it was cigarettes, umbrellas, or potato chips – if your favorite celebrity said they liked it, who were you to argue?

The Digital Age, Bloggers and the Rise of the Internet

The 2000s gave us a brand new millennium, and a brand new world for marketers to explore – the internet, and another avenue by which brands could affordably market products to the entire world.

In the last 20 years, technology has essentially made our grandparents’ way of life virtually unfathomable.

Imagine how long it takes to thoroughly research a topic using a physical card catalog in a library – an actual box with little cards in it, each card containing the title, author, and publication date of a book.

My world comes to a screeching halt just thinking about it. Today’s marketing is about being where your prospects are, and that takes speed and spokespeople. But today, the focus is shifting from traditional celebrities to regular people called “influencers” – these are bloggers, vloggers, and social media superstars we know, love, follow, and can relate to.

The Old Spice Man, Man!

One of the biggest and most successful campaigns of the first decade of the 2000s was led by the marketing geniuses over at Old Spice. The campaign capitalized on their recognizable brand character by creating personalized videos and sending them out on social media to celebrities and “regular” people alike.

(Image Source)

All in all, they shot 180 videos, and combined with real-time responses to fans on social media, the campaign was a roaring success, and one of the first examples of an advert going “viral”. Campaigns such as these help to pave the way for the world of influencer marketing as we know it today.

Bloggers and Brands

With the internet democratizing influence in a way that we had never been seen before, bloggers began to grow into more than just whispered voices on dark corners of the internet. In the early 2000’s, the first “mommy blogs” started to take shape, and by the end of the decade, they were securing big brand partnerships with readerships to rival traditional magazines and newspapers.

These “real” voices gave people a fresh take on brand recommendations, and started to take over from celebrity endorsements as more and more people began to use social media in their daily lives.

 Influencers in 2018

Where celebrities were celebrated for being iconic, untouchable,  and over-the-top Influencers wield sway because they are accessible and relatable. Influencers are content creators themselves, and owners of their own personal brands. We’ve gone a step beyond what the bloggers of the early 2000s did for influencer marketing, and switched the focus even further away from traditional celebrities.

The power of social media

Thanks to the growing popularity of social media platforms, influencers have been able to carve out a market for themselves to act as brand ambassadors for their favorite products, and help businesses get their respective messages out to the people who matter.

With everyone and their dog on social media nowadays (literally, their dogs – 10% of Millennials 18 to 24 years old said the would buy a product promoted by a famous pet), businesses have long been trying to crack the mysteries of social media marketing. But, with all the constant algorithm changes, oversaturation of the market, and new platforms popping up left, right, and center – it’s not all smooth sailing.

Influencers have found a way to harness the power these social networks can provide, and have built engaged communities who listen to their opinions, and follow where they lead. When brands began to notice this, partnerships began to blossom, and bottom lines began to soar.

A new breed of celebrity

But, celebrities aren’t giving up their influencer status without a fight. In fact, this golden age of influencer marketing has seen new breeds of celebrity start to appear and infiltrate our online world.

It’s no longer enough to be a great singer, model, or actor – you also need be great at social media. Some celebrities really can do both, with people like Selena Gomez being the most followed account on Instagram, as well as an accomplished singer and actress, who works as a multi-brand ambassador.

(Image Source)

We have also seen the emergence of a type of celebrity who has built their career on the back of social media, rather than by traditional means. Kylie Jenner, for example, may be a successful makeup mogul now, but her ever-increasing social media status is what has enabled her to build her business from the ground up.

“Internet famous”

With this new wave of influencers, a new phrase has been created – “internet famous”. If someone is internet famous, then they have built up their notoriety, their following, and their business, solely through the power of the internet and social media.

These are people like Lilly Singh – a YouTuber with over 11.9 million subscribers who works with Coca Cola, or Kiersten Rich – a travel blogger who consistently works with high-end hotels and resorts around the world, and everyone’s favorite feline Grumpy Cat whose adorably angry appearance landed them (and their owner) brand partnerships with cat foods, clothing lines, and soft toys.

These influencers are more approachable, and more relatable than your average celebrity, as people have seen them grow their accounts from nothing, to where they are today. Just like the talent shows we see on TV, they give people the sense that they too could do that if they really wanted to. They give people a lifestyle to strive towards that isn’t too far out of reach.

The Future of Influencer Marketing

Since the first occurrence of what we consider to be influencer marketing in the 1890’s to today – the landscape has changed dramatically. We’ve gone from relying on the seal of the king to relying on the word of a total stranger whose only claim to fame is having nothing to gain by telling us about his or her own personal experience with a brand. So, where will the future take the world of influencer marketing in the years to come?

influencers are becoming MORE essential

We briefly touched on this before, but many social networks are trying to weed out all the noise, and help us focus on the people we know, rather than what businesses are trying to sell us. Algorithm changes like this make social media marketing much more difficult for brands, with their reach being cut down year after year.

Influencers on the other hand, seem to be reaching more and more people as these changes take place, and users are looking for real voices to cut through all the advertisements they are bombarded with everyday.

And, with 30% of internet users predicted to be using ad-blockers before the end of this year, marketing teams need to find more organic and engaging ways to share their brand message with the public.

Market saturation?

One concern that many have though, is whether the world of influencer marketing will soon become oversaturated with more and more people trying to make a living from their social media profiles.

But, what we need to remember, is that even small micro-influencers have some serious clout when it comes to marketing. First, let’s be clear: Becoming an influencer isn’t really that easy.

Even if there are a million legitimate people who qualify as either niche, micro, macro, mega, or celebrity influencers (it’s actually closer to 2 million accounts that qualify as influencer accounts, but we’re being modest to eliminate those with fake followers and unengaged audiences), there are 2 billion Facebook accounts and 799 million other Instagram accounts run by people who follow at least one of the 1 million influencers. Two in three marketers say finding the best influencer for their campaign is one of their biggest challenges.

And so, while we may see more and more people trying to break into this market, if they continue to bring brands the results they want – there’s no need to worry just yet.

Well, there you have it! Influencer marketing is not a new concept by a long shot. As consumers, we’ve been influenced to buy and invest in products by other people for well over 100 years. And, while we may have advanced from the days of Aunt Jemima, to the days of Kylie Jenner – the concept remains the same. Using people the public trust to promote your brand.

If you want to work with influencers in 2018, you’re going to need a strategy

The Shelf is an influencer marketing company that designs and implements the highest performing campaigns in the lifestyle space (fashion, beauty, mommy, food, travel, home, DIY, health, and fitness). If you’re reading this post and wondering how to use Snapchat, Instagram, IGTV, Facebook and YouTube to breathe new life into your social media marketing, we’ve got you covered. Sign up for a demo to get your custom proposal.

Get Started Today!

Or give us a quick call : (212) 655-9879

 

Influencer Marketing and the New Facebook Algorithm

In a lengthy post early this year, Mark Zuckerberg announced how he would be changing up Facebook’s news feed algorithm again and started a rush of panicked meetings by digital marketing teams across the globe. Once again, Zuckerberg has adjusted his platform in such a way that brands and businesses are going to find it even harder to reach their target audience than ever before.

How the Algorithm Has Changed

Everyone in the world of digital marketing will remember the earth shifting algorithm change that hit Facebook in late 2016. Both Facebook and Instagram limited businesses reach to just 30% of their following on average, and did away with the chronological news feed we had all come to know and love.

And, it is safe to say, people were NOT happy. They were now having to sift through old posts to find out what was actually happening in their friend’s lives, and missing important information thanks to Facebook not deeming it worthy enough to sit at the top of their feed.

Marketers too were annoyed, as their carefully crafted posting schedules no longer had quite the same effect as they once had, now that Facebook might not even show their post to their followers until much later in the day (or week).

Before this change, social media marketing was a very different landscape. It was practically the promised land. Free promotion that was easily seen by hundreds and thousands of people was on offer, and a platform that would share your content to the masses,  whether it was text, photos, links, or videos that you wanted to be seen.

But, once all that changed, marketers had to get smarter. Reach dropped suddenly for their pages, and their organic content was no longer delivering the results it was before. Promoting posts became more popular, and influencer marketing sparked more than a little interest on Facebook now, too. The landscape of social media marketing had changed significantly.

So, what’s different this time?

Focusing on people, not products

Even more so than before, the platform is shifting its focus away from business pages and giving more airtime to individuals and personal connections. Pages will see their already struggling reach statistics drop even lower, unless they change up their strategies once again.

Remember the good old days of Facebook when all you really saw were pictures of your aunt’s last holiday, and updates on your friend’s new baby? Well, it seems that Zuckerberg has a touch of nostalgia, as he tries to steer the platform back to it’s slightly annoying, but very personal, roots.

Fighting Against “Fake News”

One of the main reasons for this shift is the rising world of “fake news” and how it is constantly plaguing our personal news feeds. It’s long been known that anyone can post anything they want online, but as these kind of “news” stories keep gaining traction, they have been fuelling much bigger issues than ever before.

By limiting the organic reach of pages, and prioritising personal pages, Zuckerberg hopes that this will help to filter out a lot of that noise for its users. So hopefully we’ll hear less about how Texas is actually a part of Mexico, pardoned turkeys being killed on Thanksgiving, and Radiohead getting confused when their audience started clapping – shame.

The Impact on Traditional Social Media Marketing

Facebook is still the Godfather of all social media with over 2 billion monthly users currently active worldwide, so this change is definitely going to affect the majority of social media marketing departments out there. Thomas Drew, Social Media Strategist at BLKBOX said recently “I expect more paid ads, less organic posts from brands, and more influencer marketing partnerships with mega, micro, and nano influencers”.

So, while this may be a kick in the teeth for many marketers, those that have been leveraging the power of influencer marketing for some time will be able to smirk behind their stats a little longer.

Page reach

The new focus on personal content means that business pages are going to see another huge drop in reach this year. It would seem that if brands are wanting to promote their own products on Facebook, then organic posts just aren’t going to cut it anymore.

While some of the bigger names on Facebook will already be highly proficient with sponsorships and promoted posts, even smaller names will need to read up on this if they want to get ahead. It’s no longer enough to simply post good content and hope that it will get seen.

Zuckerberg even mentions that the love affair the platform was having with video content is coming to an end as well. So cancel that video editing course you signed up for, and start delving deep into the world of Facebook advertising instead.

In the money

As we’ve mentioned, the need for investing in promoted content has never been higher than it is right now. If your brand didn’t start strategising in this area after the last algorithm change, you might end up falling behind in a drastic way.

Learning how to effectively utilise Facebook’s inbuilt post promotion tools will soon be part of the essential framework for any social media marketing campaign. We’ll go into this in more detail later in the article. But, take it from us, content isn’t king anymore – at least not in the way it was before. That crown has been passed down to it’s more expensive successor – sponsored content.

Influencers on the rise

Even more so than before, the power that influencers hold on Facebook will rise exponentially. Right from the start, influencers have always been people first, and brand ambassadors second. And, with these changes to how users will see content on their news feed, the necessity for influencer marketing will skyrocket.

Power to the Influencers

No matter what niche an influencer is in, they will have developed a style of content and communication that resonates with their followers. They are creating the kind of meaningful conversations that Zuckerberg is so crazy about. Their ability to reach their followers will continue to grow under this new regime, and if you’re not already utilising them, you’re going to be left behind in the dust.

Even more valuable than before

Since the first algorithm change in 2016, the popularity of influencer marketing has been going from strength to strength. Influencers offer businesses a way to reach not only their current audience, but also a whole new one among the influencer’s followers themselves.

Now that organic reach for businesses is dropping, finding these new followers is only going to be possible by investing real capital into their social media marketing campaigns. The choice though, lies in whether to invest this capital in promoted posts, or influencer marketing (or both – but we’ll get to that later).

Sparking meaningful conversations

One of the reasons that influencer marketing has been so successful in the past is the genuine connection they hold with their followers. Their community is fully invested in their opinions and what they have to say – they trust them.

It is this superpower that is going to propel their value throughout this algorithm change. They are able to offer brands something that they simply cannot do on their own – reach and engage with people through Facebook.

Just take a look at this live video posted by an influencer called Laura Clery from when she was working to promote a new game. The video received nearly 500k views and encouraged over 8k people to interact with it – pretty impressive.

https://simplymeasured.com/blog/the-beginners-guide-to-influencer-marketing-on-facebook/#sm.00000bzniatz0jf3axlvop1tq47s7

https://www.facebook.com/laura.clery/

People first, brands second

While influencers may be expert content marketers and brands in their own right – they have always been, and will always be, people first. Because of this, their reach will not be affected in the same way that businesses will, and they won’t be hit as hard by the algorithm change.

Facebook is putting even more emphasis on engagement now, and posts that foster and build some kind of discussion are going to shoot up people’s news feeds like no-ones business. Using an influencer to spark these conversations about YOUR brand is how you’re going to get your product seen in the new age of Facebook.

The algorithm will also start recommending content it thinks it’s users will like, and these recommendations will be based on the engagement levels of posts. Having a partnership with a successful influencer will therefore give your post a better chance at being picked by the algorithm and getting seen by more people.

Paying to Play

We’ve touched already on the fact that Facebook is no longer a free platform for businesses to grow their brand on – and honestly, it’s been going this way for years now. At the end of the day, Facebook is a business too, and they get their revenue from brands who invest in ads and post promotion. So, if they want to encourage more brands to invest so they can up their own revenue, all they have to do is limit how far businesses can grow organically on the platform.

And that’s exactly what they’ve done.

What is a boosted post?

A boosted post is created in the same way as any other post a page might put out on Facebook. The difference though, is that you then invest some money so that Facebook will show the post to more people for you. There are a range of metrics you can include to help make your money go further.

The platform currently offers different types of promoted posts that can help you achieve more website visits, post engagements, or page likes. You can also select your desired target audience using categories such as age, gender, location, and interests.

Have you ever seen an ad on Facebook that freaked you out because you were SURE the Z-man must have been spying on you?! This is a perfect example of a brand really using their targeting metrics to full effect. In the same way that you wouldn’t partner with a 17-year-old influencer to market anti-aging products, you need to make sure your promotion audience targeting is on point.

When to use them

Before the algorithm change, this section would have read very differently. I would have advised that everyone should at least try promoting a post to see what kind of reaction they got. Now, it’s all but essential if you’re looking to grow your presence on Facebook.

The art of boosting posts and running ads on Facebook would take a whole other article (at least) to really get into the nitty-gritty details of an effective strategy. But let’s take a look at the main points to consider for now.

1. How much capital do you have to invest in your social media strategy? If your budget is more limited, running a dedicated Facebook ad may well be out of reach for you. Promoting one of your posts is a much more cost-effective option.

2. Is your post good enough? No matter how much money you pump into promotions on Facebook, if your content isn’t top-level, ground-breaking, engagement inducing magic; it may well be a bigger drain on your resources than you might think. This is where utilising influencers, and their skill for content creation will really come in handy.

3. Is Facebook where your audience is engaging with brands? Really consider if Facebook is where your target market is spending most of their time. Depending on your brand, content, and following, you might be much better off investing your cash in promoting content on Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of considerations you must bear in mind, but it should give you some food for thought. We’d also recommend reading more about this here, here, and here to get a better understanding of how the process works.

Influencers + Promoted Posts

One tactic that can dramatically increase your ROI is to use both influencer marketing and promoted posts in conjunction with one another. Since mid-2017, Facebook made the process of boosting an influencers post even easier for brands. Making a move like this so close to their big algorithm change tells us that the platform is really trying to encourage the growth of influencer marketing on Facebook – at least for now, anyways.

Why promote?

You may be thinking that if you’re already investing your money in an influencer marketing campaign, why should you then invest even more to promote their post? Well, the simple truth is that your own page is no longer going to be bringing in the leads that you need – whereas influencers posts will.

By promoting their posts, you’re getting their genuine, engaging content out to an even larger audience than before. You’ll be utilising their own network of followers, as well as people who haven’t discovered them, or your brand, yet.

And, while influencers won’t see as dramatic a drop as businesses will in terms of reach and engagement, there will still be some changes. Boosting an influencers post will help to remedy this, and keep your campaign going strong. In this new era of pay-to-play marketing on Facebook, brands can no longer afford to be tight with their budgets.

How does it work?

In the past, the only way to boost an influencers post was to first share it on your own brand page, and then promote your own post. While this wasn’t exactly difficult to do, it did result in a rather clunky looking post, as you can see in the example below.

https://sumo.com/stories/free-traffic-facebook

https://www.facebook.com/TOMSunitedkingdom/?brand_redir=8416861761

https://www.facebook.com/CoffeeWithSummer/

But, due to the changes brought in mid-2017, this whole process has now been streamlined. Influencers can now tag the brands they are partnered with in their posts, and give those brands permission to boost their post directly. No more sharing needed. The influencer simply has to tick a box, and away you go.

https://digiday.com/marketing/influencer-marketing-facebook-get-expensive/

Thanks to this change, if your brand decides to boost your influencer’s posts now, it will look much more professional, and will make the post much easier for followers to read and engage with.Just take a look at the example below, which places the old and new methods side by side:

https://marketingland.com/facebook-lets-brands-promote-publishers-influencers-posts-ads-221805

https://www.facebook.com/JaspersMarket/

The Future of Facebook

Facebook was first launched 14 years ago, (anyone else feel old now?) and it has seen more change in the last two years than in the rest of the platform’s life combined. We would be incredibly naive to think that there won’t be more changes on the horizon for this social media Megatron.

But, what those changes will be remains a mystery, even to the most in-the-know digital marketers out there. The best we can do is speculate. But, even those speculations seem to be spelling out trouble for social media marketing campaigns as the platform, and those related to it, continue to box marketers into a very expensive corner.

Even more regulations?

Despite influencer marketing currently being the golden child of marketing on Facebook, there’s a good chance that the platform may eventually place more regulations on how influencers operate, and how many people see their posts.

If Zuckerberg is implementing all these changes in the hopes of stopping “fake news” in its tracks, and bringing more personal, and less branded content, then will influencers be next in line to feel the sting of lowered reach? Where will they draw the line on what constitutes “personal content”?

If this is the case, marketers will be finding themselves investing even more money into their campaigns, or just maybe, they’ll start shifting their focus away from the platform altogether.

Instagram to follow

As we all know, Instagram has always been hot on the heels of it’s big social media brother, and these recent changes won’t be any different. Already, business accounts have seen a drop in their organic reach compared to personal accounts, and sponsored content is creeping more and more into people’s news feeds.

But, as the real powerhouse home of influencer marketing, what kind of effect will changes on this platform have on the industry as a whole? If Instagram starts to restrict business accounts in the same they’re restricting pages on Facebook – even influencers may begin to struggle to really get their voice heard. Which is – you’ve guessed it – bad news for marketing teams, and their budgets.

As digital marketers, we all need to keep our ears to the ground, and keep pushing the envelope with our strategies. For now at least, it seems pretty clear that influencer marketing is an investment worth making when it comes to Facebook. If you’re looking to delve into your own influencer marketing campaign, get in touch with us today, and we can help you find the best voices to shout about your brand online.

Do you want to work with influencers in 2018?

The Shelf is an influencer marketing company that designs and implements the highest performing campaigns in the lifestyle space (fashion, beauty, mommy, food, travel, home, DIY, health, and fitness). Sign up for a demo to get your custom proposal.

Get Started Today!

Or give us a quick call : (212) 655-9879