I teach an online class about personal branding and wrote a book about it too, so I’ve been thinking a lot about the impact of AI helping you become “known.”

There are the obvious AI benefits like creating and re-purposing content, topic research, and even strategy. But there is a bigger question: What happens when a person uses AI to fake their way to thought leadership?

While many argue that AI content will never replace human effort, I’m skeptical. AI can create compelling work, perhaps indistinguishable from original human effort. We are definitely in an era where anything seemingly “human” can be faked, including voices, videos, and online intellect. I, for one, am overwhelmed by AI slop.

The AI tsunami raises the bar for what we will consider true thought leadership. Leadership begins with trust, and that will require extraordinary effort:

• Transparency about the use of AI
• A commitment to human authenticity, even when it’s messy. Sharing genuine setbacks, mistakes, and course corrections that AI would never volunteer.
• Elite, non-AI accomplishments and awards that cannot be faked. Social proof displaying that you’ve done the work. “I was in that room” detail that only comes from having actually done the thing.
• We will look for origin stories and flaws as evidence of authenticity.
• Consistency — Demonstrating an alignment of wisdom, values, and helpfulness over time.
• Real-time demonstrations of authority, such as live speaking, unscripted conversation, podcast appearances, and Q&A. Performances that can’t be pre-generated.

The signals of truth become more costly when we compete with others hacking their way through with an AI assist. Remaking a masterpiece isn’t hard. Making a masterpiece is really hard.

As I proposed in my book Audacious, culture will favor originality more than ever before.

Just as the ubiquity of fast food didn’t threaten the business of fine cuisine (and arguably further distinguished it), they will crave more original high-quality storytelling. We see this in our growing hunger for weirdness and unhinged marketing.

To create your authoritative personal brand, show up in a way that is uniquely you, tell a story only you can tell, and don’t give up.

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustrations courtesy Mid Journey

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It seems like influence and influencers are in the news a lot these days, and I’d like to interrupt the constant flow of AI news to poke my head in here and bring us back to a crucial marketing reality — the age of influencer marketing is just beginning, and AI will actually make it more important.

Before I get into the logic of this conclusion, I need to call your attention to a piece of news that is profound and breathtaking if you’re in the marketing and advertising business.

A new WPP forecast estimates that in 2025, ad revenue from creator-driven platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram will surpass the combined ad revenue of traditional media (TV, print, audio, and film) for the first time. Creator-led advertising revenue (brand deals, sponsorships, and platform ads) is expected to grow 20% this year and more than double by 2030.

Meanwhile, the broader ad market is weakening. WPP cut its global ad growth forecast for 2025 from 7.7% to 6%, and 54% of marketers plan to reduce traditional ad spending in 2025.

What’s fueling this growth? Why will AI push it upward to incredible new levels? There’s a one-word answer.

The force behind the Age of Influencer Marketing

Steve Jobs famously said, “A brand is trust.”

And trust is sorely lacking in marketing today. According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, trust in advertising declined from 50% to an abysmal 30% just 15 years.

No wonder so many CMOs are looking for jobs these days. So, who do we trust? We trust each other. We trust family. We trust neighbors. We trust friends.

And influencers aren’t some new media buy. They are trusted friends.

The overlooked psychology of influence

Social media influencers have become the most trusted voices in the digital landscape, not because they have the slickest production or biggest budgets, but because they build something deeper: a parasocial relationship.

A parasocial relationship is a one-sided psychological connection that an audience forms with a media figure—someone they follow, watch, or listen to regularly. The term was first coined in the 1950s by sociologists Donald Horton and Richard Wohl to describe the illusion of friendship people feel toward television personalities.

Decades later, social media has supercharged this dynamic. Unlike traditional celebrities, influencers invite their audiences into their daily lives—sharing their routines, thoughts, vulnerabilities, and real-time responses. The effect is powerful: followers feel like they know them.

This sense of familiarity and intimacy creates a unique bond. Unlike traditional advertising, which speaks at people, influencers speak with them—or at least, it feels that way. Viewers comment, DM, and even get replies. They see the creator’s dog, their bad skin days, their parenting challenges. Over time, this steady exposure builds trust. The influencer becomes a virtual friend—someone you’ve “spent” hours with, someone whose opinion feels authentic, raw, personal, not paid.

Recent industry and academic reports estimate that between 25% and 35% of teens visit social media each day primarily to see content from their favorite influencers. This figure is supported by the high rates of influencer following among teens and the significant influence influencers have on teen purchasing and engagement behaviors.

More important, studies show that people are more likely to act on product recommendations from influencers than from brands or celebrities.

The formula is that simple. Advertising lacks trust. But trust is the everyday currency of influencers. Of course it’s rocketing skyward, and in my view, the Age of Influencer Marketing is just beginning.

AI will drive influencer marketing growth

I wrote the first book on influencer marketing (Return On Influence) in 2011 before anybody was using the term. At the end of the book, I predicted that in two years it would become a mainstream marketing concept. The timing of the book was great:

What drove this growth? Trust in influencers. And in two ways, trust will drive the age of influencer marketing far into the future.

First, we live in a world plagued by AI-generated misinformation and deep fakes. We’ll always need to turn to real humans to help us discern what is real. Influencers are the trusted authorities in the right place at the right time.

Second, influencers are turning their significant power into tangible products. Just a few:

I recently gave a workshop to a large CPG company and told them that their biggest competitive threat isn’t Procter & Gamble or Unilever. It’s some passionate teenager building an audience on TikTok right now. These creator media empires are just beginning and the opportunities for brand-building is overpowering.

And here is the next big opportunity. New research exposed opportunities for smaller businesses. It showed that local celebrities often outperform their global counterparts by tapping into cultural relevance and audience affinity.
True effectiveness comes from authentic alignment between the ambassador and your brand values, not just fame alone. There is overlooked potential to extend the value of influencer marketing to regional and local brands.

I’ll also point out an important and nuanced point. These influencers are AI-proof. What are you doing to work on your own personal brand to build trust and authority?

The Age of Influencer Marketing is just beginning. If you want to know where to focus your marketing efforts in the coming years, don’t just follow the money, follow the trust.

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Image courtesy unsplash.com

The post Why the Age of Influencer Marketing is Just Beginning appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

A common click-bait technique is to write a blog post with “The death of …” in the title. I’ve learned to ignore these, but I’ve seen such an avalanche of headlines with some version of “the end of brands” that it was time to comment. It’s not just a sensationally ridiculous idea, it’s a dangerous one.

I’d like to insert some common sense into the dialogue and explain why brands are more important than ever.

What is a brand?

Let’s take it from the top. A brand is an emotional expectation.

Here’s a little exercise I use in my classes: If I told you Coca-Cola was building a hotel in your city, could you imagine what it looks like?

Your mind immediately starts painting: Red velvet everywhere. Curved, flowing architecture like a bottle. A fountain in the lobby bubbling with happiness. The air smells like vanilla and spice. Even the receptionist’s smile sparkles.

You can see it, can’t you? Feel it? Hear it?

That’s a brand.

It’s not about sugar water. It’s about an emotional promise that’s so strong, so consistent, you could architect an entire building around it.

You can count on this “Coke feeling” in any circumstance, in any place. The trust in this consistency keeps that company at the top of your mind and maybe even at the top of your heart, almost everywhere in the world.

It doesn’t appeal to everyone, especially if you are health-conscious, for example. But the brand means something to enough people to make a difference, and make a profit.

There is no utilitarian advantage of a pair of 20-year-old Nike Air Jordans selling for thousands of dollars in Japan. There are better shoes, even pricier shoes. But this shoe makes us FEEL something and that makes it rise above the fray.

Creating this emotional shorthand isn’t easy. It’s like composing a symphony that plays in people’s hearts every time we see a logo.

But here’s why it’s worth it: When everyone else is competing on features and price, you’re competing on feelings.

And feelings? They’re priceless.

There are a few reasons critics claim brand marketing is in decline (or dead!). Let’s knock those down:

1. The Customer is in Control

One reason critics cite for the diminishing importance of brand marketing is the shift in power between businesses and consumers. In the past, brands held sway over public perception because they controlled the narrative through traditional media channels. Today, the internet has democratized influence, empowering consumers to control the narrative through their opinions, reviews, and posts.

I’ve written about this extensively, most notably in the book Marketing Rebellion, which suggests that nearly all the power to drive sales is in the hands of the customer. This doesn’t mean brand marketing is dead. It means that we can’t count on advertising any more. The new imperative is to create value and experiences so insanely great that people can’t wait to spread the word.

The Real Job of Brand Marketing Today:

1. Stop trying to control the narrative (you can’t)
2. Start creating experiences worth talking about
3. Give your customers something so amazing they become volunteer marketers

The customer is the brand marketer. How do we help them do the job?

2. The Rise of Performance Marketing

Over the past 25 years, performance marketing (SEO, targeted ads, etc) gained prominence over traditional brand marketing.  Businesses love how advanced analytics tools can track and measure the effectiveness of their campaigns in real-time. By comparison, assigning sales attribution to brand-building activities can be difficult or impossible.

Performance marketing is vital to many companies, especially early-stage companies that need to fill a pipeline and generate customers fast. But arguably, in the end, the brand is all you have to differentiate yourself.

In my book Audacious: How to Win in an AI Marketing World, I feature a case study on Liquid Death, the fastest-growing beverage in the world — a five-year-old startup! Founder Mike Cessario said:

“You’re only going to win with branding. You won’t win with some functional ingredients you can’t own. In that case, when you’re big enough, Coke or Pepsi or someone else will just produce the same thing—same ingredients, cheaper, more widely distributed, and then you lose. With water, there’s minimal, if any, functional difference between the brands. The difference is purely marketing. People want to walk around with this thing instead of that thing. None of the water brands were interesting. I did my homework. There was a huge opportunity to tell a different story.”

A successful company can’t stick with only performance marketing in the long-term. Building brand awareness powers long-term growth. When consumers recognize and trust your brand, performance ads become more effective. Case studies show that smart brand marketing can slash Customer Acquistion Cost by up to 70%.

Branding creates distance between you and your competitors, paving the way for future growth.

3. The Commoditization of Products and Services

Some say that the commoditization of many industries is killing brands.

Perhaps the poster child for this argument is Temu. Temu is an eCommerce company that ships generally non-branded, low-cost commodity products directly from Chinese factories. It is a company that has exploited digital technology and eCommerce psychology to the maximum and pioneered a new way to serve bargain basement shoppers.

Here’s the thing about Temu: They’re not killing brands. They’re just showing us what happens when price is the only story you need to tell.

There has always been a segment of consumers who love to hunt for bargains instead of brands for economic necessity or perhaps just for fun. Temu has digitized the treasure hunt.

Side note: I predict that at some point, Temu will create its own simple, reliable branded products, just as Amazon did. So, brand would matter, even in the commodity sphere.

4. Categories?

A recent exchange on LinkedIn offered an idea that creating “categories” is more important than brands.

Here’s an example: Dude Wipes. This company created a better, environmentally-sensitive way to wipe your rear. I literally never thought I would use those words in a blog post, but there you go.

Let’s break this down, from the bottom-up (pun intended)!

Dude Wipes didn’t just create a category — “premium man-focused bathroom hygiene.” They built a brand that makes guys feel okay about buying fancy toilet paper.

But creating a category without building a brand is like inventing a new sport and not telling anyone about the rules. Being first means nothing if you’re also forgotten first. Your brilliant new category is a sitting duck if you don’t wrap it in brand awareness. Your competitors are watching, waiting, and probably have deeper pockets than you do.

Look at what happened to:

• Friendster (created social networking, Facebook owned it)
• Zune (an early device to carry songs in a small device)
• Palm Pilot (invented PDAs, now a trivia question)

They all created categories. They all got steamrolled by brands that did it better.

Category without brand is silly.

5. The Impact of Social Media Influencers

Social media has fundamentally altered the way consumers interact with brands. Influencers, who often have more authentic connections with their followers, have emerged as powerful voices in the marketplace. Rather than relying on brand-created content, consumers turn to influencers for recommendations, reviews, and inspiration.

Hey … it’s still a BRAND! Whether it’s a person or a product, you’re still creating an emotional expectation. And the influencer is a lot more effective if their audience has heard of the brand!

Branding Forever

There is simply no rational argument for the declining importance of brand marketing. In fact, it is more important than ever, especially in an AI world. Here are a few quick takes:

• Branding alone creates differentiation in a crowded marketplace (like Liquid Death!)
• Brands are beacons of trust in a world of deep fakes and misinformation
• Branding isn’t replaced by “categories” or performance marketing. It enhances these initiatives.
• Loyalty to a brand enables consumer brand advocacy and influencer marketing.
• Brands and brand stories resonate across generations.
• In times of crisis, a well-established brand is better positioned to weather the storm.
• Brand trust and recognition is the fuel of international expansion.

In a world where anyone can make anything, brands are the difference between:

• Trust and uncertainty
• Loyalty and indifference
• Premium prices and commodity status

Declaring the death of brands isn’t just wrong — it’s like declaring the death of trust, loyalty, and human connection.

Need a keynote speaker about the future of marketing? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

The post The end of brands, or the end of common sense? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

About a year ago, singer Ed Sheeran partnered with Heinz on a new hot sauce. This is a great lesson literally pointing to the future of influencer marketing, and I kept forgetting to blog about it. But before I get to the dazzling marketing lesson from Ed Sheeran, let’s talk about the marketing problem with soap …

The new influencer landscape

I recently attended a meeting at a CPG company famous for its iconic soap products. They went through a big competitive analysis with profiles of all their traditional global competitors. At the end of the talk, I sheepishly raised my hand and suggested they had completely missed their biggest competitive threat. It isn’t P&G. It isn’t Unilever. It’s a 24-year-old TikTok star.

Influencer marketing has entered a new phase. The biggest stars’ celebrity power commands more loyal audiences than traditional TV networks. Mr Beast has more subscribers than Netflix.

These aren’t just kids shilling energy drinks. They are savvy entrepreneurs who are building their own mega-brands. Here are a few examples:

• Addison Rae – Item Beauty
• Emma Chamberlain – Chamberlain Coffee
• Charli and Dixie D’Amelio – Social Tourist (clothing line)
• Hyram Yarbro – Selfless by Hyram (skincare line)
• Blair Walnuts – Jewelry line
• Michelle Khare – MKfit (fitness app)

And, of course, there is Kylie Jenner, the world’s youngest self-made billionaire who sells her cosmetics in airport kiosks,

These young creators have something the big companies don’t—a credible, authentic voice and a loyal audience that visits them online daily to see what they’re selling next.

And that brings us to the marketing lesson from Ed Sheeran.

The beautiful ketchup move

Like the other influencers I mentioned, Ed Sheeran could have created his own line of hot sauces and a saucy empire. But why?

Partnering with Heinz made so much more sense. For one thing, Heinz actually makes stuff. They have contracts with suppliers, big factories, and an excellent distribution system built over a hundred years. So, with very little actual effort, Ed made his hot sauce dreams come true just by lending his charming face to the new brand. Win-Win.

And here’s the lesson for the mega-brands. Put your marketing ego aside. Go find yourself some beloved influencers and make them rich. They can out-market you, but you can out-manufacture them. It’s a match made in heaven.

Since the Ed Sheeran announcement, I’ve been waiting for a deluge of influencer-brand product launches, but there have been very few. I don’t get it. Influencers own your market, folks. Partner with them to disrupt your market before you’re the one being disrupted.

if you’d like to hear more about this subject, I discussed these ideas with my friend Amanda Russell. You won’t want to miss it!

Click here to enjoy Marketing Companion Episode 298

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Scottsboro, Alabama, (population 15,750) is a sleepy river town known for its First Monday craft fair, Payne’s Soda Fountain, and hot, muggy summers. It would not be considered a hotbed for influencer marketing. Well, not until Sarah Stahl made it into an influence marketing case study.

Sarah is the marketing director for ReTreet, a glamping (“glamorous + camping”) site in the woods outside of town. Faced with a 30% occupancy rate and a tiny marketing budget, she needed to build awareness on the cheap and turned to influencers to spread the word.

In what could be a travel industry first, Sarah created so much positive buzz around the tiny 17-site resort that influencers pay her to stay there. How in the world did she do that? In a word, attention to detail. Sarah delivers such an outstanding experience that influencers can’t wait to get there, even from distant states. Her approach includes:

• Partnerships with local attractions and restaurants that enhance the influencer’s storytelling possibilities and boost local tourism.
• Luxury amenities such as hot tubs, outdoor showers, saunas, and fire pits ensures visually appealing content.
• Founding a ReTreet influencer community so creators can stay in touch with each other and the resort. This community-driven approach has helped spur additional content creation and more bookings from their audience long after the initial stay.

Content is the key

“I knew we needed quality content in volume,” she said, “and that consumers might not trust us or understand the idea of glamping at first. With a small startup budget, it would be tough to convince them without help, so working with trusted travel influencers was our best choice.

“I also knew that consistency is key. We’ve averaged about one influencer visit per week over 52 weeks. And as they shared their experiences, we’ve received more interest. We now have a three-month waitlist for content creators to stay with us. Since they are always looking for new angles for their audiences, the content about our resort is always fresh and relevant.

Results in Sarah’s first year:

• Revenue and occupancy doubled.
• The advertising budget was cut in half, and the ROI of their marketing spend more than doubled from $13 per dollar spent to $28 on each dollar spent.
• Increased ReTreet’s Instagram account by 650%, making it the top source of leads.
• Had Instagram Reels that reached 1 million views
• Each influencer visit resulted in an average of two more influencer requests for accommodation.
• Expanded the resort to include a glass dome event space.

Perhaps Sarah’s most important success is the rapid momentum she gained from the effective influencer content. “We’ve moved beyond the struggling startup phase,” she said. “We’re at a point where we’re expecting reservations to be made a year ahead of time.”

An influence marketing case study

I love Sarah’s story because it’s so improbable. A resort in the middle of nowhere propelled by influencers? And yet the success is undeniable.

Most of the time, influence marketing is in the news for something silly, like a creator falling off a wall in search of the perfect selfie. But creators are crucial to our marketing future because they are believed and often adored. Chances are, your business is neither believed nor adored, so partnering with talented and trusted creators might make sense.

I asked Sarah if she’s ever had any problems with divas who were hard to work with. The creators who have come through her resort have been professional and appreciative. If you’re going to make it as an influencer these days, you’ll have to be business-savvy. I think Sarah’s experience reflects a growing professionalism among creators.

The creator economy is massive and growing. Is it time for your business to become an influence marketing case study?

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

The post The ROI of creators: An inspiring influence marketing case study appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

By Aaron Hassen, {grow} community member

The most difficult job in marketing today is determining how to effectively connect with our customers in a fractured media landscape. Fortunately, we have informative research and experts like Ed Keller to guide us on where to turn next … and that might include a surprising crop of new influencers.

Here’s a little story to set up the findings of Ed’s research.

I was reading the news, and an article from The Dallas Morning News jumped out at me. The article, The new social media influencer? Pilots and flight attendants, tells the story of Southwest Airlines pilot Ernie Meeks. Ernie was disappointed when his daughter, who had dreamed of following in his footsteps, considered dropping out of pilot school. Meeks was determined to change her mind, so he created videos for YouTube and Instagram highlighting his daily routines as a pilot.

After a year, his subscribers had grown to 57,300 on YouTube and 130,000 on Instagram … and his daughter decided to remain in pilot training school. But rather than quit, Meeks expanded into podcasting, and his show is now fully backed and sponsored by his employer, Southwest Airlines.

Why would an airline invest in an employee’s social media presence? How does this connect to modern marketing realities?  The answers are found in Ed Keller’s latest research, Unveiling Influence: A Suzy Report on The Impact of Creators on American Consumers’ Lives.

Known for his groundbreaking studies on Word-of-Mouth Marketing, Ed Keller is the CEO of the Keller Advisory Group and Executive Director of Market Research Institute International. Recently, Ed turned his attention to the new influencers and their impact on consumer behavior. If you’re like me, the findings will excite you.

27 million creators … and counting

The Keller Advisory Group worked with research firm Suzy to conduct a nationally representative study of over 1,100 consumers ages 16-54. The study focused on the impact creators and influencers have on consumer attention and purchasing behaviors. Keller had previously surveyed thousands of creators to get their points of view. This time, he decided to take a look at the other side of the equation, which of course is most interesting to brands and marketing and advertising professionals like me.

Keller defines a creator as someone who self-identifies as one and makes money creating. An influencer is someone who posts content on social media regularly and has a significant following. Often, these individuals are one and the same, so I’ll be using the terms interchangeably in this article.

The study estimates there are 27 million paid creators in the U.S. or 14% of all consumers ages 16-54. But all creators are not alike, and the breakdowns are important: 

• 12.22% (3.3m) are macro-influencers with 250k+ followers 
• 25.18% (6.8m) are mid-tier influencers with 50k – 250k followers
• 39.5% (10.4m) are micro-influencers with less than 10k followers. (This segment is reported to be the most influential)

Let’s move on to some of the key takeaways from the study.

Creators are far more influential than ads

According to the survey, 7 in 10 consumers follow creators, and 80% of those followers take some sort of action due to the influence of creator content. These actions are significant and include:

• visiting the brand’s website (55%),
• following the brand on social media (46%),
• recommending the brand to someone else (42%), and
• resharing the creator’s content (29%).

The best part? An eye-popping 43% of consumers report making a purchase! This meant that compared to advertising, creator content was 2.6 times more influential in purchasing decisions for those polled.

So, what exactly is driving these results? In a word, trust.

New influencers mean trust

The study finds that creator content outperforms traditional advertising across several key attributes.

Creator content is trusted 2.9 times more than advertising and is considered more exciting, unique, relevant, and shareable. Creator content also creates a stronger emotional connection, as 83% of consumers report that they like or love the creator’s content. These qualities appear to contribute to the higher effectiveness of creator content when influencing consumer perceptions and actions compared to ads. 

Brands follow the money

As Mark Schaefer highlighted in his recent article, How big is the creator economy? Three times larger than we thought, brand spending on influencers is surging.

Keller found that nearly 6 in 10 have an ongoing relationship with brands. In his latest survey, between 73% and 76% of consumers said that creator content influences their perceptions of both large, well-known brands and lesser-known emerging brands. So, it’s no coincidence that trusted brands like Amazon, Microsoft, Walmart, and Apple invest in creators.

Money is shifting away from advertisers and toward the new influencers. This year, brands will reportedly spend around $8.14 billion on sponsored social media content. According to Reuters, legacy advertising outlets like “Google and YouTube have faced competition for ad budgets from other online platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Amazon.com.”

The Washington Post notes that even “Well-known news outlets have seen a decline in the amount of traffic flowing to them from social media sites, and some of the money that advertisers previously might have spent with them is now flowing to creators.” The shift in investment from digital advertising to creators highlights the increased importance and effectiveness of creator partnerships for brands.

Ultimately, it’s clear that creators are funded because of their ability to create customers, which is why Southwest Airlines would eagerly support their pilot/creator. Creators are now the arbiters of consumer attention and trust, and brands are leveraging that trust to drive purchases. 

So, the next time you have your finger on the button ready to launch yet another ad campaign, consider the data from Ed Keller and invest in a social media word-of-mouth campaign with a micro-influencer instead. That’s certainly what I’ll be doing.

Aaron Hassen is a well-respected marketing leader, strategist, and hands-on practitioner. In 2004, Aaron began his career by launching an online and print advertising service, acquired by a competitor four years later. For the next 18 years, Aaron led marketing for emerging B2B technology companies helping them multiply their annual revenues. Today, Aaron runs AH Marketing, a full-service fractional marketing team focused on Go-To-Market strategy, demand generation, and brand development for B2B revenue leaders with little time or sufficient help to address their marketing challenges.

The post The new influencers beat traditional advertising effectiveness appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

One of my clients built his business entirely on influencer marketing. His revenue has grown explosively through a combination of both paid and organic relationships with powerful influencers who specialize in “un-boxing” and product reviews. “We’re in trouble,” he told me. “Influencer marketing is hitting a dead end. It’s crashing everywhere.”

He explained a consistent pattern he’s seeing among the most successful influencers:

• They start as passionate creators, enthusiastically publishing content about products and people they love and believe in.
• The creators build a loyal audience due to the quality of their content and fair product reviews.
• Once their audience hits critical mass, brands notice and begin to offer money for exclusive sponsorship deals. Of course, this is what they’ve been waiting for — the payoff for all their hard work.
• Their revenue is now tied to promoting products, not delivering fair reviews. They become more limited in what they can talk about. And they can’t stop or even take a break. There are no days off. The content has to keep coming every day, without excuse. The passionate hobby has become an unforgiving treadmill.
• Eventually, the influencer burns out and stops publishing “to take a mental health break.”

“It’s completely predictable,” my customer said. “We see this pattern happening with every influencer we work with.”

Why influencer marketing is hitting a dead end

Influence marketing has been around since the 1930s when the silent film Charlie Chaplin started appearing in ads for Cadbury’s and other brands. Sponsorship income was built on fame.

Starting in the social media era, anybody could build an audience by creating content like blogs, videos, and podcasts. Influence had been democratized.

In 2012, I wrote the first book on influence marketing called Return On Influence. The first social media influencers were subject matter experts. First through blogs — the first digital publishing platform — and later through video and podcasts, early creators published about their love of cars, fashion, art, crafts, business, or whatever their passion might be.

A new business model emerged. Instead of developing a product to sell, a large and loyal social media audience could be monetized through brand sponsorships, merchandise, events, books, appearances, affiliate marketing, and other revenue streams.

A profitable creator economy emerged, and it took a new twist with the popularity of YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. Many creator audiences were built on entertainment value instead of any particular skill set.

A Search Engine Journal article listed the top 100 Instagram influencers. The influence categories included lifestyle, travel, fashion, and beauty. Essentially, these Instagram influencers are monetizing their lives rather than any particular skill set.

Similarly, on YouTube and TikTok, star influencers like MrBeast or PewDiePie are entertainers. And they have to bring the thunder every day.

Online influence began as sharing hobbies. Much of influence today means being a daily entertainer. No wonder people are burning out.

“What should I do today?”

I’ve observed the burn-out trend all over the web.

• One teen TikTok star earned 3 million followers through her dances and stories. One day, she wearily looked at the camera and said, “What should I do today? I’m running out of ideas.”
• An Instagram megastar created a vulnerable video, cautioning others not to follow in her path. “It never stops. I’m so tired. If I worked at McDonald’s, I would at least have a day off.”
• “I’m tired of making everything about myself. My job requires me to look at myself, talk about myself, post myself, and reply to comments about myself. It is way too much of a self-obsessive job”
• “On TikTok, you have to talk in short sentences. TikTok has brainwashed me into just giving blurbs with zero explanation because the less you explain, the shorter the video, and the more comments you’ll get. I’ve gotten in the habit of giving less information”
• “I went on vacation and it was the first time in three years I was able to exist without that little voice in my head telling me you should be taking a photo right now. It was liberating”

Another problem faced by the newly-famous is stalkers. One young woman went underground after a troll — who had threatened to kill her boyfriend — broke into her parent’s home.

Pulling back leads to influencer failure

Three academics published a study showing how these parasocial relationships can turn sour, with love and adoration replaced by feelings of hostility and even hatred.

The tipping point for hostility comes when influencers begin to impose boundaries on the content they share online to protect their privacy and mental health.

The absence of personal details from the influencer’s life breaks the illusion of intimacy with the follower. Affection turns to animosity. The follower may feel betrayed, excluded, scorned — like wronged friends — and they seek revenge.

New influencer success formula

In a streaming economy where people don’t see or believe ads like they used to, there will continue to be huge opportunities for creators who amass large audiences. The money will attract scores of young people who want the influencer lifestyle.

We are still in the early days of the creator economy, a force that couldn’t have existed 25 years ago. We are starting to see the limits and clues to future success.

• Many young people ask me for advice on becoming a creator. I encourage them. I think they should go for it and have no regrets. However, I also tell them that only the elite rise to the top, and their chance for life-sustaining revenue is low. Success depends on more than being cute or funny. You must have the disciplined work ethic of elite stars like LeBron James or Michael Jordan. If you don’t enjoy the “grind” you’re not well-suited to this kind of career.
• Creators need to set boundaries from the start. What are the limits of privacy — not just in this moment, but after you have a significant other or have a child? What are the limits of sponsorship? The shackles of exclusive deals can lead to misery.
• There must also be boundaries on the sponsor side. Demanding too much air time or exclusive control might end a creator’s career prematurely.
• I also advise any budding creator to take college classes in business law, accounting, and marketing. Look at the most successful stars like MrBeast. Jimmy Donaldson is an incredibly savvy entrepreneur. Anybody can be entertaining. But when it comes to business, he really is a beast.
• Seek help. Superstar Juanpa Zurita reached out to me for help when his career was beginning. “I need to find somebody I can trust,” He said. “Everybody just wants a piece of me.” Finding support for business issues and mental health can be difficult when the vultures are circling. Find support early and keep them close.

The key to long-term influencer success requires a mindset shift from “I’m a creator who wants to make money” to “I’m an entrepreneur building a business.” Building a business requires education, support, trusted partners, and boundaries.

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram. 

Image courtesy of MidJourney

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Over the past few months, I’ve been immersed in projects and research that have reinforced the idea that creators and community are driving huge changes in commercial strategies. These new dynamics are re-inventing what we used to think of as media and media buying. It’s already happening.

• Consider that a YouTube star like Mr. Beast has a bigger following than all the prime-time American news channels combined. One of his videos might get 100 million views. If you’re advertising on Fox News, you’ll be lucky to reach 2 million viewers.
• Many creators are branching off to create their own brands that have become some of the fastest-selling fashion, food, and cosmetic products on the planet.
• Young adults aged 14-32 are swarming onto Discord to find communities. The number of those active on Discord grew from 26% to 42% in one year!
• And Taylor Swift is arguably the biggest creator on the planet, influencing every aspect of entertainment and culture on a global scale.

This is what’s interesting to me: None of this was possible 10 years ago. Creators and their communities have re-written the rules of influence — and sales. Yet most corporate marketing departments are not built for these changes. How do you begin to adjust to an entirely new media world?

Well, that’s a good question, and we begin to unpack it on the latest episode of The Marketing Companion podcast. Join me and my guest, Sara Wilson, as we connect the dots between creators, community, and commercial strategies.

Let’s dive in, shall we? Click here:

Click here to enjoy Marketing Companion episode 277!

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I was perusing The Wall Street Journal and saw a headline that grabbed my attention: “Forget Retirement. Become a Social Media Star Instead.” The article recounts how “granfluencer” Linda Davis earned a six-figure income through cooking videos that attracted sponsors like Chobani and Disney Cruises. It seems like everybody and anybody is jumping on the creator economy bandwagon!

But how many people are actually making money as an online creator? New research sponsored by word-of-mouth marketing legend Ed Keller shows it’s bigger than anybody thought.

Much bigger.

This is important research, and Ed allowed me to be the first to publish these eye-popping results for my readers. Today, you’ll learn that the creator economy is a largely unaccounted-for economic engine. Fasten your seatbelt. You’re about to view influencers and the creator economy in a whole new way …

The creator economy mystery

Until now, nobody could accurately estimate how many people have monetized their online content efforts. There are two main problems:

• The creator economy is a recent development which exploded since the pandemic, and
• Nobody knew how to capture the data across a broad spectrum of participants

For example, The U.S. Census Bureau tracks 22,607 career choices, recognizing those who work in such narrow fields as pickled onion manufacturing, adult bookstores, and canoe repair. But the index makes no mention of “social media,” an oversight that misses one of the most monumental changes to have swept the labor force in years.

Millions have ditched traditional career paths to work as online creators, using their computers and phones to reshape culture and build businesses whose influence now rivals the biggest names in entertainment, news, and politics.

“Influencer” is now ranked one of the most popular career aspirations for American youth, above professional athlete and astronaut. One research report stated that 86 percent of teens aspire to be an online influencer as a top career choice.

Previous studies projected that about 10 million people in the U.S. (3 percent of the population) are making money from the creator economy. Turns out that the actual number is nearly three times that amount.

The creator economy is MASSIVE

Through a statistically-representative survey of Americans aged 16-54, Keller and his research team uncovered these mind-blowing conclusions:

• There are 27 million paid creators in the U.S., or 14 percent of the population aged 16-54
• Being a content creator is a full-time job for 44 percent of them (11.6 million), with 32 percent (8.5 million) doing it part-time and 24 percent (6.5 million) doing it as a hobby
• About one in 10 creators (3.3 million) are macro influencers with more than 250,000 followers. The greatest number of creators (10.4 million) are micro influencers with less than 10,000 followers.

To put this in perspective, there are currently ten times more paid content creators in the United States than the total number of police officers, doctors, and lawyers in America combined.

I have to admit, I was skeptical when I saw these numbers, even though I am confident that Ed and his team did exceptional work. By the way, Ed is Executive Director of Market Research Institute International.

And here’s another data point. According to eMarketer data, influencer marketing ad spend outpaced social media ad spending last year, with influencer marketing having a 20.3% positive change and social only getting 5.1% positive change. This year, influencer marketing is predicted to have 14% positive growth while social ad spend only receives 4.1%.

Brand spending on influencers is surging. 

How much do creators earn?

This spending trend obviously impacts the ability of creators to earn more.

In an ad-free streaming economy, companies have now turned to creators for their promotions, routing marketing dollars away from traditional advertising to brand sponsorships. Payments from advertisers to creators in the United States have more than doubled since 2019, to $5 billion, an estimate from eMarketer shows. Key streams include:

• sponsored content
• affiliate links
• advertising revenue
• creator funds
• paid subscriptions
• merchandise

Brands aren’t just targeting big-name creators. Many turned to the broader and cheaper pool of mid-level creators. Compensation can vary from a box of free products to expense-paid “curated experiences” in the hope that they’ll fawn over the glamour of it all on their personal feeds. And, of course, advertising dollars also stream in from YouTube, Reddit, TikTok, and even Twitter (X).

Through their research, Ed Keller and his team dissected the economics of the creator economy, and again discovered jaw-dropping numbers:

• The mean income of creators is $93,000 per year, but there is a large spread — more than half make less than $10,000 annually.
• Full-time creators earn $179,000 per year, versus an average of $36,000 for part-timers and $16,000 for hobbyists.
• Macro influencers earn an average of $344,000 per year; mid-tiers earn $129,000, and micro influencers earn an average of $45k; and nano influencers earn $17,000.

As Bethany Werth, a 20-year-old Minnesotan, told The Washington Post, makeup videos to her 75,000 TikTok followers pay the bills. “My eyelashes are paying for my college tuition.”

What motivates creators?

While even creators with modest followings can have substantial earnings, that’s not their primary motivator, according to Keller’s research. The top motivations are:

• Creating as a hobby
• A creative outlet
• A way to share their life with their followers
• Making money

Remarkably, for full-timer creators, money ranks seventh on the list. As previously noted, this group makes an average of $179,000 per year, so perhaps they can afford to put this farther down the list!

Summary

According to Ed, these are the most significant conclusions of his research:

• The total number of creators in the U.S. is much larger than previous estimates, probably because one-third of the creators earning less than $2,000 per year were likely unaccounted for.
• The livelihood of the 11.6 million full-time creators is a robust $179,000/year, affirming the ability of creators to make a good living once they go full-time.
• A lot of trade press attention is focused on micro influencers, which comprise the largest number of creators (39%). However, with an average income of $17,000/year, it is doubtful that this is truly the group being reached by a growing number of brands but rather a smaller subset making their way into influencer platforms.
• While money matters and full-time creators can earn a good living, brands that work with creators should take note that their main motivation lies elsewhere.

There is a lot more about creators covered in Ed’s research, and you can access the full report “Creators Uncovered:  Insights from a Nationally Representative Study of US Creators.”

I wrote the first book on influencer marketing and forecast in 2012 that content creators would be a major marketing force … before anybody was even using the term.

I wrote the book because I was fascinated that influence was becoming democratized. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you are, how much money you make, or the color of your skin – you can have an impact on this world by creating content. And you can make a decent income, too. What a magical time to be alive.

I was energized by Ed’s conclusion that this powerful creator economy is an unstoppable force providing an entirely new income stream to millions of people.

And my friends, it’s just beginning.

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak at your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

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Amanda Russell is at the epicenter of the swirling world of influence marketing. She is teaching the first college course on this subject as well as writing a seminal book on the topic. She is also an influencer herself. With the rapid growth of this channel, it’s a good time to check and see where the world is going.

While influencers have traditionally been used to promote the latest fashion or cosmetics products, they’re increasingly being used by brands, governments, and other large institutions to share important information and gain trust. A good example of this is Olivia Rodrigo, singer and Gen Z icon, who was invited to the White House last July to encourage her millions of followers to get vaccinated.

For brands looking to reach Gen Z, it’s absolutely essential to carefully consider the content they post and the type of influencer relationships they have. For a generation that’s still reeling from the fallout of the pandemic, brands should do what they can to create a healthier online space.

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