Don’t underestimate the influencer economy

It’s a tale as old as time. You open TikTok and your For You page — or at least my For You page (make of that what you will) — is awash with angry creators. Why angry, I hear you ask?

Well, more often than not a brand has committed the ultimate faux pas and underestimated the influencer economy setting off an (avoidable) wave of negativity sentiment into the algorithm, for all to see.

For example, angry creators recently flooded my algorithm when a skincare brand, which shall remain nameless, contacted a number of influencers asking them to create content for its new product without payment. The influencers would get the product (worth about $35) and a chance to meet the celebrity tied to the brand in return.

Of course, gifting is a common occurrence in the influencer marketing space.It’s so common in fact that the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) updated its guidelines in the last few years to ensure that any influencer who received a ‘gift’ as a form of payment states that the content they produce is an #ad.

It's a rule the ASA takes very seriously. Just ask Molly Mae and Katie Price, both of whom have been on the receiving end of an investigation into proper advertising conduct.

So, yes, gifting is a thing. BUT where this brand appears to have crossed the line is by expecting too much for so little in return.

The current state of the influencer economy

The global market for influencer marketing is humongous. The creator economy is estimated to be worth a whopping $250 billion, a figure that one of the biggest investment banks in the world, Goldman Sachs, predicts will grow to nearly $500 billion by 2027. Needless to say, influencer marketing is worth a lot of money.

This money is generated, as the name suggests, through paying social media influencers for their influence. The larger their audience, the bigger their influence and the more money they can charge for their brand-sponsored content. Creator funds also contribute to the total with platforms —most notably TikTok— paying creators in participating countries per view on videos that are over a minute long.

Pricing up influencers from a PR and marketing perspective however is no mean feat, as it ranges from influencer to influencer, talent agent to talent agent.

For example, I’ve been quoted £8.5k for a single Instagram post from an influencer that has 1.4m followers, £4k for a post with an influencer who has 150k followers, and by comparison, the mega celebrities like Kim Kardashian are commanding —on average— over $2million per Instagram post.

While the pay scale between influencers is not set in stone (to say the least), one thing that is known is that you cannot expect a lot for free.

Gifting a product that has a high worth is a great way to get micro-influencers onboard with your brand, but when it comes to engaging the big players or having a low value product you need the budget to support your brief…something the brand in question clearly forgot.

A $35 dollar product and a one-in-however-many chance to meet a celebrity is not a fair trade. It simply doesn’t pay the bills, and this I think is the crux of the matter when brands underestimate the influencer economy.

Influencing is a job … deal with it

Whether you value it as ‘real work’ or not, being an influencer is a job. Simple as that.Once upon a time when you asked kids what they wanted to be when they grow up, the answer was astronaut, firefighter, or maybe princess… now however one in four young Americans (Gen Z) want to become an influencer.

And why not? You work your own hours, you can focus your content on exactly what you want, you are the definition of your own boss.

Many find fame and fortune by becoming an influencer, others pour endless effort into social media platforms but are never favoured by the algorithm. It’s a dice roll BUT it is a career and the perception that it isn’t is affecting the way brands approach influencers.

The power is not in your hands

Like it or not, as a brand hiring an influencer, you are not the top dog in this power balance.

When the chips are down, you need this person and their influence to promote your product, and that puts them in the driver’s seat, to an extent.

This is partly why the range of pricing for influencers fluctuates so widely — they charge based on what they believe their worth to you is.

Now, where the brand that started this blog went wrong was not just in trying to get content for basically free, but in underestimating the worth of the influencer and the amount of work they were asking them to do.

According to the many disgruntled TikTokkers who frequently pop up on my For You page, it is not uncommon for brands to send a full brief along with their initial email. Brands are specifying the content they want the influencer to make and guidelines to work within — all before the influencer had expressed any interest in working with the brand.

While some may view this as thorough, to others — and certainly the aforementioned disgruntled influencers — it was presumptuous, to say the least.

But this isn’t the only faux pax  brands are making.

I’ve heard of a brand in the ladies’ fashion industry reaching out to influencers with a similar set of demands in return for a product that runs between £20 and £40.

They even went one step further, letting the influencers know that they were intending to use the content created as their global social media advertising campaign.

How much do agencies charge to create a global advertising campaign?

It’s certainly not £20-£40.

So, how do you work with influencers?

The number one thing would be to treat influencers as you would any other creative agency you are looking to hire.

You are asking them to create promotional content, after all. You wouldn’t expect an advertising agency to do that for free, so why expect it of an influencer?

That isn’t to say that working on a gifted basis is not possible, but be realistic about the value of the product you are willing to send.

Not just in terms of the monetary value, but also the value it holds to the influencer, and what you are asking for in return. Be reasonable. These influencers don’t work for you.

Secondly, a lot of what’s involved in ensuring you have a good initial correspondence with an influencer comes down to good selection of influencers in the first place.

Look for people who are genuinely going to want to work with your brand, either because your interests are aligned or because they have expressed interest in working with you before.

You will be starting on the front foot if you can justify your choice of influencer based on more than just their follower count.

Finally, don’t make the mistake of approaching them with a full brief straight away. As we’ve discussed, this can come across as presumptuous.

Instead, ‘woo’ your influencer, for lack of a better word.

Email them expressing why you want to work with them and give them an overview of the brief.

Share your budget expectations and allow them, or their agent, to judge whether it fits within their scope.

If you don’t have a budget, be upfront about the fact this is a gifting-only opportunity and let them decide whether they think the effort is worth the reward.

And if you’re totally stuck, hire a PR agency who does this all the time.

There’s a good one called Wildfire, I hear.

See what I did there? Well, see what we do here.