I know I’m not alone when I say that I don’t like the phrase/ term or job title ‘influencer’. For me, that’s largely because I don’t really know what it means. Sure, I know what an ‘influencer’ is, but we all have influence. What does it really mean to be an influencer? And how exactly do you define that? It’s harder than it looks on the surface, and the truth is, you’ll probably never know.
Everyone has Influence
I’m going to say this again, everyone has influence. Once more, everyone has influence. Some people say being an influencer is about the scale of the influence, talking to hundreds or thousands of people rather than just a few in ‘real life’. But what about the micro-influencers who have a more engaged, but smaller audience than those bigger bloggers/ vloggers? Their posts might reach less people, but the same amount of people could be influenced to try/ buy something.
But these things have a domino effect in real life too. Has someone ever asked you where your bag/ shoes were from? You can tell someone how great a recipe was and they could then spend an hour bookmarking other things to try later. We often have influence over lots of little things without knowing.
Have you ever told a few friends about an amazing makeup remover/ dry shampoo/ *insert basic everyday item of choice here* that’s only £1 and they have to try it? Then they did try it, then told you that they loved it, and they’ve told a few other friends too? You as a single person with a passing comment could influence several sales without even realising it, and there’s no real way of tracking that.
How Do We Track Influence?
That brings me onto my real point here, because even in the ‘influencer’ game, this isn’t exactly as cut and dried as it may seem. Sure, if you’re doing a collab with a brand who exclusively sell online at one specific retailer, it’s fairly easy to look at stats and see how many people you’ve influenced to at least consider buying that product by looking at how many clicks the link to their site has had. Or if you have a discount code, that’s even easier to track. But, in the real world, that exclusively online scenario is few and far between.
Last week I was asked by a PR I’d done some previous work with for some information about a collab we did a few months ago for a report they were working on for the brand. As I was digging out the required information, it got me thinking about how much influence something could possibly have with no way of tracing it.
You Probably Have Greater Influence Than You Think
This applies to a few different situations. If you’re a beauty blogger and you give a foundation a glowing review, some people might follow your link and buy it straight away. Great. Other possible scenarios include: a person has a discount code for a different website, so buy it from there instead. Another person likes the sound of it but wants to be colour matched in store, so picks some up next time they’re shopping instead. Then there’s the person who lives in another country, so buys theirs from their beauty stores instead of yours. Or the person who picks up a sample in store, but buys it online a week or two later without following your link. Maybe they saw it on your Instagram but you don’t have swipe up.
Every single one of those people bought that product because of you, but the stats on your screen only show a tiny fraction of those referrals.
Does Influence Depend On The Product?
Those stats I was asked for were for a few posts featuring several products, but it got me thinking about how I’m influenced as a consumer. One of the items was a bag of vegan sweets that retail for £1.29 in a supermarket. After being sent them, I single handily repurchased them at least 5 times because, hi, I really do like the items I promote. But I was buying them from Sainsbury’s or my local health food shop, because it’s a £1.29 item that I can easily find on my doorstep. I don’t want to pay more for shipping than my product. Realistically, I don’t want to buy 10 bags at a time to get free shipping because I know they’ll last 5 minutes.
As a consumer reading a blog post about that item, I would definitely be interested. Would I be likely to click through and purchase there and then? Probably not. But if I saw them in a shop a week later and remembered person x talking about them, would I buy them? Almost certainly.
Maybe this says more about my personal shopping habits than a reflection of an industry as a whole, but I’m sure you get my point. Depending on the item, your ability to track influence could be as easily determined as the influence you had over the sale of that dry shampoo. Does this make anything any easier in terms of brand prospects? No. But I’m hoping at least one person reading this needed to take a moment and realise the stats only tell a small percentage of the story.
I’m off to eat more sweets purchased at Sainsbury’s now…
Until next time,
Sophie
I agree with you on this completely, I have read loads of reviews about products when I’m shopping around and I don’t always go and get it straight away from the link I usually shop around a bit more and then decide but maybe I’m the future I will start using people’s links more often to help them out! X
This is a very interesting post. I know personally that when I’ve seen a product I like on someone’s blog, Instagram or even YouTube I wouldn’t normally buy it there and then. I’d usually wait until I saw it in the highstreet or when I needed it – for example a new beauty product – I’d wait for my current brand to run out before buying more.
I agree that all people can have influence. When it comes to media I try not to view or promote things that are negative. The more shares and views an article gets the more publicity the writer gets. It also impacts the likelihood of a person or others writing similar articles.
I hate the term influencer to be perfectly honest and I’m not entirely sure why. I mean, yeah I know realistically we all have influence. We’ve all suggested to someone to try something at some point and they have so technically that’s having an influence but AS an “influencer” (yuck) myself, I’ve never actually considered it that much!
Jenny
http://www.jennyinneverland.com
I love this breakdown of how stats don’t reflect your true influence on other people! I’m so with you on the cheaper to buy in store thing as well – I mostly use my Affiliate links to show people what type of product I’m using in case they aren’t familiar with it rather than expecting them to buy online when ingredients are often cheaper in grocery stores. 🙂
It’s so true that everyone has influence & just because someone doesn’t have as big of a following doesn’t mean they aren’t as big of an influencer – like you say it’s all about engagement & reach! Love the post xxx
This was so interesting, I’ve learnt so much
I actually think about this quite a lot. I have quite a few people who one to me for skincare advice and I often recommend entire routines to them that can amount to £100+ sales for a brand, but there’s no way of tracking that. Very interesting read
This is such an interesting post! Like you, I dislike the term influencer and definitely prefer content creator. I don’t know why but influencer just seems so arrogant, like no I don’t think I’m so amazing that everyone should be copying me, but I do love to recommend great products & experiences etc just like I would to my IRL friends. I agree that I’m much more likely not to actually click through to purchase too, most of the time I want to consider it first or I come across it in a store and decide to buy then.
Soph – https://sophhearts.com x
You make such a good point! Personally, If I am looking for something specific I will watch and read a lot of content before making my final decision. It’s actually pretty rare that I would make a decision there and then and click on someones affiliate link. This could be why affiliate links are a bit more difficult to get a decent income stream from these days, everyone will shop around to find the best prices. I think this is individual to each content creator and their community though, everyones different!
hayley | hayleyxmartin
I really enjoyed reading this blog post darling, and I agree with every single thing that you said. Thanks for sharing such an honest, well-written blog post
With love, Alisha Valerie x | http://www.alishavalerie.com
I’m really not a fan of the term influencer, I prefer blogger x
http://www.ofbeautyandnothingness.co.uk
I very much enjoyed reading this. I feel like we forget that just because you have a product you’ve promoted, the reader may not have purchased via the link, but could have seen it a few weeks later in the store itself or another store. It would be so amazing if somehow we could find out that something we’ve posted about someone else has either bought online, in store, told their friends about it etc. Great post
Chloe xx
https://www.chloechats.com
I think that this is such a great point especially where you said “You Probably Have Greater Influence Than You Think” because it reminds me of when I was visiting family and one of my little sister’s friends came over, and the subject of my diet/lifestyle came up, and me and her talked about it for an hour or two, and I influenced her to go mostly plant-based. I think that a lot of people don’t realize the power and influence that they do that and how to use it.
Such an interesting post and point that you’ve made! I totally agree we have more of an influence than we realise sometimes. Like you say even just recommending a shampoo to a friend and them then passing that on to someone else is influencing without even realising. I do prefer other terms though, there just always seems to be a negative associated with ‘influencers’ now xx
Tiffany x http://www.foodandotherloves.co.uk
This is a great breakdown. I always find it fascinating how much I am influenced as well, even when I think I am not.