Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Impact of
influencers in
today’s
marketing
Submitted by:
Kriti Bajaj
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to my mentor
Ms. Piyuja Sanghvi for her guidance and support in completing my thesis.
Then i would like to extend my gratitude to the Founder of the Medi18 for
helping me in giving the brief idea on influencer marketing. Then i would
like to thank Chandukaka Saraf team and Simran Poddar in giving me a
few crucial information regarding blogging and their views on it.
SUMMARY
Recent study shows on how influencers marketing is capturing the new
way of marketing and is so trending, on digital platform. This thesis
consists of a brief introduction on influencers based marketing with few
brands that are actively working with Influencers including the discussion
with the advertising agency on how the entire process of designing the
campaign to deciding the right influencer for the given project is done and
all the challenges they face while completing the campaigns and the
differences in types of bloggers and how do they decide which blogger to
opt for the given campaign. Then it also consists of discussion with the
bloggers supported by a questionnaire and a conversation with the
company on their viewpoints on opting influencers based marketing over
any other and traditional ways of marketing. This thesis gives you the
basic understanding about influencers based marketing and the future of
it.
TABLE OF CONTENT
S.No Topic Page No.
1 Introduction 5-6
2 Role of advertising agency 7-8
3 Campaign with CSJ 9-10
4 Campaign with Chymey 11
5 Brands working with influencers-Daniel 12-13
Wellington
6 Chandukaka & Saraf 14-16
7 Influencers view on Influencer marketing 17-19
8 Followers View on influencer marketing 20
9 Shift from Macro to Micro Influencers 21
10 Conclusion 22
11 Appendix 23-27
12 References 28
Amount Bloggers Charge
INTRODUCTION
Influencers marketing can also be termed as social media marketing where
the endorsements with influencer is done, who possess an expert level of
knowledge and influence in their respective field. Influencers marketing is
one of the most trending marketing strategies applied by today’s
organisation to market their product and to create desired image of their
product, by endorsements with the influencer which goes in sync with their
product line and the image the brand holds. Influencer based marketing is
widely used to promote the product in today’s marketing and plays one of
the most crucial roles in today’s marketing strategies.
Tracing back in history, Influencers marketing was started by Ted Murphy
the founder of IZEA and has been called as the father of paid blogging and
largely credited for influencers marketing industry. In 2006 he launched
PayPerPost.com, the first online marketplace that paid bloggers to create
content on behalf of brands. Before that influencers usually use to work
with the brands on the basis of Barter system.
Influencers can be classified into different categories on the basis of
numbers of followers they have on their Instagram accounts:
Mega - 1+ Million of followers
Macro - 200,000 - 900,000 followers
Midi - 50,000 - 200,000 followers
Micro - 10,000 - 50,000 followers
Nano - 800 - 10,000 followers
Influencers usually charges on the basis of the number of the followers
they have and they get paid on the basis of the per post and story they
share on their Instagram handle. But in some cases a few bloggers work
on yearly contract basis with the brands and is paid as per the terms and
conditions of the contract.
ROLE OF THE ADVERTISING AGENCIES
Advertising agency is one of the organised sectors, that acts as a bridge
between the bloggers and the brand to work for any given campaign.
Usually advertising agencies acts as a planner for a brand to design a
campaign and to suggest the right bloggers for any given campaign at
brands end, whereas advertising agencies helps the blogger to reach more
clients. Advertising agency helps in seamless execution and completion of
the campaign and also gives security to the brand of successful
completion of the campaign and gives security to the bloggers regarding
their payment for the given campaign from the brand.
In conversation with the Founder of media18 and his views on influencers
marketing he said it is one of the most leading platforms in today’s
marketing. As asked his views on IGTV one of the most trending platforms
for the bloggers. He said it is one of the strategies applied by Instagram to
break the market of the youtube and since, nowadays almost everything
can be done on Instagram from swipe up link to transactions, so IGTV is
one of the best moves done by instagram and yes it is working quite well.
On enquiring about the types of Industry working with the bloggers the
most, he said mainly fashion industry, the lifestyle and nutrition.
On asking ways through which they identify the perfect bloggers for the
given campaign, he said i depends on various factors firstly they usually
opt for one mega blogger, one micro and nano for any given campaign. On
asking reason being opting for this combination he said because since
mega bloggers are popular and have followers from different parts of the
world is one of the primary reasons, and opting for one micro and nano is
since they have less number of followers and have organic followers, so
they can get the maximum reach from them. On asking the ways to
identify if they have organic followers or not, and it’s being one of the
biggest sets back in industry as per the report shared by different websites
and news channels, he said yes there are few ways to find out if the
bloggers have organic followers or not, one of the ways are through online
channel, their is a website, socialblade that helps in giving the brief
information about the bloggers, the followers increasing rate through
which we can identify if the followers are organic or not and it also helps in
getting an idea of engagement rate of the blogger as well. On his views on
impact of fraud influencers on industry, yes social media is flooded with
Influencers few of them are even fake, but it is the bubble that is going to
burst after sometime and the bloggers with the best content is going to
survive in the market and yes few brands have now started cutting their
cost on influencers marketing. On asking his views on how we can identify
whether the given project with the bloggers are working or not. He said it
can be done in many ways, one of them is we can give the bloggers a
special coupon code with their name, and they can promote that in their
social media that users can get specific N% of discount on their next
purchase with that particular brand and this can help them to identify
whether their given project is working in favor of them with bloggers or not
by keeping a track on users using that particular promo code or amount of
traffic being generated from that particular link that bloggers are using.
In conversation with him he gave me a brief insight on how a campaign is
executed and made successful. Usually a brand gives the advertising
agency a brief idea on product and idea they want to promote. Then they
give them at least three ideas for the campaign with a brief description of
the activities they are going to do as well, along with that they also
suggest few bloggers that they can work with, including the entire profile
of the bloggers and reason being opting them for the given campaign.
Naina Ahluwalia - For Aadya Collection
Blogger during Valentine's day campaign
CHANDUKAKA SARAF AND SONS
Chandukaka saraf and sons jewellers is one of the leading jewellery brand
in Maharashtra. So since last year they have started with on Influencer
based marketing while keeping their traditional form of marketing still alive.
So, in conversation with them on asking them the reason behind coming
up with Influencers marketing campaign even after being quite popular in
Maharashtra they said basically the main reason to come up with the
Influencer based marketing campaign was to connect with the younger
audience, their product is quite popular among older generations but they
wanted to cater to younger generations as well. So, the main reason
behind coming up with Influencers marketing for them was to reach to
younger generations. On asking whether they prefer working with selected
bloggers on contract basis or experimenting with different on different
campaign. So, for this they said firstly they prefer to work with the
bloggers which goes in sync with their brand image and they opt for a
combination of mega and nano influencer, in which budget is one of the
primary reasons of them working with a combination of different types of
bloggers. Since their brand is quite traditional and their main clients are
elderly people and people from different villages from Maharashtra so they
prefer working with bloggers on the basis of the image they have and the
type of content they share that is in sync with their brand image. Secondly
they prefer experimenting with bloggers most of the time as per the
campaign. But yes, they opt for the combination of new and old bloggers
for their campaign.
On asking how often do they usually work with the Influencers they said
usually their some or the other campaign keeps on going. Usually in every
three months they try to experiment with something new. Like during last
Diwali they worked with few bloggers and then during Valentine's day they
did a campaign, since once again that day is very youth centric and is
popular among gen z, then they did the campaign related to friendship,
bond so they selected to well known bloggers aakriti rana and shaurya
sanadhya for the campaign since their friendship bond is quite popular in
this market and then they worked with bloggers during #iamaadya
campaign which was something related to social cause in which they once
again selected shaurya sanadhya as on of the bloggers. So, they work
with bloggers, influencers quite often and plus when they want to
experiment.
On asking how well is influencers marketing working for them, they said its
working quite well as they can see gen z is also getting aware of their
brand and the brand image that the gen z have in their mind is also getting
changed from assuming Chandukaka as a traditional jewellery brand they
are becoming aware that they have modern design jewellery as well. Plus,
with the help of blogger there last campaign also became quite popular
and became aware of the social initiative taken by the brand during the
campaign #iamaadya.
So, to sum up yes influencers marketing is actively being used by different
types of the brand and is working on their favor. Brands are working with
different types of Influencers in order to reach new audiences to create
awareness like in the case of Chymey and also works with them in order to
enter the new market like in the case of chandukaka. But yes, influencers
marketing is one of the most trending marketing techniques being adopted
and few brands like The Face Shop, Missa More Clothing, Daniel
Wellington, Nykaa etc considers influencers marketing as their main
marketing strategies in order to reach their target audiences.
Bloggers view on Barter system
INFLUENCERS VIEWS ON INFLUENCERS
MARKETING AND CHALLENGES THEY FACE
Nowadays social media is flooded with influencers. Everyday new
influencer is coming up and are entering the market. Where few bloggers
are quite whereas few bloggers are buying followers in order to promote
their pages. However this new marketing is becoming one of the most
popular career options and now is considered one of the most loving
professions among today’s youth.
On studying views different bloggers have on starting their own blog and
how they started getting works are. Akariti rana one of the well known
lifestyle bloggers with around 600k followers started blogging a few years
back. Earlier she used to post her pictures on instagram just for fun then
she started getting request from different brands after seeing her page she
started blogging. Earlier she used to blog on barter system basis where
brand used to give a free coupon or their product for the given project but
then eventually she started working with few brands like missa more
clothing on contract basis where she had to post pictures and work for the
brand with the fix amount on the yearly contract basis and reason behind
working with few brands on contract basis was to go a stability to her
career. So, that a fix amount is their that she is going to earn for her
livelihood. Then along with her friend she started her youtube channel
which worked quite well. She was one of the nominees of the
Cosmopolitan Influencers awards 2019 which was held a few years back.
Then there is one of the Micro blogger, she started her career a year back
on her views on why she started blogging was she used to dress up little
bubbly, she liked to experiment which gave her the Inspiration to start
blogging. On asking how her entire journey have been till now, she said
earlier since the major market was already captured by mega influencers it
was quite a difficult task, so earlier she used to work with start-ups,
designers from cities like Kolkata where Influencer marketing is still
growing. So there she used to work with few designers. On asking what all
challenges she has faced during journey as a blogger, she said one of the
biggest challenges for her was to work on barter system, since according
to her it’s totally unfair on their part to work on just barter system for their
project, where she is giving her entire effort, her thought process in
creating the Post. On asking her views on recent news of Influencers
purchasing followers, and highest of this being recorded in India. She said,
its something everyone needs to understand that at the end of the day
your content is that matters, if your content is good then you are going to
get the project. Whereas, if you are just buying the followers and your
content is not great, in the long run that won’t help you to reach up and for
the one if you are good, at the end of the day people are going to
approach you for the project. It's the bubble which will burst very soon
and the best ones are going to survive. On asking one of the best brand
she had worked with is Hyatt Regency, Pune and her overall experience
working with them was really good and the hospitality they gave was also
really good. On her views on type of content she prefer to post, she said
she prefers to post the contents that shows her viewpoints and she have
freedom to edit. On asking whether she gets more engagement rate on
sponsored content or the contents she posts. She said at times depends
upon the type of brand you are working with and sometimes she gets
more engagement on the post she share as, when the posts are being
shared without sponsored content, she have freedom to experiment with
the post and so it is more likely to be liked by the audience who like to see
something new and fresh.
So, to sum up we can say Influencers are also working effortlessly to give
the best post and results and since it is one of the professions which is
done with complete heart, and as a part of their interest, influencers tries
to give the best result to their followers.
FOLLOWERS VIEWS ON INFLUENCERS MARKETING
As per the survey done by me maximum people aware about the
Influencers based marketing belongs to the age group 19-28 and almost
everyone follows at least 3-5 bloggers from their Instagram handle. Where
Instagram is one of the most actively used applications by today's
generation followed by youtube. Where travel and fashion are the most
popular blogs followed by maximum number of people. (Appedix 1, 2,3&4)
Through this survey we can also say yes Influencer marketing is helping
brands to reach their target audience as maximum number of people
strongly agreed to the fact that they purchase the products, reviewed by
the Influencers that they are following. (Appendix 6)
We can say that the maximum number of people do follow fashion blogs
to get the trendy updates, to get an idea of the trends and what their
favorite bloggers are wearing and yes, it acts as a stage where they can
relate to bloggers, they can connect with them and they can understand
the fact that being trendy does not always state purchasing expensive
products. (Appendix 7)
In terms of the content that bloggers shares, maximum people feel that
they are authentic and they do appreciate the works that their bloggers
post. Maximum people states that in very rare case they have followed
bloggers for a giveaway, so we can say maximum bloggers who post their
followers like is merely because of their content rather than the giveaways
they provide. (Appendix 8 & 10)
On asking people whether they prefer watching bloggers video on youtube
or IGTV, which is recently being launched by Instagram had an equal
response for both the social media.(Appendix 5)
WHY INDUSTRY IS SHIFTING FROM MEGA TO MICRO
INFLUENCERS
Brands want to work more with Influencers with less followers rather than
working with the mega Influencers reason being they feel bloggers with
less followers more trustworthy and increase in number of fake followers
had also made brands to work more with Micro and Nano followers. They
even feel they have more organic followers and their reach is higher than
mega followers.
Micro influencers also helps the brands to reach their target audience.
Since they have specific set of followers and their content is more precise
than mega followers, who work with different types of brands and projects.
Since Mega influencers are quite expensive brands restrict themselves to
work with them. Plus, mega influencers are more like celebrities nowadays
so now there followers no longer sees them as a regular blogger and so
they are not able to connect with them which leads the brand to opt for
micro influencers where their target audience are able to connect with their
followers. Plus the engagement rate is much higher when it comes to
micro influencer than the mega influencers.
So, with this we can say brands are now getting more inclined towards the
micro influencers and want to work with them the most.
CONCLUSION
Summing up the entire thesis and as per the conversation, discussion and
study with the different parties involved in Influencers marketing we can
say yes Influencers marketing is actively happening and is widely accepted
by the audience to enter the new market and to increase brand
awareness. Even though recent research has shown that number of fake
influencers are also increasing but yes there are websites like socialblade
where the advertising agencies and brand can keep the track of the
Influencers they want to work with. Yes, since number of influencers are
increasing the competition among influencers are also increasing and so
this is one of the primary reasons for the brands to work with micro and
nano influencers is increasing as their contents are interesting, new which
might appeal to their audience and since they are micro influencers brands
believe to get maximum reach through them. Awards like cosmopolitan
influencers awards are also giving Influencers motivation, and changing
people's perception of blogging as a professional career option and is
being practiced. So, we can say yes the industry is changing people are
getting more acceptable with the contents. But, yes in order to stay in the
market bloggers also needs to work on their posts from time to time
APPENDIX
Appendix - 1
Appendix - 2
Appendix - 3
Appendix - 4
Appendix - 5
Appendix - 6
Appendix - 7
Appendix - 8
Appendix - 9
Appendix - 10
REFERENCES
https://blog.influencerdb.com/brief-history-of-influencer-marketing/
https://blog.influencerdb.com/brief-history-of-influencer-marketing/
https://blog.influencerdb.com/brief-history-of-influencer-marketing/
https://marketinginsidergroup.com/influencer-marketing/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-social-
media-influencer/
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/micro-influencer-marketing
https://www.businessinsider.in/Why-brands-are-turning-away-from-big-Instagram-influ
encers-to-work-with-people-who-have-small-followings-instead/articleshow/68799135
.cms
http://www.socialsamosa.com/2019/04/igtv-101-everything-brands-influencers-need-t
o-know/
https://econsultancy.com/why-influencer-marketing-is-still-a-winning-strategy-for-dani
el-wellington/
https://izea.com/company/leadership/ted-murphy/