Option 1: Social Media Post

Part A: A plan overview of the social media post. This should be a 1000 word (max) document detailing
the justifications for such a post, audience/segment for which the content is appropriate, why was the
particular platform selected, what is the general availability of similar content on similar platforms, and
justification of how your post provides something in addition to what is already available. Participants
can choose the headings of these points appropriately, but the report must address the aforementioned
factors in some detail.

Part B: Create and post the content on social media (min 500 words content, with additional multimedia
content as available). Add received feedback in the final report. A snapshot of the social media post and
a short summary of the impact (engagement, comments, etc) should be included in Part B (max 1500
words).

=====================================================================================

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6861648449343909888/

Part A:

Justification for the post –

Influencer Marketing

In today’s world, no business

can survive without marketing.
There are several techniques
and ways to formulate the
approach to align with the
marketing strategy. But one has
to follow the current trend to
survive in the competition.
These days, many influencers
are coming with their expert
opinions about a product or a
service. The influencers mainly
focus on building a group of
followers by consolidating useful
information from different
sources and handing them on a
platter to save them from the
effort and time takes to do any
amount of research on a
particular product or service. Depending on these reviews a consumer can decide what to purchase. So,
in a way influencer plays a huge role in swaying the buying behavior of a consumer. The revenue of a
business depends on the conversion of a customer. For a business, it is a critical question to build the
marketing strategy based on the effectiveness of the method. So, a discussion seems to be very
important to understand different perspectives of this new method. This post may be helpful to
understand the sustainability of this marketing method by revealing what people think about a
particular negative aspect of this new style of marketing.

Audience/Segment for which the content is appropriate

Influencer marketing involves a lot of expert opinions about a product or a service by providing intricate
details. The influencer marketers are mostly available on social platforms which target a specific group
of people who have digital literacy. So, a digital social platform would be an easy choice but the question
remains which particular digital platform. I was primarily looking for a digital platform that comprises
not only digitally literate people but also people who are practicing this particular method
professionally. If a response comes from a professional who is in the same business then the
authenticity of the response increases. This experiment also warrants responses from people who are
not a practitioner of marketing but educated enough to signify their response qualitatively by a proper
justification. It is also assumed that this post requires a basic amount of understanding of the nuances of
marketing. So, this post is intended for all types of groups of people.

Why the particular platform – LinkedIn is selected

The LinkedIn platform is meant for professional people who want to connect or interact with other
professionals. A significant amount of marketers’ presence is observed on LinkedIn. Almost all LinkedIn
users have a significant amount of digital literacy in terms of concluding just by self-searching online. To
be able to perform online research on a product or service and reach a conclusion is a particular
attribute that needs to exist in people who are to be exposed to this post. It seems that the users of
LinkedIn fit most of the mentioned requirements, so, the LinkedIn platform is selected to attract the
best pool of responders quickly.

What is the general availability of similar content on similar platforms

There are many contents easily available on influencer marketing. Many groups of influencer marketers
also exist on LinkedIn. All or most posts and groups talk about the possibility of growth using this
method and how to grow in this domain. But any post which talks about the nuances of this particular
method of marketing is hard to come across.

Justification of how your post provides something in addition to what is already available

All posts that I have come across on this platform fail to address the sustainability of this particular
method. Sustainability is probably the most important item that needs to be addressed for business
growth. If a method is not sustainable itself then it is difficult to grow a business with the help of the
method for a long period. This post intends to bring another perspective that is not discussed often even
on this podium.

Part B:

The post did not garner a significant amount of responses. But the responses are enough to explain
what is the overall understanding of people about the mentioned topic. The post triggered responses as
below –

Total views – 511

Total number of likes – 16
Total comments - 5

Total response statistics:

The percentage of like per total views

= (16/511) = 3%
The percentage of comments per
total views = (5/511) = 0.98%

Active Response statistics:

The percentage of likes per total

(comments + likes) = (16/21) = 76.2%
The percentage of comments per
total (comments + likes) = (5/21) = 23.8%

The post was designed in such a way that “Likes” would be considered as “agree to the post” and
“Comments” will be considered as “do not agree to the post”.

From the results, it can be easily concluded that not many people participated actively, but the people
who had active participation sided with the conclusion of the post.

This post brings the negative side of the latest marketing trend – Influencer Marketing. Social platforms
are the tools that are primarily used by these influencers. It is so natural that influencers by profession
and professionals who take care of the marketing aspects of a business and work with influencers shall
refrain to participate in such a strong post. This post is intentionally made strong just to understand the
response it can trigger or not. It seems that professionals are very reluctant to take a side when it comes
down to drawing a distinct line between two different and conflicting notions. Marketing is called more
of an art than science, so, marketing falls under the purview of a grey zone where drawing a distinct line
would not be a wise thing to do. For practitioners of this art, it is better to keep everything under the
veil rather than taking a side with a very clear explanation and exposing the real face hidden under the
veil. A business can’t survive without marketing and marketing is not possible without its arsenal. No
professional marketer would like to destroy a weapon from the arsenal willingly. This assumption could
be a possible explanation for drawing a smaller number of responses as this particular social platform is
full of professionals who are related to marketing by various means.

Some people do not ignore the importance of influencer marketing as one person clearly stated “So I
would take it with an enormous pinch of salt while taking any buying decision based on influencer
endorsements”. These people understand that ‘reach’ is an important factor for a business. There are
many ways to reach customers and influencer marketing is certainly one of them. Apart from the
‘reach’, influence marketing plays a big role in customer conversion. An influencer usually has a large
group of followers who believe in the authenticity of
the reviews about a product or a service given by an
influencer. Even though this group of people does not
disregard the importance of marketing, they certainly
understand the nuances of influencer marketing. One
responder stated, “Nowadays, we still seek the review
of the public even if it is promoted by the influencer”.
The responder is talking about the ‘word of the
mouth’ – which is another type of marketing. It is to
be noticed that people are quantifying the trust level
by attributing weightage. They simply put more value
to a user of a product than an influencer who can also
be a user of the same product. They may think that an
influencer may have a vested interest in promoting a
product. Another responder is attributing all the
problems to ethics and admitting that Indian
influencers are devoid of ethics. This response triggers
strong abjection towards the minimal presence of
ethics in Indian celebrities.

Some people have a strong opinion about “Influencer Marketing” as they are completely agreeing with
the post by hitting the like button. Influencer marketing requires a good amount of effort and time to
build a necessary and required trust level which can be exploited after. The crucial part is not just
building the trust and creating a good number of followers, but sustaining the trust. It is very difficult to
maintain trust if the trust is broken consistently. Without trust, this particular method would not work.
A group of people are completely ignoring this fact and voting against influencer marketing. They have
no problem calling all the influencer marketers as cheaters. It is to be noticed that highly educated
people or professionals may not take anything for granted when it is coming from others however
influential maybe those people are; educated people like to do their research before concluding. Finally,
it brings to the conclusion that marketing alone would not be helpful if the product quality does not
maintain the standard or does not cater to a need.
This research is certainly limited to a certain group of highly educated people or professionals. It can be
extended to less educated people or non-professionals to understand the impact of influencer
marketing on different groups.