8 Months in, 8 take-aways

I joined The Fifth on Tuesday 17th March 2020, the evening prior I received a message from my new boss saying there had been a change of plan, we were to be working from home indefinitely. It has been an unusual 8 months to say the least; thankfully made a whole lot easier by joining a company with a wonderfully supportive and positive culture. 

I am only 8 months in and by no means an expert but I have loved the process of learning a new category within the advertising industry. Whilst many of the broad principles of advertising apply, I have learned that influencer marketing is a specialism that is nuanced and idiosyncratic. In no particular order, here are my my 8 take-aways from my first 8 months in influencer marketing:

1. Influencers have talent. Which is why of course, we often call them ‘talent’. They are admired, followed and respected because of their talents. An influencer without talent wields very little influence.
2. Influencers are humans (virtually all the time!). Which is to say that they are not a line on a media plan, a corporate identity or a publisher. Overlooking the art of building trusted long-term relationships with talent is a mistake.
3. Matching talent with brands is an art. Yes, of course you need the technology to identify and verify influencers and their audiences. The time and the value, however, is in matching talent with brands. What is going on in their lives, what are their values and where do their passions lie? The skill lies in spending the extra time to get the perfect match between brand and talent because in the end, the results won’t lie. It's worth saying that if you're executing a campaign that requires in-depth storytelling (as a creative influencer agency we know this only too well), talent identification is even more critical.
4. Influencer marketing is broader than you might think. The breadth of clients and the variety of KPIs we have worked towards has shown me that influencer marketing is relevant more often than not. Think of an influencer as simply a person of influence. With that definition then there isn’t a demographic that can’t be reached. Side Note: The discovery of ‘granfluencers’ is a personal highlight of the past 8 months!
5. Influencers are not commodities to be traded. Life would be a lot easier if there was a universal ratecard benchmarked against a metric the media world already understand such as ‘active followers’ or ‘real reach’. However that is to forget the other 50% of an influencer's value within a campaign and that is as a content creator. The end result may only appear to be a couple of still images and a few sentences, however behind that ‘simple’ execution lies years of craft, of trial and error, of building communities and of understanding exactly what type of content and messaging will resonate. And of course as we know, every brief is unique. 
6. The holy grail is proving effectiveness, which is hardly an earth-shattering insight I admit! Like many of our fellow influencer agencies we are constantly developing proprietary metrics and measurement techniques to demonstrate the unique power of our industry, However, the holy grail is comparing influencer activity to other media channels which can’t be done alone. Clients need to ensure that influencer marketing gets included in their broader econometric modelling, brand trackers and so on, if we are to compete for the biggest budgets.
7. Agencies as long-term business partners is essential if we're going to be able to answer the big questions like effectiveness. Shopping around for the best ‘deal’ or the best ‘idea’ campaign by campaign is limiting. A retained agency will help you solve some of the bigger business challenges your company faces in the long term. Advertising agencies have a seat at all of their clients’ boardroom tables and that is our ambition too.
8. We need to grow up and unify as an industry. There are so many misperceptions when it comes to influencer marketing - big and small. If we are going to get anywhere close to realising the huge potential it has to offer, then, as an industry we need a united front in whatever form that takes. The quality of the work coming out of the top influencer marketing agencies in the UK right now is fantastic (and only getting better), we need to champion each other and our industry to help it realise it’s potential sooner rather than later.