Influencer Networks: More Than the Sum of their Parts

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Once upon a time, here at Everywhere Agency, before there were influencer networks, we had a giant Excel spreadsheet with the names of hundreds of bloggers from near and far who published on platforms like Blogger and Typepad. We were a social media marketing agency who used these “mommy bloggers” to post and increase the reach of our clients’ messages and drum up awareness for their products and initiatives. We tracked, tagged, and became increasingly overwhelmed by the sheer size of our spreadsheets – and an influencer marketing agency was born.

 

Over the last 8 years we have expanded, grown, and developed into a fully-fledged influencer marketing agency – evolving right along with the micro-influencers who helped us create successes for our clients. As their content (and their rates) gained a larger share of the marketing mix, we saw that an influencer marketing wave was about to hit – ready or not. We took our lists of names and built our newly trademarked database and search system, InfluencerConnect® as a solution for scaling.

 

These days, everyone and their mother seems to have an influencer network or a new platform for running campaigns, which has led to a lot of philosophical questions here at Everywhere Agency about what having a network really means. We’ve sat through a litany of demos of platforms promising to allow us to sit back and count our cash but have hit a roadblock at every turn. As the self-serve ads and databases of influencers continue to saturate our market, the differentiators of our agency and in-house network, Everywhere Society, are becoming increasingly important to distinguish. Maybe one day they will get it right, but until then, here’s why we refuse to join the ranks of automated platforms.

 

You’re building our unique stories, not pushing out ads: We don’t spoon feed our influencers content to share. We give them parameters and inspiration – and then get out of their way. We pay these people, not just for their numbers, but for their ability to create quality content and to offer authentic narratives that feature our brands in an organic way. We find that content that’s been pulled off a technology platform, always feels like “brand speak” does not perform as well, and automation is inherently not authentic.

B***h Better Have My Money: Many of the platforms available require you to process payment through their service. The majority of influencers are freelancers, meaning that they don’t have the security of a regular paycheck. At Everywhere, we pay within two weeks of proof of campaign completion even when our client may be paying us on a net 60 basis. We have discovered that reliable payment, processed quickly translates into influencers going above and beyond the call of duty. They’re more open to making edits, creating extra social shares, and generally enjoy working with us more. When MODE went down in flames, they left a wake of unpaid content creators that had no one to contact, and no way to recoup their payment. Trust in payment is just another way we build our relationships.

 

Human Touch: The database “push messaging” eliminates the level of contact we want to have with our network. Despite all the growth and evolution we’ve experienced over the years, there are a few things that didn’t change in our approach to influencer marketing. We still write individual emails and read every word of the blogs that are produced for our clients. We still pick up the phone to answer influencer’s questions and hug them when we meet IRL at conferences. We still send flowers when they have babies and cry when we lose one of our own. Humans form relationships – and are more likely to do their best work for someone they like and have a genuine connection with.

 

Essentially, we have an influencer network built of people – with names, families, aspirations, and more importantly, a point of view – and we still care a whole lot about them. Until we can find a form of automation that doesn’t cheapen our relationships, we’ll happily continue to do things our way.

4 Ways to Rock a Blogging Conference

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If you’re in the influencer world, you know that a blogging conference is a great way to get connected – whether it be with brands or other influencers. Maybe you’ve never been to one but you want to and now you’re ready to take the plunge. Don’t worry – everyone starts out a newbie and can go on to conquer a conference!

Conferences can be intimidating, especially if you’re going alone. Then there are so many, it’s easy to wonder how to choose the right one. Some of my favorites are Mom 2.0 Summit, the Women in Travel Summit, ShiftCon and Blogalicious. Ultimately, you’ll want to go to a conference with a theme and sponsors that would fit in naturally with your blog content.

If you’re new to the game, here are four ways to make the most of any conference!

 

  1. Network, network, and oh yeah, network!

Conferences are less about what you know and more about who you get to know. Of course, you’ll want to learn a lot at sessions – but do take advantage of the ample opportunity to network! We don’t have to tell you that influencer marketing is all about collaboration. Sure, you run your channels, and you’ve built your brand, but you don’t become a success all on your own. You have to grow your audience and content, and who better to learn from than other influencers?

Influencers have told us before: “It’s a competitive market.” Instead of thinking that way, look at them as people who are trying to be great and maybe you each have what the other needs to get there. Sharing is caring! We love meeting and working with different influencers, and conferences are a great place to get that face-to-face time.

We have a Facebook group for all of the influencers in our network, Everywhere Society. It’s a place where all of our influencers can connect with each other and foster those relationships. Conferences allow you to do that in real life. Don’t shield yourself from making a new #BloggerBestie because they could be competition – they need you as much as you need them.

 

  1. Pack the right things

The most obvious things in the (influencer conference) world are most likely what you will forget to pack. Grab the suitcase, add these things, and when you’re done you can take your “ready to go” selfie!

  • Business cards: First and foremost, bring them! It’s the tangible connection between you and everyone you meet. Not bringing business cards signals that you’re not prepared or that you aren’t that serious about your blog.
  • At least one backup charger: Unless you have some new, magical phone with an endless battery, you’ll need it. Every sponsor has a photo opp, and the rest of the day you’ll be on social media and snapping pics with your new #BloggerBesties – all of those will suck the life right out of your phone.
  • Notebook: We can’t stress this enough, even in 2017, you’ll want to write things down in a non-digital format. You’re going into session after session, and you’re meeting people and brands that can propel your brand forward in between them. Trust us, you’ll have a lot of notes to look back on because it’s truly too much to remember

 

  1. Have a plan and know it!

From the moment you buy your tickets, don’t be surprised if you get an email at least once a day. Don’t disregard them as spam and delete them, but read them and form a game plan. Conferences pack as much as they can into a very short time frame. You’ll want to do it all and meet everyone, but be strategic and focus your time where it’s going to be the most beneficial to you. Know the brands that you’d like to work with and have your pitch ready. Make them want to reach out to you once they’re back in the office! But make sure you grab their cards so you can follow-up.

 

  1. Engage

Every conference has a hashtag. Not only are other influencers using it but so are brands. Make yourself known before you ever even get your badge at check-in and join the conversation early on. Want to take your engagement up a notch? Be a conference ambassador. We love taking members of Everywhere Society to conferences with us – either as brand ambassadors or agency reps. Our #BloggerBestie Ady of Verbal Gold recently went to Women in Travel Summit to represent society and encourage all these phenomenal travel bloggers to join our network. This was a major value add for us as we’ve recently taken on some major travel brands. Leticia Barr attended Mom 2.0 Summit with us as a brand ambassador for our client Domain.Me. This is an awesome way to gain a sponsorship to a conference and build a relationship with a brand.

 

The only thing left to do is decide which conference is in your future. Here’s a list of some conferences we’re considering attending this fall. Will we see you there?

Choosing Influencers for Client Campaigns

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I feel the need to demystify something about the process of choosing influencers for client campaigns. It may surprise you, but at Everywhere, we do not crowd around a conference table, look at the slate of applicants and pick our personal favorites. We all had our fair share of suffering on behalf of the “populars” during our respective high school years, and even though we can recite the majority of the “Mean Girls” script by heart, we don’t make our choices based on who we’d let sit with us. In fact, which influencer to pick for a campaign is ultimately driven by the client.

So how does it work? Have you ever heard the old saying, “There are two things you never want to see being made: laws in congress and sausages”? Well, it’s about as complicated as that – although as an agency we’ve tried to streamline the system to avoid the messiness.

When we launch a campaign with a client, we review their goals, and identify what success will look like. At Everywhere Agency, we also use a platform we’ve built called InfluencerConnect™ to help us sort and match influencers based on their profiles. Each client has different wants and needs based on their target demographics, so we review their priorities as follows.

  • Theme: What does the influencer blog about? If we’re doing a fashion campaign, sorry, we don’t need food bloggers,(even if your outfits slay on the regular). If we’re doing an entertainment-related campaign, we need to find folks who write and post about that topic on social media frequently.
  • Quality of Content. We read your blogs – not just the front page, but we scour your blogs. We stalk influencers and review their content going back months and months. We have one client that is looking for gorgeous images – they like to repurpose influencer content on their own channels, so we’re really looking a the quality of photography. If it’s a content-heavy post, we’ll pull samples of your writing style to show the client. Most clients have non-competes, so if we’re working for Coca-Cola, but you just did a campaign for Starbucks, you’re out. Some clients are averse to anything overtly religious or political. So, if you’ve mouthed off about the recent political happenings in our country, you’re out. I’m not suggesting influencers censor their content – just be aware that some clients shy away from content that is overly opinionated.

We also look to see if influencers have a natural affinity for the brand. Would you write about the brand even if you were not paid? Does the brand relate to the type of content you share? Our clients are Macy’s, Carter’s, OshKosh, Cox Communications, Mattress Firm, and others. These are products and services you’ll find in everyday American households. When choosing influencers, we look at your content to see whether our brand content is a fit.

  • Audience & Location: If you’re a member of Everywhere Society, you know we often ask, “Where are the majority of your readers based?” We do a ton of hyper-local campaigns for Macy’s. Fantastic for you that you have readers coast to coast and in Canada, but not so great for a location-specific campaign. This is where we can often book influencers with lower numbers because we’re really looking for hyper-local readers.

It also matters where you personally are located – which might not be where your readers are concentrated. When we worked with Orkin, we needed influencers who wrote about entertaining and outdoorsy activities and were based throughout the Southeastern United States. So imagine, when we are reviewing influencers and we have three great candidates based in Miami, somebody is going to have to take the cut because we have to ensure we’re reaching other parts of the region. Typically, reach and audience will be the deciding factors – not who we like best.

  • Platform. What’s your primary platform? For super visual campaigns, we may need an influencer who has amazing Instagram numbers even though his or her blog UMVs are just so-so. We sometimes look at the totality of the platforms where you create content, and other times, we’re really just looking at one specific platform. Last year, we had to source a millennial SnapChat influencer for Cox Communications for a very specific region of the country..
  • Reach. Yes numbers matter, but they aren’t the end-all, be-all. Some clients want us to source celebrity influencers, but that’s the rarity, not the norm. Today, more and more of our clients want to deploy multiple micro influencers for campaigns. So yes, numbers matter but blog UMV’s are no longer the holy grail. Your Instagram or Facebook audience may be just as impressive to a client as your blog readership.
  • Demographic. Some of our client campaigns are focused on a specific demographic: entrepreneurs, baby-boomers sending kids to college, moms of newborns, parents who are raising their children bi-lingual. We narrow down those demographics in our search for influencers.
  • Above & Beyond Influencers. Once we’ve evaluated all these different quantifiable categories, we can consider what we at Everywhere Agency know about you the influencer. We call this the “Above & Beyond Factor.” We love influencers who repeatedly exceed expectations on client campaigns. They don’t just get their links in on time, they create awesome content, they ask questions, and they show true passion for the brand. Yes, many campaigns have bumps in the road that we have to work through, but it’s the working relationship with you that matters at this point.

Our InfluencerConnect™ platform helps us weigh what’s important to the client, but we can’t just rely on technology. We read your work, and we provide detailed notes on why we’ve recommended you. We make strong recommendations for influencers who we think will be a great fit, and sometimes we fight for you. But even though we are in your corner, at the end of the day it’s the client’s choice as to which influencers they will use for a campaign.

So, to any influencer who has not “been picked” for a campaign in a long time, it’s not because we don’t love you. We (heart) all our Everywhere Society members – that’s why we invited you to join in the first place! It’s not personal, nor is it the luck of the draw. It’s just complicated and a little bit like making sausages.

Society Spotlight: Jewel Figueras

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It’s no secret that we love our Everywhere Society members – and as a way to showcase some of our Society superstars, we’re bringing back the Society Spotlight on our blog.

This month we are featuring Jewel Figueras of Jewel’s Fab Life. Jewel is a beacon in the blogger community, and you’d be hard pressed to find someone in the biz who doesn’t know her. When we first went about building our society, Jewel was essential in guiding us through the wild world of blogging.

We decided it was time to shine our spotlight on Jewel to see if we could share some of her shine.

society-spotlight-3-1Society Spotlight Quiz
  1. What are you reading these days?
    Right now, I’m obsessed with the Texture app that allows me to catch up on all of my fave magazines!
  2. Who’s your spirit animal?
    My spirit animal would be a pug!!!
  3. Confession time: Who was your first celeb crush?
    I guess this will probably date me, but it may have been David Cassidy!
  4. What was your first concert?
    My first concert was Kurtis Blow, and it totally rocked.
  5. So, you’ve got writer’s block – tried and true trick for getting over it?
    Mind mapping will take me from writers block to enthusiasm in about 10 minutes flat.
  6. What’s your number one content creation tip?
    Always use and never forget your authentic voice.
  7. We love working with you and hope you feel the same about us. What’s been your fave Everywhere campaign to be a part of?
    I loved participating in the Domain.ME campaign the most because I got to write about a young family member. She was thrilled because she thought I made her famous.
  8. If you were a cocktail, what would you be?
    Cocktail? I don’t drink, so I have limited knowledge of cocktails and their names. Is there such a thing as a Virgin Jack & Coke?

Jewel is never one to shy away from attention, so show her some love in the comments below!

National Dog Day Autotrader Event

Brands’ Best Friend: Pet Influencers Welcome

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Everywhere Agency knows that one of the quickest ways to likeable social content is to “Put on a dog on it!” We are canine enthusiasts, bringing our fur buddies to work regularly, ugly crying over dog rescue videos, and supporting pet adoption. Being both social media experts and animal lovers we’ve been following the trend of pet influencers for quite some time, and even way back in 2014, The Telegraph reported that 1 in 4 cats and dogs had their very own social media accounts. As of last week, we took our puppy love and social savvy to the next level. We have officially welcomed our first four-legged member to Everywhere Society, our in-house influencer network. Meet Indy the Goldendoodle.

pet influencer indy the goldendoodleOur dive into dog talent was inspired by our client, Autotrader. Everywhere was engaged to help produce #ParkandBark, an event celebrating National Dog Day. Autotrader used the event to educate dog owners about the best pet-friendly cars and accessories. Hundreds of dog guests enjoyed free treats, received swag prizes, and played in the costume photo booth. Pet experts schooled the crowd in dog CPR, the art of doggy massage (Shi-A-Tzu… Get it?), and puppies in need were available for adoption.

Everywhere also took this opportunity to reach out to a few A-list Instagram influencers, including Indy the Goldendoodle and Sparkles the Diva.

So why are brands so eager to add some canine appeal? It could have something to do with the fact that this year pet owners are projected to spend $62 billion dollars on their furry friends, according to the American Pet Products Association. Not to mention the added bonus that brand reputations are rarely ruined by the actions of a Yorkshire Terrier. Dogs breed happiness, with pups like ChloeKardoggian slinging products for Clorox and Boo the Pomeranian working as a liaison for Virgin Airlines, it’s hard to think of a brand that wouldn’t benefit from pup-endorsement.

If you know a great pet influencer looking for amazing brands, be sure to tell them to apply to Everywhere Society. Also, we will be attending BarkWorld, the premiere pet blogging conference, this October. If you’ll be there too, give us a woof because when it comes to pets and brands - we think this is just the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Lynzee Jablonka & Leticia Barr Tech Savvy Mama

Successful Influencer Marketing

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successful influencer marketing

Do you remember going to camp over summer and then keeping in touch with your new friends via snail mail? I would sit and wait for the mail to come to see what my friends from across the country were up to. It was the start of my career in influencer marketing, and I had no idea! Flash forward 15 years (has it really been that long??) to traveling to blogging conferences like BlogHer or Mom2.0 – now I’m an emailing, Tweeting and Facebook messaging machine.

Have I mentioned that I’m the self-proclaimed Queen of Influencer Marketing here at Everywhere Agency? You see, I treat bloggers as I once treated my friends from summer camp. They’re my modern day pen pals. The key to success in any form of influencer relations is just that – a relationship. On any given day, I’m telling my life story to at least three new friends from Everywhere Society, our community of bloggers and influencers. What a typical marketer would call an influencer, I have the pleasure of calling a friend.

How do I do that? It’s simple, really.

  1. I go to different conferences and meet as many people as I can on a personal level BEFORE I start talking to them on a professional level. I know that Leticia is a self-made farmer straight out of Maryland (how are your Chickens, btw?!) and that D.J. has the funniest High School vendetta story ever (I’d love to share, but it’s not blog appropriate).
  2. I become friends with them on social networks. Any influencer who is a member of Everywhere Society has the option to follow me on Twitter/Instagram or friend me on Facebook. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve commented on Jewel’s vacation photos to show my pure jealousy or liked a photo of Claudia’s OOTD – she really is the most trendy Latina I know!
  3. My emails to bloggers are full of banter and “lol’s” rather than boring business jargon. I genuinely want to know how they’re doing and wish them a “Happy Birthday!” whenever I can! Sure, I get done what needs to be done, but I’m always excited when Adanna tells me to “stay cool.”

It may seem daunting to have 3,000+ best friends, but I’ll be the first to tell you that it’s rewarding in more ways than one! As a people-person by nature, I try to incorporate those traits into my daily life and the results are my many, many successfully completed campaigns.

Tweet me at @_LynzeeJay with your favorite pen pal story, conference memory, or just say hello — I’d love to hear from you!!

Influencer Marketing Campaigns – A Quasi “How To” Manual

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At our agency, we’ve been in the blogger relations business since we opened our doors six years ago. We live, breathe and drink influencer marketing, but I’m still uneasy with the notion of building a manual for “how to reach out to bloggers.” Not because I think we have some secret formula when it comes to influencer outreach; the challenge is that blogger relations is more about the relationship and less about the process. Relationships are built organically, over time. There’s no manual for building camaraderie and trust. That said, there are some basic guidelines I can offer up that may help demystify what we take into account when activating influencer marketing campaigns.

  1. Find a common denominator between your product or brand and the blogger. Far too often, we hear of brands sending out pitch emails to a huge list of bloggers often on BCC, with no personalization, fo an influencer marketing campaign. Spoiler alert: this tactic will not get you results. It will get you straight into the delete folder. Take time to read each blog you are pitching, see when and where the blogger may have written about a similar subject, and make the connection.
  2. Today’s “blogger” really is an “influencer”. Their influence extends far beyond their blog. We go beyond the blog to review their full suite of social channels and digital footprint. You may learn they have a different content strategy on Pinterest or Twitter than they do on their blog. When pitching, think about their entire eco-system of social activity and how your product or brand might be served on their social channels.
  3. A blogger has a name. It’s not “Dear Blogger” and certainly not “Dear Mommy Blogger.” Imagine how you’d respond if you got an email that read, “Dear PR Hack,” or, ‘Hey you, marketing maven.” I can’t imagine you’d respond positively, so don’t be surprised if your “Dear Blogger” email is met with no response. I wish I did not have to offer this advice in 2015, but I still do. Use the blogger’s actual name when reaching out to them, and yes, you can find their name in the “About” section of their site.
  4. Take the time between campaigns to listen. How do you do that? Go to a blogging conference, read a blog, follow an interesting blogger on Twitter, or even friend them on Facebook. Despite commonly held beliefs, most bloggers aren’t living in their basements, alone at their computer waiting for you to send them a pitch. They have lives, they write, they volunteer, they exercise, and they write some more. The truly great bloggers don’t do sponsored post after sponsored post. They have opinions and it’s worth getting to know something about them.
  5. Focus on the relations and less on the sponsorship part of the equation. Back when I was a PR professional, I had some good solid relationships with a few reporters. I’d take the time to chat with them even when I didn’t have a story to pitch. Those key relationships held me in good steed when I did have a story and no idea how to get it into the media. If the only time you reach out to a blogger is when you are selling, you’ll be sold up the river when you really need their help.

I know everyone out there really does want to crack the crack the “blogger relations” nut. I understand why! Bloggers are influential. They’ve built a platform and complimentary social channels where they share their message. Brands who can build a relationship with a blogger have the opportunity to create rich third party content and successful influencer marketing campaigns. Get the relationship piece right and then you’ll get real results.

100 Good Deeds Bracelet #DeedADay

#DeedADay and the Democratization of Ideas

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In 1992, Mary Fisher stood up at the Republican National Convention looking very much like the daughter of a prominent Republican family (which she was), and announced on national TV that she had AIDS. It was a hugely shocking moment for the crowd and for most of America. In 1992, the very word AIDS was shared in hushed tones and considered a scourge of just gay men and Haitians. At that time I worked in television production in NYC. I alternated between my job working at Saturday Night Live and freelancing at this hot production company, Peter Wallach Enterprises. My boss at the time there had AIDS, something he never overtly confessed to me, even though we were as close as school chums and all the symptoms indicated that he had the disease. My editor at the post-production house, where we cut the short films I produced for SNL, was grey, rail thin and hacked through our late night editing sessions. He said things like, “My immune system is shot,” yet he never publicly admitted he had AIDS. In 1992, I remember watching blonde, blue-eyed Mary on TV, standing there in her prim white dress and realizing that things were going to change for the better. Mary gave a voice to the voiceless.

Ron Edmonds/Associated Press

Flash forward in my career 20-odd years later and I find myself working in an industry, social media, which does just the same. I launched a career in this field over six years ago because I was excited by the power of this new medium to bring about change. What I saw very clearly was that social media was the ultimate democratization of ideas. Anyone could speak – we all had a megaphone in our blogs, our tweets, our Facebook status updates. If an idea was good enough, strong enough, it could be seen, absorbed and passed on to others. For a person like me who had devoted a quarter of a century to working with big media, big PR and big advertising, I was infatuated with the concept that good ideas could be distributed outside of an advertising campaign and without regard to any editors fickle preferences.

Last night I witnessed that democratization of ideas with the woman who stood on a stage and inspired us so long ago. We joined forces with Mary Fisher and her team to launch the #DeedADay movement. The movement is inspired by a bracelet Mary designed called the 100 Good Deeds bracelet. It’s made by vulnerable women in Haiti, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, India, and Bali. The bracelet is strung with 100 beads and wraps around your wrist. There is a small rubber ring among the 100 beads and the idea is you wear the bracelet both as an ethical fashion statement and as a reminder to do good deeds. Every time you do a good deed — going out of your way to do something kind for others — you move the ring over until you get to 100 beads.

I met Mary last year in Haiti and talked to her (a little too enthusiastically) about the power of social media to change the world. I guess she remembered our conversation because she asked me to do something connected to the theme of New Year’s resolutions. Sharing the message of doing good deeds felt bigger than me and my firm alone, so I called a few of my friends who run major blogging social media networks. I reached out to Stacey Ferguson of Blogalicious and the b-Link Marketing Network, Ana Flores of Latina Bloggers Connect, Jyl Johnson Pattee of MomItForward, Barbara Jones of the One2One Network, Cat Lincoln of Clever Girls Collective, Nadia Jones of the Niche Parent Network, and Kelby Carr of the Type A Parent network. They all agreed to join forces with me and ask their collective networks to share the #DeedADay movement on their blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Twitter channels. I hate to use the word viral, but there’s no other way to describe what happened. #DeedADay is everywhere on social media. With over 40 blog posts to date (what will ultimately be 80+ posts total), 6500 social posts and 1100+ individuals who’ve participated, we’re at 50+ million impressions.

Last night we teamed up with Jyl who runs the popular Twitter chat #GNO. We began talking to women across the country about how they think about good deeds. We hit a nerve and the Twitter stream lit up. In one short hour, we generated 25 million impressions. Women talked about ethical fashion, the importance of teaching their children to do good deeds and setting good deed resolutions in 2015. At one point, even Rosie O’Donnell, who’s known as simply @Rosie on Twitter joined the conversation.

A screenshot from the #GNO #DeedADay Twitter chat - Rosie shows off her 100 Good Deeds Bracelet.

As we head in to 2015, I’m heartened to know that initiatives like doing good deeds can build momentum in social media, the democratization is alive and strong, and the fact that one women’s voice can make a difference.

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Josh Guilbaud - South Wire Attendee

A Social Media Intern Goes to SouthWiRED

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One of the benefits of being a social media intern at a place like Everywhere is that instead of being sent out to get the coffee, they send you out to conferences like SouthWiRED. SouthWiRED is the largest digital conference in the Southeast featuring panels and presentations from the top innovators in the country and not a bad way to spend a day interning. What follows are a few of my takeaways from a hard day interning!

The very first panel I attended was moderated by our CEO, Danica Kombol and it was entitled, Taking on the Challenge of Social Media in a B2B World. She was joined by seasoned marketers & PR folks from Cox Communications, PGI, Manheim & Novelis. The panelists did a fantastic job addressing many of the common concerns and conundrums marketers face in the B2B realm. Many professionals are under the impression that marketing for B2B and B2C bands on social media is as similar as night and day; they’re more like breakfast and brunch. Just like B2C brands, those in B2B must have an authentic and consistent brand voice. The story they build needs to be fluid, but relevant to the consistent and relatable themes in their overarching marketing strategy. Also worth mentioning is that B2B brands have influencers too and they’re usually in-house. Executives, VPs, and Directors of brands should be both active on social media and engaging in order to build credibility, as this will drive more new business leads. The more we come to understand marketing across social platforms and digital mediums, the more we understand that the age old adages of “B2B” and “B2C” no longer exists—it’s all about H2H, Human to Human.

The next presentation I attended was about understanding owned, paid and earned media from an HR perspective. It helped me understand why companies that strictly put their efforts into either paid or earned media are doing themselves a huge disservice—utilizing both types of media allows them to maximize the effectiveness of their campaigns. Earned media is great for brands because consumers see it as trustworthy due to its organic nature. When influencers write reviews, blog posts, or social media content, they are establishing and perpetuating the trustworthiness and credibility of a brand to their readership. While this effect is great, the reach and audience can be limited. This is where paid comes in—it gives brands the ability to magnify their reach beyond the scope of their followers and those of their influencers, as well as target consumers based on CRM and POS data. Simply, I learned that the key here is to gain as much earned media as possible and to leverage paid media to enhance and refine it.

So, not bad for a day’s work as a social media intern! I can only hope that in a few years, armed with the knowledge I gained at Everywhere, I’ll see myself on a panel sharing my opinions about social, digital and business.

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*This post was penned by Everywhere Agency’s wonderful Fall 2014 Intern, Josh Guilbaud.

 

WSB-TV and Dr. Oz

Celebrities and Influencer Campaigns

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Some PR agencies we’ve worked with have expressed apprehension when it comes to bloggers or digital influencers interacting with a celebrity at their event, but we know that having influencers at these types of events is crucial for successful Social Local (SoLo) campaigns. Not only must you work with influencers, but you also need to have established trust and well-oiled relationships with them. At Everywhere, our Everywhere Society influencers are our partners on these campaigns and we’ve gotten to know them pretty well since the Society’s inception. Because of the trust we’ve built with them, they follow our lead when we set parameters to make our events more successful than our clients imagined! Here are 3 things we do with or ask of our influencers to make our campaigns a hit:

  1. Our influencers write pre-event posts. No one will come to the celeb’s event if it isn’t properly advertised! Pre-event posts give your target demographic all the details without the boring format of a press release.
  2. We’ve set guidelines for what influencers can and cannot talk about with the celebrity. If your influencers have a chance to actually speak with the celeb on hand, be sure they know what topics to avoid or whether they should keep their conversation based around the theme of the event. If you don’t set any guidelines, the whole situation may derail! Recently for our Dr. Oz campaign on behalf of WSB-TV Channel 2, we advised our influencers to stay on the topic of his Atlanta health expo and simple health problems, as complicated issues or other topics would eat up too much of his time and draw away from the focus of the event. Because of the trust we’ve built with our bloggers, they obliged and had a pleasant meet and greet with the doctor!
  3. We’ve given our influencers the opportunity for pictures. While not all celebrities are fans of photo opps, those are the kinds of social media posts that get the most traction/attention. We recently worked on the Think Like a Man Too media tour, which came through Macy’s. While fans didn’t get to really speak with the celebrities (other than a line or two here and there), they did get to take a picture. Kayla, one of our employees (who’s a digital influencer herself), proved that these photo opps are golden for exposure with her 363 likes and 40 comments!

Curious for more tips on handling influencer campaigns in regards to celebrity appearances? Contact The Everywhere Agency! We’ve got a few more thoughts on the topic that we’d love to share over a cup of coffee or tea.

Everywhere Agency has worked with Macy’s, Macy’s Culinary Council, Cox Media Group, IMAX, Atlanta Women’s Foundation, and more on social event marketing. Our Director of Marketing, Jason Maldonado, formerly ran SoLo events for The Home Depot. To see more about our current and previous clients, visit http://bit.ly/VR6B1l for our capabilities deck.