As with any relationship, working with influencers is about mutual respect. Influencers posting with a sensitivity for your brand and campaign goals; likewise, it’s important for the brand to respect that the influencer will not want to break their relationship with their audience. Naturally an influencer will be very careful about the content they share and the brands they choose to work with to make sure they’re aligned with their values and the audience they have spent the time to carefully craft. This is so they can protect the relationship they have with their followers that’s built on trust and transparency around commercial interests. This is where influencer content authenticity comes in.

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Transparency

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It can be easy to forget there’s a person at the other end of the screen and the reality is consumers are getting savvier. People are very aware of the high profile failures that occurred in the early days of influencer marketing, which at the time felt like a bit of a black box. As a result there was a greater demand for transparency, which social platforms reacted to by explicitly indicating when content is sponsored. This move not only helped protect audiences but was also good news for brands who could access the engagement data and legitimised influencer marketing as a category. It’s important to continue the transparency mindset, learning from the past mistakes, which is why influencers will make a point to caveat recommendations, disclosing where there is a commercial incentive.

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Curation and Identity

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Beyond more openly declaring commercial interests, a big part of effective influencer marketing is an understanding by brands that an influencer’s role isn’t solely about distributing content to audiences but also curating the right content. Posting content that does not fit their profile identity will leave audiences feeling confused - it will feel inauthentic and ultimately won’t resonate, which means less impact in terms of engagement and performance metrics for the brand. For the influencer, it also affects their repeat engagement rate for future campaigns and their credibility. However, an influencer with a strong sense of identity who develops mass appeal for their ability to cut through the noise of online information and can deliver a reliable stream of content which resonates with their community, will also mean more successful campaigns for the brands they do work with, since the influencer’s audience will be more loyal and engaged.

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Relatability and the Personal Touch

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The benefit of influencer marketing is you can bring a more human touch to your marketing. It’s for this reason that many prefer recommendations from accounts they follow online versus traditional advertising. At the end of the day, people love stories, and an influencer who can relate to your brand pulling on their own personal experiences is the foundation of a genuine endorsement. This means your campaign will resonate more with people if the influencer genuinely likes and believes in you as a brand. A lot of this comes down to influencers being given a level of creative freedom to put their own personal touch on the content. Not only does it create a more successful campaign but it’s an opportunity to bring fresh ideas to your brand’s online presence and open up to different creative perspectives than your own. It also, means not having a prescribed script - the devil is in the detail after all, and it’s the nuanced “takes” and oddly specific details which are best received by their audience who have come to value their unique perspective.

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Allowing for Honest Opinion

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An influencer’s followers trust their opinion and so it’s important when they’re sharing your product or service to their audience that they are allowed to share their honest view. People can quickly become sceptical of an overly positive review or post on a brand and worse than that, if they suspect the influencer is being dishonest in their posts, they will feel like they’re being manipulated. The result, is it can then reflect poorly on your own brand by association, and you’ve now got a collection of people who are less likely to buy from you in the future. Of course, if an influencer has a negative view of your products, then it’s best not to pursue the collaboration. However, a bit of honest critique within an overall positive review will feel more real and is more likely to resonate with people online.

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In summary, to deliver a successful influencer marketing campaign that feels authentic requires trust in the influencer you decide to collaborate with (whilst maintaining certain guidelines in place to make sure the campaign also feels authentic to your company’s brand). It’s important to trust that they know their audience and what will deliver you the most engagement. A healthy level of respect should also be maintained for the person on the other side of the screen who will see your campaign - making sure not to distribute content which manipulates or seeks to influence buying decisions in a dishonest way.

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Image Credit: Rodion Kutsaiev on Unsplash