This week I met a friend who was updating her Twitter profile because she wanted to make it more interesting. I asked, “Why?” She replied that someone wanted to pay her for tweeting. Now because she wants to sell tweets at a higher price, she was updating her Twitter page. My first reaction: How unethical! What if someday you genuinely support something, but people do not believe in you or your tweet’s authenticity? My second reaction: Influencer marketing! So common, yet so secretive.
The concept of influencer marketing was uncovered in 1940s in the Two-Step Flow Model of Communication by Lazarsfeld. He probably didn’t think how one day a social media kind of thing would take it to different heights. The public relations professionals try to gain influence, ideally, through unpaid influencers. The marketers go a step forward and pay them. If I comment more about payment and non-payment here, I would be reemphasizing that PR and marketing professionals are in a love-hate relationship. (Please refer to my blog post for further detail on this: “PR and Marketing: Competing or Completing?”)
Popular social media tools to determine influencers include Twitalyzer, TweetStats, and PeerAnalytics. I recently explored these and some more. I found Twitalyzer a really effective one. It is more of a quantitative tool, that is, you get numbers, but this makes the data easy to measure and quick to use. Thinking whether you are an influencer or not? Go ahead. Go to the home page of any tool you wish to and just type in your name. This may make you happy to see how popular you are. Then even you may want to sell your tweets! Easy business…is it really? I suggest, think before you endorse.
These quick, and mostly free, databases allow the communication professionals to tap on the inherent power of influencers. Once discovered, an influencer can be turned into the brand’s unofficial mouthpiece. This practice is on the rise and might take some time to reach its saturation point because in real lives these unofficial influencers are great friends, helpers, activists, or simply charming persons that others love to follow or even ape. Human nature makes us look up to people whom we perceive are better than us, our wish to be close to them makes us follow them, and finally our desire to be exactly like them makes us do things that are done by them. This implies that influencer marketing is tied to the basic nature of humans to grow, or look, better. So we can say that this concept is, at least, as eternal as the human race.
Cheers to the discoverer and cheers to all those who contributed to its successful use through social media. Businesses now have something to cling on to even if they are on weak legs.
What is your opinion on this concept? Have you been approached by any brand to be their influencer or do you, in your profession, approach others to be influencers for your brand?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-step_flow_of_communication
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influencer_marketing
http://blogs.salesforce.com/.a/6a00e54ee3905b8833017eeab47b46970d-800wi
Word-Voice 
I think the key is to find products or services you actually use and you believe will be beneficial to your readers, followers or viewers. My own rule is that if I don’t use it, I don’t promote it. That way I can keep growing the only asset you can’t buy: “trust.”
As a person who is new to Twitter I have never been approached as I am not really close to being an influencer (how much money can you charge per Tweet?). In our Social Media class, through the use of Sysamos, I got to see how influential certain Twitter accounts are and how useful a strategic Tweet can be for reaching a specific target market. I agree with Patrick the product or brand should have some relation to your followers and not be a blatant attempt to push a product, subtlety is key as people don’t like to be made feel like sheep. An example would be a Twitter account that specializes in Vegan lifestyle advice talking about animal free leather products, that is acceptable but if the Tweeted a link to Apple’s new iPhone it will appear unnatural and forced. Trust and credibility are key to third party endorsements.
What an interesting blog post and such a broad spectrum of examples of influencer marketing, from its origin in the 1940s, to today’s analytical tools, to a real life example of your friend being a paid influencer! In my opinion, I don’t think accepting money to endorse a brand on social media is unethical, as long as the influencer discloses his/her affiliation with the brand somewhere within the post as a disclaimer. I’ve worked with influencers before and it can actually be an extremely strategic and mutually beneficial (beyond the compensation aspect) move for both parties. For example, usually, when choosing an influencer, you heavily research and select a person who has already vocalized/proven an interest in your brand. A partnership with such an influencer would allow him/her to further engage with a beloved brand, and you, as the PR pro, an opportunity to leverage the voice of someone who is powerful in the social media community — and who really cares.
I always think influencer marketing is a good marketing tool since the “word of mouth” is always the most reliable reference people use if they have to make a purchase decision. However, that being said, if “these influencers” do not have a bottom ethical line to hold on to, influencer marketing can be a dangerous practice. If influencers rely on the benefits they get from partnership with companies and organizations, their reviews can be “manipulated” and their credibility is lost. Thus, it is the consumers who suffer the most lost. Eventually, influencers will subject to reputation lost. I think we must have a good regulation in hand to present these from happening.
I like this topic. I think it’s pretty normal thing that pay some hot twitters to ad, especially in this social media era. There is popular social software called micro blog, some kind of like twitter. When I was an intern in a communication group in china last year, on of our team’s responsibilities is to find some pop persons who are always active on micro blog and have lots of fans. And then pay for them to ads for our products. Of course, we had supplied products for them to tryout first. It much cheaper than engage a star, and what important is this way of advertising is completely great out of our expectation.