Have you heard of Doug the Pug? Did you know Doug has 5.3 million Facebook friends and 2.3 million Instagram followers? Doug the Pug along with many others have become influencers in the world of social media and marketing. Chris Baldwin, our fearless leader at True, recently spoke at PRSA Akron on navigating the influencer triangle with paid, earned, shared and owned channels. Chris spoke about the importance of these influencers in marketing and created examples for the audience. According to the PESO model all aspects work in different ways but are all successful. Below are the examples he shared with the audience:
Paid media involves posting sponsored ads and posts on Facebook and Twitter, fan acquisition and lead generation. Chris discussed how Arizona Expedition used paid media by selecting five millennial social media influencers in different topics to do a five-day shoot around Arizona. The topics these millennials specialized in were golf, cooking and wine, photography and adventure sports. These millennials shared how they “Let Go” for Arizona Expedition’s “Let Yourself Go” project with great success.
Earned media includes publicity, media relations, influencer relations and partnerships. A good example of a company who uses earned media is Duck Brand Duct Tape. The brand has had many influencers because of its involvement with the community. Duct Brand Duct Tape has found many people who create DIY projects share them on blogs, websites and social media channels. Since they already had Duct Tape enthusiasts, Duct Brand Duct Tape created a Stuck at Prom Scholarship contest where teens created prom dresses out of the material. This created thousands of media stories for the company and also named Duck Brand Duct Tape the #1 selling brand in the world.
Shared media involves many one-to-one interviews and engaging with your customers, advocates, employees and partners to review the brand and company. Some companies that partake in shared media are Amazon, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Google Places, Yahoo! and Facebook reviews. Reviews are a huge aspect of shared media. Chris shared an example of a review on Amazon for the Three Wolf Moon T-shirt. This T-shirt had a 5-star rating and great reviews from an Amazon customer. This influencer was not paid but still had a strong effect on the product. From the review the T-shirt became the top selling item in Amazon’s clothing store and a virtual hit.
Owned media includes all of the communications channels within a company’s control such as the website, blog, social media and email. This contains content from the experts, employee stories, customer stories, user generated content, reviews and multimedia posts. Having a Facebook page and other sharing sites available for your company or brand helps with owned media. As a company, you get to control the conversation but it also has a personal touch.
Key Takeaways
- Find the best way to influence your target audiences whether it is one of these four ways or a combination of all.
- 2017 is the year of influencers and it is important for your company/ brand to find its influencers and create a bond with them.
- As a company you must nudge your influencers to share information in a positive way. To achieve that you must help them out and ask them questions throughout the process and make sure the communication is clear.
