Why Influencer Marketing Puts Brand Purpose on Display

In early February, Nike CEO John Donahoe discussed with CNBC Nike’s efforts to become more sustainable. “The consumer increasingly cares about sustainability,” he told CNBC in an interview. “It matters to Nike and to consumers. … [Consumers] are looking to companies like Nike to lead.”

The feeling that one must evolve in accordance with consumers’ shifting values and needs is a familiar one for brands and their CMOs, who have adopted a greater sense of purpose in how they position themselves within the world. And brand purpose is increasingly important to today’s consumers: according to data from eMarketer, 59% of US consumers are more loyal toward brands that support the causes they care about. But despite this, 61% of consumers believe that too many brands use these issues as marketing ploys for their own gain, according to the same survey.

As brands strive to share their values and tell their stories, influencers serve as an excellent way to do so more authentically in a way that resonates with today’s consumers—making them an important factor within any marketing mix that aims to forge a genuine connection with consumers.  Given their relevance to niche audiences and participation in close social communities, partnering with influencers gives brands the opportunity to put their money where their mouth is and take a more active part within cultures that stand for something and drive change—here’s how.

Enhanced Storytelling Capabilities

Content creators know their audience better than anyone else. They’ve established deep relationships with followers and viewers by creating a regular stream of quality, relatable content; it’s precisely this content and closeness to the audience that has gained them a following in the first place.

This skill is invaluable to brands that seek to make themselves more relatable, though it’s important that brands understand what kind of content consumers gravitate toward. First, brands shouldn’t focus all their attention on follower counts and likes—both of which Instagram is experimenting with getting rid of, and do little to measure exactly how influential any user on the platform is.

But don’t despair; this doesn’t mean influencer marketing is a free-for-all with little attribution or no way to vet effective partners. In fact, data from our influencer activation team IMA notes that quality is the true benchmark of value: what matters more than the number of viewers an influencer brings to your content is how many of those viewers will engage, seek out and explore your brand. Looking beyond hard numbers and toward quality and engagement also enables more genuine and authentic content.

Irresistible Shoppable Content

Shoppable content is gaining steam with consumers. Last year, US social referral share of total traffic to ecommerce sites grew from 3.1% in 2016 to 9.1% in 2019, according to data from Adobe, and has become the fastest-growing driver of referrals. With Gen Z’s increased interest in shopping on social channels like Instagram, influencers present an excellent opportunity for brands to support this trend by generating shoppable or inspirational content that resonates with consumers.

What’s influencing influencer marketing?

In fact, trust in influencers is strong: another eMarketer survey states that 25% of US/UK children and teens aged 6-16 cite them as leading influences on purchasing decisions, sandwiched between friends (28%) and family members (21%). Despite this, it’s critical brands don’t treat influencers as another media buy; they’re creative partners through and through, and should be treated as such.

“When you find influencers who match your brand perfectly, you should trust that they know their following best. So when you are tapping into their community, you’ll have a stronger outcome by giving them the creative freedom to create credible content linking to your brand,” says Emilie Tabor,  Founder & CMO of IMA. “Of course, we always brief the influencer closely and the content is always approved by the brand before it goes live.”

Greater Focus on Customer Obsession

Finally, influencer partnerships enable your brand to become more customer obsessed with relative ease. What is a customer-obsessed brand? Customer obsession takes a handful for forms: “Forrester sees three common expressions of customer obsession—‘Count on us’ (reliability), ‘At your service’ (service), and ‘On your side’ (advocacy)—depending on a company’s strengths and what its customers value,” writes Forrester VP and Principal Analyst Shar VanBoskirk in the report, “How To Build Your Company’s Customer Obsession Strategy.”

Influencers fit this model by building a close relationship with audiences based on their needs—for example, a beauty content creator who helps viewers understand which cosmetics are best for them, and how to apply them. Community advocacy and authority as a knowledgeable resource are two key influencer attributes at work here.

MediaMonks Founder Wesley ter Haar notes that “Differentiated creative combines an understanding of culture with heavy-lifting business impact that drives real bottom line value.” In achieving this, influencers must be knowledgeable about their audiences; selecting the best influencer to reach your target audience requires you understand them and their needs, too.

This means a good place to begin your influencer marketing efforts is investing in social listening and market insights. “In selecting influencers for clients, we dig deep into all data: analytics, social listening, engagement, sentiment, quality of content and overall brand match,” says Tabor. “Who are their followers? Where are they based? Age groups, interests? Have they worked with competitors? There’s so much more beyond the surface.”

The points above points illustrate a handful of ways that influencers can help brands stay ahead of the game in social media marketing. Serving as knowledge experts, inspirational figures and talent, influencers offer several benefits to the brands that partner with them and are key to enhancing and strengthening the relationships they have with consumers.