What do influencers want in brand relationships?

By Abbi Whitaker

Any successful relationship is built on clear communication. It’s true in marriages. And it’s equally true in the relationship between brands and influencers.

In a study published by my firm, The Abbi Agency, our research finds that social media influencers commonly cite weak communication with brands as their biggest headache — and a reason that influencer-based initiatives fail to deliver on their full promise.

While our study, “Travel Influencers & Destination Marketing,” focused on the destination-marketing sector, it’s clear to us that the same issues faced by travel organizations and travel influencers are common across the entire landscape of influencer marketing. (The full study is available as a free e-book download at TheAbbiAgency.com.)

We’ve been reading a lot lately from marketing executives about their best practices in influencer marketing, but we couldn’t find much research focused on the influencers themselves.

So we conducted dozens of interviews with influencers, ranging in size from nanoinfluencers with fewer than 10,000 followers to macroinfluencers who command hefty fees in exchange for their ability to deliver audiences that can total 1 million followers. We supported these in-depth interviews with surveys of influencers.

What we found: Unclear expectations, unrealistic production budgets and excessive micromanagement vex influencers who are eager to deliver results for brands. “It’s hard to work with brands when they don’t outline exactly what they want,” one influencer told our researchers.

Issues commonly arise when brands and influencers fail to specifically agree on expectations about deliverables. How many posts are expected on the influencer’s social media? What messaging is the influencer promoting?

Then, too, problems often arise when influencers and brands fail to get on the same page about the metrics they will use to track the success of an initiative.

Read the rest of the article at smartbrief.com.

Abbi Whitaker is owner and president of The Abbi Agency, a public relations and marketing firm headquartered in Reno, Nevada. The firm’s clients include TravelNevada, Google, Carmel-by-the-Sea and the City of Henderson, Nevada.