I’m pretty sure we have all come across seeing a famous influencer or celebrity endorsing for a brand to promote a product or services on social media. But, my question to you is, from a scale of 1 to 10, how convinced are you that the product/service really works and create customer value for you?
In today’s blog, let me give you my summarised opinion between these two options.
Who are they?
Everyday people can be defined as normal people who use social media to express their real thoughts and feelings freely without restricting the way content is portrayed.
Based on Hodis and colleagues (2015), they can be recognised as devotees based on their pattern of high levels of creation and high consumption of content.
On the other hand, for an influencer, they generally have a larger followers base and are known to be a market maven because of their interest and knowledge about a particular brand’s product or services. Brands would generally “pay” them to feature the brand on their social media platforms.
They can be recognised as attention seekers where they generally have high levels of creation but low consumption of content.
So let’s analyse which one should you use for your social media marketing.
High Followers ≠ High Engagement
In this 20 minutes video, Xiaxue and Deekosh can be seen using Social Blade, a platform which tracks statistics on social media platform – such as the growth of followers. If followers can be bought, do you think their engagement would be genuine? I will leave you to think about it.
In my opinion, brands should have a strategic analyse and plan when they engage an influencer to feature their products and services. This means identifying the right audience you want to deliver the message based on influencer’s following. It also includes understanding what they can do for you – whether it’s doing a blog post, video, Instagram story etc.
What’s my take on Influencers?
Engaging influencers is favourable to have them being your “celebrity endorsers” to gain brand awareness so that many people will know about your brand. However, they might not necessarily bring in the highest ROI for your social media campaigns.
I would recommend the brand to tap on the business model on the web – Affiliate model. Engage these influencers and using revenue sharing encourages the influencer to promote and talk about the brand by creating unique content to trigger relational and emotional value. It could be based on a video tutorial of how the product or services has impacted by featuring unique selling points.
Example: During a video tutorial, create a unique discount code to track their contribution of sales and rewarding on a commission basis, e.g.: 10% of total sales.
The demand for Authentic Consumer Reviews
Based on Nielsen (Nielsenwire, 2009b) reading given for class, there is an increasing segment of consumers (18%) who rely on social media as their core navigation and information discovery tool.
12% of the consumers will use social media to search for product information. What does this mean? Consumers are continually looking for information and feedbacks of how the brand’s product or service can do for them, such as the benefits.
What’s my take on everyday people?
Inviting everyday people generally portrays a more authentic image concerning reviewing products. However, the quality of their engagement impact must be taken into consideration.
I would recommend the brand to tap on the business model on the web – Community model. Engage these everyday people using a community model such as social networking sites on Facebook, it allows them to build brand loyalty because it’s a platform where they can express the interest and how they feel about the brand.
Using community model enables the consumers to identify the experiential/hedonic value it gets out of it to convince them that the product or services work.
A summary of my thoughts, both everyday people and influencers play a part for social media marketing as they are valuable to generate content which will attract entertainment chasers and connection seekers. Both play a role in contributing to a holistic customer value experience which will help the brand or business to grow.
Do you agree that both are equally important? Or do you have a stronger opinion for one over another? Share with me over at the comment box below.
Signing off,
Vivian.K
Vivian.K Digital Zone 
I think influencers are more important. Better to get right people. I strongly agree with you
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Hey Naren, sorry for my delayed response. Yes, it’s always important to get the right people to communicate your brand’s message. Influencers may be important, but I do feel that they are used more for providing credibility of the brand. On the other hand, everyday people would portray a more genuine image of the brand which is known to be “customer reviews”. =)
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I enjoyed reading your post as usual.
However, I disagree with you that both everyday people and influencers are important, nowadays, there are many cases of “influencers” with fake followers, and also, I feel that the fact that they are paid according to the number of followers they have entices them to buy even more as well.
Additionally, as a consumer myself, I would find it hard to trust whatever influencers endorse as I know they are paid by the company to do so, definitely, their opinion would be bias.
As you stated in the post, everyday people would general portray a more authentic image concerning reviewing products, thus for someone like me who is very particular about the products I use, I would be very sceptical on the opinions of influencers.
On this note, I would like to see what are your thoughts for a new startup with little capital, who would you recommend them to represent their brand?
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Hey Stan, sorry for my delayed reply. The part where you’re talking about influencers having fake followers is inevitable. However, I think it’s the brand’s effort to understand what are some criteria they consider before selecting an influencer to represent the brand. I’m sure that there are genuine influencers who are a strong advocate of delivering content that they truly care about 🙂
A customer review is from an everyday user is ultimately very optimal to portray a more authentic image.
My thoughts on a new startup with little capital would be to use these two strategies actually. There would be some micro-influencers that brand can reach out to, which would definitely cost lesser than engaging the “influencer” to promote. Getting reviews from everyday users is also very important.
In summary, both are equally important in my opinion as brands should also look into how they can “reach out” to the right target audience and deliver a message that would convince their followers or friends. I hope I have answered your question!
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Yes you definitely did! Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions and give me your advice! Appreciate it!
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Hey Stan! Glad I did 😝 You’re most welcome! We are all here to learn at the end of the day 🙂
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Hi Vivian,
Just want to share with you that my clients (mostly beauty) are losing trust in influencers. They feedback that either they don’t see credibility, neither loyalty or in terms of ROI. Nonetheless I do share with them in term of brand exposure, they will still need them. Out of curiosity, do you think the influencer landscape will undergo huge changes soon?
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Hey Daniel, I understand where you’re coming from. I do agree that influencers would be able to generate brand awareness for businesses. However, it is also worth taking note that they would consider the ROI when they use influencers.
In my opinion, I feel that the influencer landscape would have some changes, but not too huge that it will wipe out the influencer marketing. I think what brands should do is to balance the usage of using both consumer reviews and influencer marketing for business.
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I personally felt myself leaning towards everyday people are more genuine in creating valuable content or reviews about particular products, such as what we always viewed online. For example, your friends going to a buffet and sharing if it’s really worth it or not, or rather a product that they recently bought and used and shared about how they feel after their own consumption rather than influencers who shared about products that they say its good but we all know it’s because they are all paid to do so.
Let me ask you a question, before purchasing an earpiece, would you view based on the influencers you follow and the products that they share or the one your friend or a stranger that shared their reviews on social media, forum or blog? 🙂
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HI Moon! Thanks for sharing your opinion with me. To answer to your questiom I would actually use both. Here’s my reason:
1. Influencer – I may come across to know the brand of earpiece after I get to know from an influencer who features the product
2. Reviews from everyday people – I will then conduct further research to find reviews about the product’s functional performance, such as whether it will be compatible with my needs.
Here’s an article which shares why influencer marketing is important for brands. I hope this will open up your perspective of using influencers to promote for a company 😀 https://www.relevance.com/why-influencer-engagement-is-important-in-digital-marketing/
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hello Vivian! A very clear & straight to the point post! personally, I am quite sceptical when I come across products or services that are labelled ‘sponsored’. I feel that many ‘influencers’ just want the ‘free’ products in exchange for some shoutouts in their IG or any social media platform. I prefer reviews that are posted by the community, people like us. however, I’ve also become reliant on influencers to look for new products because they are the market maven. Especially when I look for clothes and makeups! That being said, I would still search for extra info online rather than based on the influencers!
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Hey Dawn, thank you for your kind words. It’s the same for me when it comes to this, I would be reliant on YouTubers to actually tell me the latest new products and hear their thoughts. Upon getting my interest in the product, I would source for reviews posted by community =)
This relatable situation would be useful if we try to understand why marketers do what they do, using both influencers and everyday people to spread the message to increase brand awareness.
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Hello Vivian,
I do agree with you that High Followers ≠ High Engagement as followers can be purchased or faked.
So, would you engage an influencer or an average person if you were engaged by Small and medium-sized enterprises to help them?
Do let me know what you think as I want to find out too!
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Hi MC, I personally would engage both everyday people and influencer for an SME. Everyday people are crucial to increase credibility of the brand to show that the brand has got consumers patronising them.
On the other hand, the influencers are used to provide exposure of the brand using their channels. They might not necessarily be macro influencers, but micro influencers does work in my opinion.
At the end of the day, it really depends on the SME’s objective when they plan on building the brand. What do you think – are you agreeable with what I have said or do you have a different opinion?
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yes, I agree that both everyday and influencers are beneficial for the brand to spread awareness. I personally use both influencers and everyday people review to assist in my purchasing decision. 🙂
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After reading through the comments, I am one of the majority where I support everyday people. I would think that influencers usually get paid or have some incentive from the company promoting its products, thus, they might not actually be supportive of that brand that they claim to be ‘supporting’.
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Hey Olivia, yes, I do agree that even I myself support everyday people when it comes to sourcing for reviews before I purchase a particular product or services.
If you don’t support influencers, then may I ask where do you get to know about a particular product or services?
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I’ll usually rely on word of mouth reviews from friends. Especially for products that i can see ‘transformation’ like make up or face cleansers. Reviews from people i know or trust, will easily influence me on my purchase decisions 🙂 what about you?
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Since I’m into skincare and makeup, I would usually watch YouTube videos from YouTubers like Tati and NikkieTutorials. After I know the latest makeup product, I will conduct further information search to read customers review. I guess after all we have different ways to get information, haha. Thanks for sharing with me 🙂
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Good read! I personally feel that influences are better. What about you?
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I personally use both influencers and everyday people as a reference to source for information before buying a product and services! Influencers would help me to gain awareness of the brand and reviews from the consumers would allow me to gauge if the product really works or not 🙂
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