• Relevance: Although influencers are working with advertisers more and more, the vast majority of really successful influencers do this in a way that retains their authenticity: they will not “spam” followers to the detriment of their own brand. Influencers who always ensure that there is a strong overlap in what benefits the brand and what serves their followers maintain high levels of relevance.
Basically, when brands look to select influencers for their campaigns, they do not only look at the total number of followers an influencer has. Joe Scott explains that “every brand is different. Some are looking for the right influencer that matches their brand’s values. Some are still looking for sheer numbers. When we build the profiles and personas for a brand campaign, we typically prioritise the following:
• Engagement: Median or average engagement rate.
• Audience: The influencer’s audience demographic. Does their audience match the demographic target we are marketing toward?
• Personal brand: Their look and feel. Does the influencer’s personal brand already communicate values similar to the brand’s? Is there authenticity behind their storytelling and how they interact with the audience? Is the feed stylised and/or consistent?
Exactly how to ensure you generate high engagement isn’t the only lifeblood of any influencer, though. You can certainly find inspiration, useful tips and constant learning opportunities in other places as well – radio presenters, TV producers, musicians and authors. They all spend their time creating content to inform, educate and entertain people.
Nobody does this with the expectation that their work will remain unwatched, unheard or unread. The whole point of the exercise is for it to be consumed. And you know what we really measure success by? Whether the consumer responds, in any way. Does the consumer change their behaviour? Do they tell a friend? Do they reply? Do they disagree and do they say so – on any platform? That is engagement and it is the name of the game, regardless of where or how you aim to inform, entertain or educate people.
Who am I to write this book?
You might have picked up this book not knowing much about me but rather because you’re interested in this topic. In fact, even if you do know who I am, I’m hoping that you’re here for the content, because this is why I wrote it.
In 2019 my career reached a turning point, but not the one most people would think of. I worked on two World Cup tournaments, across two different sports, for two massive global governing bodies as a digital presenter and producer: the International Cricket Council (on the 2019 ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup in England and Wales) and World Rugby (on the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan).
From the outside it might have looked as if I had scaled up – I was working for truly global content platforms for the first time. This is true, at least in part. But what I really learnt from the experience was how these organisations leverage the appeal of their sport and, indeed, the appeal of live sport (the most real reality television on earth) on their digital platforms, and how they use a four-yearly event to take massive growth leaps in a matter of weeks.
In both cases, the teams I worked on saw their analytics return amazing results. We set well-documented records in our coverage of both events and I’m incredibly proud of our efforts. It was thrilling, inspiring and absolutely formative. Not only did I gain a much larger and certainly more global audience, but I also started looking very differently at what I was doing on my own platforms.
I described it to many people as going on a paid digital marketing and brand development course: a kind of boot camp where everyone in the team hustles under intense pressure to apply every bit of knowledge and skill they have garnered in their career, testing their knowledge with a live, global audience every day, with metrics and analytics immediately available – a massive departure from the way TV and radio traditionally work. This was a major leap for me, from my traditional broadcasting background, which often relies on quarterly viewer or listenership figures, paid research and a fair share of anecdotal feedback.
What surprised me was that if I had to measure my work in 2019, according to what produced the most lucrative result, it wouldn’t be these massive events I got to work on – not directly, anyway. The value in both was certainly experiential: I built amazing networks, learnt many lessons and then, obviously, they also offered me great brand-building opportunities. But if one takes a closer look at the bottom line of Elma Smit, the business, what really paid in 2019 was social media. The sponsored content. Brands! My Instagram, Facebook and Twitter profiles generated a much greater return on investment than any of the radio, TV, event hosting or digital shows I delivered. You could argue that this was a direct result of the fact that it was the best year of my career, but it could also be argued that this was in spite of all my other activities.
The American thought leader and marketing guru Seth Godin is known for always emphasising that generosity is at the heart of content. At the end of 2019 I felt that this was truer than ever for me. When I returned to South Africa, I found myself telling people about the lessons I had learnt. Many who crossed my path showed an interest, even those whom I didn’t think would be interested in influencer and content lessons. Too often, we keep a firm guard up and we don’t share what we do and how, often enough.
On his blog, Godin writes:
We choose to be selfish because we feel insufficiency ... Like a drowning person, we cling ever tighter to the life buoy ... The
