To talk about a really hot topic, which is influenced in marketing and how that plays a role in your 35th. Sharon, welcome on to the podcast speed. How are you?
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much for having me on absolutely brilliant. Love to do again last week, Dillion. That was amazing. So thank you so much for having us on here to talk about something that we work so much. The digital footprint is something we're getting the rainfall and you'll see a four year.
SPEAKER_03Brilliant. Okay, so let's get started. Let's introduce you first to our audience. Tell us a little bit about yourself, about how you got into the digital space and what digital footprints does.
SPEAKER_01So we've been in business for 15 years now, which seems like quite a long time when I say that out loud. But within that time, we've always worked within the affiliate space. So originally it was more from a content creation side of things. So we would create content for affiliate portals. But as the sort of digital landscape evolved and the affiliate landscapes evolved, we did too. So now Digital Footprints operates as a full service agency. It was really important to me that we could be part of the whole marketing journey and provide a holistic service and not just like, you know, one piece of the pie effectively. We've seen such a big case in case story in sort of like digital consumption that we wanted to place a much larger focus on the brand building side of things. And this is where the sort of influencer marketing and digital PR becomes a critical part of what we do. I think for me especially, I love building things, whether it be brands, networks, partnerships. I think that's what we do best.
SPEAKER_03Perfect. All right, so quite a big broad spectrum there. Now there's been a lot of stats being thrown around in the industry where and how influencers are relevant in performance marketing. And I think you shared a stat with me earlier this week. 70% of consumers are being more likely to buy a product from a brand if referenced by an influencer that they know and trust, which we know has been happening with all of the different digital channels, TikTok, Instagram, and now Threads as well. How do you view influencers as part of the partnership economy right now? And do you think that they'll continue to play a role or an influential role in persuading customers via social media channels to purchase?
SPEAKER_01100%. I think if we take a look at the creator economy as a whole, it's projected to like double in size by the time we get to 2027. I think the estimated value is going to be like $480 billion. And I think if we look influencers and content creators' part in that, I think like over 200 million people, um, if you ask them what their job is, they'll say they're a content creator or they'll say that there's there's an influencer, which is really exciting. Um whether that be a sort of full-time role or a part-time role or you know, whatever. But aside from that scale, I think what's more interesting is the sort of consumer behaviour and the shift in that. So I think that you know consumers are they only want to work with brands that they have an aff an affinity with. A brand that they feel is authentic, a brand that they feel is ethical. And I think when we look at influencer marketing in a whole, if it's done well, it'll make a brand much more relatable to the consumer. And it'll play a big part in conversions. I think also I think we take a look at the user-generated content within that as well. And if we've got content that provokes real responses, which influencer marketing tends to do, I think it'll give people a real a real buy into a brand.
SPEAKER_03Now that's quite interesting because you're talking about content creators and then influencers, and I think it's important that affiliate managers understand the difference between the two because they're kind of lumping influencers as one big thing into their program, going, oh yes, now I need to work with influencers. But what is the difference between content creators and actual influencers? Can you maybe just expand on that a little bit?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think about I think actually there's a few sort of titles that are used interchangeably and maybe not always understood, you know, what's what. So I think the same with brand ambassadors as well. So we've got brand ambassadors, influencers, and content creators, it's a it's a big thing. Content creators are people who create content specific for their for their audience. They tend to be very specific about the kind of content that they push out because they've spent years potentially and long unpaid hours to kind of build up that that following race and that fan base. Influencers, we sort of like to think of them kind of as affiliates, to be fair, because you can negotiate those same types of deals and build longer-term partnerships with them.
SPEAKER_03And then obviously brand ambassadors, well, they they might have to change the way that they're going to be promoting shortly because of some of the new FTC guidelines that have come in place. And I just want to talk about that a little bit because recently, in the last couple of weeks, and not to date this this episode, but you know, we've seen some EU countries put some best practice guidelines out in terms of how influencers need to be working with brands to protect the consumer in terms of you know providing honest and and regulated promotional advice in order to stimulate purchases. But also in the US, where they've recently released some very clear guidelines on what a content creator or influencer or ambassador is actually going to have to say when they promote. So, how do you see some of these changes maybe influencing the way that this category of partner forms part of an affiliate programme?
SPEAKER_01I think from our perspective, any sort of regulation within that is it can only be a good thing. I think that, you know, we need to make sure that marketing is done responsibly. And I think, you know, if you look across different sectors, and obviously we know we've got quite an eye gaming, uh, big eye gaming client base, and I mean look at the sort of compliance and regulation restrictions that there are for advertising there. The only thing that's come out of that is to make sure that actually what we're promoting is what we should be, you know, be promoting. And if you take a look at the guidelines anyway, a lot of it is just basic best practice that people should be doing anyway. So it's things like, you know, this is a sponsored message that you should put on to let your followers know this is what they should say. It also just get into the grounds of like don't push a product you've not tried.
SPEAKER_03Which is kind of common sense, really, at the end of the day. Precisely, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Precisely. So a lot of it is just common sense, but it at least gives the consumer knowledge that they know that what they've been promoted is is authentic. You know, an influencer isn't going to promote a product or a service that they don't believe in.
SPEAKER_03And that authenticity is very important because I think brands need to establish that authenticity with their influencer partners and content creators because consumers have become more savvy, like they see through that immediately. So trying to like dupe a customer into making a purchase is never a good start to build a relationship with an ongoing customer base. So I think educating your content creators about what is your best practice, and each industry is going to have different like layers of compliance and and regulation that they need to follow, depending on if they're in a more stringent place like finance or gambling or if they're you know in insurance or something like that, where there are more stricter guidelines in terms of how products can be promoted. But I think also it it makes sense for influencers to self-educate and that onboarding process that you know brands have in their affiliate program needs to cater for these types of content creators. Whereas normally we restrict by the the branding that an affiliate can put up on their site, or we restrict on the content that they're allowed to use. But we need to think outside the box. So on that point, what are some of your suggestions in terms of working with influencers to make sure that you are enabling them to follow these best practices? What are some of the key pieces of advice that you do with influencers for your clients?
SPEAKER_01I think although part of it comes from the sort of discovery element of it and and how we find them in the first place. So what we tend to do is we tend to push scene campaigns. So we post content that we know is going to provoke comments or reactions from people. And that can actually be a really, really good way to source influencers that already have a brand affinity. Because the idea that they've already done, they've already commented, they've already engaged, so they already know what you're about. So what we typically do is have a look at that first, see if there's anybody within that as part of that campaign that we think would be a valuable influencer and somebody that you know we would want to work with when you do that, that's already authentic.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's hyper-targeted because you're already soliciting them to come to you rather than I suppose the other, I don't know if your next point was going to be like using social listening tools and and maybe there's some tools that you can share with people to give you that insight.
SPEAKER_01Yep, definitely. So I think that works with available, obviously, or maybe outsourcing to an agency or if you've got you know someone dedicated to that specific campaign. But if you're kind of working on that yourself, then definitely there are some AI tools that can be used to source. Um typically they work on um keywords so or interest groups, so that you'll do a tracker is um a good one to use. All of them do come with like costs attached to it. But um, in terms of resource the amount of time that would probably save, you know, a small team, it would be well worth the investment to do that.
SPEAKER_03And let's just caveat that we're not affiliates of tracker, but yeah, carry on.
SPEAKER_01Other tools are available. Yes. But what that'll do is that'll help you group some people and it'll even rank them to some extent, and it'll give you um information on their authenticity, because obviously we talked that's what's super important. What we find is a lot of people make a mistake of looking purely at follower numbers and think, oh no, this is great, this person's got like one million followers. But actually, it doesn't really matter if that audience isn't connected, isn't engaged, or isn't your right demographic.
SPEAKER_03Are there tools that you can use to actually look at that to actually spot whether it's just numbers or whether it's actually engagement?
SPEAKER_01Tracker does that. So what that'll do is that'll actually give you um a percentage as well of counts that are bought. Oh wow. Yeah. So it'll help you decide whether you know they've got out of those a million followers, you know, 900,000 of them are actually fake counts. So I think using those tools in the first instance, if it's not something that you know you know you've delved too much into before, is a really good way to go. And it'll give you that starting base. And then once you then have that group, then obviously you can kind of delve a little bit more into their engagement stats and you know, all the performance metrics to give you a better idea of how they align with your brand and what you're looking to achieve from these um influencer campaigns.
SPEAKER_03So once you've done that bit and you've found like, you know, four, five, ten, twenty, however many influencers you're gonna want to partner with, what's the next step? Because I think a lot of people they'll always ask, how do I engage? Like what how how do I reach out to these people? What's the kind of the information that I need to put into that first email or that first message? Like what are some of your tips in terms of engaging those partners and actually bringing them in?
SPEAKER_01I think it's always a good idea to have researched the content that they've posted and before that and use that as an open discussion. So you're not going to contact anybody anyway who's not, you know, previously pushed anything that's um out with your interest group. So if you're selling a beauty product, for example, and you've got a new product launch, you'd go on and see if there's anything of similar that they've pushed before and use that as a starting point. It's quite similar as to how you would start like an affiliate relationship, which is good news for for listeners. It's not you know a cold email, it's using information shown that you've done a bit of research and understanding that it's a partnership between two people and it's not just although it's a paid-for service, I think it's um wrong to assume that the influencer automatically wants to work with you, and I think that's quite important. So to understand that it's a two-way street, say that you, you know, you know, you've had a lead at their content, it fits well with your brand and what you're looking to do, and then sort of start to give them an idea of what your your KPIs and your goals are, whether that's to push a new product, whether that's to get more engagement on your social channels, whether that's to generate more leads and open discussions that way.
SPEAKER_03So I think that's quite important actually. You kind of need to map all of that out before you even start outreaching, is you're gonna have to do the listening bit, and there's tools that can help you to do that. You're gonna have to then whittle down into the data and make sure that the audience segments that you're kind of collating together in terms of volume make sense. And then from there, you need to figure out like what is it that you actually want this influencer to deliver? Is it top of brand final awareness? Is it pushing a new product and directing sales just on that one product? Is it kind of like evergreen? You want them to just, you know, be an eternal influencer or brand ambassador for your program, no matter what it is that you're discussing. So, and that will then tailor the outreach to the partner and actually get them on board. What are your thoughts? Because I often get asked, and we're going a little bit off piste here, but I often get asked about you know gifting for influencers. Like, is it necessary to have free products available and and or will some influencers work without actually trying the product, or will they invest their own money to buy the product? Like, what's your experience in in that kind of three-way, you know, choice of how you approach?
SPEAKER_01Typically, we would we call it rewarding loyalty effectively. So what we would say is like we would like you to review this product and and you know to say thanks for this, we we'll provide you with it. We that kind of tends to work to work well with influencers. Don't get me wrong, symbol will you know buy it straight away if it's something that they're really, really interested in. But the good thing is is if you implement those seeding campaigns that I was talking about earlier, the chances are that you actually might find an influencer that's already purchased a similar product or service and maybe would be looking to to purchase something else anyway. And I think that's why it's super important when you're you're you know you're reaching out to them that you've you've chosen the right interest group because then they'll be more likely to do that.
SPEAKER_03Alright, so uh it really is on a case-by-case basis, there's no one size fits all program here in terms of gifting or freebies or actually just you know asking them to purchase the product or at a discounted rate.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And it's all depends on the size and the scale and the experience of influencers really, and you know what your budget is within that campaign. But I think that's that's the beauty of influencer marketing, that it's not like a a cookie-cutter sort of approach. You can be as creative as you want to, and you can create the kind of partnerships that you want to as well. It's just like the only limit is just imagination, effectively.
SPEAKER_03I love that. The only limit is just imagination. I think that's going to be our catch point for this thing. Okay, so you mentioned working with agencies, and I want to go back to that because a lot of affiliate programs they'll outsource you know PR to a PR agency, and that typically has always included influencers, but now we're starting to see that shift. So, what's the benefit of working with an agency in terms of kind of expanding this segment of your affiliate program and going with a specialist team to help you to develop that? Like obviously, I'm I would imagine the first thing is well, fast track because you'll be able to fast track the research and and and get the data um a lot more easily. But what are some of the other benefits?
SPEAKER_01I think the thing with influencer marketing is sometimes social media marketing actually in general within affiliate businesses is that it's usually left to maybe somebody within operations or if you don't have a big and it's often sort of implemented, but it's not been um at the forefront of what their job role is. So I think that maybe a mistake is to, you know, spend heaps of money within this campaign, but if you don't have the resource to do that, then you're kind of spending all your money and we don't know what it's gone. So as well as sort of fast tracking these campaigns, I think what you would have as a specialized influencer agency would be that knowledge and creating these partnerships and agreements as well, which can be quite important, especially if there is anything that's to take to be taken into consideration when it comes to like compliance or regulation, you'll already know how to deal with that, and that might not be something someone within your marketing team might I think that when it's outsourced to an agency, the onus is on us effectively to provide you with data that says this is your return on investment. And I think it's a myth because it's sort of known as a a fluffy marketing technique, rather as a performance base sometimes that you can't do that, but if you can, there's all sorts of social media listening tools that will help us as an agency provide you as a client with you know reports and it can be you know as soon as this post's gone out, this is how many times your brand has been mentioned, as opposed to last year. And the same, you know, there's all sorts of qualitative and quantitative data that an agency can push that may not, you know, be within the skill set of the existing team that you guys have, if you know, influencer marketing is something that you're just sort of delving into or dipping your dipping your toe in the water for.
SPEAKER_03To be honest, most people are just tacking it on at this point because it's you know, if it's pay and performance, we'll work with an influencer, we'll work with an SEO, we'll work with a blogger, we'll work with an app developer. And and so it is becoming a specialist skill set. So it does, and and we actually spoke about this at Elevate a couple of weeks back where we said that the future of affiliate marketing is that account managers are going to have to choose their specialism. They might have to be influencer affiliate managers, they might have to be SEO affiliate managers, there might have to be, you know, other types of traffic channel affiliate managers and really get deep into these channels to understand how to deliver that performance. So I think working with a specialist, I mean, it kind of always makes sense. But the ROI piece is something that has been spoken about a lot. And you touched on that there, where when you outsource it to an agency, the RI, the ROI is really their remit to uh deliver back. And using the specialist skills means that you you're kind of more likely to succeed on that ROI, but also being very clear on what that ROI is, because you mentioned a few things. It's not just about the number of sales, it could also be the number of new customers or registrations or products delivered or whatever the case may be. So getting very clear with your agency is probably the first step to hiring one. So, what kind of briefing process do you expect clients to deliver when they're coming to you with a campaign?
SPEAKER_01So, normally we have a sort of discovery column. Within that, what we want to know is what their what their main goal is. So, do you want to build your brand? Do you want X amount of followers on your social media channels? Do you want X amount of leads through your website, or do you want X amount of sales through, you know, for a specific product or service? Within that, we've completely customized the campaign. So a lot of the time it is lead generation as well. And when we do that, that's when we look into things like creating customized landing pages, bespoke codes, you know, URL parameters, those kinds of things, all of which will then help us go back and say, you know, this is what you've got from this campaign and this is what it's resulted in. The same for brand building, the same for sort of engagement levels. So again, these social media listening tools that will give us an idea is this is the amount of times your brand was mentioned this month as opposed to the month previous. So it's all about having an open and honest discussion at the beginning to really figure out what it is they want in order for us to create that bespoke plan that will then you know deliver those results. But it's a it's a big mix.
SPEAKER_03It is it sounds like it. And I think that's the key thing that I want to tell people tuning in here is that you need to have your strategy of your why, why you are doing this campaign and why you are approaching these types of partners before you get down to the activation piece to then get into the tracking and the recording of it. And each step in that kind of briefing process, it's almost like the flywheel of influencer marketing is start with your why, then work into you know who's gonna actually run it, the resource piece, the expert, the experience and the expertise, then build the data segment, then kind of think about the activation piece. How are you gonna price for this? How are you going to gift products so that you know, you know, these influencers actually really can create authentic content? And then how you're gonna measure the results. So I think you know, that's that's pretty good advice in terms of getting started. So, you know, maybe an agency is the right route to take if you are just dipping your toe and wanting to sort of tack it on. I think we should talk about some of the top tips because obviously starting with an agency is one of the top tips if you if you don't have the internal resource and experience internally. But what are the some of the things that brands need to get right before they even approach an agency? So if they're thinking about starting to work with an influencer campaign right now as part of their performance program, what kinds of tools and things do they need to get ready? Because often that's forgotten and done after. So you kind of want to get ahead of it before you reach out. So, what are some the preparatory things that you will need even if if you're the agency or even if you're not using an agency to have in place before you start down this this track?
SPEAKER_01I think what you need to think is first so why you're doing it and to have that goal in mind and have that clear so that what you don't go off on is a sort of vanity project which I've seen you know some people do with with their influencer marketing campaigns. You thought right we've got X amount of money, you know we've got this guy, he's got millions of followers, let's just go and that'll be it. So I think to have your goal in mind while you're doing it. I think to have the correct tracking elements in place. So whether that be tracking on your website tracking from your email campaigns make sure that there's code attached to all of those different things. And I think to make sure that you have the right software and the right tools to monitor what's going on with those campaigns if you are doing it with a mix of PR as well so if it is like a part a part of an overall PR strategy there are really good decisions, for example, is absolutely brilliant and it will give you such in-depth analytics as to how your influencer marketing campaigns are performing as part of your whole workforce.
SPEAKER_03Because I know we spoke about this before that PR has always been traditional media but PR now crosses over into influencer. So talk about how brands can actually leverage that. Let's talk about that a little bit.
SPEAKER_01I do think that's important because I think PR is a it's a long game whereas sometimes influencer marketing isn't sometimes you have short-term goals. So it you know if it is for that product launch or if it is for that service launch. And I think that's what we kind of need to look at. I think that with PR as well what we need to remember is that it's got quite a rigid directive. So effectively you're shaping exactly the message that you want out you're controlling that narrative and with influencer marketing it's a little more open-ended and that's why it it it works really well because it does have that authenticity so you can try and shape a narrative you can try and push a story but at the end of the day you can um buy opinion and I think that's the whole point. So you know I think that's the main difference between PR and influencer marketing but I think that both are very very important. I just think that people do need to understand that they are two different things and you know they'll they'll bring two different kinds of results as well.
SPEAKER_03And also two different price points because PR very rarely now can you get free PR like there there's some sort of paid for element that goes along with it and you know it's very it has to be hyper-targeted for it to be covered as free or it needs to be major industry news that you know people can jump on the back of the uplift in traffic just because it's a trending item. So I think you need to think about both working together conjointly um like you said because you want the news and the opinion to actually drive the sales forward. So having that as part of your strategy is probably a really good idea as well.
SPEAKER_01Definitely I think you're right. I think um the days where you can sort of get earned media is becoming more and more difficult. I think even if you push out a PR campaign and you can say you know we've generated X amount of backlinks from that usually there is some sort of pay to play involved somewhere so whether it be an influencer marketing campaign or a sponsorship of a you know a sports team or something like that, although it's earned media there still usually is a pay-to-play element attached to that.
SPEAKER_03Now in the in the sports bidding industry which uh and and gaming industry I know sponsorship plays a huge part how have you seen influencers influence the activation of a sponsorship has there been any like crossover in terms of paid sponsorship and and influencer marketing working conjointly together?
SPEAKER_01I think do you know I think the thing with influencer marketing and in sports betting is what you need to remember is that they'll have their own ideas and opinions too and I think that that's important to bring that to the table especially if people are new to influencer marketing campaigns because what you need to remember is those guys have been doing this for years. This is their job. So if they if you go to them and say you know I've got this sports betting brand we're looking to do this and we're looking to do that and you're getting a little bit of pushback from them or you know recommendations or whatever I think that it's always great to listen to and I think this is where this partnership thing is really important and the nurturing of that and to get a better understanding.
SPEAKER_03Yeah because it can't be too prescriptive because otherwise it's not going to come across as authentic and and I suppose in sports betting it's kind of like religion you know like you can't go and you know get an influencer that's working for Arsenal to all of a sudden go and promote Manchester. It's just not going to work it's not going to be authentic.
SPEAKER_01Exactly and I I've we've seen some really successful campaigns from um the sports bid inside one of them is Paddy Piber actually they did an influencer marketing campaign it was um for Huddersfield FC and what they did was they released or they got influencers to release a a fake but actually by the time the real strip was released they got four times the level of engagement than what Manu got for their strip release which is just amazing all from their influencer marketing campaigns.
SPEAKER_03Yeah so that's the power of the people I mean you really do need to leverage the power of the people when you think they're about influences.
SPEAKER_01Exactly but I think that's the thing with they're all they're a brand that's always known to be creative so they're always going to kind of you know put their head above the parapet so to speak but it just goes to show when you've got you know being beaten four times in terms of engagement by hard or shield due to an influencer marketing cam. I think I think that's quite good proof of concept.
SPEAKER_03Yeah absolutely I mean the the thing is that proof of concept can be used across multiple different industries not just sports bidding I mean it could be any kind of product that could be leveraged in that way. I just want to touch a little bit on the negative side though because with PR and influencers there is always the concern about having a backlash and I guess this ties back to using an experienced agency if you do want to dip dip your toe into this section of the performance economy but what do you do in that circumstance? Like what's your advice in terms of what happens if it goes wrong like how how do you mitigate that how do you fix it?
SPEAKER_01I think this is where the social media listening tools come into play. I mean we have sort of observed it before where people have potentially chosen the wrong influencer and thought you know kind of back to that sort of vanity portion of the discussion where they thought we've got X amount of followers it'll be brilliant but actually we've seen it where the people haven't responded to it as as well as they thought and it could be that the influencer is not pushing a product that they've previously seen and it you know it gives you that impression of selling out. So that's why it's really really important to have real-time reporting on that. So if you see something go awry you can respond straight away or you know and you can change your directive change your strategy change the content you're pushing out and change the relationship with the influencer that you have um rather than continuing in that downward spiral and about three weeks later when oh no look what's happened. So I think that's why it's really really critical to either have an agency or to have real-time reporting so that you can, you know, keep your finger on the pulse.
SPEAKER_03Because you wouldn't see all of that report that kind of analysis in an affiliate tracking tool you'd only see the actual sale coming in from the campaign. So it is important to make sure that you've got the right tools in place before you even get started so that you can keep your finger on the pulse and know what's happening as soon as the the content streams out live on whatever channel it is. What are the easiest channels to actually build out an influence a campaign on in your opinion?
SPEAKER_01Instagram and TikTok is my favourite just now and the reason I'm a massive fan of um TikTok, I think the algorithm within it is is so clever. It's um incredibly clever and I think that when you use the right influencer and you have the right content in place I think that you have you can have a campaign that can go viral within you know minutes. I think what's different about that algorithm is it doesn't look at you know accounts and all that kind of stuff from videos. So it's not quite like um you know Facebook where it's like a percentage of organic reach which is just so difficult to to penetrate it's not like that. So it takes the content that you're pushing the the the music that you're even trending the edits everything like that into account and we've seen TikTok accounts we've got a client for example it's a sports team and they've gone from like zero to millions of views just within a few short weeks with the kind of content they're pushing.
SPEAKER_03Is that because the channel's still new like Facebook's really old and the algorithm doesn't give you any reach, organic reach really or is it is it just from the content that you plug in?
SPEAKER_01No I think I think you're right. I think it is due to the the way that their algorithms set it it it's much smarter. Like you know if you even listen to like a psychologist will say that like they can tell exactly what your mood's like just from your for you page at TikTok it's like you know it's no coincidence that people are stuck to that social media platform from such long amounts of time. It's developed hugely since you know dances and trends and all that kind of stuff. And but that's a good point in terms of TikTok so a lot a a lot of it's challenge based content. So if you've got the right influencer who's implementing a challenge or something fun or a trend on behalf of your brand that can go absolutely crazy so quickly. So that's why it's always really important to think about the content that you're push you're getting them to push out. And that you've got the right personality matching. But yeah TikTok would be my favourite but I would still say that Instagram is a strong contender especially if it's on like the beauty space or you know something like that, something very visual.
SPEAKER_03What what about the age difference between the two platforms? Is that something that brands need to consider? Or are the age groups more or less the same on Instagram and TikTok?
SPEAKER_01Do you know the age gaps get smaller and I think specifically with TikTok it was previously viewed as a really really young platform you know like if you were like Matt No and it's not it's weird. It's like the demographic has aged with the app if that makes sense and I'm not sure if it's because of like you know when people didn't have anything to do in COVID then you would have you know people my age going on and thinking that they can do fun dances and trends when it's probably not the best idea you know that older demographic is starting to push forward. So I think that the gap is closing. I think Facebook is still the probably the oldest in terms of the the age demographic and I think if we're looking to to capture a a younger audience it would be definitely in the the Instagram and and TikTok channels.
SPEAKER_03What's TikTok made you do recently just for fun and laughter? Because it made me it made me buy a gadget that I certainly didn't need.
SPEAKER_01Well TikTok um has made my business partner go half time and do a challenge halftime on a a Scottish football team to do KP ups against a pro football player. So we did all of that for the sake of TikTok.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_01TikTok makes you do crazy things TikTok makes you do crazy things. So it made me take part in the challenge as well which was problematic because I've not picked a football in my entire life. So yeah TikTok does it makes you do fun things but I suppose that's well that's back to the sort of creative thing and it's all just about imagination.
SPEAKER_03So you need to have a little bit of imagination there. So let's think about the future of influencer marketing and what do you think that's going to look like because obviously we've got threads we've got all of these new channels coming at play how do you decide which one to invest in how do you decide how much to invest in it like do you go all in into just one channel do you spread your love around what do you think the future of influencer marketing looks like as part of the performance marketing economy?
SPEAKER_01I think it depends on where you are on your sort of social media journey in the first instance. So if you already have a solid profile to build on or you know stuff to capitalise on I think if you're starting just from scratch I think you go all in on certain platforms it would fit with your demographic if you look at you know the sort of location that you're looking to target if you're looking at the interest group so as I say like um beauty for example would fit perfectly with Instagram you know that kind of thing I think you see like retail as well so you know take those things into account. I do think in terms of the future there will be sort of more AI generated content campaigns.
SPEAKER_03Yeah I think that's gonna come but I'm not sure if the channels are actually going to love it or hate it or you know build the algorithms around it to reviews because it's gonna lose the authenticity I think. But we're speculating now.
SPEAKER_01No definitely I think from our perspective because obviously we produce quite a lot of content as well as part of our agency services and my personal opinion of it is and I know there's so many and I know it's so subjective is that I think it's fine to use it for like creative prompts you know to to get like sort of brainstorming going I think that that's good. But I do think that what we'll find is that these algorithms are so smart for a reason.
SPEAKER_03You know they're they're major players for a reason I think that they will learn to detect what's original and you know you know what's not then of course there's the the big debate about who owns the content that's created by AI and whether you can reshare it and if they are going to be restrictions. So that's a that's a topic for a whole other discussion. But I think we've we've covered influencer marketing and what you need to know to like get started or to actually elevate you know using content creators and and brand ambassadors to build your performance marketing program and and access consumers on these channels. It's becoming irrelevant to just think that every customer's going to come to your website they're not they're focusing and checking out on multiple channels. So thank you so much for sharing all of these methods of wisdom and for telling us what TikTok has made you do recently which I think is uh everybody's story right now.
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