gordon glenister | Gordon Glenister - Influencer Marketing Expert

21st June 2024

INSTAGRAM’S MOST POPULAR CELEBRITY PETS

Megan Thee Stallion | @frenchie4oe - £1,962 per post

First in the rankings is Megan Thee Stallion’s French Bulldog 4oe, known as @frenchie4oe on Instagram. 4oe is such a star that he has even appeared on The Tonight Show alongside his mom. He is one of many adorable pups belonging to the popular American rapper, including fellow frenchies Dos and Oneita, however he is the only one with his own Instagram account.

With over half a million followers, and upwards of 60,000 likes on each post on average, 4oe could be earning almost £2,000 on a single sponsored post.

Nina Dobrev | @mrs.maverick - £1,540 per post

Next up is Maverick: a black and white pup belonging to Canadian actress and star of The Vampire Diaries, Nina Dobrev. The Border collie/Australian shepherd mix was adopted by Dobrev as a puppy in 2017, when she also received her very own Instagram account.

Maverick could be earning £1,540 with a single sponsored post, thanks to 404,000 followers and over 40,000 likes on average.

Kylie Jenner | @normieandbambijenner - £1,236 per post

Third in the rankings is a joint Instagram account for two Italian Greyhounds belonging to Kylie Jenner: Norman and Bambi. The two pups are part of a whole crew of Kardashian-Jenner animals, with Kylie alone having over 10.

Known as @normieandbambijenner on Instagram, the pair have 322,000 followers and could earn as much as £1,236 per post.

Karl Lagerfeld | @choupetteofficiel - £1,000 per post

Perhaps one of the most iconic celebrity pets of all time, Choupette is the white Birman cat who belonged to the late fashion legend, Karl Lagerfeld.

The legendary German designer loved Choupette so much that there were even tributes to the feline friend at the Met Gala that honoured Lagerfeld in 2019, including cat costumes from Doja Cat and Jared Leto.

Choupette’s own Instagram account is still going strong, and with 264,000 followers she could be earning £1,000 for every post.

Ed Sheeran | @thewibbles - £974 per post

Next in the rankings are Calippo and Dorita: two feline friends belonging to singer Ed Sheeran.

The Instagram account shared by the pair has 242,000 followers, and with an average 60,459 likes on recent pics, they could be raking in £974 for every post.

Please find the full dataset here.

24th May 2024

AI Shaping New Marketing Realm – Leading US AI Influencers revealed

New research has revealed the most popular AI influencers, with Lil Miquela coming out on top.

The study by GirlfriendGPT analyzed earnings, followers, and engagement rates of the most popular AI influencers to see who could be earning the posts from these respective accounts for sponsored posts.

It was found that virtual influencer Lil Miquela could earn upwards of $20,100 per sponsored post on their Instagram accounts, with a whopping 2,614,514 followers. Founded in 2016, the account has seen features in product endorsements for brands like Calvin Klein and Prada and gained its first 1 million followers in the first two years.

Leya Love takes second on the list, with 567,070 followers at the time of the study, with earnings per sponsored post potentially being upwards of $4,550. Launched in 2018, the virtual influencer has engaged with brands like KFC, Adidas, and The North Face.

Giorgina Aleman comes third on the list, with 509,609 followers and earnings of upwards of $4,200 per sponsored post. This account is one of the most notable examples where every image and caption is entirely AI-generated.

Coming in fourth on the list is Thalasya Pov, with a total of 459,056 followers and potential earnings upwards of $3,850. Another AI influencer launched in 2018, the account currently sits among the top creators in Indonesia.

Rounding out the top five is Noonoouri, coming in with 444,026 and earnings upwards of $3,750. Since its 2018 launch, the account has landed a record label deal and has had prior collaborations with brands like Vogue China and Cosmopolitan Brazil.

Commenting on the findings, Enias Cailliau, CEO of GirlfriendGPT, said: "While AI influencers are still a very new thing to many people, it’s interesting to see how many examples have collaborated with popular brands already. With the recent rise in quality of AI image generation, we can expect more of these influencers to pop up and grow in popularity soon, potentially earning thousands for the people behind them."

22nd May 2024

Aspiring influencers could save £812 annually, by adopting the use of AI on social

Over four fifths (84%)1 of the online population follow influencers and content creators such as Molly-Mae Hague, Zoe Sugg and others across various social platforms. With Brits spending just over two hours a week on social media, now could be as good of a time as any to utilise AI to enhance and replicate our social media feeds to those we look up to.

Eager to find out how much social users could save by implementing AI, Adobe Express firstly surveyed 2,000 Brits to find out how long they spend editing social media posts.

They then calculated the estimated time AI could save on this and compared this against the weekly median wage in cities across the UK, to quantify how much people could save through AI automation.

Aspiring influencers in Leeds could save the most by using AI tech to streamline their social media feeds - a sizable £962 annually.

With social users from this Yorkshire city spending 2 hours 47 minutes editing social media posts per week, using AI could save an hour and seven minutes weekly.

In second place is Norwich, where profile creators could save the most time by using AI to edit their photos (2 hours 49 minutes per week). With a local median weekly salary of £18.10, this equates to annual savings of £941.41.

With residents in the city spending an average of 2 hours 48 minutes on perfecting their pictures, Sheffield placed third. Whilst they can save 58 hours a year alongside both Norwich and Leeds from using an AI tool, this equals £938.21 in yearly savings.

On average, the UK spends around 2 hours and 18 minutes editing social media posts. But if AI were to be used in the future, budding British content creators could save not only 55 minutes each week (almost 48 hours annually), but an impressive £812 in total each year.

1. Saving time on content curation
Using AI technology for your social profiles could make tasks quicker, allowing you to automate things such as content creation in a more effective way.
Creating captions can sometimes feel like a mundane, difficult task considering the competitiveness to have the ‘best’ online presence. Trying to be unique against other creators can take its toll, so why not save yourself time with AI by allowing it to compose catchy captions, posts, hashtags and responses based on your preferences and social plan.

2. Upgrading visual content
Upgrade the aesthetics of your feed through your visual content creation - here AI can suggest improvements for your images, graphics and videos to make followers more engaged and interested in what they are seeing.
However, most content created by tools will be robotic, so it is important to give refined details and prompts that ensure it is tailored to your liking. Before publishing, ensure to edit it to provide your final personal touch - this will make it feel more realistic and in turn, increase engagement to your audience.

3. Focus on a feed schedule
To save yourself time planning the perfect time to post a picture, AI can create a schedule for you. Some tools are able to examine your followers' online activities and calculate optimal times to post, meaning your followers will be able to see your activity when they are actively using the social platforms - improving visibility and interaction performance.

21st May 2022

What Are The Top Social Media Trends 2022?

8th November 2021

Social Media Trends 2022

Use of social media has been growing exponentially of late, and the changes forced by the Covid-19 pandemic have accelerated that growth, as consumer habits and demands have adjusted in response.

A recent report by Hubspot and Talkwalker ‘Social Media Trends in 2022’ has highlighted 10 key trends in social marketing that you need to know about, and consider their relevance as part of your digital strategy.

The common denominator in all these trends is the consumer. Consumer power has grown, and they are now effectively in charge of your brand. What’s important to them needs to be important to you – so your market intelligence is going to become even more crucial.

The report is packed full of insights, and is well worth a read, But for busy readers who don’t have time to dive into the full thing, I’ve summarised the main take-outs for you here.

Remember when TikTok was a playground for kids doing lip-synch videos? There’s still plenty of that going on, but savvy brands have been exploring its potential for a while, and the platform has been developing new tools for marketers, with an e-commerce and monetisation model rumoured to be in the pipeline.

During 2021, TikTok became the first non-Facebook platform to exceed 3 billion global downloads, its meteoric rise largely driven by users turning to it during successive lockdowns.

TikTok’s popularity lies mainly with the younger age-groups, and successful brands are those which are able to capitalise on the move from simple ads to more direct communication with consumers.

One of these is live-stream marketing, which has already taken off in Asia. Read about live-stream here.

The essential message here is that if your customers are on TikTok, you should be too. More than that, you need to be part of their conversations and willing to embrace user-generated content.

Social media platforms have recognised the importance of social selling and started to provide new shopping features, making it easier for brands to engage with, and sell to, social media users without them needing to leave the platform. Instagram is just one platform that has introduced these new shopping features. Combining the power of a strong influencer strategy with these new e-commerce possibilities is one way that brands are simplifying the customer journey and making it easier for social media consumers to become customers.

But it’s important to recognise that the brands doing this successfully are those willing to get creative with their customer engagement. It’s not just about well-placed ads. Livestreams and other engagements with consumer-led content are creating more positive engagements – shoppertainment is a growth area.

The pandemic drastically increased our use of and reliance on social media. As a result content trends have moved on and brands need to adapt their marketing accordingly. Social media users increasingly expect that, since companies have their data, they tailor their content more accurately – so brands need to get more granular in terms of how they create content for specific locations, age groups, interest areas or gender.

The key take-out from this is that consumer insights are vital to enable you to create content that’s targeted to specific audiences.

Lifestyle and working habits having shifted during lockdown, consumers are acutely aware of the types of content that suit them – whether in terms of platform or duration. Bitesize formats are popular.Interestingly, too, although video and livestream content is still on the up, audio only content – including podcasts – is also very popular.

Think about your customer experience and whether it needs improving to make buying from you as simple as it can be. How easy is it to make a buying decision without seeing or touching an actual product? VR features are being added by many successful brands, allowing customers to explore, test and try out online.

According to the Hubspot report, 64% of users now receive their news from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube and Snapchat, instead of traditional media. This rise in social media consumption gives brands many opportunities to expand their audiences and increase the number of connections with you – as long as you are providing the content that your consumers actually want. Beware of fake news and misleading content!

As the table below shows, media is the largest source of misinformation, so to gain and keep the trust of your audiences you need to ensure you are providing trustworthy content, and challenging sources of fake news.

Although social media platforms are beginning to take more responsibility for fact-checking (Twitter, for example, has a partnership with Reuters to help combat misinformation), consumers themselves play a significant part in spreading misinformation. So brands who want to remain trusted need to be keeping an eye on not just their own content, but the content their online community is reading and sharing, and take a proactive role in sharing factually correct information to build trust.

Influencer marketing has been growing up over the last few years, and is fast evolving into a sophisticated and more regulated version of itself. Combined with brand advocacy, where ‘real’ consumers become influencers in their own right, it’s a powerful tool for switched-on brands. Since the onset of the pandemic, we’ve become more conscious that a consumerist outlook isn’t good for the planet, so many brands are choosing to work with influencers with a social conscience that reflects their own vision.

A 2021 report by the Influencer Marketing Hub revealed that 67% of respondents were using Instagram for influencer marketing as part of their strategy.

This article explores developments in influencer marketing in more detail: https://gordonglenister.com/brand-advocacy/

Social media used has exploded through the pandemic precisely because it enables the connections, socialising and relationship maintenance that Covid-19 impacted. The lesson brands need to learn from that is that they need to ensure that their digital platforms, apps and channels include social aspects.

The other side to this is that the ability to create communities is no longer limited to the big social media platforms. It’s now possible to build effective in-house social networks –enabling brands to take back control of their audiences from the global giants and, crucially, maintain more control of their content – or put more control in the hands of their audiences.

Stronger interactions mean greater engagement. As consumers become more able to interact direct with a brand, we’ll see how engagement and retention increase.

One brand that has been doing this very successfully is Venmo, which keeps its users engaged through conversations and connections on its social media channels, resulting in a higher level of trust and appreciation.

So what’s a metaverse? A good question, as the word didn’t really exist until recently. It refers to the amalgamation of the physical world, the augmented and the virtual. It was led, unsurprisingly, by the gaming industry, but even before Covid-19 hit, many brands were experimenting with virtual reality. The need for increased online social interactions and more immersive experiences during lockdowns has accelerated developments. Across industries and sectors, brands have realised that features like virtual dressing rooms, digital meet-ups and more personalised digital customer service can help them to stay relevant and create deeper connections, especially with younger audiences.
As Tania Tal, MD at DIA Brand Consultants says in the Hubspot report, “The metaverse is becoming the future playground for brands, where real and virtual worlds converge.”

Expect to see exciting new developments over the coming year.

Covid-19 forced people to make drastic changes to how they live and work, and they now demand more from the brands they buy from. People are increasingly valuing sustainability – and they expect it to be authentic. The re-evaluation is also impacting on employment, with employees giving more importance to a company’s purpose than ever before.

Brands are no longer able to simply produce products or provide services and ignore the topics that matter to their audiences. Customers expect them to engage with issues of sustainability, inclusivity – everything from environmental concerns to social justice and mental health.

Lego is an interesting example. Their ‘Everyone is Awesome’ set, launch to coincide with 2021 Pride Month garnered 64% positive conversations, with over 20K people heading to social media to express their excitement.

Some of the most important take-outs here are that whatever you say needs to be genuine and authentic. It’s no good saying one thing, but acting differently. Your customers will notice! Listen to your customers and come up with ways to include as many of them as possible.

Given the previous trend, it should come as no surprise to hear that the community is taking charge. Whilst the onus is on brands to establish communities of consumers through strategic content shaped around their needs, they can’t always control what they say and do. With social media, these communities are able to form outside the brand’s owned spaces, which can have interesting outcomes. Social communities and movements can form, grow and gain power very quickly (witness the BLM and #MeToo movements) and brands with the right messages will be able to tap into them. On the flip side, get it wrong, and the disruptive power of the community can have catastrophic effects.

Again, transparency is important here – your social media presence needs to be as genuine as possible, with the ability for your audience to interact as much as possible. Communities also need nurturing, so be prepared to put the commitment in when it comes to maintaining them, and the pay-off will be brand engagement, exposure and even brand love.

There’s so much valuable information in the full report that I’ve only been able to give you a digest of the key points here. If you want to explore the case studies and examples in more detail, you can download the full report here ↓

7th October 2021

BRAND ADVOCACY – why community should be at the heart of your digital marketing strategy

Developments in social media, and the lasting impact of the global pandemic, have changed the face of marketing. Social media has provided important marketing tools for many years now, enabling influencers to build, and connect with, communities of followers.

But recent shifts have meant that consumers are moving away from engagement with the type of influencer who they don’t relate to, in favour of ‘real people’ who deliver trust, authenticity and transparency instead of flash; largely through:

Social media sharing
User-generated content (UGC)
Customer referrals
Online reviews

A recent white paper from Wearisma looks at how brand advocacy is changing, in a big shift towards building communities instead of audiences.

In this article I’ll share with you some of their most important findings and outline some of the key elements of an effective brand advocacy programme.

1. What is brand advocacy, and why does it work?

Brand advocacy is a way to build an authentic online community of people who genuinely love and support your brand. Yes, we still need influencers to generate high levels of engagement and curate professional content, but making the most of our social media content now involves a shift towards content generated by customers themselves.

It’s not unlike traditional ‘word of mouth’ marketing, but now we can make use of modern digital channels to locate our genuine ambassadors within our customer base.

Wearisma have a simple way to explain the differences between influencers and advocates.

Source: Wearisma

So brand advocates can be either influencers or consumer advocates. From a community point of view, the magic happens when the enthusiasm of a consumer of your brand creates a desire to talk about you online through positive reviews, mentions and recommendations. Combine this with influencers who have a genuine passion for your brand rather than an eye solely on the metrics, and you have a potentially powerful community of brand advocates.

In Wearisma’s study, they found that 74% of people stated that more recommendations from people they know would encourage them to purchase from brands.

2. Trust, transparency and purpose – the three pillars of brand advocacy

The brand/consumer relationship has undergone a major shift recently, and the power is very much in the hands of consumers. Consumers are, increasingly, insisting on a genuine sense of connection with brands, a connection for which trust is essential.

That’s why community has become a vital online experience. Consumers trust their communities – whether physical or online – more than advertising, so messages ‘pushed out’ by a brand are no longer sufficient or acceptable for building trust.

With consumers easily able to block messages they don’t want to receive, building authentic online communities and engaging consumers personally is essential. According to Wearisma, brand advocacy is the leading strategy for achieving this level of engagement.

Building trust relies on authenticity and transparency. Consumers need to be assured that the content they are seeing is genuine, and originating from people with a ‘passionate, emotional attachment with a brand’.

So who are these people?

Wearisma’s research included looking at the essential attributes of successful brand advocates. It revealed a demand for advocates who are passionate about the brand and will provide honest reviews – including negative ones. They need to be genuine, knowledgeable users of the products, and to be transparent about their other interests and partnerships.

Source: Wearisma

This transparency is particularly important when your consumers consist mainly of Gen Z and Millennials, as they tend not to be simply purchasers of a product. For these consumers, the brands they buy from reflect and are aligned with their personal core beliefs and values. So the personality and purpose of the brand is as important as the product – if not more so.

Brands who can have real conversations with the consumers, rather than always talking like a brand, tend to develop better relationships, and their consumers are more likely to move to becoming brand advocates.

Wearisma gives Ann Summers as an example of how building trust and connections with real people online has turned consumers into passionate advocates who go on to feature in brand campaigns.

3. Some dos and don’ts of a brand advocacy programme

An affect brand advocacy campaign will enable you to leverage the power of your biggest fans, helping you to:

build the genuine brand love which is fast emerging as the most effective form of advertising
remain relevant to your online community
cut costs whilst driving impact

But some brands have made a few mis-steps, having failed to understand how vital a role authenticity plays.

Don’t rely on mass campaigns

Wearisma gives an example of brands who, in an attempt to build their online communities, have sent out mass DM campaigns, offering consumers discounts in exchange for their content. Whilst, on the face of it, this might seem like a perfectly reasonable idea, to today’s consumer it lacks authenticity, and may even look suspect – like a scam. This tactic lacks the personal touch which is at the centre of authentic brand advocacy. An offer in exchange for the label of ‘ambassador’, coming from a brand with which a consumer may have minimal or no prior relationship, is meaningless and may even deter people from engaging with you further.

Do nurture relationships with individuals

An effective brand advocacy strategy involves identifying the consumers who already love your brand but don’t (yet) consider themselves advocates. Whilst their reach might be smaller than a popular influencer, their impact within their own networks is likely to be greater. Plus, the chances are that their network consists of people like them – who share at least some of their values and core beliefs. So if they already love your brand, their community is already partly self-selected to love it too.

Do give something back

One of the ways to engage with your consumers and nurture them to become brand advocates is through gifting.

If these consumers are already posting positive content about you online, give them something back, as a thank-you for their support, and encourage them to share more about their relationship with your brand.

A well-thought out gifting strategy as part of your loyalty programmes, will enable you to reward the ambassadors for their authentic promotion of your brand. Wearisma’s research has shown that audiences are becoming more interested in content that highlights how brands are thanking their advocates for their loyalty, and also that 76% of people say they would be encouraged to purchase if first given a gift.

Source: Wearisma

Tiered gifting allows you to reward your advocates according to how much engagement their content generates – rewarding your highest performing fans more generously will help to further build the relationship and connections.

One way to approach tiered gifting.

Step 1: Design your tiers. You can have as many gifting tiers as you like, but a simple place to start might be a discount code (level 1), a sample product (level 2), and a full-size product (level 3). If you’re just starting out, begin with every advocate at level 1.
Step 2: Track your advocates. Once you’ve sent out rewards, you need to keep an eye on what your advocates are doing. Are they responding by posting further positive content about your brand?
Step 3: Monitor activity. Which advocates are creating the best performing content? You can track this with metrics like Engagements, Engagement Rate and Media Value, as well as tracking which content is driving traffic to your website and creating sales.
Step 4: Tier placement. Once you can see who are the top performers for your brand, you can reward them further, by moving them up a tier, then repeat steps 2 and 3. Keep rewarding everyone else at level 1 to maintain loyalty and engagement!

Summary: Why you should be considering a brand advocate strategy for your brand

Your best brand advocates will be highly active online, will have a great social reach, and will represent your company in the best way possible. They are likely to be customers, but could also be employees or partners.

The benefits for your brand will be:

using the power of your advocates to reach more potential consumers, both online and in-person
it’s a more authentic form of marketing, as your advocates are people who believe in your brand, andsupport it without being paid to do so
in an online world, it humanises your brand, and potential customers see it as more genuine, creating empathy, personality, and trust
it can create media interest – when publications see people talking about your brand, you are more likely to get your products featured
it’s a great way to educate people about your products or services
although you may need to invest a bit of money and effort in building your strategy, having a strong community of brand advocates can ultimately reduce the time and money you need to invest in marketing

You can download and read the full Wearisma report here.

If you’d like to explore how to build an effective brand advocacy programme, let’s talk.

Gordon Glenister is the author of a new book, Influencer Marketing Strategy. Learn:

how to build an influencer strategy
what makes a great influencer
about the rise of Clubhouse and TikTok
about future digital trends for connecting with a digital customer

Order your copy from Kogan or Amazon

Find out more at: http://gordonglenister.com/

Tag: gordon glenister

INSTAGRAM’S MOST POPULAR CELEBRITY PETS

AI Shaping New Marketing Realm – Leading US AI Influencers revealed

Where can aspiring influencers save the most by implementing AI in their content?

Three tips to using AI on social media:

What Are The Top Social Media Trends 2022?

BRAND ADVOCACY – why community should be at the heart of your digital marketing strategy