Amplify Digital; a full service, data-driven digital marketing agency in Lagos, on Thursday 30 May, held her second edition of the Think Digital Meet Up.
The event themed: ‘Under the Influence: Understanding the Power and Reach of Social Influencers’, was organized to bring brands, influencers and digital marketers together to discuss how to effectively utilise the power of social influencers to help reach brands’ marketing objectives.
The Business Development Manager, Amplify Digital, Ponmile Alabi said, “The point of the Think Digital Meet Up is to bring marketing managers and digital marketers together to talk about the problems they face with different digital marketing strategies and deployments because we realised that there’s a gap between the agency and the clients.
While speaking on the theme of the meet up, Alabi called on brand managers to ensure that the influencers they hire are ones that have inculcated their brands as their way of life.
According to her, “Influencer marketing is more than just one post; it’s a lifestyle, for example, if i'm influencing for Apple, I should have Apple products, Apple should be my lifestyle, it should be the way I live, the way I walk.
“So that everybody that sees me will emulate me because they are looking at us even when we do not know it.
“We advise brands to take conscious step of hiring influencers that can actually inculcate their brands in their personal lifestyles and not just one post.
During the panel discussion on the event’s theme, the Digital Marketing Manager, Mouka Limited, Damilola Taiwo, described an influencer as a person who can motivate members of the public/customers to buy products/ or grow brand’s acceptability.
Taiwo who warned that an influencer can make or mar a product/brand, also subscribed to using brand ambassador to function as advocate, influencer and face of the brand/company to drive acceptability or patronage.
“To start with, you need an influencer or ambassador who understands the brand’s concept or perspective; it goes beyond just tweeting about a brand,” he opined.
To Fisayo Fosudo, Visual Storyteller & Tech Video Producer, influence marketing is a crucial means to get brands to tell their story and convince members of the public.
“Influence marketing is as old as man; using an uncle to influence a certain office or a friend to recommend a product or sample for you – these are forms of influence marketing.
“But, today the process has been digitised using social media. Today, we talk about product reviews, etc.
Now, as an influence marketer you can sell yourself through your creativity; showing an understanding of different platforms and how they operate and using relevant content to market your client’s product or service.
To be an effective influencer, you should be able to mould people’s opinion, says Wale Adetona, a Digital Marketer with SystemSpecs.
“They serve as third party voices whom members of the public believe, sometimes more than they would believe the company. They are particular about moulding opinion.
“Before now, we had ‘celebrity ambassadors’ but the advent of social media created ‘marketing celebrity’. We have to be careful while selecting brand ambassadors as many can be influencers but may not carry the brand through in terms of sustainability of the brand prestige. At the end of the day, it is about the RoI ( Return on Investment)”, Adetona added.
Also, Brand Influencer, Ms. Onaopemipo Olatunde, advised brands not to depend wholly on an influencer’s large followership to bring in results.
“Some brands believe it is an influencer’s large followership that will earn them RoI. But it is not always true. One can have a niche market they have absolute influence on. There is a need to understand the shared voice in a particular market before selecting an influencer to work with”.
Generally, participants advised that influencers should study client’s brief thoroughly before embarking on influence marketing so as to deliver the needed message and generate marketing leads.
