by By Alex Forsyth
Authenticity has become one of the main pillars that separate good brands from bad brands. Brands are no longer entities that’s sole purpose is to sell products. They are more focused on connecting with the public and creating solid relationships. Brands are now looking for more ways to incorporate authentic influencers into their branding and marketing strategies. Advertised products are everywhere, and the last thing people want to see is influencers promoting products that don’t align with their personal brand identity. Instead, brands are searching for more organic ways to promote their products through influencer marketing. Organically promoting your brand through influencers is more about creating honest conversations about your brand instead of just promoting a product that your brand offers.
Organic influencing is now pivotal in a brand’s marketing tactics because it promotes authenticity and helps you reach your primary audience. Finding ways to promote your brand through influencers organically is not easy. You need to find influencers that already center their content around brands similar to yours. These influencers often won’t have the highest follower count, but their followers will be engaged and listen to what they have to say. It means that brands need to do their homework and determine who generates conversations regarding their brand. It is very easy to tell when a brand is using a popular influencer to sell a product, and it comes across as unauthentic.
One of the best examples of authentic and organic influencing is Playstation promoting its new virtual reality headset in Canada. Playstation could have easily aimed to get a mega-influencer to promote their new VR headset, but they decided to choose more organic and authentic ways to promote their brand. Instead of finding influencers with the highest follower count, they went to a series of nano and micro-influencers specializing in tech and gaming reviews to give personal testimony about the VR product. This campaign led to high engagement rates and interactions with their posts.
Playstation is one of many brands that are looking to shift to a more authentic way of promoting their products, and more brands need to follow suit. Authenticity needs to be at the center of every brand’s core values because brands are no longer only here to sell products. Brands are a part of our daily lives and hold a tremendous amount of power in our society. Brands need to connect with people and create a sense of community through their brand.
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You make a lot of good points here about selecting influencers! Now that a lot of people are very experienced with social media, they have seen enough marketing campaigns to recognize when it is not a good match between a brand and an influencer. Rather than choosing a big influencer whose story doesn’t fit with your message, it will often be better to choose from the many small influencers who will connect to your campaign.
Hello Alex,
I had honestly not thought about the way PlayStation attempts to keep the authenticity in their marketing. I found the insights behind not using mega-influencers for the launch of their new virtual reality headset in Canada. I am excited to see what brands begin to shift to more authentic ways to promote their products and launches alike.
I was really interested reading this article! I do think that authentic influencing and organic marketing is crucial in the social media world, but I do wonder if there will be a day when any sort of influencing/marketing (including authentic influencers and organic marketing) are brushed off as an advertisement simply because they are an influencer/it is coming from a biased source. Once again, great article!
Influencers are what makes the world now and it is fantastic to see their impact on social media. However reading this blog has opened up my eyes on how we need real influencers. This reminded me of an ad where someone was pretending to be an influencer for their commercial and it just left a bad taste in my mouth
Comment by Cesar.
I enjoyed the example you gave about PlayStation and their organic take on influencer promotion!
I really enjoyed reading this! Lots of influencers are not authentic or have a facade on the internet for followers or brand gifting opportunities. I think there should be more awareness about using authentic influencers, and I like how you talked about one of your favorite brands too and how they can change their influencer promotions.
Great post! Since there are so many influencers out there now, it can be hard to decipher between who is authentic and who’s not. Lots of influencers promote things simply for the paycheck and it’s important to be aware of who actually cares about the product or company.
Hi Alex!
I loved this post. I think authenticity is huge in the influencer world. I have a select few who I actually trust when it comes to recommending products to me. I base this off of their authenticity and how real they come off on social media.
I thought you made some really good points throughout this blog post. I think with the exponential growth of social media, influencers and influencer advertising has to be done in the right way. And I think the relationship between the brand and the influencer is also really important in conveying honest advertisements. The influencers who seem genuine and honest have the biggest impact and I think you did a really great job at explaining that.
Hey Alex! I agree with everything you said. At the end of the day, the word “influencer” is someone who influences others. So, if they are influencing others, it should come from a place of authenticity if they want to have any sense of morals. For example, when influencers post about tummy teas that “help you lose weight” that they definitely don’t use hurts their reliability and also can be very damaging to their young followers.
Hi Alex,
I enjoyed reading your post about influencers. I often think about how this word is being redefined. I really like to follow how influencers are being creative for brands, and how brands are taking advantage of having influencers help them out with their campaigns.
One thing I think would be interesting to discuss on top of this is the difference between paid influencing through money invested and overall reach/response and if there is certain levels at which one surpasses the other. Another thing I think nis interesting is the difference between a influencer advertising on their own account vs the businesses, this is popular on TikTok and can sometimes trigger larger responses than usual because the audience will think its just normal content.