Harnessing the Power of Influencers

Harnessing the Power of Influencers

Every brand wants to create word-of-mouth and peer recommendation. We believe that influencers offer a credible way to drive this. The Lounge has been working with influencers for the past four years, involving them in our clients’ communication strategies to maximise both impact and reach. Here are a few of our tips on how to build an effective influencer programme.

Firstly, establish who influences your target audience. This is best done by talking to your audience. Those they look to for advice and leadership can vary from friends and family to avidly-followed bloggers, journalists, those at the top of their game within specific interest groups or major celebrities. At The Lounge, we identify exactly which influencers are likely to resonate best with the audience by talking to our Peer Network – an 8,000 strong panel of 11-35 year olds.

We divide influencers into four groups – peers, local heroes, major players and celebrities. We map out which levels are best to engage, and how, depending on the brand, their objectives and who the target audience is. Peer influencers are the early adopters and trend setters within grass roots social circles. Local heroes are those who are renowned and influential with your target audience in their geographical region, town or city. Major players are those who have risen to the top of their game within a specific industry, interest or lifestyle. And we all know who celebs are.

Secondly, ensure there is a real connection between your brand, your campaign and the influencer(s) with whom you’re working and that they have a genuine role in your campaign. To help with this, identify why influencers would want to work with you. This could be for several reasons:

i) Mutual benefit – We worked with Dirty Pretty Things (major players / celebrities) on the Samsung Band on Your Campus campaign. They were looking to promote their new album launch and saw the partnership as the key component in their marketing campaign. As such they immersed themselves in the campaign and spoke about it at great length in radio interviews on Radio One and XFM.

ii) Passionate about your brand or the campaign benefits – With ‘Big in the Game’ for Electronic Arts, we worked with 47 local heroes and 34 major players/celebs within the hip hop scene. They bought into and were passionate about the benefits of the hip hop training workshop programme we created to promote EA’s titles. They saw that EA was providing long-term support for the lifestyle and community, which was their lifeblood.

iii) Financial - If you have one of the first two motivations covered, it’s likely you won’t have to spend money to persuade your influencers to get involved, or if you do, it’ll be a lot less. If your influencer is only getting involved for financial reasons, it’s unlikely to gel.

Thirdly, be pragmatic about the appropriate level of involvement and commitment from different levels of influencer. Peers, local heroes and major players offer a focused approach if you’re looking to target specific locations or interest groups; major players and celebrities are more likely to generate national/international PR but will be a lot more restricted on time.

Fourthly, you’ll get a lot more out your influencers and wider coverage of their involvement if it forms part of a wider campaign. The influencers themselves are more likely to have a real role to play, which gives them something tangible to talk about through a variety of communication channels. If they are genuinely on board, they will also be happy to promote the campaign through their own media channels. For example, we recently worked with Sway to promote EA Need for Speed. Throughout the campaign, he posted updates on his popular MySpace and blogs.

If you’re interested in finding out more about working with influencers, from both an insight and activation perspective, drop us a line.