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PR Trend: Influencer Marketing

“Influencer marketing” is the modern day equivalent to celebrity endorsements, a marketing tactic that’s been around for decades. These days, partnering with Instagram stars and YouTube phenomenons is a whole new way to advertise.

“Influencer content may be framed as testimonial advertising where they play the role of a potential buyer themselves, or they may be involved as third parties. These third parties can be spotted either within the supply chain (retailers, manufacturers, etc.) or among the so-called value-added influencers (such as journalists, academics, industry analysts, and professional advisers)” –Wikipedia

What’s the Difference?

The difference between celeb endorsements and influencer marketing is the idea that the campaign is a “collaboration” between the brand and the influencer. Everyone benefits from the deal. More of the brand’s products are purchased, while the influencer gains a few hundred new followers.

“YouTuber PewDiePie teamed up with the makers of a horror film set in the French catacombs under Paris, creating a series of videos in which he underwent challenges in the catacombs. It was pitch-perfect content for PewDiePie’s 27 million subscribers, and received nearly double the views as the movie’s trailer. Everybody won.” –Influencer Marketing

Another main difference between the two is the accessibility of influencers. These social media masters can be anyone– from a makeup guru to a gaming star on YouTube, there are more influencers populating the internet than ever before, and they’re often looking to be sponsored by brands.

YouTuber Zoella

Pros:

The benefit of this type of advertising is the humanization of a brand, which leads to an increase in sales. Influencers speak directly to their fans with their content, often personalizing their relationships with followers through interactions on social media. And what’s better than buying a product that your favorite YouTuber endorses? People want to buy products that are supported by the people they admire and trust.

  • “In a survey, 82% of consumers said they were highly likely to follow a micro-influencer recommendation on a product or service.
  • 71% of marketers say the quality of customers and traffic from influencer marketing is better than other sources.”

-HubSpot.

Another pro of influencer marketing is that it allows you to target the exact audience you are trying to reach. According to Grin, “This is the reason why most apparel brands prefer to collaborate with fashion influencers and beauty or skincare brands prefer to work with beauty influencers. Because it helps them reach an audience that’s likely to be interested in their offerings.”

Cons:

It’s important to find the right influencer to represent your brand. According to Brand24, “There are some rare cases when influencer marketing campaign backfired. Either the influencer profile didn’t suit the brand, the content was ill-prepared, or there was some other type of social media crisis.” If the wrong influencer is given temporary power over your brand and it goes wrong, this can be extremely detrimental to your business and its image as a whole.

There are pros and cons to everything, especially this new concept of influencer marketing. I’m curious to see it develop further in the world of PR and advertising.

The AM:PM PR Hall of Fame: 1D World

As a new member of the team at AM:PM, I’ve been reading up on the agency’s past clients and projects. I recently came across this fun 2013 campaign, and I was so impressed by it! So, without further ado, I hereby conduct AM:PM’s 2013 1D World Campaign into the agency’s official Hall of Fame. 🙂

In 2013, one of the most popular boy bands in the world, One Direction, embarked on a massive tour around the U.S. and Europe. Although hitting many major cities along the way, naturally the guys couldn’t stop everywhere. To satisfy disappointed “Directioners,” the 1D pop-up shop, known as “1D World,” was born. With this temporary store, super fans would have the opportunity to snag an array of  merch and immerse themselves in the 1D experience, even without the band there to perform.

Because Portland was one of the skipped cities, it was chosen as a test market for the pop-up shop that would open in June of 2013. The 1D World store hired AM:PM PR to generate local buzz among fans leading up to the opening, plus maintain interest during the two weeks the store ran.

The Band

One Direction were an English-Irish pop boy band based in London, composed of Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik. Simon Cowell formed and signed the group in 2010 after the guys competed on the British singing show, The X Factor. 1D has won around 200 awards over the years, completed four world tours, and ranked as the second highest-earning celebrities in the world. When the band announced their hiatus in 2015, they broke millions of teenage girl hearts.

In short, they’re a pretty big deal.

Photo by The Daily Mail

1D World: The PR Plan

AM:PM used a combination of media relations, social networking engagement and strategic advertising to execute this campaign.

Location: Pioneer Place Mall, downtown Portland.

Date: June 8th, 2013.

Target audience: Young females, (“Directioners”) ages 9-17.

Objectives:

  • Attract fans to wait in line on opening day.
  • Generate fan buzz on social networks before the store’s opening and through the duration.
  • Increase followers on Facebook and Twitter for 1D World.
  • Earn media coverage for the store opening.
  • Encourage fans/customers to share their experiences online.

Goal: Show fans that this pop-up store offered a special experience provided by the band itself.

Media Coverage

AM:PM invited media to attend the grand opening of 1D World to witness the remarkable reaction of fans. The Oregonian covered the announcement of the pop-up shop and interviewed fans outside of the store on opening day. AM:PM also partnered with Portland’s Top 40 radio stations to provide tickets to the 1D concert in Seattle and gift certificates to the pop-up shop. Fangirls across Twitter freaked.

Social Media

AM:PM interacted with Portland’s 1D fans on Twitter, offering early entry store passes to five dedicated Directioners with the most followers. They also mentioned the prizes fans could win while in the store, like signed merch.

In order to maintain excitement through out the two weeks the store was open, AM:PM created in-store posters inviting customers to share pictures online of their shopping experiences at 1D World. AM:PM also created a FB/YouTube contest encouraging fans to create music videos using the band’s tunes. This increased online buzz significantly as video entries flooded YouTube.

Research

  • Facebook and Twitter were the most popular social media platforms at the time of this campaign.
  • 1D regional fans on Twitter were hungry for any 1D-related news, gossip and tidbits, and were eager for 1D to visit Portland. (There were a ton of videos on YouTube of young girls begging for the boys to visit.)
  • The main radio stations in Portland for 1D fans were Radio Disney, Z100, and The Buzz.

The Challenges

  • AM:PM was contacted about this campaign in May of 2013 with a plan to open the pop-up shop the following month. This gave just 15 days of planning.
  • The opening day of 1D World was the same morning as Portland’s annual Rose Festival Parade. Media would be preoccupied, and the street in front of the mall would be closed off. Crowds would be difficult to draw.
  • Much of the merchandise sold at 1D World would be available at other stores and online for half the price.

The Outcome

The morning of June 3rd 2013 was insane. More than 100 screaming fans lined up for the store’s grand opening beginning at 7 a.m. The Rose Festival wasn’t going to stop them. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram all blew up, resulting in an increase of Facebook interactions by 5-fold for the client. 1D world flooded with teens and tweens through out the day, all ecstatic to pose with life-size cutouts of the boys and buy a variety of 1D themed jewelry, hats, calendars and t-shirts. The campaign was a success.

“Being older than the demographic, I completely underestimated the draw of a 1D pop-up store. When our first tweet announcing the  store spread like wildfire, I started to remember what I was like as a super fan of Duran Duran. Engaging with these fans ended up being one of the most rewarding efforts we’ve undertaken. Their excitement was contagious, and when I saw the line of kids and their parents who arrived hours before the opening, I couldn’t help, but to adore them even more.”

-Allison McCormick, AM:PM Co-Founder

The Spotlight Award

AM:PM PR received an award for this campaign at the 2013 PRSA Spotlight Awards! PRSA recognizes skillfully executed PR campaigns locally and internationally each year. AM:PM’s viral social networking/ media outreach campaign, executed just fifteen days before the store’s opening, earned them this award.

Digital Detox Time

My Self Prescribed Digital Detox

Facebook. Twitter. Snapchat. Instagram. Pinterest. Facebook. Snapchat… This is the endless cycle I find myself repeating for hours every day. At 24 I am CONSUMED by media. If I’m not on my phone looking something up then I’m on my laptop scrolling through endless content. I can’t escape cyberspace. More often than not social media is flooded with either horribly painful news that makes me question the state of humanity or doctored up photos that makes me question what I’m doing with my life and how I look. It’s exhausting and draining to be consumed by such a beast, and it’s not slowing down anytime soon. I need a digital detox.

“To remove social media from my life would be like cutting off a appendage that is poisoning me, I know I should do it, but I can’t bring myself to.”

I grew up in the early 90’s, which means as I emerged into adolescence and adulthood so did the monster of the internet and the boom of social media. At this point for me and my generation, social media is an extension of us and our personal brands. To remove social media from my life would be like cutting off an appendage that is poisoning me, I know I should do it, but I can’t bring myself to.

So how do you not let the internet consume your life? Digital detox.

It would be foolish to tell you to completely cut yourself off from your phone. But detoxing can be another solution. Like we detox toxins from our bodies we also need to digitally detox and clear our minds from the constant stream of information. Why? The average person spends four hours a day on their phones. Along with that shocking statistic another is that the average American checks their phone over 150 TIMES A DAY unconsciously! As someone who works in media and loves to be in the know detoxing seems like a near impossible task for me. It led me to wonder, how do you start to consciously unwind yourself from the constant need to know what is going on while still maintaining your online presence?

Some ways I try to detox social media from my life:

  • Delete negative people. Like spring cleaning your house, cleaning out your social media gives you a chance to take into stock what you really want to see and eliminate accounts that cause negative feelings.
  • Put your phone on airplane mode. By doing this your phone is still on but the need to check your notification disappears by not allowing any notifications to pop-up until you turn this mode off. This takes away the sometimes constant nagging need people have to check their phones.
  • Turn your phone off for an hour a day. By turning off your phone it becomes more of a hassle to turn it back on and check social media than to just scroll through your notifications with it on. Try doing this a few times a week and see if it makes a difference for you.

By the end of your digital detox you should be feeling refreshed and a little more at ease!

Why is everyone talking about Snapchat?

marcus harvey at AM:PM PR speakeasy

Beyond Pavlovian Behaviors: Social media Owns You

What if you spent hours, days, weeks, months curating a perfectly branded social media profile, and one day it just disappeared with no explanation?

That was an intriguing story shared earlier this month at our Speakeasy event with Portland entrepreneur Marcus Harvey.

You may recognize Harvey as the successful entrepreneur behind Portland Gear and Creative|35 and curator of the @Portland Instagram handle. His fascinating story was first reported in detail at The Oregonian and the article inspired us to invite him in for the Speakeasy event.

marcus harvey at AM:PM PR's Speakeasy

Weeks after the event our team found we were still discussing the one story he shared that wasn’t an example of his remarkable success – his acquisition of the @LasVegas Instagram handle.

Harvey said that he followed the same strategy curating the Las Vegas account that he did in growing the @Portland handle (now with 102k followers). Once he identified and acquired @LasVegas, he began a regimented effort populating the account with carefully curated, branded content – exactly as he’d done with the Portland account.

Then one day he woke up and the @LasVegas account was gone.

He tried contacting customer service at Instagram, of which there is none. After various creative attempts to reclaim the account, including the use of an attorney, he gave up and resigned himself to the reality that @LasVegas was gone. He still doesn’t know exactly what happened, but surmised that it may have resulted from his effort to operate the account from a Portland IP address.

Regardless, it was a startling reminder that when it comes to social media, as professional content curators, we own nothing.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram – all of them. They brought our social profiles into this world, and they can take us out of it.

Have you, dear reader, had any similar experiences with social media?

AM and PM discussing Comcast's damaged reputation

AM:PM PR Chiming in on KGW-TV’s Comcast Story

 

After a cringe-worthy customer service call with Comcast went viral on the interwebs, KGW-TV asked AM:PM PR to talk about what it could mean for all businesses with customer service. AM:PM co-founder Allison McCormick spoke with Channel 8’s Joe Smith about the power of today’s customers and how businesses should be thinking about every customer touchpoint.

 

New Data Demonstrates Teens Not Abandoning Facebook

The following article, found at www.convinceandconvert.com was too grand not to share with the AM:PM PR audience. It shows that despite the preponderance of teen ire directed at the platform, “teens not abandoning Facebook.” Facebook hasn’t lost favor with our most emotionally maligned members of society. In fact, teen usage is up. For more read below or visit: www.convinceandconvert.com.

* * * *

There have been innumerable posts and articles about how Facebook is no longer “cool,” or as important to teens as it once was.

Frustratingly, however, much of the speculation I’ve seen regarding this has been based either upon anecdotal evidence, or upon research that isn’t projectable to the population of teen Facebook users.

So, I decided to take a look at some hard facts. According to our most recent public data release (The Infinite Dial 2014), Facebook is currently used by nearly 80% of Americans 12-17 and 18-24. In fact, articles that trumpet Facebook’s lack of growth with these demographics are missing the point—Facebook is nearing its practical limit with young Americans.

Figure 1 New Data Demonstrates Teens are Not Abandoning Facebook

Now, it may or may not be true that Facebook is no longer “cool” with teens (a question Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t appear to be the least concerned about, by the way). I would submit that this is the wrong question. Think about the other services and mobile apps that teens and young adults use—how do you think they are logging in to them? Facebook’s “helpful” management of our identities for services like Instagram ensures that for millions of people, Facebook is the plumbing for the Internet. And while there may indeed be teens quitting the service, every minute someone new turns 13 and signs up for an account.

A Facebook account is the new driver’s license. Getting one isn’t cool—it’s what you can do with it that is.

Those who believe teens are leaving Facebook in droves should also consider this stat—the average number of Facebook friends per demographic:

Figure 2 New Data Demonstrates Teens are Not Abandoning Facebook

So, to be clear, when we say that teens are abandoning Facebook, we are saying that they are willing to leave behind a network that averages 500-600 people, with no easy way to replicate it elsewhere. Cool? No. Plumbing? Yes.

Finally, it may in fact be a valid observation that teens are using the service less. But here is what I can show you—we asked Americans 12+ who have a profile on Facebook how many times in the last 24 hours they checked their Facebook page (either via desktop or mobile.) Here’s what they told us.

Figure 3 New Data Demonstrates Teens are Not Abandoning Facebook

What this graph tells us is that teens on Facebook check their accounts an average of eight times per day. Is this a lot? Well, I can tell you that when we asked this question in 2012, the average for teens was six times per day. Teens lead the pack in terms of frequency of usage, and that frequency is increasing, not decreasing. What else do Teens do eight times per day besides eat?

I will note that the rise of mobile Facebook access and the concomitant use of a smartphone’s notification system to take the place of an actual Facebook page visit may have cut down on the actual time spent with the service—but there is no credible data extant to suggest that, yet. And again, let me stipulate that Facebook might in fact be “less cool” than it used to be.

But for millions of teens across America and in many parts of the world, Facebook is the single most formidable brand in the world—and that’s unlikely to change in the short term.

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This article was written by Tom Webster and originally appeared at convinceandconvert.com.

About Tom Webster (Twitter)
Tom Webster is Vice President of Strategy for Edison Research, a custom market research company best known as the sole providers of exit polling data during US elections for all the major news networks. He has nearly 20 years of experience researching consumer usage of technology, new media and social networking, and is the principal author of a number of widely-cited studies. Webster also has a deep background in research in both media and entertainment research, and has conducted the largest-ever segmentation study of music and lifestyle preference in UK history. He writes about these topics and more at BrandSavant.com.