Influence Central

While large-scale brand deals continue to be popular and now go far beyond traditional spokesperson deals, at Influence Central we believe in the power of the micro-influencer. Micro-influencers built their audience by relating to their followers, so brands can capitalize on that relationship and trust. Micro influencers with 1,000 to 10,000 followers have some of the highest engagement rates – close to 4%, significantly higher than celebrities and top-tier influencers. As brands move toward ‘lifestyle imagery’ and away from stuffy stock photos, influencers can provide the content brands need to showcase themselves in the most authentic way.

But with only seven years of data, brands and marketers still struggle to hone in on the best practices when it comes to Influencer Marketing on Instagram. Influencers have come to the realization that it’s best for their own brand, and by contingency their success in driving powerful connections for brands, to remain true and authentic. We embrace partnerships with a higher level of personal investment like this because it also encourages our clients to interact with the Influencer’s content themselves, which creates a stronger ebb and flow with this powerful content. Calling out sponsored content and blending this seamlessly into the feeds of consumers will soon become even more commonplace, thus continuing Instagram’s run as a top platform for brands and Influencers alike.

Historically, agencies compartmentalized advertising and marketing practices, with the creative agency handling creative, the media agency handling modeled media buying (albeit with clever integrations), and PR agencies tackling the brands communication strategy and so on. Agencies like Hearts & Science, Giant Spoon, IPG’s agencies and Publicis One group have all emerged at the forefront of implementing integrated media strategies that provide their clients with the emotionally compelling content needed to reach the modern consumer and the data needed to move those consumers along the sales funnel. With influencer being integrated into an agency’s media mix, it allows agencies to do something that can have an incredible impact on their overall program by telling the story through the voice of a consumer. With strong KPI’s in place on the influencer program, brands can move these prospective consumers through the sales funnel, giving them a holistic program that cuts through cynicism, still allows them to make best use of data, and ultimately drives increased purchases.

At that point in time, some influencers started to look for alternative mediums to place their content, however, no platform offers an influencer the ability to amass a large audience like YouTube does, and ultimately Red wound up being a great tool for influencers to monetize their content. Recently, YouTube has decided to tighten its ad restrictions in attempt to create a more brand-friendly media buying environment, and that move has dramatically decreased the amount of revenue certain influencers will make from the audience they have invested a great deal of time building. Facebook recently rolled out a video content monetization service, and in the future, it may pose a threat to YouTube, but at this point, YouTube remains the preferred video platform for consumers, and the best place to aggregate an audience. ’s ability to generate ad revenue on their platform, they still provide influencers the opportunity to build an audience and create content for them, and in doing so, they have given them the ability to be compensated for their work, they just must capitalize on other revenue generating options.