Marketers cautious about influencers’ authenticity, per new survey

Influencer marketing could use some soul searching, a recent survey points out. “The Global State of Influencer Marketing in 2019” [free, registration required], the first such report from social listening platform Talkwalker, queried more than 800 marketing, PR and other digital professionals worldwide through an online form. It showed influencer marketing has a growing fan base among marketers, who are also wary of its pitfalls. Fyre, Payless, Lil Miquela. Recent pitfalls have included the role of influencers in propelling the Frye music festival fiasco in 2017, the duping of fashion influencers in Payless’ fake luxury shoe store event, and the suit against influencer Luke Sabbat for accepting a $60,000 marketing contract to promote Snapchat Spectacles — and then failing to do so. And that’s not even mentioning the bots whose auto-liking and auto-commenting boost the reputation of selected influencers, or the completely AI/computer-generated influencers, like Lil Miquela. These kinds of downsides have put authenticity high on brands’ must-have list, the report concluded, saying many respondents mentioned issues related to authenticity and brand values in the answers to open survey questions. “Long-lasting relationships.” The report also noted that brands and agencies are emphasizing “long-lasting relationships with a few very specific influencers,” since it’s easier to manage and track the impact of a smaller group. The survey found that nearly three-quarters of respondents work with about four dozen influencers or less. Additionally, Talkwalker says, community size and readership is ranked just fourth among criteria brands use for selecting influencers, following the top criteria of coherence of posts with brand message, quality and creativity of content and engagement. The bottom criterion, below community size: the cost.