In marketing campaign, clout could be deceptive

The Internet and social media provide the most impressive statistics about users. It is easy to get carried away by the figures and to dream of likes, follows and clicks when you are a regular user. Every brand visionary or social strategist thinks of opportunity the minute large numbers are mentioned.

The first thing to note is that the social media space – across all platforms – is a large interconnected network of individuals. Hence, the ‘social’ in the phenomenon called social media.

Just as observed in real life, people congregate in places that reflect common interests, associate with those who have similar values and bond with those they like.

It may, therefore, be a no-brainer not to notice that on every social media platform there are clouts. A clout refers to a circle of influence wielded by a personality or, in the case of virtual life, a profile or account. Clichés abound on the relevance and importance of clout and following in life. Every adult is sufficiently schooled on the importance of network in relation to friendships and character.

Many brands have followed this dogma hook, line and sinker; forgetting that business strategy should also consider reversing those thoughts.

A critical look at this implies that the peripheral overview of the strategy is to align brands with influencers – mostly celebrities – and trust their clout or influence to deliver attention, engagement and awareness for specific campaigns. This is where clout deception is revealed.

The concept of clout deception refers to the façade created largely by social media influencers who only have relative clout influence over a closed circle of networks.

The concept of social networks (which will be treated in subsequent articles) demystifies the impression that an account’s following or influence rating is all that is required to deliver campaign success. Clout deception is seen with brands that have adopted social media influencers as PR consultants or campaign drivers in order to deliver campaigns that otherwise should be wider and more pervasive in reach.

Look at this: An influencer of 500,000 followers may belong to more than two or three networks, such as brands, news/media and sports. In each of the networks, the actual clout power may be just average or even below average. While the overall clout counts, which is a different assessment from engagement, may be impressive, the capacity of the influencer to deliver the campaign is hampered due to the relatively low influence in each network.

This relationship explains the reason why much-anticipated campaigns fall flat, despite efforts to promote them. Clout deception happens daily on social media, just as the brand ambassadors often fail to deliver the needed results.

It is advisable for brands to consider both offline and online ambassadors for campaigns, while including influencers – who often do not have commensurate ‘star power’ to match the required attention. A clear delineation between being an ambassador and an influencer who only promotes a campaign should be made.

Increasingly, brands engage influencers to promote but expect activities of an ambassador and vice-versa leading to results that are far below expectations.

Clout deception is most experienced when influencers and their close circles ‘close trend’ a campaign, thus making it a trending topic albeit within closed circles.

For instance, while #thedress, #askhermore and #JeSuisCharlie trended globally, there was a thousand and more campaigns that trended locally yet delivered great results, though they made rounds in very few circles.

Brands must attempt to follow through their strategies by pinpointing campaigns such that they permeate many circles such as students, sports and professionals, not just a few circles.

The question any professional would ask is that the campaign strategy should have clear targets. And if these targets have been reached, it is expected that it will achieve an ‘agenda-setting’ objective.

This is mostly not the case because many other factors influence the capacity of a campaign to go viral.

According to Tai Tran, Social Media Marketing Manager, UC Berkerly/Haas School of Business, “Nobody actually knows what issue or campaign will go viral”.

It is important for brands to seek out and permeate a sea of opportunities in first-timers or newcomers on social media. The longer people exist (and actively too) on social media, the better they prioritise their attention, sieve through interests and cultivate preferences. Hence, rather than going after influencers and clout deception, reaching for ‘laggards’ according to Malcom Gladwell’s hierarchy of social adoption, costs much less and delivers greater results.

Another case in point is Ndani TV. With the seeming success recorded online, one should interrogate the essence for making the show an offline on television about two seasons after it commenced. The sheer reason of relatively poor Internet quality and paradox of Internet penetration may be obvious reasons that informed the need to maximise the investments made in delivering unique audiovisual content.

Is this strategy sustainable? Would a brand constantly go after new comers on social media to influence brand awareness and deliver campaigns? What happens to word-of-mouth and the seemingly large influence of influencers and celebrities on social media?

Remember, influencers exist to swing popular opinion largely from new comers.

##
First published on iPunch