You may be saying to yourself right now, “Influencer marketing? What is that?” It’s really not as complicated as it seems. Basically it’s marketing that focuses on a single individual, or a group of individuals, and leveraging their influence. Influencer marketing is basically you controlling word-of-mouth marketing. I’m a paid influencer for a company called BlogHer.com, where I post about products from Target and Kids R Us on my social media account. Influencer marketing can be specific, with given hashtag requirements, or it can be as simple as “please write a review or post on your social media about your experience.”

So here’s what happened with influencer marketing this past year:

1. It grew in popularity. Influencer marketing is often tied to social media marketing, and as social media grew, so did influencer marketing. Outside of the auto industry, influencer marketing became a gigantic player. Within the industry, influencer marketing is smaller, but don’t underestimate its power for a second.
2. Marketers are spending more money in influencer marketing. As the quarterly budgets of 2016 changed, influencer marketing took a larger chunk of the change. A recent “60 Minutes” report shows that influencer marketing is becoming familiar to average consumers. Brands are finding lots of success with this tactic as well.
3. Influencer identification is key. Marketers are learning they can only get authentic content if they do their homework about influencers. They want enthusiastic participants who will create content that is real and meaningful. Finding influencers who enjoy your brand and might have posted about it on their own generates real success.
4. Authenticity, authenticity, authenticity! As with influencer identification, it’s important to make sure their message is as authentic as they are! Asking them to fabricate an experience or talk about something they aren’t familiar with isn’t helpful. It’s great to invite influencers to come for an oil change or a test drive, or pick influencers from those who have already been in your dealership.
5.  Room to create. The highly successful industry influencer campaigns of 2016 allowed the influencers to create their own content. We saw this with Ken Garff Automotive Group using a local videographer and allowing her to create content on her own level. The result is an authentic, creative movie that is uniquely the creators. This makes the content authentic, and allowed the creator to really say what they wanted and stay within their own personal brand. Audiences of these influencers enjoy when the content they see seems on brand with the person creating it, even more so than being on brand with the product or service.

So if you didn't get involved with influencer marketing in 2016, it might be a good idea to start in the coming year! Stay tuned for best practices for influencer marketing in 2017 in another post.