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Social Media Influencers: Part B

So here’s the polar* opposite of the first poll I ran on Linked on the topic of ‘influencers’. (see PART A, the previous post to this.)

Part A took a look at the downside of using social media influencers. 

Part B, this one, took a look at the upside of using social media influencers.

Here are the poll results:

Question:

Which do you think is the most positive factor/most likely outcome when using top social media influencers to market your product, B2C?

Answer(s):

1) Increased Reach & Visibility 71%

2) Authentic Engagement 29%

3) Targeted Marketing 0%

4) High-Quality Content Creation 0%

(Of course, this is all quite clear in the graphic above, but worth trotting it out here too.)

Here’s what I am seeing:

  • The level of response among my LinkedIn community was not as strong as it was for PART A last week.  Perhaps one of the reasons is that people thought it was the same poll running for a second week, and didn’t pick up on the fact that it was a PART B! And I didn’t get the same comment engagement as before, I assume for the same reason. I’ll have to give more thought to ‘differentiation’ for my posts in the future. I really should, because that’s what my business is all about!
  • The previous observation notwithstanding**, the response had some validity in that they skewed hugely toward the first two options, and especially towards the first.
  • The third and fourth choices Targeted Marketing and High-Quality Content Creation (which is primarily the purview of the influencer, since they are getting paid handsomely, usually), didn’t got a look-in. 
Which leads me to think, or even conclude, that the first thing marketing leaders think about when considering an investment in an influencer (and this includes the time invested in courting them!) is the slingshot, or buckshot, effect of an influencer’s seed spreader. (I do so love analogy and metaphor, so I do.)

 

So this might lead me to conclude that it’s not so much the market quality of an influencer’s following that matters most. It’s the quantity.

Food for thought.

  

*no pun intended.. well, actually, yes intended, I can NEVER resist a pun. 
**one of the finest words every coined, I use it wherever it fits!