COVER STORY


CORPORATE communications teams have many risks to consider in their daily and strategic work, but amongst them, have many considered those posed by social influencers? The issues raised by these major players in social media have been brought into sharper focus by the IPO documentation for mattress-in-a-box company Casper and online fashion company Revolve, where both cite social influencers as a potential risk. They suggest that influencers could pose a risk if


they failed to follow guidelines to prevent misleading advertising, if they posted negative reviews resulting in a damage to brand reputation or if they did not reveal their relationships with firms. ‘Social influencers are a risk to a


brand’s reputation in the same way a celebrity or a supply-chain partnership could be if anything were to go wrong,’ says Kinda Jackson, managing director of digital at communications agency Brands2Life. ‘If a celebrity says or does something horrific or even something just out of alignment with the brand’s target audiences it can trigger protests, boycotts and all those entail.’ Scott Guthrie, an independent


Within this, there is a small female bias, with 38 per cent of female Internet users of all ages being Instagram users, compared to 26 per cent of male Internet users. Andy Rivett-Carnac, partner at corporate


communications consultancy Headland, explains: ‘Using social influencers is a balance of risk and reward. Any influencer would say it is comparatively a lot cheaper to deal with or contract an influencer than take out a display ad or even a Super Bowl ad [rumoured cost $5.6 million for a 30-second slot] to get to a mass audience. And arguably, social influencers are more persuasive.’


People follow influencers


influencer marketing consultant, makes a similar argument. ‘It is an obvious point to make, but one worth making: social media influencers are humans rather than billboards,’ he says. ‘As such, brands cannot completely immunise themselves from the chances of influencers making poor decisions. They can, however, greatly reduce the risk of such fracas fomenting.’


because they feel connected to the content they post as it resonates and speaks to them in a way that’s ‘human’


The paradox for Guthrie is that, in the risk narrative, both Casper and Revolve have been catapulted into billion-dollar valuations, based in large part, on their application of influencer marketing.


Guthrie adds: ‘In this context, the


term influencer is probably no longer fit for purpose. Influencer marketing has become an umbrella term which envelopes celebrity endorsement, micro-influencers, nano-influencers, brand advocates, influencer advertising, review sites and affiliate marketing.’


Casper, Guthrie highlights, was at


the vanguard of affiliate marketing through working with review sites. ‘It


LARGE AUDIENCE The attraction of influencers on social media platforms to some companies is easy to understand, with Instagram having reached a whopping one billion monthly users. Lewis Wilks, associate director at PR agency Lansons, explains: ‘The benefit of working with social influencers is that they give brands access to a potentially large target audience that they might not otherwise reach and engage, and the opportunity to do so with content that is authentic and trusted.’ And this applies to organisations whose products


are targeted to a specific demographic. German database company Statista found that 64 per cent of 18 to 29-year-olds in North America use Instagram.


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then fell out of love with the practice and sued three such review sites. It also worked with Kylie Jenner – a reality TV star turned social media celebrity and latterly cosmetic company mogul.’ Revolve works with an army of 3,500 advocates and micro-influencers.


RESTRICTING THE RISK Therefore, given the complexity of the social influencer field, what should companies do to restrict the risk? ‘To protect themselves, brands need a clear strategic view of how, why and which influencers to work with,’ states Jackson. ‘They should be forensically validating influencers, beyond just their social reach, and conducting a deep dive into an influencer’s background, from the quality of their content, previous partnerships, their relevance to the brand’s category and exactly who their audiences are and how they engage.’


Doing such rigorous research alleviates the risk CorpComms | February/March 2020


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