Influencer marketing has a strong penetration in today’s marketing strategy and the latest topic to dominate conversation is related to the control that should or shouldn’t exist when working with influencers. Should we pay influencers? On one hand we have influencers that are often payed to recommend a product or a service, and on the other side, we have honest product recommendations coming from unpaid influencers.

Control vs no control

For many years the media and public relations professionals have worked together to create content, with the understanding that the media have editorial control over what is printed or distributed online. PR professionals do not control or pay for the output.

This contrast separates audience and credibility: Publicity always gains more audience and less credibility whilst Public Relations has the most credibility, but less audience, which impacts on sales. Publicity generates sales for a short time with the latter building strong and loyal customers

The deadlock between both has almost vanished along the years granting each one its own place within the media press. Examples of that, would be commercial departments separated from the editorial making sure readers are not overly influenced by the commercial publicity.

Paid vs Nonpaid

This is another ongoing discussion when it comes to influencer marketing. Should we pay for their opinion? Some brands partnered with groups of bloggers for a certain period of time, and even announced it publicly. Others act like journalists sending content, they want to see shared on social media, to bloggers, Youtubers, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram influencers.

Payment has different levels of variation, depending on what is required. You can pay per post or you can engage through a specific challenge or campaign. There are also non-paid interactions, such as product offers or invitations to launch events.

Should we pay influencers?

Influencer’s incentive can vary, influencers may simply be paid to write what the company wants, or alternatively, influencers may receive free products or services from companies without any additional payment, to create free and original content about their experiences.

Audience and credibility always pull in opposite directions. Normally non-paid influencers have higher credibility but a lower reach, and paid influencers have higher reach but lower credibility.

Paying or not paying influencers for their content is a strategic decision. Depending on your objectives, marketers need to decide between short term sales or building a brand.

An Evolution

In short, Influencer marketing is using influencers to talk about brands. A digital evolution of word of mouth marketing or marketing led by consumer.

There are three worldwide platforms: the ones that pay for influencer’s reviews by monitoring their messages; those who don’t pay but try to lead the influencer’s reviews and a third one that combines both by paying only to influencers with lots of followers, offering products and services to the rest (what we call ‘the long tail’).

The automatization of IRM (Influencer Relationship Management) is essential to develop trial campaigns with hundreds of people that simultaneously meet the required segmentation crossing audiences with psychographic profiles.

YOUZZ

At Youzz we’ve automated all of the influencer selection steps to access detailed demographic and psychographic information from more than half a million influencers, allowing us to choose the right influencers for your campaigns.

With more than 500 projects developed over the last several years, Youzz has a community of more than 500,000 influencers (Youzzers) opted in (who volunteer to participate in the community) in over 25 countries with a combined reach of more than 750 million people.

It is a powerful “consumer media network” in which you can, in an automated manner through the aid of defined automation, build relationships, interact with influencers within your industry and measure the results.

For great results, email us here.