How agility affects influence – and results

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How agility affects influence – and results

November 25, 2020

There is a South Africa-born flame-grilled chicken restaurant that is as famous for its chicken as it is for its incredibly clever and on-point marketing. The secret to their success? Owning the narrative.

As soon as something topical or talkable happens, this chain is there – on social media, on radio, on TV – putting their own spin on it, gaining new followers and further entrenching themselves as innovative and cheeky and irreverent. As leaders.

Other brands look on with envy. Marketers try to find the formula. Consumers eagerly await the next instalment.

But it’s not rocket science.

What sets this brand apart is not some deeply guarded secret, it’s something that any brand can take advantage of – agility. The ability to think on your feet. The ability to not only react to situations but to actively take reaction and convert it into positive pro-action.

It is something that is uniquely suited to influencer marketing. Big advertising campaigns take months to see the light of day. Traditional marketing campaigns take weeks of planning to ensure alignment with strategies and goals and KPIs and the different divisions of a corporate entity. And this is right. Big brands have a responsibility to make sure that what they are sending out is consistent and in line with what they are trying to achieve and what they are portraying to the public. But it leaves them vulnerable to playing catch-up. It makes owning the narrative complicated and taking advantage of a situation instantly almost impossible.

Once again, the perfect place to have an influencer or, better yet, a number of influencers who are adaptable and dynamic and ready to put you in front of the competition.

Expert influencers, and expert influencer marketers, are by their very nature adaptable and agile. You have to be to stay relevant in a fast-changing and dynamic industry. And some of these experts, like R-Squared in Cape Town, are coming up with incredibly innovative ways of making sure their clients are given the tools and people they need to be owners of the narrative, to be leaders who others can only follow.

R-Squared, for example, do not keep a ‘book’ of influencers that are pushed onto every brand and client that comes through their doors. They actively seek out influencers who fit the client when they come through the doors. And, while this ensures a true and authentic voice for the client, it also opens up a new and exciting possibility:

Always on dynamic campaigns.

Always on is not referring to a campaign that runs 24/7, it’s referring to teams that are always on point and in-touch with the world around them. Leading to dynamic opportunities for brands to engage instantly with their audience whenever the opportunity arises.

But this isn’t just some influencer posting random, stream of consciousness fluff for the sake of being ‘hip’. This is an expertly managed tool to promote their clients’ agility.

By sourcing a custom pool of influencers specifically for a client – a pool of influencers who are pre-vetted, trusted and have a connection with the brand – they are creating an agile and adaptable team ready to be activated at any time and for any message.

Influencer marketing is not just another advertising platform – it is a personal, one-on-one conversation between you the brand and your audience. And like any real conversation, you need to be able to mix and match topics, change the direction, be serious one moment and light-hearted the next. Engagement is all about adaptability, agility and having a real conversation.

Just ask the chicken guys.

November 13, 2020

Influencing the trend towards excellence

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Influencing the trend towards excellence

November 13, 2020

It is always an honour – and a surprise – when you find yourself rubbing shoulders with truly influential personalities, when the industry you love returns your passion with accolades.

This was how I felt when I learnt that I had been honoured with a place on the Global Influencer Top 50 list for the second year in a row.

Surprised. Joyful. Grateful. Proud. Amazed. Humbled. Determined to do even better for myself, for my amazing R-Squared Agency team and for the industry to repay this honour. (Hey, maybe these are the Seven Stages of Joy to counteract the Seven Stages of Grief?).

Getting awards and plaudits is not about a pat on the back. It is not a reward. It is a challenge. It is a challenge to go further, to do better, to lift those around you. Every person on the Global Influencer Top 50 list is someone who strives to make our industry better. While a large portion of the world hears ‘influencer’ and thinks of vapid, narcissistic, self-absorbed attention grabbers, these innovators are showing the world the power of influencer marketing when it is done right. They are guiding our industry from a trendy, fast-forgotten Insta post into a truly formidable tool for change.

With great power comes great responsibility (actually Voltaire not Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben but, whatever) and influencer marketing has certainly got great power. It is the leaders and innovators who are bringing in the great responsibility. I see it on a daily basis. I see it from the R-Squared Agency offices in Cape Town and I see it from our offices in London. I see it as a member of the IAB in South Africa and the IAB in France. I am intimately involved with helping to formulate guidelines and best practices and ensure fair treatment for influencers and brands around the world. I see it every day with my teams and my clients.

The hunger for excellence. The thirst for distinction.

Not for any spirit of dominance or praise, but rather as acknowledgement that what they are doing – what we are doing – is the right thing done in the right way. Acknowledgement that we are accurate, factual, appropriate, correct, precise and, above all, that we are making a difference.

We all know the buzzwords: trend, influence, like, click, audience, organic, viral, but how many are willing to go further, to go beyond a quick click and engage the world for the better?

These are the ones who change our course, who chart our future.

And I am proud and honoured to be included in their illustrious ranks.

November 11, 2020

Why it’s important to celebrate the power of African women in media

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Why it’s important to celebrate the power of African women in media

November 11, 2020

I am the CEO of an influencer marketing agency. Sure, we have offices in Cape Town and London. Yes, I am a committee member of the IAB France and the Chairman of the Digital Influencer Marketing Committee for the IAB South Africa. But why would I be invited to judge the APO Group African Women in Media Awards 2020? And why would I be rubbing shoulders with luminaries like Naomi Campbell (yes, THE Naomi Campbell – supermodel, actor, business tycoon), Nicolas Pompigne-Mognard (founder of APO Group), Fatma Samoura (Secretary-General of FIFA), Dr Rasha Kelej (CEO of Merck Foundation) and a ton of world-renowned heads of business, industry, organisations and governments?

Where does an industry driven by enhancing brand profiles and creating engaging and creative connections between influencers, audiences and brands fit in with an event that seeks to recognise journalists – African women journalists – and their work?

I believe it has everything to do with authenticity.

Our world is in turmoil right now. We are seeing unprecedented events across the globe from pandemics to natural disasters to political upheaval. People are uncertain and afraid and looking for leaders to help them understand what is happening and to give them guidance, to give them hope – to lead.

Unfortunately, we are also seeing a proliferation of partisan voices that are telling us different stories, that are sowing seeds of doubt in our minds, that are putting clicks and viewer numbers ahead of the truth.

We’ve all heard the buzzwords: fake news, mainstream media, partisan, political agenda, conspiracies, deep state and the list goes on. The most powerful people in the world are dividing nations and the people we look to for giving us the real truths – the media – are choosing sides and only showing us what they want us to see. If it only affected the countries involved it would still be a travesty but it doesn’t, it affects the whole world. There is an African saying: when elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.

This is where events like the APO Group African Women in Media becomes so important. Where the power of the voices of African women become so important. Because it brings us authenticity. It brings us the real stories of the real people on our continent. Just like influencer marketing adds a personal, genuine, believable voice to a brand’s communications, these inspirational African women bring personal, genuine and believable stories – of our people, for our people – to us.

By bringing attention to the entrepreneurial spirit of Africa, by bringing us the real news – from a community, from a city, from a country, from a continent – they are helping to develop a real interest, a real understanding and a real impact on matters that affect us personally, that will grow our continent and that will shape our futures and the futures of the next generation of African women journalists and the African people.

And for that they should be applauded and rewarded.

To understand the power that these women hold, you only need to go back to the list of judges at the APO Group African Women in Media Awards 2020. These are not judges that are chosen from within the industry, these are judges that come from the very pinnacle of the most formidable bodies in the world. Microsoft, the Jack Ma Foundation, IBM, Siemens, Cisco, Hilton, World Rugby, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Coca-Cola, Visa, KPMG, Yale, UNCDF, the NBA, even Harley-Davidson, LEGO, Sotheby’s, WWF (World Wildlife Fund not the wrestling empire!). Judges from international banks, pharma companies, governments, lifestyle and beauty companies, telecoms, education.

And a small global influencer marketing agency.

All gathered to show their respect and admiration for the journalists who put their real voices behind the real stories that will make a real impact for Africa.

November 4, 2020

Balancing the real with the reward – authenticity versus accountability in influencer marketing

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Balancing the real with the reward – authenticity versus accountability in influencer marketing

November 4, 2020

The influencer marketing industry has grown exponentially in the last few years, partly because people – not consumers, people – are desperate for a personal connection. The irony of the world becoming more accessible through the web but also more insular due to current geopolitical tensions is not lost on the next generation, and it is causing them to actively search for the real in the world.

They are no longer content to be viewed as consumers. They are people and they want to connect with other people. They want to be seen as people and treated as people.

Above all, they want honesty. This is where the tension in the influencer marketing industry is beginning to rise.

Influencers know that their audience wants real stories, real experiences and real connections to the brand.

Brands need to accomplish goals and ensure they maintain and expand on their brand equity.

Influencers want to showcase their creativity and have the freedom to be themselves.

Brands are risk-averse and seek to direct and control how, when and where the influencer engages.

Influencers need to ensure their reputations live up to the brands’ values.
Do brands do the same for the influencers?

With accountability being the go-to word of the moment, every aspect and detail of public figures’ lives is under scrutiny. From their current opinions to their history. From who they follow to who follows them. A scandal, even a minor one, can ruin an influencer. A small mistake can lose them followers. And a brand will not hesitate to cut an influencer loose if they feel the influencer may be bringing negative press their way.

The influencer often doesn’t have the same recourse. If a brand does something that goes against the current zeitgeist, the influencer is, by association, also caught up in the ensuing storm and their reputations are damaged.

So, how do we ensure that the rights and reputations of both influencers and brands are protected?

It seems obvious on a surface level that the influencer should be responsible for everything that they post, and that they should be forthright and honest about their pasts. They are, after all, being paid to be the ideal version of themselves for the brand. But remember, influencers are people. They make mistakes, just like all people do. The only difference is that their mistakes can damage a brand.

At the same time, brands are these monolithic entities that often take on a life of their own. They are businesses and so it would seem simple to keep themselves out of the negativity spotlight. But they are staffed by people, they are run by people. And, as we have mentioned, people make mistakes.
This is where the words dreaded by creative and free-spirited influencers and the teams that run the marketing for brands makes its appearance – contracts and management.

The only way to ensure the reputations of all parties is to have contracts in place. Creative minds look on contracts as some form of stifling document that they must sign in blood, while brands and corporates see contracts as legal minefields in the event something goes wrong.

They shouldn’t. A proper influencer contract set up by experts and managed by experts in influencer marketing takes the risk away from everybody. The influencer now knows what is expected of them and is secure in the knowledge that they will be paid and will be protected. The brand knows that they are not dictating terms, they are partnering for mutual benefit and that they too have a responsibility toward ethical behaviour.

Two of the biggest issues during this time of global uncertainty brought on by the COVID pandemic is the abrupt cancelling of work by brands leading to financial losses by influencers, and the unheard-of restrictions that are limiting how influencers can go about their work leading to a dip in the brand’s perception and reach. Tailored contracts give influencers protection from loss of income due to no fault on their part. Contracts also give brands protection from loss of exposure or negative exposure during a crisis.

Expert management gives both influencer and brand a far greater benefit than just protection, it gives them access to teams that are able to help them through any crisis, advise them on how best to manage situations and ensure that a positive outcome is available to everyone.

At R-Squared Agency we have a global connection to influencers and brands and we know how the industry can shift and change. Our expertise allows us to manage the processes and ensure professionalism, protection and positive outcomes for all parties.

Influencer marketing, by its very nature, is fluid. Our presence on various international boards means we are able to both see where the industry is moving and help guide its course. But it will take more than oversight to ensure the validity and growth of influencer marketing, it will take partnerships and understanding.

True partnerships between brands and influencers and the understanding that we are people working with people for people.

With all the flaws and mistakes, the laughter and the tears, the good times and the bad times that come with them.

October 28, 2020

The exponential growth of the influencer’s space

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The exponential growth of the influencer’s space

October 28, 2020

Influencer marketing has come a long way since the early days. When social media exploded across the globe and people began to realise that channels like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter gave them access to an audience of millions, the beauty, fashion and travel industries saw an amazing opportunity to tap into a vibrant, fast-moving and ever-changing culture. And people realised that they could monetise their passions by giving their audience a glimpse into their glamorous worlds.

As with all things, times change and the frivolous soon gave way to a more serious study of the effects of influencers – and the birth of a modern, professional and highly effective new industry.

A lot of people – businesspeople, marketers, brand managers, advertisers – still see influencer marketing as the ream of superficial and vacuous wannabe models trying to score a free lunch on a Mediterranean island, not something that would fit into their business models or goals.

This is far from the truth.

Agencies and brands are seeing the results of effective and expert influencer marketing. And the top shops around the world know that, whatever their industry, there is an important (some would say critical) place for influencer marketing in their comms.

The results speak for themselves. Genuine content creators are becoming ever more trusted. Their personal recommendations are more influential than traditional and often generic big brand ads. Their ability to speak honestly and directly to a receptive audience gives brands and messages a believability that is lacking in more traditional marketing that is trying to speak to the widest audience possible.

And that is invaluable.

But is there a place for influencer marketing in all industries? Surely, a good-looking world traveller has nothing to offer the mining sector? Can a home-schooling mom really have anything valuable to offer a pharmaceutical brand?
The answer to this is a resounding YES – and no. Yes, influencers can benefit every industry. No, a travel blogger probably wouldn’t add much value to the mining sector. This is where the influencer marketing industry is destroying the traditional marketing models, because when you find the RIGHT influencer for your market and your audience you unleash the power of personal, resonant and genuine engagement.

Take the mining industry for example. Beautiful photos of exotic destinations will not convince the audience that you know what you are doing. But a message from a mining expert, set in the context of the needs of the sector, and delivered to an audience that lives, works and breathes mining – that is powerful.

And that is influence.

Harnessing the power of influencer marketing relies on three important aspects:

Finding the right influencer.
This is business, not a popularity contest. Fame is not what you need. A genuine understanding of your industry, expertise in what they are speaking about, and a tone of voice that reflects your purpose will make your influencer believable and relevant.
Telling the right story.
The power of influencer marketing comes from the human touch. Our decisions – whether they are purchasing decisions, business decisions, political decisions or just what to wear today – come from an emotional reaction. By telling the right story an influencer engages the emotional response of the audience to become a trusted and persuasive voice.
Working with the right experts.
Finding the right influencer to tell the right story does not magically happen. You need to have experts who know the when’s, where’s, why’s and who’s of successful influencer marketing. R-Squared, for example, have dedicated teams who know where to look for the perfect influencers, local and global. They also know when to engage a macro influencer and when to engage a micro influencer. Remember the travel blogger/mining industry example earlier? Imagine a travel blogger talking to the efforts a mining company is making to reduce their footprint in a specific area. A micro influencer for the mining sector with a macro influence on the appearance of the company around the world.

So, does my influence look big in this?

The effect of influencer marketing can make a significant difference in any sector and for any business. When you have a trusted voice speaking from a position of authority and expertise to an audience that is primed to receive your message you are able to create a literal bond between them and your brand/company/product/message.

All you need to do is find the real.

October 20, 2020

Standing the test of time

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Standing the test of time

October 20, 2020

A taste that stood the test of time. Every South African knows these words. It elicits an almost Pavlovian response to raise a glass and shout out: To Charles!

You may be wondering what sparked these thoughts. Well, the big news for R-Squared Digital was our move into stunning new offices at the Old Castle Brewery in Woodstock, Cape Town. This bright, airy and amazing new space is sure to get our creativity and our joie de vivre amped up to record levels.

But it also had another effect, on me anyway. Walking around this building, seeing walls that have been here since 1901, imagining what has happened, what people did, how they lived and what they dreamed about in an iconic location that is over 100 years old got me thinking about our modern life and, in particular, our modern industry of Influencer Marketing.

And what history will say about our young industry in 100 years. Will we still be relevant? Will we still have a place in the bigger scheme of things?

I must say that I believe that the answer is a resounding ABSOLUTELY YES!
History has shown the power of having a recognised face to drive interest in your brand. Aunt Jemima (controversial now, but a major turning point for how advertising became personal), Santa Claus (Coca-Cola), the Marlboro Man, George Clooney and Nespresso.

Influencer Marketing took this lead and amplified it exponentially by giving brands the power of a personalised voice, authentic engagement with an audience that was receptive and opted-in to the messaging. And it has proven to be massively effective, especially in the modern pandemic times where people are looking for connections in a time of quarantine.

The future can only build on history. We will learn from our successes and our mistakes. We are already aware of how our audience reacts to false impressions and fake endorsements and it’s driving the industry to actively create unique and authentic content that resonates. It’s showing agencies and clients that Influencer Marketing is about more than a face, it’s about a connection, a personal touchpoint that is a part of the influencer’s life story that is then woven into the fabric of the campaign.

And we are just scratching the surface.

Already we are seeing virtual influencers becoming a part of the story. Whether or not they will become entrenched is something we will only see in the future. At the moment they are a fad, a trend that is different and new and therefore interesting. How audiences respond in the long run is unknown but we are watching – and participating with great interest.

Advertising and marketing have been around for thousands of years.

Wherever someone has something to sell, whether it’s a product, an idea or an innovation, you will need people who best know how to reach and engage with an audience. That will never change. What will change is how. Technology, human needs and interests, the situation, the world are all mutable, are all ever-changing. And how we interact changes with them.

But one thing never changes – our yearning for a human connection, our need for validation and recognition and the understanding that comes with finding someone who shares our voice.

September 22, 2020

The journey from influencers to digital-first influencer marketing

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The journey from influencers to digital-first influencer marketing

September 22, 2020

Using a famous face to promote a product goes back decades. From Honus Wagner for Louisville Slugger baseball bats to Oprah Winfrey and Weight Watchers to Michael Jordan for Nike to Charlize Theron for Dior – star power was and still is used to influence a consumer’s perception of a brand.

But the digital age is beginning to change just how that perception is manifested.

Previously, these celebrity endorsements were engineered by ad agencies and PR companies to give a brand exposure across billboards, TV and print in a market. These markets could be broad, George Clooney and Nespresso for example, or they could be quite specific, which led to some really interesting celebrity endorsements especially in the Asian markets. Like Matt leBlanc for Ichiban Lipstick for Men. In fact, if you want to see some really fun and different ads, search for Japanese ads featuring American celebrities. Schwarzenegger, Pitt, Clooney, Cage, Day-Lewis – you name the celebrity and they’ve probably done a very unusual Japanese ad.

These big-budget (celebrities ain’t cheap) campaigns were attention-catching and gave brands a face that audiences recognised and aspired to emulate.

Then social media exploded, and a new generation of celebrities and influencers was born.

New wave of influencers

These influencers were not always famous people. They were not recognised as celebrities, but they began to attract followers who saw value in what they were saying or doing. The most obvious examples would be the travel and fashion influencers with their beautiful destinations and fashion and cosmetics. But there were others who began to change how influencers were seen: moms looking after households and kids, financial gurus speaking directly to investors, video gamers and their gameplay commentaries.

The rise of Twitter, Twitch, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok brought a new wave of influencers, and a lot of them were normal everyday folk.

This also led to an unexpected consequence. Accountability. Today’s digital-savvy consumers have access to a plethora of information, from what influencers are doing to what they believe to the shenanigans they get up to behind the scenes. They know when an endorsement is not genuine, or when a celebrity is caught in a scandal, and it impacts on both their perception of the brand and their perception of the celebrity. One of the weirdest endorsements I have ever seen was Cristiano Ronaldo and Facial Fitness Pao – one of the world’s most recognisable and ruggedly handsome faces promoting a mouth-based ‘fitness’ gadget for youthful smiles? Cheque banked, back to football.

But the digital age has pushed it beyond a lack of belief in an endorsement, it can lead to a very serious loss of credibility in a society where the real is actively searched out, where celebrities and politicians and news outlets are increasingly being held accountable for their words and actions.

Always under scrutiny

The actions of influencers, whether in their personal lives or when representing a brand, are always under scrutiny. We see the results of foolish behaviours from the likes of PewDiePie and Logan Paul, and the results of behaviour done for the right reasons but in the wrong way in the ridicule that was aimed at the celebrities doing the ‘Imagine’ song for Covid.

In the digital age, there is no hiding. If it’s online, it’s forever.

Which is leading to a very interesting new direction for influencers themselves. This realisation of the scrutiny they are under, the permanence of their actions and the impact of their opinions are making them self-regulate to a far greater degree. And it’s leading to a better, more real engagement with followers.

Followers don’t judge an influencer for being paid to promote a product or brand, they just want the influencer to be transparent and not try to pretend or hide the fact. This, in turn, means that the influencer must know the brand and product, must have researched what they stand for and offer, and must be able to weave that into their own personal style to appeal to their audience and effectively monetise their channels. All with the understanding that they are responsible for the endorsement, that they need to demonstrate to their followers and that their endorsement is real.

Creating unique and real stories

For influencer marketing agencies, it is leading to a realisation from brands that they need to have experts that are managing these influencers, that are able to choose the right people for the brand, to sift through their background and make sure there are no hidden skeletons in the closet that could hurt the brand. To source the influencer with a real link to the brand who can create a real, empathic connection between themselves, their audience and the brand.

That, for me, is the biggest change from the origins of influencers, the ability to create unique and real stories from real people for real followers.

The digital age is what allows us to send the message out. The influencer is who the audience will identify with. But the result is why we do what we do – human connections.

September 14, 2020September 14, 2020

R-Squared partners with iProspect and Posterscope

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R-Squared partners with iProspect and Posterscope

September 14, 2020

R-Squared has announced its formal partnership with industry leaders iProspect and Posterscope of the international Dentsu Aegis Network. The move from informal collaboration to a formal syndication partnership aims to provide all R-Squared clients with a syndicated network of expert skills and services to amplify their influencer marketing campaigns.

R-Squared partners with iProspect and Posterscope

“We often find that influencer marketing campaigns are siloed by clients outside of their normal paid-for media and social commerce strategies. With this move, we empower clients to truly integrate influencer marketing into their overall marketing and advertising strategies,” says Stéphane Rogovsky, CEO of R-Squared.

The agency says that it works with existing client agencies where available, but should there be a need for further syndication assistance, the agency partner network is ‘at the ready’.

Services offered by the agency include:

digital OOH to broadcast influencer messages across innovative channels,
the marrying of paid media with influencer marketing campaigns to optimise budgets, and
performance marketing through opted-in audiences and social commerce by bringing shoppable posts into influencer’s feeds.

“Programmatic can also be used to bring the world of programmatic into your sphere of influence and to bring the authenticity of an influencer into the world of programmatic,” says Rogovsky.

Clare Trafankowska, managing director at iProspect South Africa, says, “We are delighted and incredibly excited to be able to partner with R-Squared on what we believe to be a pioneering approach to influencer marketing.”

According to the partnership, expert syndicated partnerships can bring authentic, personal messages to a wider audience and ensure that influencer marketing campaigns take place within an ecosystem where reach is amplified by emotion, where the human touch is enhanced by technology.

“Influencer marketing increasingly offers brands opportunities to address consumers with greater relevancy and perspective but with authenticity and credibility provided through the association,” says Trafankowska.

“Taking it to the next level and augmenting these influential conversations within the broader digital ecosystem not only enhances the influencer profile and visibility but also enables the brand to broaden its scope of reach and brand saliency,” Trafankowska says.

“We are proud of our syndicated collaborations with truly powerful agencies around the world. Together, we are creating real personalities for real brands. While not every client requires this type of syndication model, we believe that it’s an essential service offering for influencer marketing both now and in the future,” concludes Rogovsky.

August 19, 2020

A Measure of Success

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A Measure of Success

August 19, 2020

Influencer marketing continues to change how brands can have one-on-one conversations with their audience through an authentic influencer that they trust. All too often, however, the question is asked: “How do you measure your work?”.

For most other channels, measurement is simple. You can see how many people visit a website. You can count your CRT. You can see likes and comments. Or, in the most commercial sense, you can tell by an increase in your sales.

Influencer marketing works on an entirely different level. Rather than a Call To Action, influencer marketing gives an audience validation. It is validation in their choices or habits or lifestyle or fashion or financial decisions. The audience chooses to follow an influencer because they see something in that person that they trust. It could be a celebrity. It could be an investment banker. It could be a doctor. For whatever reason, that choice comes with an inherent degree of trust in what the influencer has to say or how that influencer is acting.

So rather than having a measurable metric, influencer marketing offers something far more valuable: brand awareness, brand love and brand loyalty. It’s a lot like a marriage. Most people try to put a metric on marriage. How long have you been married for? Is this your tin wedding anniversary or your diamond wedding anniversary? How many people try to measure how much love is in the marriage rather than how much time?

Influencer marketing brings the love and trust, things that can’t be measured. For now.

While experts in influencer marketing like R-Squared use traditional metrics to monitor and give a sense of measurement during a campaign, we know that these metrics are not the right ones to capture the efficacy of influencer marketing. We know that, while there are a vast number of different ways that digital can be measured, there are also a vast number of different ways that those numbers can be ‘massaged’ or bent to reflect a desired outcome.

And that is NOT what we foresee for an industry that has so much potential to make meaningful change in the world.

As the Chair of Influencer Marketing for the IAB SA, our CEO, Stéphane Rogovsky, is working with experts from around the world to find ways of measuring the true impact of influencer marketing on brands and on consumers. It’s a new discipline and requires a new way of showing the world just how effective it is.

For now, influencer marketing works very much like the old school big brand adverts worked – the ones you used to see at the cinema, or on prime-time TV, or at the Superbowl. It creates brand awareness for a new audience. It provides validation for your active audience. And it builds love for a brand by showing your audience that they matter, that you acknowledge them, that you are as invested in their time and interests as they are in you.

Like the love that powers a marriage through the good times and the bad, in sickness and in health, it’s not something that is easily measured but you can see and feel it across a room.

January 31, 2020August 7, 2020

R-SQUARED SHORTLISTED FOR BEST BOUTIQUE INFLUENCER MARKETING AGENCY AT GLOBAL 2020 INFLUENCER MARKETING AWARDS

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R-SQUARED SHORTLISTED FOR BEST BOUTIQUE INFLUENCER MARKETING AGENCY AT GLOBAL 2020 INFLUENCER MARKETING AWARDS

January 31, 2020

The Influencer Marketing Awards celebrate the best companies from the influencer marketing sector.

R-Squared is delighted to announce that the company has been placed on the shortlist for Best Boutique Influencer Marketing Agency the 2020 Influencer Marketing Awards.

R-Squared is nominated for Best Boutique Influencer Marketing Agency. This is defined as an agency with up to 15 employees, which are strong players in the influencer marketing industry and consider end-to-end campaign management, running the entire campaign journey with impactful data insights and strong tool utilisation. Activity must meet measuable objectives for a client, and deliver exceptionally strong results.

The Influencer Marketing Awards are hosted by Talking Influence and will take place in Park Lane, London in March 2020. The awards seek to recognize the very best international campaigns, which highlight strong execution, next-level creativity and masterful innovation, using measurable KPI’s and objectives. The Influencer Marketing Awards ceremony will judge influencer marketing agencies from all over the world.

R-Squared is nominated for:
Best Boutique Influencer Marketing Agency
Best Integrated Influencer Marketing Campaign (multi-channel) – R-Squared and Carat Cape Town for Beiersdorf: Eucerin Even Pigment Perfector.
R-Squared is honoured to be considered for these categories and expresses gratitude to the judges on the panel for inclusion on the 2020 shortlist.

Ashleigh Frank is an External Communications Writer at R-Squared Digital.

November 12, 2019August 7, 2020

Mandatory Regulations In Influencer Campaigns: A Battle between Credibility and the Rules.

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Mandatory Regulations In Influencer Campaigns: A Battle between Credibility and the Rules.

November 12, 2019

Influencer Marketing is an industry still in its youth, because of this, there are many questions which are yet to be answered – specifically in relation to the law. ‘Should Influencer’s disclose sponsorship? Will disclosing lower the strength of the influencer over the audience? Are influencers aware of the relevant regulations? Will brands be liable if an influencer does not comply?”. In this article, we will be answering all these need-to-know-asap questions.

R-Squared is a leading expert in
the Influencer Marketing Industry, and as such we have encountered the above
concerns from brands and influencers over the past years. It is necessary to
note that the requirements are mandatory and failure to comply might result in
sanctions, costs and legal implications. Similarly, audiences will also demand
transparency and have repeatedly stated that they detest hidden marketing
objectives. It is therefore beneficial overall to disclose disclose disclose.

The Reality

In today’s world, audiences/followers have become experts in identifying unauthentic content. They can identify sponsored content and are also able to identify when paid content is made to appear otherwise. The credibility of both the brand and the influencer is jeopardized if this occurs. Why then mislead audiences in the first place when they are merely looking for sincere recommendations and full transparency. We have noted at R-Squared that content complying with regulations and disclosed as a sponsored post gathers high engagement and leading-sales. A clear indicator that: People love transparency!

Influencer Marketing is more effective when Influencers are not paid to lie about their fondness for the brand/product. An influencer must truly love the product/brand and then be paid for content creation and the use of their feed – this should be a primary consideration during the selection on an influencer. Therefore, when the audience sees the influencer’s post, they will understand that even though the influencer is being paid to endorse the product, they truly love the product nonetheless. The audience will note the authenticity and their credibility and personal brand will only increase.

Unfortunately (and not unsurprisingly),
the growth of influencer marketing has led to unprincipled endorsements in
order to increase earnings. This in turns, leads to an alienation of the
influencer’s followers, the influencer’s actual ‘influence’ being watered down
and have a negative impact on the brand’s equity.

Last year, the Federal Trade
Commission (USA) filed a complaint against Warner Bros studio for failing to properly disclose
it had paid the YouTube celebrity PewDiePie to promote a video game on YouTube,
Twitter, and Facebook. Before that, the FTC has also targeted garment maker
Lord & Taylor and an ad agency for similar offences. Failure to comply with
regulations can lead to not only legal action but a loss of credibility in the
eyes of the audience/consumers.

Recently, FTC publicised it’s Social Media Influencers’ Disclosure 101, where it states that ‘If you endorse a product through social media, your endorsement message should make it obvious when you have a relationship (“material connection”) with the brand. A “material connection” to the brand includes a personal, family, or employment relationship or a financial relationship – such as the brand paying you or giving you free or discounted products or services.’

At R-Squared, we believe that
transparency is the key to a successful influencer marketing campaign. We have
created a framework which conforms to the various industry standards and regulations.
As you may have noticed (because we keep bragging), our CEO and Founder
Stephane Rogovsky, contributed to establishing a social media code of conduct and
is the chair of the Digital Influencer Marketing Committee at the IAB (SA).

In our standard vetting framework, psychology is key. We first identify, analyse and assess the brand’s true alignment, if we find that the proposed influencer does not believe nor align with the brand’s product or service, we simply do not select them. Want a free tip? If an influencer loves a product or brand, the influencer is automatically more passionate and authentic in his/her content. In turn, the audience will feel the authenticity and transparency in the content, even when the influencer is paid for the content.

The Regulations

South Africa created the Advertising Code of Practice on Social Media (in standard with the International Code of Advertising Practice) and the Influencer Marketing Code. For instance, one of the stipulations of the code is that sponsored advertising is required to have #sponsored at the beginning of the post. At R-Squared, we believe in revealing the full thing – #sponsored.

Specific industries of the economy also have additional codes of practice that complements the general code. For instance, the Marketing Code Authority’s Code regulates the medical and health industry. R-squared is also a member of the MCA and understands the rule and implication for all of our health-related campaigns to ensure full compliance with our Client’s medical/health product campaign and strict risk reduction. We would also highly recommend anyone working on influencer marketing projects pertaining to industries which additional rules apply, to join the relevant body.

In most industries code, the brand
is considered as the content creator and the social media as the publisher. This
leaves influencer marketing in a grey area, even though we know in reality that
the content creator is the influencer, not the brand, and the publishing
platform is the influencer’s personal social media feed. There is, therefore, a
critical need for the influencer marketer to understand each code of conduct,
to know the meaning and consequences of every rule, rather than to work on
self-assumption. This is critical for protecting the brand’s equity because
ultimately, the responsibility is carried by the brand.

Also, regulations of various
industries refer to the Consumer Protection Act and Unlawful Competition laws
of South Africa. Thus brands, have a lot to know and to comply to when managing
influencers.

Conclusion: The Way Forward

Not every influencer is aware of
the regulations and how to comply with them. The rules are somewhat cumbersome and
are constantly evolving. However, disclosure is mandatory. Is it is therefore
essential that ANYONE managing an influencer campaign has a sound understanding
of each applicable rule and clarifies it whenever necessary with the relevant
body rather than working on self-interpretation. Complying with the rules makes
for increased trust and credibility with the target audience. To control the
possible negative outcomes of non-compliance, it becomes important for a
professional influencer marketing expert to manage influencer marketing campaigns

October 2019. *Emmanuel Okonkwo,
External Communications and Jordan Pieters, Social Media Manager at R-Squared,
a leading influencer marketing creative agency in South Africa that works with
most of the best brands and agencies in the country and internationally.
R-Squared Digital is known for its masterful management and its specific
industry expertise in designing, executing and managing influencer marketing
projects that are extremely engaging, authentic, and protecting the brand
equity – partners@r2digital.co.za

November 5, 2019August 7, 2020

Unsolicited influencer posts: Ensure perfect brand alignment

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Unsolicited influencer posts: Ensure perfect brand alignment

November 5, 2019

Have
you ever wondered what to do when an unsolicited influencer makes an
unsolicited post about your brand and tags you? Every brand appreciates
unsolicited influencers posting positively on their behalf. But how can you
ensure that those posts are perfectly aligned with your brand positioning,
optimised for positive engagement, and designed to protect the brand equity if the
post was unsolicited?

Do
you realise that there is a strategic economic advantage in bringing your paid
and unpaid influencers together to train and form a formidable social advocacy
team for your brand?

R-Squared offers an
innovative world-class solution – the R-Squared Influencer Academy, a
white-labelled program personalised for brands, established to mitigate risks
from unsolicited posts while increasing brand alignment and positive engagement.

A
chronology of how the need arises –

–
An Influencer posts an unsolicited piece of content and tags the Brand.

–
On seeing the post, the brand weighs the value and is either happy about it or
not.

For instance, a wrong engagement question like ‘Why do
you think that this brand’s product is awesome?’ could trigger negative
comments, including comments from the audience driving other audience members
to a competitor product.

–
Either way, Brands wonder what they can do to encourage or improve on these
pieces of unsolicited content.

So
what can brands do? Brands can take advantage of the R-Squared Influencer Academy,
designed to coach and give tips, hints and advice to influencers who post
unsolicited brand content, so as to mitigate risk, increase quality and brand
alignment for unsolicited posts that would have gone live anyway without the
added value of the coaching. Brands can thus reward their most ardent advocates
with coaching from R-Squared experts.

1. Brand and R-Squared agree on the service to be
provided (e.g., which category of influencer qualifies for assistance, etc.)

2. Brand fully briefs R-Squared on brand and product
positioning

3. R-Squared sets up a white-labelled contact centre
for the brand (email and WhatsApp)

4. Influencers submit the content by email or
WhatsApp to the point of contact for the influencer’s academy setup for the
brand

5. R-Squared coaches and guides the influencers for
risk mitigation, and increased brand alignment

6. Post goes live

7. Influencers and brands are happy

Some of the brand benefits include:

Increased brand awareness
Increased brand loyalty
The facilitation of valuable customer feedback loops
Increased sales

But who is
R-Squared?

R-Squared is the top leading Influencer Marketing
Agency in South Africa, and also a leading Influencer Marketing Agency internationally,
responsible for innovative influencer campaigns. R-Squared is comprised of
experts with one passion only – Influencer Marketing. R-Squared is responsible
for masterful management and industry expertise in designing, executing and
managing influencer marketing projects that are engaging, authentic and
protective of brand equity. The CEO of R-Squared is also the IAB SA Council
lead for the digital and influencer space, providing guidelines and best
practices for influencer marketing.

*written in October
2019. *Michelle Marais and Emmanuel Okonkwo, R-Squared Digital.

October 29, 2019August 7, 2020

Stephane Rogovsky to lead IAB SA Digital Influencer Committee

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Stephane Rogovsky to lead IAB SA Digital Influencer Committee

October 29, 2019

Following IAB
SA’s recent announcement of new committee members for the IAB SA Digital
Influencer Committee, R-Squared Digital is excited to share that its CEO and
Founder, Stephane Rogovsky, is the newly appointed Council Lead of the IAB SA
Digital Influencer Council.

While still
in its infancy phase, the influencer marketing industry is one of the fastest
growing segments of digital marketing. There are currently multiple and
differing definitions of influencer marketing and influencers, as well as the
influencer tiers, how ROI is calculated, benchmarks used, and best practices,
and this council will lead the process of consolidating of these views in order
to develop set guidelines, best practices and benchmarks for digital influencer
marketing in South Africa, and to empower the media and marketing industry to
make better digital decisions regarding best practice and standard definitions
for influencers in the digital space.

As announced by the IAB SA, Rogovsky
will also be working closely with Zoe Soon, IAB Global VP Mobile centre of
Excellence (also over-seeing this area of expertise) to co-develop and
collaborate on projects where relevant and meaningful. Rogovsky thrilled to be
working with the IAB Global Head Office on meaningful projects relevant to the
influencer marketing industry on a global scale. “It is an honour to be part of the process; coordinating this
discussion at a global level whereby industry standards will be set, all the
while leading change in the influencer marketing industry alongside truly great
industry leaders,” Rogovsky comments.

Don’t miss the IAB Insight Series Event: Digital Influencer Marketing at Kantar in Cape Town on 28 November 2019, where IAB SA Digital Influencer Committee lead, Stephane Rogovsky will be the keynote speaker!

For more information, read the IAB SA announcement here:

October 22, 2019August 7, 2020

THE 2019 INFLUENCER MARKETING HOLIDAY READINESS GUIDE

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THE 2019 INFLUENCER MARKETING HOLIDAY READINESS GUIDE

October 22, 2019

It’s that time of year again. Retailers are preparing for Black Friday and the holiday season. Chain stores are playing Boney M’s Little Drummer Boy. Tinsel is appearing as if by magic. Your online shopping cart is full, and you’re ready to purchase as soon as the prices drop. Now is the opportune time to plan ahead and book your influencer marketing campaigns for Black Friday.

It’s October, and preparation for the biggest global shopping experience has begun.

BankservAfrica (an automated clearing house operating in Africa and based in Johannesburg) researched Black Friday sales statistics revealing that South Africans spent a total of R2 897 897 379 for 2018, a 15.92% growth when compared with 2017’s R2 499 876 432. 2019 is looking like a marketing team’s dream.

So how can your brand or agency capitalise on that?

Standing Out
With statistics showing the growth rate of influencer marketing coupled with the psychological findings showing consumer attachment to influencers, there is no doubt that influencer marketing will offer an outstanding opportunity for your agency/brand. It will drive consumer interest to your brand and get real recommendations from influencers.
The fact is, people respond to endorsements from people they trust.

While macro influencers and celebrities are fantastic for brand awareness campaigns, micro influencers are everyday people, facing the same financial challenges as their audiences. This makes them far more relatable in this seasonal context, and marketing teams heading into peak buying season would be well served by using them at this time of year. Have your micro influencers drive sales by inviting their audience to plan ahead of the festive season, and to buy now at the highly discounted prices rather than wait for the overpriced Christmas Gift season.

We got you
We at R-Squared understand that it’s almost year-end, and brands may not have large budgets to drive influencer marketing campaigns. Now is your opportunity to leverage a perfect framework that will not only promote engagement but also promote your brand’s equity against any advertising risk. You want a return on investment? R-Squared is the expert influencer marketing agency that will create the perfect framework for you.

Send us an email on info@r2digital.co.za now and let’s create something magical.

*written in October 2019. *Michelle Marais and Emmanuel Okonkwo at R-Squared, a leading influencer marketing creative agency in South Africa that works with most of the best brands and agencies in the country and internationally. R-Squared Digital is known for its masterful management and its specific industry expertise in designing, executing and managing influencer marketing projects that are extremely engaging, authentic, and protecting the brand equity.

October 14, 2019August 7, 2020

INFLUENCER MARKETING BUDGETING 2020

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INFLUENCER MARKETING BUDGETING 2020

October 14, 2019

Statistics point towards increasing brand spend on Influencer Marketing for 2020. What does this mean for your company/brand? Recently, 60% of 18-34 years old in South Africa say that their purchase decisions have been swayed by influencers on social media. (source: eConsultancy). Statistics show that the recent attitude of consumers are fostered by trusted endorsements by persons they feel an emotional connection with – Influencers. Influencer marketing has been on the rise, both in South Africa and globally.

SocialPubli.com, the leading global micro-influencer marketing platform, released a 2019 Influencer Marketing Report: A Marketer’s Perspective report. The report revealed that over half of respondents (53%) allocate at least 10% of their marketing budgets to influencer marketing. When asked about their investment projections for 2019, 60% of marketers said that they plan to further increase their influencer marketing budget in the upcoming year. 30% plan to maintain the same budget and only 2.5% expect to decrease their

Influencer Marketing Hub in partnership with other researchers, conducted its sample study in the UK, and found that Influencer Marketing has continued to grow as an industry. It was a $1.7 billion industry in 2016, increasing to $3 billion in 2017. Growth continued to $4.6 billion in 2018 and is expected to continue its upward trajectory this year to potentially become a $6.5 billion industry for 2019-2020.
92% of the market surveyed believe influencer marketing is an effective form of marketing. And guess what? 86% intend to dedicate a high portion of their budget to influencer marketing. 63% of businesses who budgeted for influencer marketing intend to increase their spending over the next 12 months, with 17% expecting their influencer marketing spend to remain the same. 15% of respondents were unsure about what would happen with their influencer marketing budget, and only 5% intend to decrease their budget.

In
the US, Statists reveal a 39% decision by brands to increase their influencer
marketing campaigns; 35% of brands are uncertain yet; 21% will remain the same;
and only 5% of brands decided to decrease their budget on Influencer marketing
campaigns.While
some brands in South Africa have yet to embrace influencer marketing and some
are to set aside budget for influencer campaigns, most are taking advantage of
the new order.

At R-Squared we have seen this happen, as the average influencer campaign budget from our clients has significantly increased over the last 18 months. The key to success with Influencer marketing is having the right influencer marketing expert create a perfect framework.

Conclusion:
The statistics reveal influencer marketing has grown more than 3.5 times in less than 4 years because of its efficiency. We have seen globally in 2019 that 60% of marketers increased their influencer marketing budget. 86% in the UK have dedicated a significant portion of their budget to influencer marketing while 63% of businesses who budgeted for influencer marketing have decided to increase their influencer marketing over the 12 months. In the US, the decision by brands to increase their influencer marketing spend increased by 39%. Some of the most successful brands and agencies have moved a significant portion of their budget to influencer marketing.
Is your brand following the same trend

*Emmanuel Okonkwo works as External Communications at R-Squared Digital – a leading influencer marketing creative agency in South Africa that works with most of the best brands and agencies in the country and internationally. R-Squared Digital is known for its masterful management and its specific industry expertise in designing, executing and managing influencer marketing projects that are extremely engaging, authentic, and protecting the brand equity.

partners@r2digital.co.za
R-Squared Digital

September 19, 2019August 7, 2020

Influencer Marketplaces/Platforms vs Influencer Marketing Experts: what choice?

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Influencer Marketplaces/Platforms vs Influencer Marketing Experts: what choice?

September 19, 2019

Marketing professionals and companies looking at exploring influencer marketing must wonder whether it’s better to use a do it yourself (DIY) influencer marketing platform or to engage the services of influencer marketing agencies. Well, after reading this, you’ll not wonder anymore.

An influencer marketing platform/marketplace is like Tinder. It’s a platform that connects brands/marketers and influencers together. A brand visits the online marketing platform and signs up. An influencer signs up on a marketing platform in their private capacity. A brand having a campaign to run searches for an influencer on the platform, based on filters and selected criteria. Once the brand or the marketer selects an Influencer, the brand or marketer sends the brief and if the Influencer accepts the brief, then both of them engage directly with each other via the platform.

Not all influencer marketplace users are experts in influencer marketing, as they are often used by marketers of different fields who may be experts in their own field but may not possess the required level of expertise in influencer marketing. An influencer marketing agency/expert on the other hand, is a specialised marketing agency comprising of experts who focus solely on Influencer marketing. While influencer marketing agencies use various sources and technologies to source Influencers, their value lies in the significant expertise that they have in designing, building, and managing an authentic influencer marketing campaign.

There are significant differences between content creation for a social media advertising campaign and an influencer marketing campaign. For social media marketing, the content is more of a corporate message. It is generic in the sense that even if the campaign is extremely targeted, everyone within the target audience may see the same message. The brand speaks directly to the audience and the marketer carefully designs every detailed aspect of the content – design, message, fonts, size and placement of the logo, colours, etc. For influencer marketing however, the brand does not speak directly to the audience but relies on someone else (the influencer) to speak to his/her own captive audience. The message is the voice of the influencer and reflects his/her own original style. The message is not generic. The same target audience might see different content, depending on which influencers they are following. The influencer marketing expert does not create the content, the influencer does.

Social media advertisers and influencer marketers have different skills. While social media marketers must be experts in creating perfect content, expert influencer marketers must be experts in creating the perfect framework from which the influencer’s content will perfectly align with the brief, while remaining authentic, highly engaging, and protecting the brand equity. It is this onerous task of creating the perfect framework, that brings about maximum campaign success.

Now, with regards to the use of Influencer marketing platforms, there are differences in service between an influencer marketing platform and an influencer marketing expert. We’re going to explore 5 integral differences.

1. Expertise

Influencer marketing requires a lot more than choosing an Influencer and tracking metrics.

Setting up a successful influencer marketing campaign is like baking a cake. Trying to bake with the ingredients only, but without the recipe, will lead to catastrophic results. And even when the recipe is provided, without expertise in executing it, the risk of failure will be high. Even if the result is good, it will never be as good as when it is executed by a pastry chef. The level of quality will inherently vary.

Similarly, in influencer marketing, the influencers’ marketplaces/databases will provide a brand with the ingredients (the list of influencers), but if the campaign is executed by someone who is an expert in his/her own field of marketing, but who is not an expert in influencer marketing, the campaign / project’s quality and performance may not produce the full potential desired compared to when executed by an expert in influencer marketing. It is also critical that all the risks that are very specific to influencer marketing are fully understood and accounted for during the campaign design, building and management processes.

2. Brand Equity, Strategy & Framework

Specific sets of knowledge/expertise as discussed above allows for the campaign to be very authentic and engaging, and also protects the brand equity. This protection is achieved through a dedicated high-level influencer marketing strategy and framework setup for the campaign. The Influencer marketing expert, in setting up its framework, is concerned with vetting the influencers, and the content quality, identifying cultural and other potential conflicts of interest, knowing about industry specific marketing regulations/laws, and other salient factors that can backfire on the brand equity if unchecked. An agency guides the Influencer without scripting the content and brings about the best strategy to promote an authentic, story-telling campaign, that creates a long-lasting emotional connection with the audience.

Many risks are specific to influencer marketing. Masterful management will ensure performance success and brand equity protection. Some of the risks that are very specific to this industry segment are:

Selection of influencers with the wrong audience.
A brand strategy that may result in audience alienation.
Content that will look like a plain endorsement rather than being authentic.
Incorrect use of story-telling.
Non-respect of the mandatory disclosure regulation and restrictions.
Inefficient engagement mechanisms to create a positive conversation about the brand, with a clear buying signal.
Engagement mechanisms that may lead to negative PR, driving the conversation to a competing brand, etc.
Low influencer engagement rate
Incorrect metrics
Mismanagement of the influencer-brand relationship (that could turn into a toxic relationship)
Content not matching the expected quality or the brief, etc.

3. Strict audience matching between the influencers’ audience and the brand’s target audience

Upon request by the Brand, the influencer marketing platform will only suggest influencers matching the search criteria. Influencer marketing experts on the other hand go further in ensuring a perfect match between the brand’s target audience and the Influencer’s captive audience.

For instance, in a campaign R-Squared managed, we were presented with a female Influencer by a top female fashion brand in South Africa. When analysing her audience, we realised the she was followed by a 86% male audience, as she is extremely attractive, while the brand’s target audience are females. Further than that, more than 50% of her audience was based in the USA, with only 13% in South Africa. Therefore, the audience of females in South Africa is 13% to 14% = 1,82% only. Even though she was a fashion model, and therefore highly relevant and interested in fashion, her mainly male audience was interested in travel and photography, as described by their key category of interest, which is understandable as she takes her fashion pictures while traveling. Her audience was interested in seeing her travel pictures more than her fashion pictures.

4. Regulations

In practice, it is not the duty of the marketing platforms to ensure compliance with specific regulations (i.e., the mandatory sponsorship disclosure, industry specific regulations, etc.) This is understandable because it is a DIY platform. An influencer marketing expert on the other hand, ensures that its’ strategy and frameworks, as well as the Influencer’s content, are in accordance with all relevant regulations and laws.

5. Reserved Influencers

The pool of influencers on influencer marketing platforms may be limited, as it only contains those influencers who have signed up. Hence, while good influencers might be there, the perfect ones for a particular campaign might not have signed up. The database might also be highly skewed to certain categories of influencers, demographics, countries, or languages. Influencer marketing experts, however, must have the expertise and capacity to source for the best influencers for the campaign / project, regardless if using a marketplace or other sources as its means.

Conclusion

Brands and agencies can manage their influencer marketing campaigns if they have a significant in-house expertise to cover for the peculiar skills of an Influential marketing expert. Thus, whether marketplaces are used or not is not the most important factor. The primary factor here, is the expertise of the person who manages the project, whether in-house or with a specialised influencer marketing agency.

Emmanuel Okonkwo works as an External Communicator at R-Squared Digital – a leading influencer marketing creative agency in South Africa that works with most of the best brands and agencies locally and internationally. R-Squared Digital is known for its specific industry expertise in designing, executing and managing influencer marketing projects that are extremely engaging, authentic, whilst protecting the brand equity.

emmanuel.okonkwo@r2digital.co.za
R-Squared Digital – info@r2digital.co.za

August 1, 2019August 7, 2020

Old Khaki

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Old Khaki

August 1, 2019

July 22, 2019August 7, 2020

Johnson & Johnson

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Johnson & Johnson

July 22, 2019

June 19, 2019August 7, 2020

Radio 7O2: Masterclass on Influencer Marketing

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Radio 7O2: Masterclass on Influencer Marketing

June 19, 2019

Listen to Stephane Rogovsky (CEO of R-Squared) on Radio 702, presenting an influencer marketing masterclass with Aki Anastassiou (19 June 2019).

November 13, 2018August 7, 2020

Influencer Marketing Authenticity

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Influencer Marketing Authenticity

November 13, 2018

In recent times, authenticity has become the most arbitrary yet lucrative world among marketers, brands, and even influencers but doesn’t it seem almost paradoxical to combine authenticity with marketing? In the conventional sense, maybe. However, when it comes to Influencer Marketing; it’s pretty much the sole reason as to why it works.”

In an Influencer Marketing survey that asked 170 marketers from CPGs (consumer packaged goods companies), food-and-beverage companies to retailers, 87% of respondents said that “influencer marketing’s top benefits entail creating authentic content about their brand.” So, why is authenticity so important?

“An influencer is a person who has the ability to shift another person’s perception by sharing an opinion.”

An influencer builds up a following based on people who enjoy their content and resonate with it. In doing so, an influencer develops a signature style that is true to them and only them. Influencers have thus built their following through being themselves and having a brand image that reflects them and interests their followers, and because of this, any deviation from this image is immediately inauthentic to their followers.

In Influencer Marketing, authenticity is greatly valued as it is the main attribute that sets it apart from other traditional marketing methods. It applies to both brands and influencers. Brands need to ensure influencers align with their brand when choosing which influencers to work with, while influencers need to remain credible when giving their reviews or opinion about a product or service. The byproduct of authenticity is, therefore, trust and loyalty.

From the brand’s perspective, building trust is a time consuming process, but if done right, it can result in the ultimate achievement: having gained an advocate for your brand. If the brand fits seamlessly into an influencer’s lifestyle, the influencer is more likely to immediately establish an affinity to your brand, leading to an authentic connection. When his/her audience sees this relationship, they know that the brand is not simply paying the influencer simply for the sake of promoting their product, but they work together to create a meaningful connection that brings together the brand as well as the community they both care about. In this case, the influencer is incentivized not for promotion but for their work in creating the content and for media usage, which is the act of creating and sharing their opinion with their captive audience on their own channel.

However, a common mistake that brands make when executing a campaign is assuming that the influencer’s content must perfectly match their ideas. Instead of scripting what influencers should say, how they should say it and giving specific instructions for how the photo(s) should look, brands should trust the influencer by giving them plenty of room for creativity to convey the message. The role of the brand or marketer is to create the perfect framework for the influencer in order to respect a brief, protect the brand equity and achieve campaign objectives, while leaving enough flexibility to create fully engaging and authentic content. Finding the right balance is a complex process and requires a great level of expertise. Influencers know how to create content that best resonates with their audience in order to maintain high engagement and continue to grow their following. By leaving the influencer with sufficient flexibility to express themselves in their own style, the content created will be very authentic, personalized and engaging in nature. It’s in an influencer’s best interest to create the best content possible — a concept that brands can greatly benefit from.

When it comes to disclosing paid partnerships and the effect thereof on credibility and authenticity, it becomes clear that disclosure actually enhances an influencer’s authenticity. Why? Even though an influencer is being paid to promote a product, they should only choose to promote products and services they believe in and ones that align with their own personal brand and image. Naturally, it is far more authentic and transparent to disclose partnerships than it is to hide them. Influencers have proven that they have become more powerful, as consumers find them more credible than traditional celebrities and conventional advertising campaigns.

Nobody likes to be lied to and while many people expect businesses to have a set agenda throughout their marketing, they look up to the prominent figures in their community and generally trust their words. At the end of the day, authenticity is what makes influencers influential to the public. Therefore, authenticity needs to be a top priority for both brands and influencers alike.

If you’re dying to know more now and you’d like expert assistance with creating and managing your influencer marketing campaigns, you can contact us on partners@r2digital.co.za

November 5, 2018August 7, 2020

The State of the Influencer Marketing Landscape

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The State of the Influencer Marketing Landscape

November 5, 2018

Many definitions and interpretations about what an influencer is exists in the industry, with no real standard. At R-Squared Digital, we strongly believe that an influencer is someone who has the capacity to shift the perception of others overnight, just by sharing their opinions.

The difference between influencer marketing and brand advocacy:

brand advocacy is a regular person influencing people within their own circles,
influencers have credibility and influence over a larger number of people who may not know them

“52% of marketers are planning influencer marketing programs that leverage multiple levels of influencers as part of an integrated strategy (source: Linqia).”

Conventional Marketing offers one generic corporate campaign message broadcast to a static target audience (the message is delivered by the brand or creative agency, and everyone within the target audience may see the same message).

Influencer Marketing enables social influencers who are content creators to endorse brands in their own way and style, in their own words. It’s personalised and it’s people talking to people. It’s not the brand talking to the audience, it’s the influencer talking about the brand to the audience. This means that extended audiences in the same target market may see completely unique, relevant content and messaging on the same campaign, dependent on the influencer/s that they’re following (meaning that the content is original and tailored to the influencer’s audience, and it’s not generic).

Celebrity influencers are meant to be seen and heard, but are generally not interacted with. Communication with the celebrity runs one way as a single message leveraged on a platform, like a television broadcast, meant to reach as many people as possible. Celebrity influencers are selling their image and respecting a script, not sharing their own authentic voice and this is where we make the difference between influencer marketing (working with celebrities, when they are sharing their own voice vs when they respect a script).

“Upcoming Trends”

Influencers have significant impact on vertical markets and/or social media platform. Brands and agencies partner with influencers in order to create authentic engagement and awareness around products and services.

Here are several projected key influencer marketing trends for 2018.

We foresee more long term campaigns, with yearly strategies, rather than one off campaigns. These campaigns would include brand ambassadors, for example: Basetsana Kumalo and Nandi Madida’s appointment as the Lux brand ambassadors are an example of this trend. Gal Gadot being appointed as the 2018 global brand ambassador for Revlon and Karlie Kloss being appointed as the 2018 global brand ambassador for Estee Lauder are further examples. We also see longer term campaigns for smaller micro influencers which would include pop up activations, specific actions, news etc. diversifying audiences and increasing the impact of campaigns.
Authenticity in engagement and a move away from celebrity influencers. Influencers are endorsing products because they really believe in them, not just as a result of being compensated, and this is where savvy audiences are highly sensitised to inauthentic content, creating a lack of credibility for the influencer and the brand, when audiences don’t really believe in your product. Nothing is more powerful than a genuine recommendation. Influencers will begin to understand their true value, whilst creating content they’re paid for yet, genuinely enjoy sharing about. We’re seeing influencers like Nadia Jaftha and Aisha Baker monetising the significance their honest opinions have with their audiences, with resounding success. We see this as a huge growth area in influencer marketing this year.
Television used to be an ideal medium to convey mass market campaigns to broad spectrum audiences. With technological innovations, it’s now possible to schedule your viewing with no advertising, presenting a challenge to advertisers who want to share campaigns. Influencer marketing solves the challenge, presenting targeted demographics per social media channel, for authentic person to person conversations and real word of mouth opportunities. Speaking to your direct audience, and the ability to measure real ROI, continues to show good business sense. We foresee continued attrition in traditional media channels.
Influencer content creation, not advertising, is another trending factor. Brands will see a drop in brand-created content, and a growth in sharing and remarketing of influencer created content, vetted by influencer marketing experts to ensure the same high quality brands would produce and protecting the brand equity, but with the genuine flavour of the influencer, especially using original photos and videos. Knock-on effects of influencer content creation remarketing include lower costs of brand content production, and higher engagement rates due to the nature of the content not being scripted by the brand. Video has been shown to be the most powerful tool to increase sales, including Instagram videos and IGTV, which have proven to be more engaging, and although YouTube has performed well internationally, has been less effective in a South African context. More statistical research reveals that 95 million photos and videos are posted daily on Instagram, with users liking 4.2 billion posts every day. According to HubSpot, there was a 197% increase in influencer marketing on Instagram in 2017.
The industry will mature with more standards around the definitions (influencers vs brand advocacy vs celebrity influencers), contractual requirements, performance reporting, etc. While R-Squared Digital is already at the top of all of this, we often see that the industry is immature with too many players applying their own definitions, as standards do not exist yet.
Guidelines regarding disclosure of incentivisation. While we in South Africa are not bound by the FTC guidelines (while we use influencer marketing to a non-USA based audience), nevertheless, your influencer marketing campaign should still follow the basic tenets the FTC lays down, including #ad or #sponsored tags in social media posts. All influencers should disclose that they’ve been incentivised for their content. The use of Instagram’s branded content and Facebook’s business partners options are valuable to brands considering influencer marketing. Added to the FTC guidelines, GDPR is bringing a lot of regulations on data, so a savvy influencer marketing agency will ensure you can navigate the social media minefield effectively. Other rules may apply or you may want to be more clear using the paid partnership button. Brands fear disclosing reimbursement will create a loss of credibility for the brand and the influencer, but the reverse is true. This creates authentic messaging for the influencer’s audience. Each country, including South Africa, will get closer to following the FTC regulations. Brands and influencers will understand that this transparency adds to authenticity that is appreciated by followers and creates more engagement.

“Influencer marketing is no longer just a trend.”

Influencer marketing has outranked organic search and email marketing as the most cost-effective and fastest-growing online acquisition channel (according to a recent poll hosted by Tomoson). Influencer marketing is vital for brands to integrate into their marketing strategy.

Brand audiences are saturated with advertising messaging. Academic director of Market Research and Consumer Behaviour at the IE School of Human Sciences and Technology, Jaime Veiga Mateos confirms that the growing number of distractions is definitely posing a problem for today’s marketer. “As consumers, our attention is divided across different screens and multi-tasking so the fight for our attention is tougher than ever,” he said. According to research house Forrester, 38% of U.S. adults had installed an ad blocker, and 50% claimed to actively avoid ads on websites in 2017. Influencer marketing is native content by a social media user (the influencer), not an advertisement, and is therefore not blocked, circumventing the ad blocking situation.

Nielsen’s famous “Trust in Advertising” report states that 92% consumers trust recommendations, above all other forms of advertising, and 83% take action as a result of those recommendations. As a result, 81% of marketers are using influencer content in other channels, with the content performing an average of 35x better than the brand’s own content.

If you’re dying to know more now and you’d like expert assistance with creating and managing your influencer marketing campaigns, you can contact us on partners@r2digital.co.za

October 15, 2018August 7, 2020

Is your paid partnership paying off?

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See what is happening in our world – who is influencing whom and why.

Is your paid partnership paying off?

October 15, 2018

In a world of uncertainty, can brands and influencers afford to lack transparency and disclosure? Does disclosing a partnership harm or reinforce the credibility of both the influencer and the brand? Why is disclosure of partnership (besides the legal requirement) important to consumers? If you’ve been asking yourself the questions, you’ve come to the right place because in a few short paragraphs; you’ll have the answers you’ve been looking for!”

It’s not surprising that Influencer Marketing is a popular way for brands to get their message out. When it comes to trusted sources of information, word-of-mouth recommendations always rank highly. Consumers are also more likely to trust those they can relate to and that’s why micro-influencers play such a big role in Influencer Marketing. Consumers follow them because they value their opinion and recommendation on specific subjects.

“According to the 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer, an annual global survey of trust and credibility, 55% of respondents say, “Individuals are more believable than institutions, and a company’s social media page is more believable than advertising.”

Influencer marketing is now big enough that disclosing partnerships between brands and influencers is a necessity, not an option. Although compliance is growing, there are many examples where it doesn’t happen. There is evidence showing that consumers engage more when there is disclosure and when the post is highly personal and authentic. Twitter partnered with Annalect to research influencers on the platform. This study has revealed some very interesting influencer marketing statistics. For example, 56% of consumers are influenced by their friends and peers on their purchases. The study also revealed that tweets from brands increase the purchase intent by 2.7 times. This is in comparison with the purchase intent of audiences who haven’t engaged with such tweets. When these were coupled with tweets from influencers, the purchase intent increased by 5.2 times in the same study. This is when the influencers generated their own content and disclosed a partnership, rather than sharing the brand’s static content.

With this being said; what defines adequate disclosure? It is no longer sufficient to just tag the brand in sponsored content, due to recent regulatory changes in the Influencer Marketing framework. So here are a couple of tips when it comes to Influencer Marketing disclosure.

Disclosures should be clear and use widely accepted hashtags such as #sponsored
Disclosures should be independent of social media network or channel-specific settings (e.g. it is not enough to just use Instagram’s “paid partnership with…” feature)
In videos, disclosures should be upfront and identifiable
Disclosures should be made in the language of the endorsement
Disclosures should be in close proximity to the endorsement
Disclosures should be specific about the brand, products, and what was received by the influencer
Disclosures should be clearly communicated
Disclosures should be written with unambiguous language

But why is all of this so important in Influencer Marketing? We need to look back at the debate around authenticity in order to answer this question effectively. Influencer Marketing harnesses the power of word-of-mouth recommendations, which in today’s world is one of the most powerful concepts to enter the marketing landscape. However, it is only as powerful as its perceived authenticity. All consumers, in today’s day and age, crave authenticity. Influencer disclosure of paid partnerships is certainly one way to remain transparent

Consumers are bombarded with generic advertisements from most brands on a daily basis. I say generic because this is why consumers crave something original, something fresh and new, and something personal. By providing disclosure, the influencer is able to say that even though they are being incentivised, the recommendation is genuine. Conversely, when no disclosure is provided, followers may immediately detect that it is a paid post, and the lack of transparency would impact the credibility of the recommendation.

Another positive aspect of disclosure is through the use of Instagram’s “paid partnership” feature. Studies have shown that using this feature on Influencer posts drives higher engagement and conversions on the post. Again, all the more reason for brands to encourage their influencers to disclose the partnership between themselves and the brand.

The dynamic world of Influencer Marketing will undoubtedly keep changing over the next few years, and we’ve already seen it come such a long way since its inception. This leaves plenty room for many more changes in both its nature, and the regulations governing it. We look forward to seeing the industry continue to flourish yet also become more sustainable in its nature through more stringent regulations.

“Influencer Marketing is most efficient when authenticity is absolute, and this comes with full transparency and disclosure on sponsorships.”

If you’re dying to know more now and you’d like expert assistance with creating and managing your influencer marketing campaigns, you can contact us on partners@r2digital.co.za

October 10, 2018August 7, 2020

The dangers of mismanaging an Influencer campaign

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See what is happening in our world – who is influencing whom and why.

The dangers of mismanaging an Influencer campaign

October 10, 2018

“You’ve planned your campaign ahead of time, the campaign has kicked off smoothly and everything seems to be in order. You’ve run through a risk management process with the influencers and determined how to mitigate brand risk effectively. What if you haven’t considered all the factors?”

Here are some questions to consider when mitigating brand risk in influencer campaign management:

What if the influencer’s content is not engaging and the content unintentionally drags the conversation away from the brand?
What if the influencer has put a lot of time and energy into creating the content but what they’ve produced is not in line with your brand or client expectations?
What if the content only arrives in your inbox for approval after campaign activation and deadline date?
What if the influencer really really likes your brand or product and wants to speak extensively about it beyond the campaign? How will you manage what is being said to ensure it doesn’t violate any regulations in industries such as liquor, finance, health etc?
What if you have been monitoring the influencer’s public social media but discover that they have posted something completely inappropriate, or something that may be interpreted as sexist or racist even if this was not the intention, on their private blog or alternative channels or forums?
What if the influencer has used the incorrect hashtag or has spelt it wrong (trust me, we see this far too often)?
What if the link they include is broken and leads their audience nowhere? It would be such a pity to achieve great results but not be able to track them…

Without effective and proper campaign management from the outset and throughout, the brand may run the risk of having:

Content that looks the same, content that is not engaging or does not meet expectations,
The inability to track campaign results because mandatory hashtags are missing or misspelled,
Legal risks because mandatory mentions and disclosures are missing or because the content does not respect the regulations per country,
Financial and reputational risk if contracts are not set up correctly,
Overall poor results and a disappointing ROI.

Often during campaigns there is an audience overlap among influencers that are part of the same campaign.

“Therefore, it’s extremely important for the influencers to tell a story and create content in their own signature style to ensure authenticity and originality.”

To ensure content quality and authenticity from the outset and throughout, all posts should be checked and verified before publication. This will ensure the content is authentic, properly engaging, conforms to all required regulations and meets the brand’s expectations. It is important to include verification timelines in the original contract with influencers, allowing the brand time to verify posts and to ensure there is time to request a redo, if necessary. In doing so, the potential that the post will achieve a better ROI is far greater, and the brand’s equity will be protected. An important aspect of campaign management is monitoring the actions of the influencers outside of the campaign to ensure that the selected influencers are still the best fit for the brand, for the full duration of the campaign.

As the influencer is an ambassador of the brand and associated with it for the duration of the campaign, it is important to ensure that the influencer’s actions and content is favourable and remains within the objectives of the brand and reinforces the brands message, rather than alienating the audience. To achieve this, brands need to check all of the influencer’s social media consistently throughout the campaign, and take necessary action if they believe something may backfire on the brand, in the short or long run. Influencer Marketing is all about creating positive word-of-mouth for the brand, and to do so, brands need to monitor all actions of their ambassadors and influencers.

Other than the external potentialities that exist, effective campaign management should deal with all internal matters that may be of concern – those being between the influencer and the brand, which are covered in the contract. These internal matters include, but are not limited to:

Verifying the content to meet expectations and coordinating with the influencers regarding content issues,
Ensuring that posts are delivered timeously,
Communicating with influencers on how to respond to negative engagement, if any, or to dissuade engagement that drags the discussion to the competition,
Arranging that new content be provided should the original submission not be satisfactory.

” Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) are another aspect of a campaign that will change and evolve as the campaign continues, and effective dynamic campaign management allows brands to analyse these changes and to set new KPIs as the campaign progresses through its timeline.”

In my previous article, you saw the importance of aligning the influencer’s publication calendars with daily/weekly/monthly calendar events to ensure the campaign is fresh and relevant. In the campaign management stages, brands should keep updating their publication calendars with new events and themes as the campaign progresses.

Influencer Marketing campaign management is undoubtedly dynamic in nature; brands are managing people speaking to an audience rather than managing the audience itself. In order to protect brand equity and ensure the highest possible return for the campaign, brands should use Influencer Marketing experts who have a very specialised skillset tailored to Influencer Marketing needs.

In previous articles, my colleagues and I demonstrated how a kickass influencer marketing campaign should be run in a series of articles. You’ve already seen what Influencer Marketing is all about in the first article of the series, and you’ve learnt about the importance of having a dedicated influencer marketing strategy. Following that, you’ve seen the importance of vetting and selecting the right influencers. In the previous article, you saw the importance of effectively planning a campaign and setting mission statements.

In this article, you’ve learnt about effective campaign management to ensure the protection of your brand equity. These articles (and more) will be released regularly. If you’re dying to know more now and you’d like expert assistance with creating and managing your influencer marketing campaigns, you can contact us on partners@r2digital.co.za

October 8, 2018August 7, 2020

The good, the bad and the ugly side of Influencer Marketing

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See what is happening in our world – who is influencing whom and why.

The good, the bad and the ugly side of Influencer Marketing

October 8, 2018

“You may have read my previous articles and now you know what’s needed to successfully run an Influencer Marketing campaign. You’re expecting a great ROI for your efforts. In this final article of the series, you’ll be able to see the good and the bad side of Influencer campaign planning and management, or the lack thereof. “

The Good

I’m sure you’ve already heard of all the amazing success stories of various Influencer Marketing campaigns, but what does it really mean to be successful in Influencer Marketing? At the moment, there is no industry standard for calculating ROI. As such every Influencer marketer provides his/her own definition, which too often considers reach only. The problem is that reach does reflect anything else other than potential impressions, and not the real impact. At R-Squared Digital, we believe that reach alone, without engagement, is empty.

By tracking the correct metrics, such as engagement, one should be able to calculate a sound ROI for the campaign. Social Media Today (following research by Nielsen) reported that, on average, Influencer Marketing delivers 11x higher ROI than traditional forms of digital marketing. Various studies have shown that businesses that employ Influencer Marketing earn, on average, $7.65 of media presence for every $1 spent on Influencer Marketing. Campaigns designed and executed by Influencer Marketing experts can expect these results as an average, so how does your campaign compare?

It’s no secret that these benchmarks will continue to rise in the foreseeable future, as the industry grows, with many businesses expanding their Influencer Marketing budgets regularly.

“According to Klear, Influencer Marketing has grown by staggering 198% on Instagram over the previous year, with Social Media Today reporting that 48% of surveyed businesses plan to expand their Influencer budgets over the coming years”

We could really feel the increase in interest in Influencer Marketing at R-Squared Digital; last month we successfully completed 9x the amount of campaigns we had in September of last year.

ROI calculations remain a challenge to the Influencer Marketing industry; there is no single, overarching formula currently present in the industry and this leaves plenty room for innovation and interpretation. By comparing campaign engagement rates at an individual post, influencer, and campaign level, to a specific influencer engagement benchmark, a far sounder ROI can be calculated.

The Bad

As demonstrated above, influencer marketing is extremely powerful. However, it must be approached very differently to the approach of conventional marketing in order to guarantee high engagement and authenticity, while still protecting the brand equity. This approach requires a very specific skillset and expertise in building a dedicated Influencer Marketing strategy, planning the campaign, and executing it.

As mentioned throughout the previous articles, authenticity is extremely important in Influencer Marketing, for the sake of both the brand and the influencer. On the brand side, it’s important to keep the message authentic and genuine to ensure that it doesn’t look like an advert. On the influencer’s side, it’s important to tell a story in their own style ensuring that they build their own brand and image. By combining both sides of the spectrum, the brand will be able to reinforce its message rather than alienating its audience.

Scott Disick, the reality TV star and ex-husband of Kourtney Kardashian, provided us with a perfect example of what not to do when it comes to authentic storytelling. A health and lifestyle company (Bootea) paid Disick to promote their new protein shake to his 20-odd million followers. Nothing wrong here, but what happened next was a complete catastrophe.

“Disick posted a photo of himself with the product ha was being paid to promote, but the caption is where it all wen wrong. Instead of telling a story in his own authentic style, he simply copy-pasted the caption provided to him by Bootea, including the instructions the brand had given to him regarding the post.”

Click HERE to view the full article on the Content Marketing Institute’s website.

Once again, looking at both sides of the spectrum mentioned above. On the one hand, the brand did not allow Disick any freedom to produce the content within his own style, this would mean the content would end up looking very inauthentic even if he had just posted the caption. On the other hand, Disick did not put any effort into creating authentic content that would match his style, once again making the content look very unoriginal.

As mentioned in previous articles, influencers have an audience who follow them because they like their style and their recommendations. If influencers start to copy paste messages from the brand, it’s no longer their own personal style, but rather a corporate message that looks like an advert.

“When Influencer Marketing starts to look like an advert, rather than an authentic story, it loses its power.”

The Ugly

In previous articles, we looked at the importance of respecting all mandatory regulations in various industries and verticals. Without proper contracting covering all these bases, violation of various regulations is a very real possibility, and may have serious repercussions for both the influencer and the brand. On the one hand, the brand may suffer a significant financial and/or reputational beating from violating regulations. On the other hand, the influencer will suffer a massive blow to their reputation and credibility.

Kim Kardashian found this out the hard way when promoting products in the health industry. Duchesnay (a pharmaceutical company) paid Kim to promote their new morning sickness tablets, Diclegis, during her pregnancy. Kim happily obliged but made a few fatal mistakes in her execution of the content.

Click HERE to view the full article on Forbes’ website.

Kim violated not one, but two Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations with this one piece of content. First, by paying Kim, this post ‘unknowingly’ created an illegal advertisement for a prescription drug – a huge problem in the eyes of the FDA. Secondly, it failed to mention any risks or side effects of the drug – another huge problem for the FDA.

The FDA instructed Kim to remove any and all posts pertaining to the drug and also instructed the pharmaceutical company to “immediately cease misbranding Diclegis and/or cease introducing the misbranded drug into interstate commerce”. The pharmaceutical company were lucky to escape large fines from the FDA.

These above examples are only two cases of when influencers’ actions may backfire on the brand. It’s critical to create engagement and conversations, but let’s not forget that influencers are not marketing professionals and may not anticipate the impact or the reactions that can be triggered by a post. Even worse, some content may be interpreted as inappropriate, sexist or racist even if this was unintended, which could heavily backfire on the brand.

It’s clear to see that there are plenty positives when it comes to Influencer Marketing, but to achieve these positives, brands need to consider all avenues of a campaign, both internally and externally, from beginning to end, to ensure the campaign produces the ROI the brand is looking for. Brands should partner with Influencer Marketing experts to achieve these ROI’s and more importantly; to avoid embarrassing situations like the ones above.

If you’re dying to know more now and you’d like expert assistance with creating and managing your influencer marketing campaigns, you can contact us on partners@r2digital.co.za

September 25, 2018August 7, 2020

Influencer campaign planning shouldn’t be Mission Impossible

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See what is happening in our world – who is influencing whom and why.

Influencer campaign planning shouldn’t be Mission Impossible

September 25, 2018

“So the campaign has finally kicked off! You’ve read my previous article and expertly vetted and selected your influencers and the campaign brief has been circulated to them, easy stuff! However, you’ve noticed that your audience isn’t really engaging with the content and you’re starting to question why your audience seems to have become alienated from the brand. Is it the content? Is it the influencers? Is it the concept? There are many things that could have and may still go wrong if the campaign is not planned correctly.”

Setting individualised missions for influencers is vitally important. By sending one brief to all influencers for the same campaign, all influencers will produce very similar content. Within certain verticals there is often an audience overlap, in which case, followers following several influencers part of the same campaign will see the same type of content being produced, which may be alienating for the audience. This is where the importance of influencer mission setting and dynamic campaign planning plays a role in the success of the overall campaign.

“Not every mission will match the influencer, and conversely, not every influencer will match the mission.”

It’s important to match the missions to the influencers and not the influencers to the missions. By assigning missions that have been tailored to the influencer’s style, the content they create will reinforce the brands message in their own signature style. The missions the brand sets should be a framework for the influencer to work from, not a script.

Brands need to think out of the box when it comes to dealing with influencers. It is all about creating the perfect framework that allows for full creativity, authenticity and engagement while remaining aligned with the brand’s objectives and protecting its brand equity. Authenticity in the content is crucial to ensuring the message resonates with the target audience, in a way that is original and organic. Influencers should use their own discretion and build the story in a way that matches their style and flow, while staying within a given framework.

Following this, a publication calendar should be established, where all influencers’ posts are spread over the period of the campaign and matched to different criteria and daily/weekly/monthly events such as public holidays of different themes. In doing so, the content will resonate with the brands target audience in different styles, themes and ways – keeping it fresh and new.

Another aspect of effective campaign planning is to confirm the correct hashtags and mandatory disclosures required by law, as well as the mandatory mentions for the brand. In the planning stages, brands should consider all regulations applicable to the campaign. Influencers are not industry professionals; brands should therefore provide a framework of flexibility for the influencer so that they create their own personal content while respecting all regulations, no matter the sector or vertical.

“It is critical to protect both the brand and the influencer by covering all the details of the relationship.”

In terms of legalities, I cannot stress enough the importance of contracting with all parties involved throughout the campaign. Strict contracting creates an agreement between the brand and the influencer; this should be in writing to cover all parties involved. Proper contracting protects both the influencer and brand or agency. Brands cannot forget that the influencer will become associated to the brand in everything they do, at least for the time of the campaign. This should include the details of the missions, deadlines and schedules, DO’s and DON’Ts as well as the expectations and consequences if something goes wrong.

Effective campaign planning and management is a human skill and requires specific expertise. It should not be an automated system. Influencer marketing is different to digital marketing in this way. Influencer marketing experts manage real people who speak with an audience, rather than managing the audience itself and to do so effectively, one needs a specific skill set that is very different from other fields of conventional marketing.

The success of an influencer marketing campaign is based on various factors throughout the timeline of the campaign but it is critical to set missions and effectively plan campaigns well in advance to ensure the campaign gets off on the right foot. Without doing so, there is a high risk that the campaign will produce a terrible ROI. It may also deviate from the overall objectives of the brand and harm the brand equity.

In previous and upcoming articles, my colleagues and I will demonstrate how a kickass influencer marketing campaign should be run in a series of four articles. You’ve already seen what influencer marketing is all about in the first article of the series. You’ve also learnt about the importance of having a dedicated influencer marketing strategy. Following that, you’ve seen the importance of vetting and selecting the right influencers.

In this article, you’ve learnt about the importance of effectively planning a campaign and setting mission statements. You can look forward to learning about effective campaign management to ensure the protection of your brand equity. These articles (and more) will be released weekly. If you’re dying to know more now and you’d like expert assistance with creating and managing your influencer marketing campaigns, you can contact us onpartners@r2digital.co.za

September 17, 2018August 7, 2020

Influencer selection: The obvious choice is not always the best

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See what is happening in our world – who is influencing whom and why.

Influencer selection: The obvious choice is not always the best

September 17, 2018

“It’s finally here: a campaign celebrating the launch of your new fashion brand. You’ve spent what feels like an eternity working on it, and you’re excited to partner with the right influencers who match your energy. Which influencer should select? A fashion influencer, obviously. Right? Well, the obvious is not always the best and here’s why.

At R-Squared Digital, we recently completed a local campaign for a well-known international female fashion brand; we were given a budget and we were tasked with creating the strategy, and compiling a list of influencers after vetting and selection. The brand, however, specified that they would prefer to include one influencer they had found (using a well-known influencer marketing platform) and they wanted her to be an integral part of the campaign. On paper, she ticked all the boxes. A South African fashion model on Instagram (which is a very visual platform), with a high interest in fashion, who was expected to speak to the brand’s target audience, “South African women with fashion as their primary category of interest”.

After a deeper analysis using our in-house best-in-class technology, we discovered that 86% of her audience was male and that only 13% of her audience was in South Africa. In fact, the majority of her audience consisted of American men. This meant that only 1.82% of the influencers’ audience was the actual target audience of the campaign, “South African women”.

“We have the capacity to analyse the audiences’ key interests (and not just the key interests of the influencer).”

On deeper analysis, we discovered that her audience is predominantly interested in travel and photography (as she’s an avid traveller who posts a lot of personal photography content). Therefore, 97.18% of the brand’s budget would have been wasted on the wrong target audience; that percentage is when considering the “South African women” audience. The percentage would have been far worse if we had included the audience categories of interest. This in turn would have ensured the campaign produced a very disappointing ROI.

Influencer marketing requires having a detailed insight of the audience demographics and key interests, and not basing your campaign on the influencer’s categories of interest and bio. This could mean combining static databases and platform searches with dynamic databases and real-time data that provides the right insight and analytics. As demonstrated in the fashion example, the obvious choice is not always the best for your campaign.

“The importance of the influencer lies in being relatable to the brand and delivering authentic relevant content that resonates with the brand and their audience.”

However, this is not sufficient on its own and having a clear understanding of the audience’s demographics and key interests is vital. That’s why it is of the utmost importance to ensure that the influencer’s audience interests and demographics match the target interests of the brand, more so than the influencer’s interests themselves.

Influencer selection, through the use of influencer platforms, is very much a Tinder-like service. Brands sign up and the influencer signs up. Brands will search based on various filters till they get a shortlist of possible matches. They then go through each option and decide whether they’re a fit or not. If the brand believes the influencer is a good fit, they approach them with a brief. The influencer either accepts or rejects this brief and if they accept then happy days, they’ve got a match and off they go to tackle the campaign, great success!

Like many Tinder dates, the results may be fantastic and exactly as expected and at other times the results may be terrible and tragically different from what was promoted. By matching not only the influencer’s profile, but also the audience interests and demographics, with a dedicated influencer marketing strategy, it is likely that the brand will produce far better results, while mitigating brand equity risk at all times.

Influencer marketing platforms with static databases like these are limited to the number of influencers who have actually signed up to the platform. If brands cannot find the right influencer on the platform, where else will they look? It is likely that the database owner will always try push their influencers in the database because they want the business; meaning they are biased toward the influencer, not the brand and the campaign. In my opinion, this creates a conflict of interest, as the brand is the client.

In reality, each campaign will aim to target a different vertical or at least different segments within the same vertical – it’s unlikely that the perfect influencer for each and every campaign and vertical can be found using one static database. Unfortunately, even if the database is extensive, it will still be limited to only those that have signed up. This means that the same influencers will continuously be suggested to the brand and its competitors no matter the campaign specifics. Furthermore, the influencers’ data, audience details and interests are often lagged, based on perception or on the influencer’s interests, not on real-time information.

It’s also important to select influencers with consideration given to the engagement rate, and not only reach, because analysing reach without engagement rate is empty.

“In a brand’s campaign, reach should not be the only metric considered and should be carefully aligned with the engagement rate of influencers.”

Influencer vetting includes looking for all conflicts of interests across platforms, identifying what can backfire on the brand and auditing the engagement rate per influencer benchmark and the vertical. This undoubtedly the first critical step to successful influencer selection. Selection should be undertaken by experienced influencer marketing strategists and campaign managers highly skilled and specialised in influencer marketing, who have the right tools at their disposal.

Influencer Marketing agencies that offer the possibility to source influencers at all time, based on real-time data, after establishing a dedicated influencer strategy should be preferred. On the other hand, an influencer database has its limitations but could be powerful if used by an experienced influencer strategist.

In upcoming articles, my colleagues and I will demonstrate how a kickass influencer marketing campaign should be run, in a series of four articles. You’ve already seen what Influencer Marketing is all about in the first article of the series. You’ve also learnt about the importance of having a dedicated influencer marketing strategy and in this article, you’ve learnt about the importance of effectively matching the influencer’s audience with your target audience.

You can look forward to learning about how to manage your influencer relationship in order to protect and increase your brand equity, and finally, what’s required when your influencer marketing campaign is live. These articles (and more) will be released weekly. If you’re dying to know more now and you’d like expert assistance with creating and managing your influencer marketing campaigns, you can contact us on partners@r2digital.co.za

September 7, 2018August 7, 2020

The Power Of A Dedicated Influencer Marketing Strategy

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The Power Of A Dedicated Influencer Marketing Strategy

September 7, 2018

“Influencer marketing campaigns that do not incorporate dedicated strategies too often produce disappointing ROIs. Let’s explore why.”

The marketing paradigm will undoubtedly keep shifting for as long as we live, with new technology and social interactions taking the forefront of this new media landscape. According to Klear, influencer marketing has grown by a staggering 198% on Instagram over the previous year, and there are no signs of slowing down. Furthermore, studies have shown that expert influencer marketers can expect a ROI in media presence of 7.65:1, with Nielsen’s recent research showing a delivery of 11x higher ROI than traditional forms of digital marketing.

Conventional marketing and influencer marketing aim to achieve the same goals and objectives, but differ drastically in structure and approach and that’s why it’s important to have a dedicated influencer marketing strategy, adapted from your overarching campaign strategy. Brands may have a conventional marketing strategy in place, and it may be working very well, but nothing is more powerful in creating positive word-of-mouth than authentic person-to-person conversation.

Conventional marketing is generic corporate messaging that everyone sees. By partnering with influencers of different styles, brands can ensure that the content their target audience is seeing is tailored to their specific interests and tastes. Herein lies the importance of implementing a dynamic marketing campaign, one that includes influencers of different backgrounds, styles and content. Although, this does not mean “penciling in” some names on paper – it means developing a dedicated and specialised influencer marketing strategy. Why? Generic corporate advertisements may still be creating the awareness a brand seeks but influencer marketing is people talking to people about their experience using the brand, not the brand talking about itself.

“Influencer marketing is powerful in sparking positive conversation and creating easier conversions, in that it provides consumers with personal recommendations through authentic storytelling.”

A dedicated influencer marketing strategy should outline the correct platforms your campaign should focus on, the format of your campaign and type of content that your target audience will best resonate with. A brand’s influencer marketing strategy may vary (while still aiming at the same objective) from the overarching digital strategy.

“Brands should define a strategy that is not limited to the ‘obvious’ and will ba able to reach their entire target audience”

The obvious choice for the launch of a new beauty product would be beauty influencers, right? However, most women may use beauty products but not all of them may follow beauty influencers, as this is not where their interest lies. In this example, by limiting the campaign to only using beauty influencers, a large portion of the target market will be missed.

As an example, a beauty product may offer great benefits to one’s skin during pregnancy. If the beauty brand’s target audience is limited to pregnant women, they would miss their audience by using beauty influencers alone. Brands without a strategy pitch the same products to the same audiences, using the same people.

However, analysing the brand, and ascertaining that it would be beneficial to all women who may be pregnant, have experienced exposure to the sun or have experienced acne, opens the campaign up to incorporating moms, women who enjoy the outdoors and adventure, and young women with skin difficulties. It would then be more effective to use a combination of beauty influencers, mom bloggers, sporty women, and youth market influencers, all of whom strive to feel beautiful.

“Producing kickass influencer marketing results required a very specific skillset and expertise in order to design a dedicated influencer marketing strategy, implemented it, and manage it.”

Brands should work with influencer marketing strategists who provide quality insight into the market, which will allow them to develop a personalised strategy for your campaign, which ultimately will provide the highest ROI. Partner with our professional influencer marketing strategists at R-Squared Digital to maximise your ROI and mitigate brand risk.

In upcoming articles, my colleagues and I will demonstrate how a kickass influencer marketing campaign should be run in a series of four articles. You’ve already seen what influencer marketing is all about in the first article of our series and in this article, you’ve learnt about the importance of having a dedicated strategy. You can look forward to learning about how to effectively match the influencer’s audience with your target audience, how to manage your influencer relationship in order to protect and increase your brand equity, and finally, what’s required when your influencer marketing campaign is live. These articles (and more) will be released weekly.

If you’re dying to know more now and you’d like expert assistance with creating and managing your influencer marketing campaigns, you can contact us on partners@r2digital.co.za

August 13, 2018August 7, 2020

From Traditional To Influencer Marketing

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From Traditional To Influencer Marketing

August 13, 2018

My transition from a traditional marketing background to an influencer marketing marketing agency was challenging. Having focused on corporate messaging, I could draft technical articles and press releases easily. However, I soon realized that there was an enormous difference in the type of content creation required for both environments. But why?

Here’s my guess: before authentic influencer content creation, marketers clung tightly to the rules, dictated by generic corporate print marketing requirements. With the rise of digital content, the rules have become infinitely more flexible. Original influencer content creation is well-received by social audiences, but it’s still foreign to many within a traditional corporate marketing environment.

“Conventional vs. Influencer Marketing”

I’ve discovered that the biggest difference between conventional marketing and Influencer Marketing is that conventional marketing offers one generic corporate campaign message broadcast to a static target audience (the message is delivered by the brand or creative agency, and everyone within the target audience may see the same message), where Influencer Marketing enables social influencers who are content creators to endorse brands in their own way and style, in their own words. It’s personalised and it’s people talking to people. This means that extended audiences in the same target market may see completely unique, relevant content and messaging on the same campaign, dependent on the influencer/s that they’re following (meaning that the content is original and tailored to the influencer’s audience, and it’s not generic).

When I scroll my social media, I know I don’t want to read meaningless propaganda, and I don’t want to be exposed to the same message broadcast in the same way, across multiple platforms. However, when people I trust talk about their experiences with brands? Ahhh, then I have all the time in the world.

“We are living in an era where people don’t pay attention to advertising. I hear it constantly: “I’m bombaded by adverts everywhere I go”, or “I’m tired of hearing about NEW and IMPROVED”, or even “I don’t even notice the adverts anymore – it’s all background noise.”

Conventional marketing as a stand-alone strategy just doesn’t work as well as it used to. Adobe managing director Australia and New Zealand Paul Robson has said: “the preference consumers have towards traditional advertising has more to do with digital. The reason consumers don’t see the value is that it’s not personalised or relevant. That relevancy creates an affinity.” What does that really mean for you? Well, the marketing landscape has changed, and the most productive way (with the highest expected ROI) to continue having relevance with your audience is adapting your approach to influencer marketing.

I read through a 2017 survey looking at the state of Influencer Marketing, which asked 170 marketers from the Consumer Packaged Goods, Food & Beverage, Media, Retail and agency verticals how they viewed the future of this burgeoning arena. 87% of respondents said that “Influencer Marketing’s top benefits entail creating authentic content about their brand.” Authentic content? Your audience can spot false advertising a mile away. You’re speaking to a tech savvy, media literate audience. This is an age where we are all consumers, and we’ve educated ourselves online before we buy anything of importance to us.

…”when working with Influencers, brands have to let go and allow influencers control of the narrative to preserve the authenticity of what is being communicated.” Priyanka Dayal, content marketing manager at Centaur Media PLC, also emphasizes “today’s consumer can tell the difference between an advert, a personal recommendation, and an advert masked under a personal recommendation. For influencer marketing to sustain, authenticity and credibility is key.”

What Priyanka says dictates a change in how you approach Influencer Marketing from a strategic perspective. Although conventional marketing and Influencer Marketing are complementary, each should be managed very differently.

Communicating your authenticity as a brand via influencer marketing should only be managed internally when you have the right skillsets in place. I’ve found that a frequent occurrence in marketing departments is the view that influencers can be managed in-house where the right expertise is not available. This often leads to influencers following a script, and delivering a non-authentic message, reducing the impact and lessening the value of an influencer marketing campaign.

While it is possible for you to run effective campaigns in this way, it requires that you:

define the Influencer Marketing strategy
select the perfect influencers for a specific message or brand (based on a deep understanding of your target audience, and not on a headline or bio)
translate your Influencer Marketing strategy to influencers clearly and concisely, ensuring that your agency / brand integrity and reputation is increased
manage your campaign/s (and the influencers’ content) from inception to completion

When the strategy isn’t conveyed correctly, the process can lead to your influencers lacking authenticity, and brands losing credibility with audiences. As an example, Microsoft were convinced they had the ultimate in an Influencer Marketing campaign, by contracting Oprah Winfrey. The irony? Oprah’s tweet extolling the virtues of the new Microsoft Surface were sent from Twitter for iPad.

You cannot ignore the technical expertise of a dedicated Influencer Marketing agency, to ensure you have access to cutting-edge market innovations.

So what I’m really saying is that great Influencer Marketing campaigns don’t look like advertising. They’re the stories around brands that your influencers share organically. Amanda Duncan, Senior Communications Officer at Microsoft, says that you should “focus on a long-term approach rooted in a two-way dialogue. It’s often the phases between campaigns and events that allow you to have in-depth conversations, get valuable feedback and really gain a deeper understanding around what matters to your influencers. Investing this time and valuable resources builds credibility. This credibility and trust with an influencer is key to ongoing success.” And they would know.

In upcoming articles, my colleagues and I will demonstrate how a kickass Influencer Marketing campaign should be run. You can look forward to learning about the importance of having a dedicated influencer marketing strategy translated from your brand and marketing strategy, how to effectively match the influencer’s audience with your target audience, how to manage your influencer relationship in order to protect and increase your brand equity, and finally, what’s required when your Influencer Marketing campaign is live. These articles (and more) will be released weekly. If you’re dying to know more now and you’d like expert assistance with creating and managing your Influencer Marketing campaigns, you can contact me on michelle@r2digital.co.za and follow us on LinkedIn

April 11, 2018August 7, 2020

Influencer Marketing: What’s Important To Your Audience?

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Influencer Marketing: What’s Important To Your Audience?

April 11, 2018

“Conventional marketing as a stand-alone strategy doesn’t work as well as it used to. The marketing landscape has changed, and the only way to ensure continued relevance with your target is to adapt.”

Research consistently indicates that statistically, people no longer pay attention to advertising – in any medium. Adobe managing director Australia and New Zealand Paul Robson states: “The preference consumers have towards traditional advertising has more to do with digital. The reason consumers don’t see the value is that it’s not personalised or relevant. That relevancy creates an affinity.”

A 2017 survey looking at the state of Influencer Marketing, asked 170 marketers from the Consumer Packaged Goods, Food & Beverage, Media, Retail and agency verticals how they viewed the future of this burgeoning arena. 87% of respondents said that “Influencer Marketing’s top benefits entail creating authentic content about their brand.”

Conventional marketing offers one generic corporate campaign message broadcast to a static target audience, where Influencer Marketing ensures social influencers are content creators who endorse brands in their own way and style, in their own words. It’s personalised and it’s people talking to people. This means that extended audiences in the same target market may see completely unique content and messaging on the same campaign.

… when working with influencers, brands have to let go and allow influencers control of the narrative to preserve the authenticity of what is being communicated.

Priyanka Dayal, content marketing manager at Centaur Media PLC, also emphasizes “today’s consumer can tell the difference between an advert, a personal recommendation, and an advert masked under a personal recommendation. For influencer marketing to sustain, authenticity and credibility is key.”.

Effectively, this changes how you approach Influencer Marketing from a strategic perspective. Although conventional marketing and Influencer Marketing are complementary, each should be managed differently.

A frequent occurrence in marketing departments is the view that influencers can be managed internally. While it is possible to run effective campaigns in-house, it requires a unique skillset in defining the IM strategy, selecting the perfect influencers for a specific message (based on a deep understanding of the target audience, and not on a headline or bio), managing the campaign from inception to completion, and translating the IM strategy to influencers ensuring that the brand integrity and reputation is increased. When the strategy isn’t conveyed correctly, the process can lead to influencers lacking authenticity and brands losing credibility with their audiences. The technical expertise of a dedicated Influencer Marketing agency cannot be ignored, along with ensuring you have access to cutting-edge market innovations.

“Great Influencer Marketing campaigns don’ look like advertising. They’re the stories around the brands the influencers share organically.”

Amanda Duncan, Senior Communications Officer at Microsoft, says “focus on a long-term approach rooted in a two-way dialogue. It’s often the phases between campaigns and events that allow you to have in-depth conversations, get valuable feedback and really gain a deeper understanding around what matters to your influencers. Investing this time and valuable resources builds credibility. This credibility and trust with an influencer is key to ongoing success.”

In upcoming articles, I’ll demonstrate how a kickass Influencer Marketing campaign can be run. You can look forward to learning about the importance of having a dedicated strategy, why it’s crucial to select the right influencer based on the right target audience, how vital it is to manage the influencer relationship, and finally, what’s required when your Influencer Marketing campaign is live. These articles (and more) will be released weekly. If you’re dying to know more now and you’d like expert assistance with creating and managing your Influencer Marketing campaigns, you can contact me onpartners@r2digital.co.za and follow us on LinkedIn

January 19, 2018August 7, 2020

Build And Use Your Digital Influence

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Build And Use Your Digital Influence

January 19, 2018

“Recently, Stephane Rogovsky, CEO of R-Squared Digital, a leading Influencer Marketing a-agency, presented at a Future Females “Build & Use Your Influence” conference.”

Speakers focused on exploring all aspects of “Influence” from both a personal as well as a professional point of view. Influence is the way we affect others and more importantly how we persuade people in a way with a positive outcome.

Stephane concentrated on discussing the impact of women in Influencer Marketing, analysing the impact of consumer purchasing decisions, and how those decisions are reached. Word of mouth has a tremendous reach, and statistics show that women are the primary decision makers. A staggering 68% of social media influencers are women. Authenticity of messaging drives engagement and ultimately consumer buying. 71% of consumers’ purchasing decisions are influenced by social media references.

He demonstrated that moms represent a staggering $2.4 trillion market, and that 54% of women show brand love and support. With women on social media more frequently daily, they are dominating influencer marketing.

Future Females is a platform that connects, inspires and supports existing and aspiring female entrepreneurs.

The challenge:

Globally, female entrepreneurs received just 2.5% of total venture capital funding in 2016
However, companies delivered 63% better return with females in senior leadership positions
Globally, women own just 1% of the world’s wealth
In South Africa in 2015 just 6.2% of South African women were involved in entrepreneurship, down from 9% the year before

Future Females believe that to drive change through technology, they cannot have just 50% of the world focused on it. More focus is needed to encourage and accelerate the success of aspiring and existing female entrepreneurs. Providing an environment, both physically and emotionally, where women can connect with others and access key resources (mentorship, funding, education) is key to accelerating the rate of female entrepreneurship, in South Africa, Africa and globally.

Click here to view the video, and contact partners@r2digital.co.za today for more information on how you can integrate an influencer marketing campaign into your traditional brand or marketing messaging.

For more information on Future Females visit their website and join their Facebook Group

January 17, 2018August 7, 2020

Top steps to a kickass Influencer Marketing Campaign

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Top steps to a kickass Influencer Marketing Campaign

January 17, 2018

“Stephane Rogovsky, CEO of R-Squared Digital (a kickass Influencer Marketing partner agency), will be presenting at the 2018 Integrated Marketing Communications Conference (IMC) to be held at Vodaworld in Midrand, Gauteng, on 8 February, on the REAL secrets of effective Influencer Marketing campaigns.”

With statistics like $6.85 in earned media value for every $1.00 of Influencer Marketing paid media (Burst Media, 2017), Influencer Marketing is dominating the social media landscape. Dunnhumby recently announced the results of a multi-year study on media performance, and found that real people endorsing brands on social media, known as “everyday influencers,” consistently delivered a higher return on ad spend than traditional advertising on digital media, TV and radio for brands.

Adweek research states that “94% of those who’ve used influencer marketing believe the tactic to be effective”. In order to retain the awareness and your buyers past the initial burst of posts, it’s vital to understand that Influencer Marketing is a relationship, not a business transaction. This requires a strategic influencer marketing approach to maximise your influencer marketing ROI.

Conventional marketing offers a generic corporate message broadcasted to a static target audience. Influencer marketing offers a format where each social influencer advocates for the brand in their own style, in their own words. It’s personalised and it’s people talking to people. This is why it’s imperative that influencer marketing be approached differently than other segments of marketing, requiring different expertise and skillsets. Finding the right influencer means not being restricted to a closed pool of potential influencers, but rather, finding the most appropriate influencer for your product or service.

It is critical to work on an Influencer Marketing strategy that is translated from your main marketing strategy, and to incorporate research on influencers based on their social media profile, reach (number of influencers), engagement rate (because the number of people interacting with the influencer’s post is more important than the number of people who just clicked on “follow” without engaging), and the audience analytics. Millenials alone have a staggering $200 million stake in annual spending power [through word of mouth and influencer marketing related campaigns]. (business.com).

Most influencer marketing companies will provide a platform to marketers who are experts in their field (but not in influencer marketing) to select and manage their influencers, which can often lead to a very disappointing ROI; furthermore, they are limited to the influencers within their database, who might fit well a given campaign, without being the best because the choice will remain limited to those within the pool; while R-Squared Digital has the capacity to identify the most suitable influencers and to hunt for them even if they are not within our pool yet.

As with most relationships, it’s important to select the right people to hang out with. These are the faces that will represent your brand. If you focus on millennials, young, hip, and urban chic influencers will offer bespoke solutions to your crowd. If, on the other hand, your market is far more traditional, your influencers should reflect the primary characteristics and values of your brand.

By selecting an influencer by description rather than by audience, one might not choose the right influencer.

Female Fashion campaign case study, based on a recent campaign:

One would think that a South African Fashion influencer with a 20k following would be optimal for a fashion campaign. When we investigated further, via a deep audience analysis, this influencer has an audience which is a) predominantly male, b) primarily based outside of South Africa and c) with her audience’s key category of interest as travel because she takes her fashion pictures while traveling. By selecting this influencer, the brand would spend her budget to reach foreign males interested in travel, rather than South African women interested in fashion.

Looking at engagement rates, one might also think that an influencer with 50k followers would bring the greatest impact. This is, however, not the case in influencer marketing. The audience size does not matter, and quality prevails over quantity, so selecting a similar influencer with a smaller audience but a much higher engagement rate would bring a bigger impact at a smaller cost, resulting in a significantly improved ROI.

Influencer Marketing is about people, not technology. People will follow, engage with and support content from influencers they like, who embody the values they trust and believe in. An influencer who truly embodies your brand values will share why they love your brand. From a strategic perspective, the best way to leverage the message is by utilizing multiple influencers whose stories overlap, and whose audiences overlap, to create a slowly unfolding online journal of why your brand is the best.

Acquisition might be your top of mind priority, but to best serve your brand’s interests, the benefits of focusing on long term retention of customers is far greater with an influencer marketing strategy incorporated in your company or brand’s traditional marketing strategy.

So what are the steps to a kickass Influencer Marketing Campaign?

Identify the right influencers for your target audience, industry, campaign and message Make a shortlist of the influencers whose reach, audience and authentic voice reflect your own. Nurture a relationship with those influencers. Enable them to create unique content around your services and/or products.

There are a number of ways to access creative and unique content with influencers.

Establish when, what and how your influencers should communicate your brand message, and understand how you can integrate this into your content marketing strategy.

Have your influencers blog on your brand’s behalf. Get testimonials from your influencers and post them on your site.

Engagement, engagement, engagement. Ensure that your influencers consistently drive authentic conversation around your brand, across their chosen social media channels. Solve your social media native content requirements using your influencers’ content across your social media channels. Make your influencers your brand ambassadors.

Each service or product has its own audience, and its own influencers, so regardless of the size of your company or brand, you can benefit from influencer marketing.

For more information on Influencer Marketing, contact R-Squared Digital on partners@r2digital.co.za today.

December 13, 2017August 7, 2020

Change your perceptions

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Change your perceptions

December 13, 2017

“We often see exactly what we expect to see, yet profound experiences can change the way we see the world.

Perceptions tend to depend upon an individual’s assumptions. We construct our own reality on a daily basis.

John Bargh presented a study in 1996 where people were primed with words associated with age stereotypes, and thereafter actually walked more slowly than people who were shown words unrelated to age. On this premise, if people were primed with the word disruption, would they engage in a way reflective of stereotypical business economy-related disruptive behaviour?

Baratang Miya, Founder and CEO at Girlhype Coders, and chosen by the US State Dept’s in 2015 TechWomen programme as an Emerging Leader, recently attended the BCX Disrupt Summit, and has some thoughts on that. She serves on the Silicon Cape Exco as head of Transformation and was the first runner up for MTN Women In ICT Community Builder Award 2016.

Baratang commented: “The summit was the most diverse and engaging event that I attended this year. Participants and speakers came from across the world. I guess that’s what made this conference relevant and memorable for me as the aesthetics and the quality of engagements were world class.”

Click here to read her full article.

December 4, 2017August 7, 2020

Get Real-Time Social Audience Analytics

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Get Real-Time Social Audience Analytics

December 4, 2017

“R-Squared Digital can provide you with an audience analytics for every influencer in the world”

Through our affiliated influencer marketing platform we provide the world’s largest influencer discovery and directory tool, housing detailed audience demographics for over 10 million influencers globally.

Utilising over 35 databases including publicly available information from social networks, public databases, name databases, image recognition technology and natural language processing, our affiliated influencer marketing platform is the only platform capable of indexing over one billion social media accounts globally.

Search for influencers by name, by keyword or area of interest.

Once you decide to work with an influencer, we ensure you can contact them quickly and easily.

Our account managers can also help you connect with anyone you can’t find.

Make sure your message reaches your target demographic. Every profile has detailed audience analytics, as well as reach, engagement and amplification figures. We offer the only tool in the world to identify duplicate audiences across multiple influencers. With our smart index you can make the right marketing decisions for maximum ROI.

To connect around influencer management, contact us today. We’ll provide you with reporting only, or offer strategic influencer management and marketing services.

December 4, 2017August 7, 2020

Be Disrupted..

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Be Disrupted..

December 4, 2017

“The phrase disruptive innovation is being used by entrepreneurs worldwide at the moment. However, the term is widely misunderstood. What classifies a company as genuinely disruptive?”

According to the Harvard Business Review and the man who invented the theory of disruptive innovation, Professor Clayton Christensen, “Disruption” describes a process whereby a smaller company with fewer resources is able to successfully challenge established incumbent businesses. Specifically, as incumbents focus on improving their products and services for their most demanding (and usually most profitable) customers, they exceed the needs of some segments and ignore the needs of others. Entrants that prove disruptive begin by successfully targeting those overlooked segments, gaining a foothold by delivering more-suitable functionality —frequently at a lower price. Incumbents, chasing higher profitability in more-demanding segments, tend not to respond vigorously. Entrants then move upmarket, delivering the performance that incumbents’ mainstream customers require, while preserving the advantages that drove their early success. When mainstream customers start adopting the entrants’ offerings in volume, disruption has occurred.

Innovation drives prosperity and is key to business success. Regardless of the size of your organization, real success requires a constant battle for innovation. Click here to watch Ted Graham’s (PriceWaterhouseCooper) TEDx talk on three things he learned about disruptive innovation as an Uber driver, covering partnership, feedback and risk & reward.

Ultimately, disruptive innovations are innovations that create new markets by discovering new categories of customers. This is done both via harnessing new and existing technology, but also by developing new business models. According to The Economist, the average job tenure for the CEO of a Fortune 500 company has halved from ten years in 2000 to less than five years today, partly due to disruptive innovation.

If you’d like to read more on the Disrupt summit recently hosted by BCX, click here for Mikael Hanan’s article. Mikael spent 5 years as COO and founding member of South Africa’s biggest online clothing retailer, Superbalist.com, a subsidiary of Takealot.com.

Mikael was incredibly excited about this event, and here’s a short excerpt of his article telling us why:

“Finally, a business in South Africa (SA) has hosted a conference of international standard. What made the BCX Summit world class was that through the speakers, the audience listened, engaged and thought about SA with a broader and global context, which is exactly what is needed!”

September 22, 2017August 7, 2020

Proud Sponsors of The New Generation Social and Digital Media Awards

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Proud Sponsors of The New Generation Social and Digital Media Awards

September 22, 2017

“We honour South African creative agency teams for their innovative use of social and digital media”

R-Squared Digital is partnering with the New Generation Social and Digital Media Awards, because the awards not only honour South African creative agency teams for their innovative use of social and digital media, along with cutting-edge use of online media and tools, they also acknowledge corporate companies and their in-house marketing teams from across South Africa for their work on campaigns that help promote their organisations and brands in ground breaking ways. R-Squared Digital specialises in supplying extremely innovative influencer marketing solutions. As the exclusive South African partner of the multi-national Social Internet Ltd (of which adMingle is one of the products), we are joining forces to bring exceptional technology, and are paving the way in the new generation of social and digital media marketing.

“The significant advantage of influencer marketing is the fact that brands and products are advocated and promoted by real people, in a very personal way, which are impersonal and often ignored.”

“We All Social Internet platforms enable sharing across most social media and blogs, including WhatsApp, with full analytics about each campaign and influencer, along with analytics on the social media engagement”

The awards celebrate ingenuity, with a specific focus on results and insight-based success, which makes the awards unique among those largely dominated by equal parts emotion and ideation. “The awards continually evolve to include new trends in social and digital media, new industry technology and platforms, as well as international trends making their way into South Africa,” says Stephen Paxton, managing director of the New Generation Social & Digital Media Awards.

R-Squared Digital will be sponsoring the following awards:

The New Generation overall Agency award (Special Category)

This award recognises the agency that has contributed significantly overall to outstanding return on investment for its client through social and digital media marketing, one that consistently meets deadlines, wins new clients, delivers campaigns within budget, shows outstanding creativity and delivers award-winning content across various portfolios.
The team at R-Squared Digital understands that outstanding creative, award winning content, delivered within budget, is imperative in creating engagement in social and digital media marketing. As a highly innovative company offering a 3600 digital consultancy, the team knows that influencer and digital marketing is brought to life by creating real content that talks to people rather than delivering traditional corporate or old-school advertising messaging.

Best use of social media in a loyalty programme campaign (Corporate Awards)

This award recognises campaigns that have significantly increased calls to action and engagement, resulting in increased members and sales.
Using Social Internet’s technology, R-Squared Digital has exclusive access to exceptional inhouse technology leading the new generation of analytics, metrics and marketing automation, yet keeping a personal and customized tailor-made approach in the way the relationships with influencers and clients are managed, the R-Squared Digital team knows these elements are fundamental to significant return on investment in marketing campaigns.

Most Innovative Social Media Campaign by a Medium to Large Agency (Agency Awards)

This award recognises the most innovative use of social media, which targets social networks and applications to spread brand awareness or promote particular products (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.), offering authentic and transparent communication and professional campaign planning, and objectives and evaluative measurable evidence with which to assess performance.
R-Squared Digital, through Social Internet technology, continuously provides innovative and engaging social sharing, by transforming a captive audience into influencers. Brands utilise authentic person to person engagement. It’s not the brand sharing the message, it’s the people. This highlights the transparent communication process, while keeping professional campaign objectives. Reward your audience for engaging, sharing and participating in the growth of the brand.

Stephane Rogovsky, the CEO of R-Squared Digital, states that “because of the inimitable Social Internet technology and metrics together with the extraordinary expertise we provide in the social media and digital space, we’re delighted to partner with an awards group focused on rewarding the innovative use of social and digital media.”

This year’s awards will take place on Thursday 28th September 2017 at The Ballroom, Monte Casino, Johannesburg. To book your tickets to attend the awards, please visit www.newgenawards.co.za

If you are a marketer and/or an advertising/PR agency, and need a tailor-made solution for your influencer marketing and brand strategy, don’t be shy: contact us on info@r2digital.co.za

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Balancing the real with the reward – authenticity versus accountability in influencer marketing

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The exponential growth of the influencer’s space

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Standing the test of time

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The journey from influencers to digital-first influencer marketing

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R-Squared partners with iProspect and Posterscope

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A Measure of Success

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R-SQUARED SHORTLISTED FOR BEST BOUTIQUE INFLUENCER MARKETING AGENCY AT GLOBAL 2020 INFLUENCER MARKETING AWARDS

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Mandatory Regulations In Influencer Campaigns: A Battle between Credibility and the Rules.

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Unsolicited influencer posts: Ensure perfect brand alignment

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Stephane Rogovsky to lead IAB SA Digital Influencer Committee

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THE 2019 INFLUENCER MARKETING HOLIDAY READINESS GUIDE

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INFLUENCER MARKETING BUDGETING 2020

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Influencer Marketplaces/Platforms vs Influencer Marketing Experts: what choice?

Marketing professionals and companies looking at exploring influencer marketing must wonder whether it’s better to use a do it yourself (DIY) influencer marketing platform or to engage the services of influencer marketing agencies. Well, after reading this, you’ll not wonder anymore.

1. Expertise

2. Brand Equity, Strategy & Framework