Being an influencer is an occupation that has taken Gen Alpha by storm. If someone had told me 10 years ago that influencers would be the next big thing in marketing, I would have been completely perplexed. Influencers? What can they bring to the table? Are they famous people like Michael Jordan who tell you what shoes are best for sports, or Selena Gomez who tells you that purchasing a Coach handbag will complement your status as a social butterfly? Endorsements like these are somewhat akin to what influencers do, but not quite.
For starters, influencers are not celebrities. They may become famous as time goes by, but they don’t start off that way. In fact, influencers become well-known only because of how popular they become on social media. Celebrities become famous because of their acting, music, dancing, etc. Social media just enhances their fame. Influencers gain their fame on social media.
It helps that influencers have initiated and maintained excellent relationships with their audience via various social media platforms, and so their word is valued for its credibility because they are real people, and not celebrities who are paid huge sums of money by companies to endorse their product. In addition, their marketing campaigns are not one-off events but continue over a period of time.
How does AI affect influencers?
We’ve established that influencers are valued for their authenticity. But how is this authenticity measured? While this can be quite subjective, there are tools by which it can be monitored. For example, influencers are hired by companies to market their products because they have a significant number of followers on social media platforms. But what if these influencers have falsified the data and their following is not impactful enough in numbers to create the ripple that client companies want?
Well, this is where AI comes in because it digs deep and fishes out false information and data that can help prospective companies weed out the unauthentic influencer. On the other hand, influencer engagement rates matter more than the number of followers they have. For companies that aim to increase their brand associations and build brand loyalty, an influencer that has a sustainable relationship with his or her followers is more important than a greater number of followers who do not interact with the content produced by that influencer. The Economic Times (India) says that in 2022 nano influencers (not fully-fledged influencers but those who post pictures of family, pets, memes, etc.) saw an engagement rate of more than 5% than some influencers who had a greater following on social media.
On the flip side, in today’s day and age almost everyone has an online presence and this leads to influencers mushrooming every day. This leaves companies with the arduous task of having to wean out the least ‘influential’ influencers so that they can work with the best who will market their products to the right audience and embody their brand’s values. AI is a tool that enables companies to find out who the ‘real’ influencers are that can be an asset to their marketing strategy.
In all this, influencer authenticity alone is inadequate. They also need to produce creative content that ‘pops’, be it videos, memes, images, and so on. AI also plays a part in the process by tailor-making content to align with client marketing needs. Virtual Influencer avatars are now a cutting-edge tool used by companies in influencer marketing. This is a computer-generated influencer that exists only in the world of social media. You may ask, what makes them authentic and credible then? This can indeed be a problem. Since they are an ideal – perfect in appearance and stand beyond the human realm, followers may be disillusioned by them and the message they project.
On the plus side, however, there are audiences out there who love following virtual influencers as they are quite like human beings with personalities, hobbies, pets, and the like. They garner followers on the basis of who they are in the virtual world and how attractive their lives seem. An example that most cinema-going audiences will be familiar with today is Mattel, the toy manufacturer who cemented their fame further with the new Barbie movie released this July. Earlier in the year they launched an avatar of Barbie which has so far gained more than 100 brand partnerships for the toy manufacturer across various virtual marketing campaigns such as Forever21 and NYX make up.
There lies a huge advantage in virtual avatars, in that since they are not real-life people they will not be embroiled in problems and issues that involve legal mediation in the real world. Furthermore, virtual influencers can be launched by a company and exclusively used for their brands only – something real influencers are unlikely to do. And of course, you guessed it- virtual avatars also keep marketing costs down because they do not need to be paid.
On the whole, AI can be a great advantage in marketing by feeding real-time information about an influencer’s followers back to the client company. It monitors their online behaviour and the efficacy of the marketing campaign so that companies can strategise accordingly.
To add to this, operating several influencer marketing campaigns simultaneously, becomes easier with AI tools. Ensuring that multiple campaigns work effectively at the same time would have been quite a challenging task in the past. But now, thanks to AI it is easier to track several influencers across their campaigns at once. Companies are further noting that while influencer marketing worked well with Business to Consumer (B2C) marketing in the past, now it is also picking up in the Business to Business (B2B) marketing sectors. This has been spurred by more relevant audiences and bigger reach and perception in online platforms.
Influencing the future
The influencer market size reached $16.4 billion in 2022, according to Influencer Marketing Hub. This year it is estimated to reach $ 21.1 billion. With such a huge sum of money at stake, no company wants to encounter obstacles. Thus, AI is expected to come to the rescue to identify and eliminate all potential problems that could hamper successful influencer marketing campaigns.
So, for those of us who are still wary of Artificial Intelligence and how it is taking over our lives, perhaps this is one of those areas where it will certainly be welcome!
(Anouk De Silva)