As a brand, now is more important than ever to responsibly use your power to drive positive social impact on the world. If millennials and Gen Z are among your target audience, this is especially profound, as research has shown that they find activism pretty attractive. 70 percent of millennials, a group with $2.45 trillion in spending power, will spend more on brands that support causes. Several brands have understood this and have used their platforms to advocate for various social issues such as body positivity, mental health awareness, climate change, and multiple forms of social inequality.

Working with the right influencers can deeply tie into these initiatives. Some social media influencers have decided to use their power for more than just spreading awareness of brands and products. They’re helping to empower their communities by mobilizing social impact, affecting the images and reputations of the brands they work with.

Much of these influencers’ empowering, activist efforts involve promoting much-needed values such as diversity, equality, inclusion, self-love, and general positivity. This often happens in the form of partnering with sustainable, socially-conscious brands and discussing the brand’s mission and vision. Some take their activism further by partnering with charities, some create their own content such as videos, and sometimes even creating their own brands. This can make them more ideal ambassadors for brands with similar social missions.

For example, the beauty industry has seen several influencers advocating for better inclusion and less discrimination on perceived “flaws”. Beauty itself is connected to several complex, deep-rooted, and worldwide social issues, such as colorism and size discrimination. Beauty influencers are strongly impacted by these inequalities and have plenty of firsthand experience to discuss these issues.

A notable example is popular beauty YouTuber Jackie Aina making videos addressing skin color discrimination. Her video We Need To Talk About Skin Bleaching is one of her most viewed videos (1.5M) and draws awareness to the serious issue of skin color discrimination all over the world, calling out celebrities who endorse skin bleach. Throughout a makeup routine, she discusses the need for media representation for dark-skinned individuals and the negative social impact of having dark skin, advocating to end the hate. The comment section, a section of the web known for being especially bitter, is filled with supportive comments from fans discussing the impact of skin color discrimination on their own lives. Jackie’s activism contributed to her being awarded Influencer of the Year by WWD in 2018.

South Asian-American beauty influencers Deepica Mutyala and Nabela Noor have also used their platforms to further diversity and inclusion. Deepica launched the beauty community Live Tinted made with representing all underrepresented skin tones and celebrating the heritage behind them. Nabela’s lifestyle brand Zeba promotes self-love and body positivity for all sizes and skin colors, selling a size-inclusive range of clothing. In 2018, fashion influencer Katie Sturino spread the hashtag #makemysize to promote size inclusivity in mainstream fashion brands, inspiring her followers to contact their favorite brands. These efforts can help counter the negative effects that Instagram can have on an individual’s mental health.

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Seeing a diverse array of influencers showing pride and confidence in the same qualities you were marginalized for while advocating for respect and equality for those characteristics, isn’t such a bad feeling, right? Whether it’s body size, skin tone, acne, or cultural heritage, seeing an influencer positively representing it can make you feel more pride.

Influencers can reap their influence to bring out monetary donations from their fans. Some have partnered with charities, raising millions of dollars for important causes. If you’re a charity, you can increase your donations by partnering with an influencer. For example, Tyler Oakley has raised over $500k for LGBT crisis prevention organization The Trevor Project and has created content with AT&T to spread awareness of its 24/7 services, TrevorText and TrevorChat. Lilly Singh partnered with Me to We to support the education of young girls in Kenya, India, and Ecuador. Connor Franta raised $190k for The Thirst Group to provide drinking water all over the world. He accomplished this via YouTube and setting up incentives, such as having a chance to be flown out to LA to meet him in person.

Taking this even further, influencers and brands can team up to host their own events. The Body Shop has worked with the organization Cruelty Free International to protest animal testing in the beauty industry. In January 2018, the company organized a protest made up of dogs. The dogs took to the streets with their miniature signs and banners while the event was covered by pet photographer influencer @TheDogist and pet influencer @louboutinanyc. FYI, your influencers don’t even need to be human beings.

On the influencer side, partnering with the right brands is important to their personal branding. An influencer and/or celebrity can take a dent in their image by partnering with a brand that endorses values perceived as regressive by many. For example, influencers who have partnered with skin bleaching or detox tea brands have been the target for plenty of criticism. Because of this, some influencers will assess a brand’s values and past marketing strategies before partnering with them, such as beauty influencer Arshia Moorjani, who attended an activation with beauty giant Shiseido to promote their expansion of their foundation shades.

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Influencers give us more than just attractive, enviable social media accounts to look at. They’re helping to shape the future of brands and runways. The diversity in New York Fashion Week’s runways have been significantly increasing in terms of race, age, and body type, and it’s unlikely to stop in 2020. Influencer marketing agencies can actually become pretty criticized nowadays if their campaigns aren’t diverse enough, especially if they sport an unusually homogenous group of thin, blonde white women. Fortunately, several brands have become aware of this and are becoming mindful of commonly discriminated factors such as age, skin color, and sexual orientation in regards to the influencers they choose.

All these tenacious efforts on part of influencers and brands to further diversity, inclusion, and equality are not meant as attempts to take down members of typically privileged groups. They aren’t a form of negative discrimination against light-skinned or thin individuals. They’re meant to bring marginalized groups to the same status and regard as those traditionally at the top, groups that haven’t seen enough positive media representation of their characteristics. From a business and financial perspective, these initiatives are necessary to keep up with changing demographics and purchasing power.

Remember, your partnership with an influencer or celebrity impacts your reputation, either for the better or worse. If you’re looking to make a social impact but aren’t sure how, partnering with a nonprofit or an influencer who advocates for a cause you care about would be a great start.

At Irose Social, we aim to drive positive social impact by connecting influencers, brands, and activations with local and global nonprofits. Stay tuned for our upcoming charitable initiatives.

Best,

Irose Team

As technology advances, traditional advertising is finding more obstacles before it can reach its intended audience. For example, you’ve probably used ad blockers before on the computer. You probably think a pro of streaming services like Netflix and Hulu are the lack of commercials. Even the “skip intro” button on Netflix was praised!

Fortunately, the rise of social media influencers is also paving a path for a non-intrusive form of marketing: using the influencers as ambassadors.

Research shows that our youngest counterparts, Generation Z, prefer endorsements from their favorite influencers over traditional advertising. It’s not just them either: many people are more inclined to buy a product after they discovered it through a social media influencer. 40% of people have purchased a product after seeing it used by an influencer. Think of it this way: if an individual you admire is wearing something from a particular brand, it makes the brand look more appealing by association.

Trust is another reason why influencer marketing is so important. Influencers have already built relationships with their followers, making them a trusted source of information. If you were finally able to lose that last 30 pounds with your favorite influencer’s diet plan, chances are you’ll believe them when they tell you how effective and awesome a certain protein bar brand is. Think of them as thought leaders in particular niches passing along messages that they’ve deemed worthy. Influencers can also be viewed as peers, which also increase trust. In fact, a study by Edelman found that 77% of consumers state that peer reviews are either deal-breakers or deciding factors in their purchasing decisions. 72% of customers trust a business more when it’s recommended by an influencer.

Case Studies

Some successful brands have attained their status through both micro and macro influencer marketing, such as Daniel Wellington. In four years, the $15000 company became a $220 million company and was Europe’s fastest-growing company between 2013 to 2015. Much of this success was due to how much it took advantage of influencer marketing in a time when it wasn’t as common and competitive as it is today. Influencers were offered free watches in exchange for posting about them, and their ROI was tracked through discount codes unique to each influencer. This marketing also gave the brand plenty of user-generated content to post on its social media, giving it a more authentic feel. Financially, it ended up spending a lot less than if it had used traditional advertising.

Another great example of success through influencer marketing is the clothing brand Revolve. Starting off with $50k and now worth $1.5 billion, Revolve launched into fame by being featured on the pages of fashion’s most followed influencers, such as Chriselle Lim, Chiara Ferragni, and Aimee Song. In fact, 70% of Revolve’s sales can be traced back to an influencer. They build relationships with these influencers not just through strategizing social media posts but also experiential trips, such as inviting popular bloggers and celebrities to a weekend in the Hamptons.

Revolve realized that most of their target demographic, millennials, spent much of their free time on mobile and were located all over the world. Influencers became the vehicle to reach a global audience. According to their Chief Brand Officer Raissa Gerona, “Working with influencers has been key to our business and using them and their power to influence people all over the world... we can see that because 45% of the people that follow us don't even live in the U.S. We've created this global fan base, and it's been through influencer marketing.”

Screen Shot 2019-12-23 at 6.24.59 PM.png — Aimee Song x Revolve

Traditional Advertising VS. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing has a higher ROI than other forms of marketing. Having an elegant ad in the glossy pages of Vogue may make you feel prestigious, but it comes at a $200k+ price tag. Time and Inc will charge at least $100k. And advertising on a billboard in Times Square costs a whopping $1-4M.

Instead, you could take that same amount to several influencers who can showcase your product among their aesthetic, carefully-curated Instagram feeds. And depending on the influencer chosen, a campaign can cost about $7k-$10k for an influencer with 1M followers. This is a fraction of the price of advertising in a magazine or billboard while still ensuring high traffic. Working with influencers can allow you to target a specific audience and reach your desired demographic directly.

Screen Shot 2019-12-23 at 6.27.32 PM.png — Madison Grace Reed x Bebe

What to watch out for

Unlike Google Ads, influencers, and celebrities are human beings. Because of this, there are different dangers to watch out for than with other forms of digital advertising. Human beings make mistakes, ranging from accidentally copying and pasting the wrong text in their promotional posts like Scott Disick to deliberately saying bigoted things. For example, in 2018, several brands cut ties with beauty influencer Laura Lee after discovering severely racist tweets against blacks and Asians in her past. So before you decide to partner with an influencer, do a bit of a background check.

An influencer’s reputation, whether positive or negative, will affect yours. This was especially notable in Nike’s partnership with Colin Kaepernick. It seems like partnering with someone who bravely stood against racial injustice helped it increase its sales by 31% in the days after he was featured in an ad.

There’s also the risk of inadvertently treating influencers like commodities, reducing them down to their physical features and numbers. Even if their following count is important, you can’t forget the human behind them. Remember, you’re trying to build a genuine relationship, not just throwing products at something.

Victoria Justice and Madison Reed x Daniel Wellington

The rise of influencer marketing doesn’t mean that other forms of digital marketing should be ignored. Experiential activations, content strategy, and social media marketing such as Facebook and Instagram ads are all important avenues to hit to stay modern.

How much do all these forms of marketing cost? What combination of influencer and traditional marketing is financially best for you? Stay tuned for our next blog post, where we’ll be breaking down the prices of both!