According to the Swiss Influencer Marketing Report 2020, about half of the marketing managers surveyed estimate the return on investment of their influencer campaigns to date to be higher than with alternative forms of advertising. Influencer- and user-generated content are among eMarkterer’s transformative developments that ought to be on your radar in 2021.
Influencer marketing can make people feel closer to your brand and develop a strong preference for it.
92% of consumers trust an influencer more than any form of advertising
87% of consumers made purchases based on influencer recommendations
How to make influencer marketing work for your brand
Interested in learning practical tips on how to make influencer marketing work for your brand? Download our free ebook below!
We don’t advocate working nonstop. Vacations are healthy and beneficial, and all workers need a break. But that doesn’t mean your brand should stop your efforts in social media and influencer marketing over the summer. Brands can continue to stay active during vacation times with some advance planning, staggering of employee vacations, and support from outside agencies or specialists.
In this article we’ll address why it’s so important along with top tips for summertime success.
Users Connect and Engage More During Holiday Travel and Leisure
Social media engagement can be cumulative, and often builds on on-going momentum. The more you invest in good social media content, the more followers you earn, and the more engagement your brand can achieve. Unfortunately, it can also work in the opposite direction. If you stop engaging with your audience while your entire team takes a break, the other brands will fill the gap you’ve left in your audience’s feeds. Building your brand’s reputation is a long-term continuous effort and interruptions can make it harder to pick up again later and remain at the same level of impact.
It’s also worth remembering that, for those of us who are B2C marketing professionals, social media marketing is part of our work. But your audience engages when they’re shopping or enjoying themselves, in their free time.
Your work efforts = your customers’ leisure time.
A study from Sprout Social suggests that during holidays, consumers are significantly more likely to connect with brands through social media.
Don’t Miss Opportunities to Inspire
If you’re in the hospitality industry, we assume you don’t need us to tell you that your summer holidays aren’t a time to pause your social media efforts. In addition to researching and planning vacations, consumers use social media for inspiration on a variety of purchases, from travel and hospitality services to fashion, accessories and even certain electronics – You can also read more about this topic in our study report on Digital Influence.
Opportunities abound. According to Facebook insights, social posts increase by almost 30% in summer time. In fact, posts including the word ‘travel’ have been shown to spike by 46%.
Our always-on society never closes for business. And while overall technology use may decline in the summer, smartphone use increases, as does user social media activity. July and August are a good time to capture customers’ attention with compelling offers or simply to reinforce your brand image or boost product / service awareness. We think it’s also pretty safe to assume that there’s a good reason Amazon’s Prime Days are in late July. Consumers are more apt to purchase when they are relaxed and don’t feel stressed or rushed. For brands in most sectors it pays off to take advantage of these opportunities.
Top 10 Tips to Developing Summer Campaigns
Now that we’ve covered the why of summertime campaigns, here are some tips for success.
Get Consumers Engaged Before Summer Travel and Leisure Time
For many brands, it can be advantageous to develop a summer journey campaign, with the payoff either near-term during summer months, or building momentum towards fall. Not doing so or dropping the ball can lead to loss of business over summer and the rest of the year. This is obvious in sectors like travel, leisure, and hospitality. It’s also important for businesses like homeware and gardening, fashion, and many others to get ahead of the curve in order not to lose out. If you want to push this a little further you could also start a new loyalty program to get consumers excited for the foreseeable future. A continuous communication and nurturing effort often pays off most.
Run Summer-Themed Social Media Contests
Create contests like “share your best summer experiences,” and give consumers reasons to follow you throughout the summer. Austen at SocialToaster shared some great contest ideas:
“Captioning an image or video
Posting a fun word puzzle (scramble or anagram)
Asking your customers to fill-in-the-blank
Have your audience guess the context around an image”
Make It Relevant to Your Audience
First, take the time to understand your audiences’ summer cadence. Consider how your product or service benefits them during this time and provide them with specific ideas and actions.
Video tutorials featuring recipes and home decor ideas for outdoor entertaining
Demonstrate the use of your product while traveling, such as a fashion brand that can be hand washed, then dry quickly on a hanger in a hotel room
Show how time spent in a rental car, plane, or train traveling to a vacation destination is more fun with unlimited, commercial-free streaming music, podcasts, or audio books
Another very effective way to make content and campaigns more relevant and appealing is the use of user generated content (UGC). UGC humanizes your brand and creates a sense of fun. It’s also proven to perform much better than brand created content. Consumers are 2.4 times more likely to say user-generated content (UGC) is authentic compared to brand-created content for example and they engage a lot more with it. One way to achieve this is for example by stimulating people to share their experiences or favorite purchases in the format of images, short videos and reviews in a fun and creative way. Contests, challenges, and rewards can help to get people to share more.
Focus on Influencer Marketing
With more leisure time, consumers spend even more time on social media and, in turn, engage more with influencers. Summer is the perfect time to experiment with IM if you haven’t done so before. Influencers are also inspired during summer, and IM lets brands leverage that excitement around holidays, events, food & drink, seasonal trends, and travel destinations.
Audiences are ready to consume more social content and are consequently more receptive of marketing and sponsored posts. This means that not only do creators have even more reason to keep up a steady stream of posts, brands do too.
In Switzerland 65% of consumer follow influencers with the vast majority of consumers stating that they seek for influencer posts for inspiration on what to purchase.
Are your products targeted to specific audiences? Then don’t forget to include micro-influencers in your influencer strategy as they have dedicated, niche audiences who are specifically interested in their content and lifestyle. Typically, their followers are highly engaged, dedicated and ready to act on their recommendations, basically providing access to a pre-activated pool of potential customers for your brand.
Create Seasonal Content for Travel, Leisure, etc.
Encourage ongoing engagement by “summer-izing” your content. Use fresh themes related to fun summer topics such as swimming, travel, and cooking and eating outdoors. For the hospitality industry, current photos will naturally show people eating outdoors in warm weather, but services like car rentals can make a point of featuring happy families en route to leisure destinations.
Give your content engaging summer visuals and consider updating your cover photo as well. Seasonal summer-themed content will also make people connect more with the content during those months as it will seem more on-point and time-relevant.
Switch on Shopping Functionality
After creating beautiful seasonal product imagery, make it even easier for your customers to buy by promoting on social media, such as through shoppable posts. For example, on Instagram, you can tag products the same way you can tag people, so users can tap a post they like and see the product name and price pop up. They are able to click through to the product page on your online store, and purchase via the shopping cart in the usual way.
Promote Posts
Warmer weather can bring about warm emotions and positivity in people, and according to the Journal of Consumer Psychology, summer positivity extends to consumers’ thoughts of products. Consumers who ignored or disregarded a product during the colder months may be more open to trying it during the summer, leading to increased consumer spending during the summer.
By using sponsored posts, you can get in front of more prospective new customers and bring some of that warmth to your own brand.
Offer a Limited-Time Promotion
Make use of FOMO by offering limited-time promotions such as two-for-one, 10% off new orders, or free shipping. You can create a discount code that can be shared in both organic and sponsored posts. Create a sense of urgency by highlighting the time limit.
Take Advantage of Social Media Retargeting
Retargeting allows you to serve ads to people who’ve previously visited your website or used your mobile app. It’s a handy strategy that enables marketers to reach an audience that has already shown some level of interest, making your ads more efficient.
According to Facebook summertime content sharing on the platform through mobile devices increases by 26% over other seasons. The increase for video content is even higher at 43%. With retargeting, you can take advantage of the increased time on social media.
Use a Content Calendar and Scheduling Tools
Having posts and promotions completed, approved, and scheduled in advance is a great objective, but we realize it’s difficult to consistently achieve. Now in the spring might be an ideal time to plan ahead, so you can simultaneously take advantage of summer opportunities while taking time off and relaxing.
Use tools like HubSpot, Hootsuite, Zoho, or even just spreadsheets to keep your team organized. That way when staffers go on holiday, an agency or their remaining colleagues can keep moving without missing a beat.
Bonus #11: Mix and Match
There is no one size fits all approach. Every organization, sector, and target community is different and for that reason it is important to find the ideal mix that works for your brand and yields the most benefits. The 10 tips above can easily be combined, for example in the following way:
Incorporate UGC into retargeting
Offer an incentive to promote social media shares of your limited-time promotion
Work with influencers to create seasonal content
Use retargeting to promote your contests
If you need assistance getting started with your summer social media activities or influencer marketing, expanding your existing campaigns, or just handing off the work so you can relax on the beach, you can always work with flexible full-service providers like Kingfluencers to make it happen successfully.
We’re pleased to open this article with some good news for fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) brands, along with ideas for leveraging digital product sampling to engage and delight consumers in the absence of traditional product sampling.
Ongoing Opportunities for FMCG Brands to Grow
Since the start of the pandemic, half of consumers are cooking more, and one in seven are watching more television as a form of self-care and snacking while they do it. New or increased consumer behaviors, such as cleaning and cooking more often, have contributed to a 14% increase in household grocery spending. It’s always nice to read some good news, and for consumer-packaged goods, these expanded purchasing rates are expected to continue.
Altered Shopping Experiences
There are many ways in which our shopping experiences are no longer as enjoyable post-pandemic. One change we might not have thought about was the small joy of getting free samples. Our local grocery store gave out cookies most days, and I had to remind my children not to sprint past the produce to see if any were available.
But free samples, like handshakes, are largely a relic of the past. Consumers miss out on the fun, free food, and opportunity to sample something new before committing to a purchase. FMCG brands also miss out on the opportunity to share their new offerings with their target audience and win over new customers.
When Traditional Offline Sampling Is Not an Option
People most often buy new products or special editions after hearing or seeing something about them in a very direct way, or having the opportunity to try them. That is one of the main reasons why sampling is so effective in successfully promoting new FMCG products. (Yes, on impulse, I grabbed the Lady Gaga Chromatica Oreos. The shimmery, hot pink package was quite eye-catching!)
Unfortunately, FMCG brands have also lost many other promotional opportunities such as festivals and bars. In some cases, these promotional events were great fun, such as Red Bull’s sponsored and created events and publicity stunts. Even when traditional sampling is possible, there are still disadvantages, such as the expense, lack of wide reach, and inability to accurately target your audiences.
But FMCG brands need to keep innovating, both developing and sharing novelties. People expect new tastes, variations, and flavors on a regular basis. Fun new products, and even limited-edition offerings, drive impulse purchases and revenue growth.
The Need to Find New Ways to Launch Products
Brands that fail to inspire curiosity, pique interest, and delight consumers will lose to those that do. But launching new products or product variations is not enough. There is a long way to go between launch and success. Without the right approach, there is a high likelihood that your product innovation could be a commercial failure, no matter how exceptional the product itself is and how much it meets consumer tastes. This puts companies in front of a challenge.
Like most brands, consumer packaged goods have to get creative and find new ways to connect with consumers.
So, with these very important marketing tactics currently unavailable to brands, what can they do to close the gap? Spending a fortune on traditional advertising is one option, although the effectiveness of this method has been dropping, especially for advertising-averse Generation Z. There are better, more cost-effective options, however.
Get Your Product Noticed with Digital Sampling
Digital product sampling involves shipping your (new or improved) product to selected influencers, providing them the opportunity to try it and share their experience with their community. This not only puts it on the radar of people whose opinions often guide others, but also leverage the influencers’ networks.
Digital product sampling is a cost effective, inexpensive way to promote new products. When you can’t go to bars and supermarkets, it’s a particularly important tactic to include in your marketing mix. Digital sampling enables you to get your product noticed without spending as much money as hiring Lady Gaga, along with the following benefits:
Force Multiplier
Influencers provide reach and scale up product awareness. One sample can generate awareness towards thousands of consumers, both online and offline through word of mouth.
Conversion
Influencers are trusted by their communities. Their product endorsements make people view the product favorably and can generate direct sales.
Targeting
You can target audiences more precisely as well as reach communities that are otherwise hard or even impossible to reach.
Cost-Effective
Influencer-based sampling campaigns are not limited to a narrow scope of physical locations and lack expensive operations and set up costs.
When trustworthy influencers like and promote your product, they can inspire and engage others to try it too. According to an FMCG study by Bazaarvoice, 57% of consumers say they bought certain products only because they first heard about them on social media.
6 Tips for Fast-Moving Consumer Goods to Get Digital Product Sampling Right
Digital product sampling is effective, but not necessarily simple. The most common challenges to a successful product sampling campaign are:
1
Influencers
2
Briefing
3
Information
4
Logistics
5
Follow-up
6
Tracking
Finding the right influencers
Creating a great and inspiring briefing
Finding the influencers‘ information to send the products
Logistics (shipping out products, keeping track, etc.)
Follow up with influencers to maximise uptake (yes it helps to have a relationship with them already)
Tracking results
It takes a coordinated effort to overcome those challenges and succeed. Kingfluencers has written more on selecting the right influencers to connect with your target market. Consider micro-influencers, who may have a smaller quantity of followers, but a more engaged community. You can also achieve a good reach by leveraging a higher quantity of micro-influencers in your budget, and zooming in on your target audiences, delivering an excellent cost-benefit ratio.
Kingfluencers’ Hassle-Free Digital Product Sampling Service
You can engage Kingfluencers to manage your campaign so you can stay focused on creating and marketing products that delight your customers. Our full-service approach makes the entire process effortless for your organization, while assuring the best results.
Kingfluencers has an extensive network of influencers, empowering us to help find perfect matches for your brand. Based on our ongoing relationships, influencers are interested in hearing our proposals for new opportunities. Next, we can work with your team to define the sampling package content, create influencer communications, and manage logistics. Kingfluencers also responses to Qs from influencers and presents you with reports on campaign outcomes.
Kingfluencers can get your campaign up and running in a matter of days. Contact us to see if we can help give your brand a quick boost, or check out our Digital Sampling page for more info on the service.
Social media is just an addition to a brand’s marketing mix. False. Social media management matters for brands.
There is very little doubt or discussion about that among marketers and business decision makers. Communicating to and with their target audiences on social media is one of the most cost-effective and impactful ways for brands to connect with existing and potential clients. When done properly, it is a highly effective communication and nurturing channel. From keeping customers up to date about new product launches to staying top of mind as the number one brand with whom they established a relationship, an engaged social media following is the way to go.
But achieving this objective requires effort, dedication, expertise, and continuity, among other things. In order to continue to be successful, some requirements must be met. Among the most important ones are the following:
A clear strategy and approach, including choice of channels, content types, posting frequency, tone of voice, etc.
A structured channel-specific content framework and planning, including themes and topics
An efficient and continuous content production flow
The right foundations set up beforehand, including processes and systems
Once all the above is in place, the day-to-day detailed activities needed to keep social media profiles thriving should not be underestimated. It is a lot of work and often it makes sense to outsource this activity, especially for relatively small or globally centralized teams who want to safeguard and strengthen the connection to the local consumers.
Being Locally Relevant
This is one of the main reasons that prompted the Garden Gourmet Switzerland management team to reach out to Kingfluencers to take over the management of the brand‘s social media platforms. One of the core objectives was to purposefully localize and use the content provided to the local markets by the global Garden Gourmet team, as well as create captivating new content for Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest.
The Kingfluencers mandate includes activities such as: Creating the monthly content calendar, localizing global content, writing multilingual captions focused on the Swiss audience and creating fresh visual and animated content. Staying in tune with consumers in a multilingual country like Switzerland can be challenging as it ideally requires addressing the audiences in their first languages. People generally engage more with content provided in their native language, including local cultural references and humour.
Camille Delorme
Brand Manager Garden Gourmet
“It’s a real pleasure to have started this collaboration with Kingfluencers, since they took over Garden Gourmet’s social network management, we see a very clear dynamism, and this allows us to start getting closer to our consumers. Thank you to the whole team for their dedication and creativity. I look forward to continuing to see the evolution of the brand on social networks.”
Camille Delorme
Brand Manager Garden Gourmet
“It’s a real pleasure to have started this collaboration with Kingfluencers, since they took over Garden Gourmet’s social network management, we see a very clear dynamism, and this allows us to start getting closer to our consumers. Thank you to the whole team for their dedication and creativity. I look forward to continuing to see the evolution of the brand on social networks.”
Camille Delorme
Brand Manager Garden Gourmet
“It’s a real pleasure to have started this collaboration with Kingfluencers, since they took over Garden Gourmet’s social network management, we see a very clear dynamism, and this allows us to start getting closer to our consumers. Thank you to the whole team for their dedication and creativity. I look forward to continuing to see the evolution of the brand on social networks.”
Camille Delorme
Brand Manager Garden Gourmet
“It’s a real pleasure to have started this collaboration with Kingfluencers, since they took over Garden Gourmet’s social network management, we see a very clear dynamism, and this allows us to start getting closer to our consumers. Thank you to the whole team for their dedication and creativity. I look forward to continuing to see the evolution of the brand on social networks.”
Camille Delorme
Brand Manager Garden Gourmet
“It’s a real pleasure to have started this collaboration with Kingfluencers, since they took over Garden Gourmet’s social network management, we see a very clear dynamism, and this allows us to start getting closer to our consumers. Thank you to the whole team for their dedication and creativity. I look forward to continuing to see the evolution of the brand on social networks.”
From influencer marketing agency to social media powerhouse
It is an absolute joy to work with the Garden Gourmet team and learn from them as well. They have a ton of amazing content, from recipes to visuals and social media storyboards that we can use in the mix to create a diversified and engaging social media feed. The level of professionalism within Garden Gourmet is absolute top. Furthermore, working with such an appealing brand that consumers really love is always a joy and we get a lot of great feedback from clients which makes it extra rewarding to be part of the brand’s story
Yoeri Callebaut CGMO at Kingfluencers.
The Magic Mix
For every brand there is that magic mix that helps their social media efforts become successful. For Garden Gourmet Switzerland these are some of the elements if its recipe for success:
The high relevance of their content, especially the recipes. That makes the brand and its products more real, approachable and relevant.
The colorful visual approach and use of animated visual assets also helps create high impact with the posts.
Involving Swiss influencers providing tips, tricks, recipe advice and more as part of the posts and stories. This adds an extra dimension to the content / posts.
Engaging the audience with mini quizzes, two-way communication and contests is another way to keep people connected and furthermore grow the brand‘s follower base over time.
The COVID-19 pandemic has, of course, raised many challenges, including some unforeseen issues, such as the coin shortage in the US and excess in the UK. We’ve probably all grown weary of hearing empty platitudes about “how we’re all in this together.” But some good news is that business hasn’t stopped, but rather shifted and marketers need to shift with it. In this article, we’re sharing some specific examples of a few marketing tactics, such as social influence marketing, which can help during “these challenging times” and give your brand an image and revenue boost.
The New Life Online
The pandemic drove people to move even more of their daily lives online, beyond shopping and work. A New York Times analysis of internet usage published on April 7, 2020, revealed that our behaviors shifted, sometimes starkly, as the virus spread and pushed us to our devices for work, play, and connecting as well as discovering novelties. Even prior to COVID, social media played a huge role in our lives With almost 4 billion users worldwide, the role of social media in our lives is constantly growing. Social networks have surpassed search engines as the go-to product research channel for Gen Z since 2019.
The Challenge of Less Foot Traffic
As stages of lockdown and reopening vary worldwide, businesses everywhere are challenged with less direct contact with their customers. As consumers shift to making purchases online via ecommerce and social commerce, the online space is becoming increasingly crowded. The shift to online eliminates geographic boundaries, which provides consumers with increased options, but also increases competition for businesses. These changes make it harder for brands to stand out and get their message across.
Social Media, the Rising Storefronts
Now more than ever a brand‘s social media profiles have become one of their most essential storefronts. Making sure the brand pops out and appeals on social channels is more important than ever, and not just to maintain and enhance the brand image. With the ongoing fast rise of social commerce especially among millennials, and even more so Gen Z, social media is becoming a prime sales channel. In the fashion sector, for example, social media in Germany already generated sales of EUR 3.4 billion in 2018. Social commerce usually takes place on the move, i.e. via smartphone or tablet, as social media offers are preferably used via mobile devices. Especially brands that target these consumer segments can win a lot by making sure their social media presence is optimized to cash in on the movement and avoid losing out to competitors. Revising one‘s social media strategy and tactics all the way to the inclusion of clever shoppable features and creative influencer marketing for example is bound to be a very rewarding exercise when done properly.
Connecting with Consumers is Key to Standing Out
Successful brands are those that are able to connect with consumers and create a relationship. Telling stories to create more emotional connections drives a stronger, more appealing social media presence.
Building such connections is crucial to standing out from the crowds. Connections lead to conversions short term, as well as long-term loyalty and even advocacy. This cycle of turning customers into advocates is described by Hubspot as the “flywheel,” a circular process from attract, to engage, to delight, where customers feed growth.
Creating Connections in COVID Times With Fitting Content
In hard times people look for hope, support, strength and leadership. Strong omni-channel (digital) content that captures people‘s emotions and showcases a brand‘s social engagement can be a powerful tool to make your brand stand out and win over the hearts and minds of consumers just that little bit more. Some marketing during COVID undeniably fell flat when a company’s message just wasn‘t credible. However, there were also admirable examples, such as Ford. The auto manufacturer created a series of ads to explain how they have met global-scale crises in the past, creating an image of solidity and reliability. Some of the new ads also beautifully conveyed how the brand is fighting COVID-19 by manufacturing medical equipment in short supply.
Say It With Influencers for Increased Impact
Influencer marketing can make people feel closer to your brand and develop a strong preference for it.
Influence marketing provides an agile, real time communication channel with consumers. Additionally, brands are mainly discovered online, through influencers, making this an important part of your marketing mix. Even more powerful is the combination of emotion-driven storytelling and content creation by influencers, adding authenticity and credibility to the mix. This successfully drives traffic to your social channels and website, generating valuable opportunities for lead generation and sales.
Aligning with Consumers’ Values
As consumers search for purpose, they’re increasingly looking for brands that align with their values. Like many challenges, this can also be an opportunity. Brands can use influencer marketing to get their purpose and value proposition better known and stand out, while successfully promoting new sales channels. By clearly demonstrating their unique values, brands can connect with an expanded group of consumers and build strong relationships with the potential to last.
For example, Kingfluencers worked with the oldest insurance company in Switzerland to create a campaign in which sympathetic influencers created their own damage sketches and included calls to actions for the community to participate. More than 500 sketches were created, resulting in over 550,000 impressions and 80,000 website visits in a short time-frame, along with a 3.01% engagement rate.
Social influence marketing is quick and agile. Such a campaign can be developed and launched in a matter of weeks to drive revenue prior to the end of the year.
Stay Agile and Expand Your Reach
Social influence marketing delivers reach and real impact on consumer decisions fast and efficiently. Give your brand a face people can relate to, elevate your advertising spending by adding credibility and authenticity to your message. Social media channels also enable you to reach audiences that aren’t easily reached via traditional marketing. The reach of Instagram is well known, and TikTok is particularly popular with Gen Z, the generation brands are struggling to connect with.
Holistic Approach to Influence Marketing
Social influence marketing is a broad area that includes more than professional influencers and content creators. A wide range of individuals can serve as effective influencers and contribute to your marketing efforts, such as:
Your leadership team is part of the face of your brand. Their role as social influencers is becoming increasingly important
Consumers
User-Generated Content (UGC) from brand fans and advocates can be very valuable, and boost community engagement
Each of these groups can be powerful influencers, but, when effectively combined, the result is synergistic, delivering a massive impact.
Leverage Your Existing Advocates — Including Employees
Example of a real-life success story
One tech company chose Kingfluencers to run a workshop for selected employees who were passionate about their work and active on their own social media. Kingfluencers taught the 15 influencers how to optimally stage the products on social media and create emotional textual content to achieve the highest possible performance. The results included 89 content pieces posted with a 23.44% engagement rate and more than 62,000 direct impressions.
What are the strengths of influence marketing? How and why does it generate positive ROI? Read this article providing a deep dive into why brands should do social influence marketing and learn more about the topic.
Author: Yoeri Callebaut, Chief Growth and Marketing Officer at Kingfluencers
Edit 06.04.2021: Following the ongoing social media bans even after former President Trump’s term has ended, Trump has launched his own website, where he plans to update his fans with news from his wife, Melania Trump, and himself. According to The Guardian, the former US president will soon launch his own social media platform. “And this is something that I think will be the hottest ticket in social media, it’s going to completely redefine the game, and everybody is going to be waiting and watching to see what exactly President Trump does. But it will be his own platform,” claimed Jason Miller Senior Adviser to Donald Trump.
President Trump’s notorious Twitter account was suspended permanently on January 8th 2021. (Source: TechCrunch)
As it is known worldwide, current United States president, Donald J. Trump’s Twitter account has been suspended just two days after his supporters stormed the US Capitol last week. He is also banned from using other social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, etc. at least until the end of his term. This has prompted an overall discussion about the impact of social media and how to act responsibly.
About social media responsibility
Since long time there has been a common understanding that all users are responsible for their own content and have to follow the platforms’ rules. Generally, it is prohibited to post anything that is disruptive, hateful, offensive, discriminatory, threatening, harassing, or defamatory. For a long time therefore social media companies have left most of the responsibility for the content that is published with the users and interfered almost exclusively in the case of very clear infringements such as sexually explicit or clearly violence-inciting posts.
The most newsworthy example of a public figure whose social media actions have caused nationwide as well as worldwide unrest is the current US president, Donald J. Trump. With 88 million Twitter followers and an account that was the 6th most followed on the platform before the ban, it is clear that his message has a wide reach, whether you agree with President Trump’s policies and beliefs or not. Furthermore, in 2020 he was the #1 most tweeted about person worldwide, according to Twitter. But for many, he is also the clearest example of how social influence can be misused. His actions, and those of others in his sphere, have sharpened the debate on what the rules or guidelines for responsible behavior on social media should be, particularly for politicians, and which role platform providers should play in enforcing these rules and hold users accountable. A good solution could be to increase awareness among social media users through constant education efforts. At the same time, there is a call by a large part of the population that more fact-checking, moderation, and monitoring by the social media platforms would be a good step forward, albeit without dictating too much how one is able to use his or her profile and which information a person can share — as long as no harm is being done.
The dangers of misinformation
One of the biggest potential dangers of social media is without a doubt the possible spread of misinformation, especially in areas where this can cause significant harm. When creating or sharing content on social media, integrity is always key. Not everyone has the best of intentions however and some even go as far to use social media and their influence to advance their own agenda, no matter the consequences.
A blatant example — COVID-19 and President Trump
Yes, Trump again. But here is why… From his 36 daily tweets, many of his devotees have taken every word as an official government statement, including his factually wrong tweets about the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to openly refusing to wear a mask (despite US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation to wear masks since March 2020), these actions have caused nationwide protests against government policies to fight against the pandemic. After three months of refusing to wear a mask and his staff pleading him to set an example, President Trump has finally posted a picture of himself wearing a mask for the first time in public in July 2020. He also tweeted:
“We are United in our effort to defeat the Invisible China Virus, and many people say that it is Patriotic to wear a face mask when you can’t socially distance.”
President Trump first wore a mask in public on July 11th 2020. (Source: France24)
But was it too little, too late? There is little doubt that the misinformation campaign has tremendously worsened the outcome of the pandemic so far. After the nationwide divide that President Trump’s tweets about COVID-19 have caused, Twitter took action and started monitoring his account. The social media platform started adding fact-checks on Trump’s tweets about the virus in May 2020.
The positive impacts of social media
Dispite the misusage of some people, we cannot forget that social media has had many positive effects on society and need to recognise its enormous potential for good. Certain movements have brought society together to strive for positive change. Social media gives people with good intentions and ideas a platform to unite and collaborate in order to try build a better society together. Influencers, people with a significant audience base, can thereby become powerful catalysts to advance the noble causes they embrace, no matter how big or small the cause is. Here are some examples:
#BlackLivesMatter
One incredible example is the #BlackLivesMatter movement which was started by George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chaivin who pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes. Since then, the world has come together on social media platforms to fight against Floyd’s injustice. In the year 2020, the second most popular hashtag was #BlackLivesMatter and George Floyd was the third most tweeted-about person in the world. Numerous influencers, including celebrities, around the world, have also come together and shared their support digitally and on their cities’ streets, protesting against the injustice. Even our Swiss influencers have taken action to bring awareness to the movement.
Many Swiss influencers, including Xenia (see above), have shown their support for the Black Lives Matter movement by posting completely black posts on June 2nd 2020 with the hashtag #BlackoutTuesday (Source: Instagram)
#SupportSmallBusiness
Another movement that has started since the global pandemic was the Support Small Business movement. With currently over 26 million Instagram posts under the hashtag #SupportSmallBusiness, influencers have shared awareness of the negative impacts of the pandemic and government regulations on small businesses, especially in the gastronomy field. An ideal example is the Family of 5 (FO5) Travel Blog, who started a #FO5Support initiative that supports small businesses in Switzerland through social media exposure. To learn more about the initiative, click here.
The Family of 5 Travel Blog shows support for Swiss small businesses in these tough times (Source: Instagram)
#StayHome
An additional movement that has started since the global pandemic is the #StayHome movement. Since the first lockdown in spring 2020, many of our Swiss influencers came together to encourage the importance of social distancing and staying at home by setting an example.
Zurich native Adriana Pokus de Leonhart took part in the #ZüriBliibtDihei campaign in March 2020 (translation from Swiss German: Zurich Stay Home), encouraging others to stay home in order to enjoy the summer ahead. (Source: Instagram)
Kingfluencers founder Fabian Plüss showed here how one’s home office can still be a productive and attractive workplace (Source: Instagram)
#Mask
Furthermore, numerous Swiss fashion influencers have promoted the wearing of masks by showcasing how stylish masks can be, like Luisa Rossi.
Stylist Luisa Rossi showed how stylish masks can be, especially when combined with chains. (Source: Instagram)
Responsible behavior tips
There are many creative ways to show social media responsibility and still have a voice and stand up for what one believes in. It is important to always maintain the highest level of integrity no matter how big or small one‘s audience is. All stakeholders have a role to play in this matter and users with significant influence need to set a leading example. Companies like Kingfluencers are also picking up the torch in the debate with an active effort to provide guidance to influencers and other players in the eco-system, in order to help realise the true potential of social media and social influence for people and brands alike. To learn more about how, stay tuned for some very exciting updates coming soon …
Author: Sherriene Redha, Marketing and Social Media Officer at Kingfluencers
By elevating their personal brand, CEOs and other senior business leaders can become powerful brand advocates and make a valuable impact on the organization they work for. In this article, we’ll cover what businesses need to think about to effectively leverage personal branding at the executive level and further build trust with their target audiences by ‘humanizing‘ the brand.
Engage in Conversations to Drive Results
While social media can enable you to take control of your narrative, the digital landscape is full of noise, with millions of brands — and even more individuals — competing for attention. Some of the keys to successfully connect to your audiences and outpace those who compete for their attention are relevance, timing (right content at the right moment), message clarity, and ease of message absorption. However, none of these keys will open any doors without the most important one needed to captivate people and drive results: trust. Simply having a company profile and posting quotes or other content won’t effectively build trust. Instead, it’s important to differentiate your brand and build relationships with stakeholders in the market. One effective way companies can do so is by leveraging people to humanize their brands. Especially when these people have extensive reach and relevance, their impact can be very significant.
People connect with people, not logos.
Social media isn’t just about making noise yourself, but also engaging in conversations and dialogues with your audience. You have to be in the weeds to build trust and connect to people. People are craving authentic and real content as well as advice and even guidance in multiple areas, and look for people and brands they believe in to provide this. Cultivate genuine relationships and build trust so that if your audience is ever in need of a solution, you’ll be top of mind. Once you have the trusting ear of your peers, partners, clients, and people in general, it becomes so much easier to get any message across, making your communication much more effective, achieving your goals more easily.
Making A Brand Human
Marvin Sangines, CEO & Co-Founder of notus and personal branding advisor at Kingfluencers, emphasizes starting withclear goals in place.
It’s easy to get blinded by vanity metrics such as big numbers of views and followers. It’s not about the number of followers you have. What matters is the quality of the connections you make. At the same time, know yourself, your values, and your purpose. Define clear goals and ensure that your communication strategy feeds into those objectives. Once you’ve defined your position in the market and optimized the relevant profiles accordingly, you can start to distribute content across social media and build stronger connections with more engaged followers.
The 4 Content Pillars
Marvin outlined his proprietary “Content Archetype” framework which Kingfluencers applies when working with personal branding clients. He categorizes content as follows:
Tactical: Actionable, implementable advice, relevant to your target audience
Aspirational: Results, case studies showcasing the transformations your customers went through with your company // Stories of growth and hyper-specific outcomes.
Insightful: Analyzing industry trends and extracting insights from your expert perspective
Personal: Discussing personal anecdotes and stories
When building executive profiles, the human element is very important. It’s up to each person or company to decide how personal they want to make their brand and find the right mix. Additional best practices for CEO profiles include:
Engage with other employees
Don’t just repost links — give your two cents and contextualize what you’re sharing
Communicate company purpose — what’s your purpose?
Share behind-the-scenes content
Collaborate with other professionals
Before posting content, define brand guidelines and dos and don’ts, for example, you might decide that emojis are a no go. Once guidelines have been defined, it’s important to make sure people move within those guidelines. Marvin recommends, “If you have a slip-up, be fully transparent. Communicate proactively and own your mistakes.”
Growth of Personal Branding Services
Yoeri Callebaut, Chief Growth and Marketing Officer, Kingfluencers, stated, “Kingfluencers has partnered with specialist Marvin Sangines as part of our efforts to bring personal branding services here to Switzerland. Switzerland is also home to many regional and international organizations and senior business decision makers who have a lot to gain from developing their personal brand following our program. We’ve seen how personal branding can make a significant difference, particularly as part of coordinated branding, positioning, and social selling efforts. As the leading social influence marketing firm, we aim to be the absolute point of reference for personal branding services in the region.”
Impersonating the CEO?
It’s often difficult for CEOs to find time to engage on social media every day, but you need to avoid a sporadic and inconsistent approach. Marvin explains, “People will realize if you make a half-assed effort. You should have quality standards and be strategic about what you post.
“When working with ghost-writers, it’s important to first consider how to capture the executive’s authentic voice. Our process involves interviewing clients to get to know them and how they speak, as well as their answers on relevant subjects and trends. We use this insight to fuel the content engine, while making sure we capture their tone.
It’s normal for traditional communications, such as press releases and conference presentations, to go through a dozen hands for approval, and it’s still the CEO’s view. This also applies to social media. Think of social media posts as a short form of press releases on behalf of the CEO or senior executives.
So What’s in it for the Brand?
“Investing in one’s personal brand creates all the obvious benefits, from increased visibility to growing one‘s network and boosting perceived expertise and relevance. But the benefits for the company should not be underestimated, when done properly,” says Yoeri. “A first example is clearly the additional attention the company will receive thanks to the initiatives of its senior staff investing in personal branding and proactive public communications. Moreover, as it makes the brand more human and emphasizes the organization’s purpose and values, it is an effective way to get people to connect more to the organization and improve the perception of the brand. Think of the classic example of Apple and Steve Jobs!”
Targeting Prospective Employees and Building Trust
Personal branding can also help organizations in the battle to recruit top talent. Gen Z, in particular isn’t consuming traditional news, but rather using social media to engage with companies.
“Forward-thinking companies are gradually adopting this human-centric approach to marketing. They leverage employees and executives as important distribution channels to attract top talent. When employees share content on their personal profiles, it reveals company culture, enabling the audience to see behind the scenes of large corporations. This human touch can give prospective employees an idea what it’s like to work for the company and what the company stands for in a real way, which is what younger generations are really interested in,” stated Marvin.
Interested in finding out how personal branding can help elevate your brand? Get in touch!
Yoeri Callebaut, Chief Growth and Marketing Officer at Kingfluencers
Effective Monday, January 19 through the end of February, Switzerland has tightened restrictions to reduce the spread of COVID-19. The measures taken include closing shops selling non-essential supplies and extending the closure of restaurants, and cultural and sport sites.
While the government also eased rules for pandemic-hit businesses to apply for state aid, many businesses will still be struggling to stay afloat, retail in particular. Now is the time for B2C brands to rethink go-to-market plans to ensure they can survive in the short term and thrive in the future.
Promote Other Income Sources
Ongoing lockdowns mean many businesses are still struggling for survival and must seek to compensate for the resulting losses in revenue. Fortunately, the pandemic hasn’t entirely stopped business, but rather shifted how it’s done, and marketers need to shift with it.
Promoting alternative sources of income such as e-commerce is a crucial lifeline. Some sectors that particularly stand to gain from better promoting their online business are retail, telco, electronics, e-supermarkets, and digital entertainment.
Successful brands are those that are able to connect with consumers and create a relationship. Leveraging social influencer marketing to tell stories and create more emotional connections drives a stronger, more appealing social media presence. According to the Swiss Influencer Marketing Report 2020, about half of the marketing managers surveyed estimate the return on investment of their influencer campaigns to date to be higher than with alternative forms of advertising. Influencer- and user-generated content are among eMarkterer’s transformative developments that ought to be on your radar in 2021.
Brands should invest in promotions now to take advantage of upcoming holidays, including Valentine’s Day. Reach out to our experts and the Kingfluencers team can provide you with a clear strategy to connect with your target audience.
Prepare for What Comes Next
While the timing and phases of the end of lockdowns remain unknown, the fact remains that businesses need to prepare. Brands that take steps now to strengthen their brand perception will be best positioned to capture their share of consumers eager to travel, shop, and enjoy leisure activity.
As the rollout of vaccinations continues, the return of many previously risky activities is expected within a matter of months. The time to prepare is now. Taking steps now to fortify your brand will position you to come out stronger once the lockdown is over. For example, a leading Swiss insurance provider decided to run an end-of-year influencer marketing campaign to generate additional new leads and customers. The company provides health, property, and liability insurance, and serves over 261,000 private customers with over 1 Bn. in premium volume. Kingfluencers managed the entire project, which took 5 weeks from ideation to finish. 21 influencers across multiple social media platforms made posts consisting mostly of videos. The campaign achieved an engagement rate of 3.4%, exceeded the goal for reach by 145%, and generated 3,025 qualified leads.
Build Now for a Stronger Tomorrow
Well-structured marketing plans can help you win over customers online during lockdown and then shift to also win new customers IRL once life goes back to normal. Social influence marketing can help your brand get even closer to consumers and win them over and retain them.
With a holistic approach in the industry and the help of in-house AI-based technology, Kingfluencers can run influencer marketing campaigns that not only provide impressive reach but also drive conversions. Contact us to discuss tactics for building brand equity to get ahead of your competitors. Our dedicated and creative team will take care of your marketing journey every step of the way.
Say It with Influencers and Boosting Emotional Appeal
Often, brands don’t adequately convey their true value and unique selling propositions, which leads to lost opportunities in sales and customer loyalty, and unrealized brand equity and value. The “Brand Indicator Switzerland” (BIS) study classified brands into 4 groups, including “Rational Brands:” those with low scores on emotionality but high scores on relevance.
Such brands could gain by boosting their emotional appeal by engaging in more people-driven, creative, storytelling and advertising that unlocks emotion.
Now that physical distance is a given, it’s crucial to get closer to your audiences digitally. Physical distance doesn’t need to become emotional distance and detachment, but brands must act to prevent the loss of brand equity. Unfortunately, as everyone increases their digital outreach efforts, noise increases, and true connection becomes more difficult. Smart choices are vital to stand out from the crowds, and the best path to effective connection is with emotion, empathy, storytelling, and authenticity.
Singular asked marketing leaders for their free-form input on the future of marketing, then consolidated the responses and found empathy as a “supertrend” for 2021. “The goal: better marketing, sure. Consistent marketing, absolutely. But ultimately: strong and lasting customer relationships.”
Social influence marketing is an ideal tool to achieve these goals.
Influencer marketing can make people feel closer to your brand and develop a strong preference for it.
Influence marketing provides an agile, real-time communication channel with consumers. Social influence marketing is also quick and agile. Such a campaign can be developed and launched in a matter of weeks to drive revenue promptly.
Social influence marketing delivers reach and real impact on consumer decisions fast and efficiently. Give your brand a face people can relate to, elevate your advertising spending by adding credibility and authenticity to your message. Social media channels also enable you to reach audiences that aren’t easily reached via traditional marketing.
Contact Kingfluencers to discuss how you can humanize your brand. Kingfluencers provides worry-free execution along with best-in-class outcomes.
Continue Your Investment in Social Influence Marketing
It certainly feels as though life will never go back to normal. (When do we start shaking hands again?) But much of what we miss, from concerts to sporting events, will indeed return. When that time comes, brands must continue their investments in connecting with consumers. Tomorrow’s winners are being created now, so what are you up to? Let’s talk.
Author: Yoeri Callebaut, Chief Growth and Marketing Officer at Kingfluencers
Brand Indicator Switzerland — the first brand survey to include influencers
The “Brand Indicator Switzerland” (BIS), which was developed together with the renowned advertiser Frank Bodin, the insight platform deeptrue, and the social influence agency Kingfluencers, contains two innovations: Most brand studies focus on parameters such as trust or image. In comparison, the recently published BIS measures two brand factors that are crucial to the actual success of a brand, namely relevance and emotionality.
While most brand studies depict the present, the “Brand Indicator Switzerland” also reveals an outlook into the future. This is done by comparing the opinion of the entire population with the view of influencers. Because influencers are ahead of their time and constantly impact their followers, the opinion of these creators is a good indicator to predict the future success or failure of brands or even industries.
The digital influencers are reliable trend barometers because, thanks to their forward-looking nature and pronounced brand sensitivity, they use the social media on a daily basis to make themselves increasingly heard among the “normal” population. Influencers are trend-conscious and very close to brands due to their jobs. They often also reflect a somewhat younger and more future-oriented perspective. The 280 interviewed social media experts were interviewed anonymously for the BIS so that they could act really independently for the study.
The future will be more digital
Swiss people love traditional Swiss brands: Apart from top-ranked WhatsApp, YouTube and Google, the Swiss brands Migros, Coop, Lindt, Toblerone, Zweifel, Ricola, Ovomaltine, Emmi and Rivella are all in the top 16. However, the future is likely to look different; more and more digital brands will push their way into the top positions and replace traditional stars of today. The speed with which new brands such as Netflix or Spotify are conquering the world and thus Switzerland is striking. Frank Bodin comments: “If you analyze the age segments, you can see that Swiss society is currently experiencing a “digital divide” among the 30 year olds; this young population will increasingly take on leadership roles in the coming years and thus fundamentally change the brand landscape.
Recommended actions for modern marketing
The aim of the “Brand Indicator Switzerland” is not so much to provide with a brand ranking but to offer brand managers a tool that helps them make the right decisions: Concrete recommendations for action in marketing and communication can be derived from the results of the comprehensive study. A total of 240 consumer brands from all sectors were integrated into the study and evaluated. The BIS shows which brands are relevant and popular among influencers and which brands will therefore tend to perform better or worse in the future.
Study reveals further important findings
Based on the opinions of both the interviewed consumers and the influencers, the study uncovers a number of other valuable insights. For example, the BIS provides indications that some brands and industries are already undergoing change. The BIS results also show how strongly brands are able to differentiate themselves and position themselves at the top or rather at the bottom of the league.
With the help of the “Brand Indicator Switzerland”, brand managers are now able to react immediately. For example, with better communication, which brings out the emotionality of a brand and thus improves the public image of the brand.
Example telecommunications industry
The BIS not only shows how the brands are developing individually but also points out interesting industry dynamics and measures the degree to which the industry players differentiate themselves from one another. One example is the telecom industry. There, Swisscom and Sunrise are clearly ahead of the pack. The market position of both UPC and Salt is less impressive, despite all efforts. In the eyes of the general population and influencers, the Wingo and Yallo, which appeal to a younger target audience, perform rather poorly. Without fundamental efforts on the part of those responsible for the brands, it is possible that these brands may find it difficult in the future in terms of their competitive position or market share.
