Influencer Marketing Ozan Aydemir Platin Magazine Interview!
Influencer Marketing Ozan Aydemir Platin Magazine Interview! We would like to share with interview our founder Ozan Aydemir conducted with Platin magazine. In this interview, you can find answers to all your questions such as what is Influencer Marketing, what is influencer marketing in Turkey, who is called influencer fashion influencer, game influencer, how budgets should be spent, is only influencer marketing enough. Happy reading.
INFLUENCER MARKETING
How do you explain the concept of influencer marketing? Sometimes a tweet, a video or a post can bring milions to life. What dimension did this concept add to marketing process with the inevitable rise of digital?
What is Influencer Marketing, our key question! If you need to get into the subject quickly, “Influencer Marketing”; It is all of the promotional and marketing activities carried out by the person or persons, groups, who have the power to influence and direct a certain community, through their social media and digital channels, by sharing their experiences about any product or service with their followers.
The popularity of Influencer Marketing has also increased, as the use of social media channels is increasing day by day all over the world and the returns from these channels are more effective with an increasing graphic compared to traditional media channels.
This is the main reason why this concept is so popular. Now everyone has the potential to become an opinion leader by taking the power of digital and social media behind them. This has increased the options for brands in an incredible way. Today, regardless of the sector, brands make their annual marketing plans, whether they use it or not, they include the influencer marketing method in the plan and allocate a certain budget. Almost a third of marketers now say that influencers are indispensable to their marketing strategy. Influencer Marketing has become an integral part of social marketing today. Fast, Effective, Natural, Organic and Measurable! What more could a marketer want?
What kind of different features should social media phenomena that receive support for influencer marketing have? And if brands build a communication strategy and cooperation with these phenomena, how do thet stay one step ahead of their competitors?
One of the good key questions.
- First and foremost; they have to be natural. They needs to appear in front of his followers with his real personality. This is the main factor that binds followers to them. Natural, original and successful. An attainable goal within the follower themself!
- They have to be original. Different and original content is a must for followers. They need to create content that is unique to themselves, but more importantly, that their followers are interested in, not an existing content with copy-paste.
- Being frank will make them much more loved and appreciated. If they have an opinion, whatever the subject is, they should openly say it, they should show their stance. It will also increase this interaction. Cultivated discussion is always good.
- They should always do research on the topics they present to their followers. They should improve themselves. This is how they will publish new news and content.
- They should always stay in contact with the environment. Instead of living in a closed book, they should not neglect to attend events and meet different influencers.
- They should follow digital trends and understand digital marketing. They need to choose the keywords well according to their content so that they can be found.
- They should always be in contact with the influencer. What I mean by this is that using each other’s social media channels to support each other would be good for all of them to spread and be recognized.
Coming to the second part of the question
Brands should never forget the topics I will say;
- If you restrict influencers, they cannot share original content. This is not a marketing channel where they can say that they have given the money and can do whatever I want. It is very important that you allow influencers to be authentic when promoting your brand or service. The reason for this is that he knows well what his followers will react positively and negatively. If you can allow this, it will be much more productive and emotionally beneficial for your brand.
- Does the influencer match your brand and message?
- The number of followers doesn’t matter. Don’t judge just by the number of followers. Look at the interaction, look at the skin tone.
- Be open and discuss budgets up front. Influencers don’t work with futures, they budget per post or per overall project. Play your cards face down from the beginning so you don’t have a headache later on.
- Measure! Make sure to analyze and evaluate the work done. The fact that the shares receive a lot of interaction in the study does not mean that it is a successful business. Did your sales peak at that time? Has your traffic increased positively? Measure according to what your goal is.
- Do not forget the concepts of Micro and Macro. This is marketing, the better your deployment plan, the more successful you will be. Make sure to deal with micro influencers as well as macro influencers. Small defensive and offensive units are also important alongside your mother ship! Didn’t we see that in the movies?
- This channel is not the only one! Never forget this. Marketing doesn’t just rely on influencers. But it is a very important part of the job; Your PR, social media management, conventional channels (TV, Outdoor, Radio etc..), digital advertisements, SEO etc… Never forget that marketing and success is born from a whole thought!
Which concept is most confused with influencer marketing and with which strategies does it actually differ?
The most confused topic is social media management and digital advertisements. In fact, I said above; The influencer marketing channel is an area where you leave influencers unique and comfortable. You cannot say that this visual will change, this will change, this will be the spoken language, like digital media or your own brand’s social media. As soon as you set such strict rules, the failure rate will be close to 100%. Let me even say, if you have very, very strict company rules, it is better for you not to get involved in this sense.
Influencer marketing is essentially an experience delivery process. Influencers have to present their product-related experiences in their own unique language in their own unique environment. Otherwise, they cannot establish an emotional bond with their followers. You can’t go to an influencer today and make them say “OZAN Gazozları, the leader of soda since 1978”. That project would be a lie 🙂
How long has this concept been actively used in the world? What is the position of influencer marketing in the marketing budgets of global brands?
I cannot tell the exact date of this. In fact, this concept has existed since the very beginning of advertising, every advertising format in which singers, movie actors, theater actors, that is, opinion leaders of stars who are on every channel, is a part of influencer marketing. It is still used at very high costs.
But today’s influencer marketing concept is now mostly composed of people who appeal to more audiences than they are, even if they are not singers or actors who have become phenomenal like you and me on social media on independent platforms. The biggest reason why such opinion leaders are loved is; their followers can see them as themselves, they are easily accessible, and they believe that they can be themselves, which they really can be. Today, I can’t be a singer or an artist, I don’t have such talent, but I have a much better chance of being a digital influencer.
As for the budgets; it depends on the size of the brand. Global brands generally use the 70 – 20 – 10 logic. In other words, 70% of the budget is spent on optimized channels that are used all the time. They spend 20% on innovation to improve this 70%. The remaining 10% are reserved for experiments only. In the past, influencer marketing budget was a part of this 10%, now it is within 70%. I guess that explains everything about the budget.
What kind of a different perspective does influencer marketing offer to brands and individuals?
Actually, I gave the answer to this question; The biggest difference of influencer marketing is that Opinion Leaders share their experiences with millions with their unique expressions. You cannot do this on other channels. Ads are subject to too many rules. But here it is different. If we look at individuals, it is an excellent professional business life and a source of income for those who use digital well and become an influencer!
What are the prominent new trends and applications in this field?
Influencer Marketing Budgets
Brands are already spending on Influencer Marketing. As I mentioned above, this channel is no longer an experimental marketing area and has taken its place among generic channels. In other words, the allocated budgets are increasing and will increase.
Influencer Marketing Campaigns Will Be Implemented in Different Models
Brands now believe in influencer marketing and use it constantly. Performance-based Influencer Marketing systems will develop; such as per-click (CPC) and per-access (CPE) models.
Brands Will Use a Basis of Trust and Emotional Benefit
The most important reason why Influencer Marketing is an effective strategy; It is the fact that influencers offer original content about the brand / service. The originality of the content is the biggest factor in the popularity of the influencer. In 2017 and beyond, brands are planning to conduct trust-based studies. Brands allow influencers to use their own creativity to create original content. Thus, brands are also planning to seize different opportunities in terms of content.
Multiple Influencer Marketing Campaigns
By multiple, I mean Macro + Micro campaigns will increase instead of producing projects with a single ifluencer. Simultaneous work will be done with multiple influencers.
Story Fiction
Influencers are experts in storytelling. In order to increase the number of followers and attract attention, they must always be remarkable and original. Brands plan to conduct studies to determine which content reaches the most consumers. The ability to identify the best performing content will motivate brands to reach different target audiences over time.
How are the results of influencer marketing studies analyzed?
According to the content of the campaign, marketers measure Influencer Marketing efforts with two different methods; Earned Media and Paid Media
Earned Media Value is generally used to measure brand-related content by sharing it virally by third parties and measuring the resulting reach and interaction. For example, users sharing a brand-related content they like on their own social networks or inviting their friends to an online site is called earned media.
Paid Media is the media value that the brand gains by using traditional methods such as banners, sponsorships and Google Adwords. (For example; viewing, registering, downloading, purchasing, etc.) A measurement can be made by comparing the budget allocated with both methods with the targets at the end of the campaign.
Apart from all these, the value of an Influencer Marketing campaign is evaluated on three different criteria; Social Access, Original Content and Consumer Confidence. The first criterion of a successful campaign should be high social reach, on the other hand, in today’s fast-moving consumer world, this is often possible with truly original and creative content. In addition, there should be a good relationship of trust between Influencers and their followers, which is one of the most important factors in directing the consumer to the promoted product. (Source: Wikipedia)
Other main rules are as follows;
1.Determining the Right Influencer Profile:
Each Influencer is a media channel in its own right, therefore, it is necessary to decide on who will promote the brand product or service. If you have a product line in the cosmetics field, makeup Youtubers and Instagram celebrities will probably be your primary target. At the same time, the questions of what is the goal of the campaign, high reach or high interaction should be answered.
If it is desired to create high reach and awareness, Influencers with high follower numbers and even different target audience groups can be selected. For instance; For the promotion of computer products, entertainment/entertainment categories can be targeted apart from channels with technology content
If high engagement is the goal, multiple Micro-Influencers with fewer followers can be worked with at the same time.
2. Researching Influencers
Identifying Influencers associated with the identified profile is a time-consuming task. Channels appearing in category-based search results on Youtube can be examined one by one. On Twitter, on the other hand, related accounts can be searched under the hash and trend topic. The important thing here is to choose the ones suitable for the target profile as a priority and then to examine the contents they produce as much as possible.
3. Accessing and Communication with the Influencer
One of the most difficult and troublesome parts of the campaign is to access the determined Influencer profiles. Although contact information is shared in some accounts, many content producers may not return within the timeframe that brands expect. Therefore, for a successful campaign method, it is beneficial to work with an agency specialized in Influencer Marketing from the very beginning.
Influencers know what their target audience likes or is against. Therefore, they may reject brands that do not match with their followers or inappropriate campaign setups, they are aware of the risk of being negatively criticized and abandoned by their followers.
4. Preparation of Landing Page and Referral Links for the Campaign
After meeting with Influencers with target profiles and agreeing on the relevant campaign, a Landing Page related to the campaign can be prepared to measure the traffic generated. In this way, it will be easier to direct and measure the resulting virality.
5. Post-Campaign Analysis
The success of an Influencer Marketing campaign can only be observed with accurate measurement and analysis. Measurements can be made on 3 different criteria; access, engagement and ROI.
Reach: The total number of people reached by the campaign content. What matters in the online world is not how many times the ad is shown, but how many individual users it directly reaches.
Engagement: It is calculated on the data of watching, liking, commenting and sharing of the produced content. In order for a content to receive high interaction, it is necessary to share the content by users and create a conversation about the content, rather than having high watch and like statistics.
ROI: Each TL spent for the campaign should have a return on the product and service side. The income generated by each user earned after the campaign is calculated on the basis of ROI. According to researches, the content produced by Influencers is 11 times higher than traditional digital marketing campaigns (Inc).
Can we get your comments on the concept of Influencer 2.0?
I usually don’t pay much attention to such concepts. All my advertising life, I’ve tried to stay away from eccentric concepts.In my opinion, these concepts are only useful for a marketer to show off at meetings and say to the other person that you don’t know, I know.Don’t get me wrong, although I know the contents very well, I just take care not to use them. I think we are talking about Influencer 2.0 The Future of Influencer Marketing report and concept here.
Although I have not had the opportunity to fully examine it yet, what I understand is; The starting point of the Influence 2.0 concept is; on getting marketers involved in the influencer marketing journey from start to finish by diving deep from A to Z. Understanding influencers better, speaking in their language, understanding the customer better, measuring and analyzing the reactions of the influencer’s followers in the face of the influencer’s brand experience. This is already a system that we are constantly implementing. Otherwise, use a standard channel with the report it would be like late.
How long has influencer marketing been actively used in Turkey? Is it understood correctly? What issues are there problems with?
It has been actively used especially for the last 3-4 years. It is now almost indispensable and sometimes a savior for brands that use this marketing channel, shyly at first, especially when it comes to brand love and interaction.
Theoretically, everyone (big brands) actually knows what influencer marketing is and how it should be used. Especially when working with big brands, we do not have any difficulties because they know that they will be successful when the concepts of original content and experience marketing free the other side. But when we work with more medium-sized companies, the first problem can sometimes be experienced in the budget. We can not say that it is a very cheap way, but the money spent is worth it. However, they have reservations as it will be a very new channel experience for them. In the boss companies, the situation is a little more difficult. If the other party insists on not understanding the ecosystem, we usually prefer not to work for the sake of everyone.
What is the demand of influencer marketing in Turkey?
Demand is increasing day by day, large, medium or small scaled brands either work for influencer marketing or apply to us and influencer marketing agencies that do this professionally like us. The only problem is; Since the results (visually) look very natural, those who are just understanding the details of the business are hesitant about the budget. There is a concern that we are paying for this work. In such cases, we tell first, and then we recommend starting with micro-influencers with lower-scale and budgetary works.
Can you give an example of the brands that have successfully implemented Influencer Marketing in Turkey and that we can give as a study case? With which social media phenomena did these brands sign different projects?
At the beginning of last year, Nescafe launched its 3-in-1 Extra product. Their aim was to target night sleepers, youth and young players. From the moment he released the product, his strategy was very clear and good. The Nescafe brand had considered the strategy as a whole and made the influencer part a part of marketing.
They aired the TV commercial first. Even in the TV commercial, they communicated with the language of the actors. Then they fed it with conventional and digital channels. They sponsored game tournaments. And just in time, T.I.P Effect started influencer marketing work with them. I especially wanted to tell you from the very beginning because if you pay attention, you should always look at the event as a whole and not set off with unrealistic expectations.
| Facebook/ Zeonn | ||
| Release Date | Reach | Like/Comment/Share |
| 29.02.2016 | 37.052 | 1.863 |
| 17.03.2016 | 104.881 | 1.982 |
| 24.03.2016 | 35.388 | 1.003 |
| 12.04.2016 | 146.966 | 1.012 |
| 28.04.2016 | 474.055 | 4.244 |
| 19.05.2016 | 91.443 | 727 |
| 31.05.2016 | 27.316 | 375 |
| 16.06.2016 | 135.011 | 318 |
| 28.06.2016 | 32.363 | 457 |
| 14.07.2016 | 184.157 | 1.380 |
| 28.07.2016 | 97.151 | 856 |
| 11.08.2016 | 232.463 | 1.036 |
| Twitter/Zeonn | ||||
| Release Date | Impressions | Reach | Like | RT |
| 29.02.2016 | 20.799 | 5.423 | 1.020 | 968 |
| 17.03.2016 | 21.624 | 4.764 | 1.050 | 818 |
| 24.03.2016 | 17.067 | 4.360 | 1.064 | 827 |
| 12.04.2016 | 21.650 | 4.426 | 865 | 817 |
| 28.04.2016 | 16.333 | 2.487 | 650 | 482 |
| 19.05.2016 | 17.332 | 2.136 | 451 | 386 |
| 31.05.2016 | 14.643 | 1.680 | 464 | 367 |
| 16.06.2016 | 13.949 | 1.077 | 179 | 106 |
| 28.06.2016 | 25.182 | 2.734 | 676 | 644 |
| 14.07.2016 | 35.174 | 5.500 | 1.393 | 994 |
| 28.07.2016 | 30.801 | 5.230 | 1.240 | 949 |
| 11.08.2016 | 31.287 | 5.969 | 1.523 | 1.133 |
| Twitch/Zeonn | ||
| Release Date | Unique Visitor | Instand Max Viewer |
| 29.02.2016 | 18.300 | 7.551 |
| 17.03.2016 | 15.980 | 7.478 |
| 24.03.2016 | 14.600 | 5.600 |
| 12.04.2016 | 16.360 | 6.560 |
| 28.04.2016 | 15.540 | 6.200 |
| 19.05.2016 | 18.700 | 6.786 |
| 31.05.2016 | 19.520 | 5.738 |
| 16.06.2015 | 24.540 | 10.240 |
| 28.06.2016 | 20.020 | 7.752 |
| 14.07.2016 | 16.300 | 7.434 |
| 28.07.2016 | 23.420 | 8.501 |
| 11.08.2016 | 24.520 | 8.440 |
Who are the social media phenomena that you find successful in influencer marketing in Turkey?
İdil Tatari, Merve Özkaynak, Ayşe Tolga, SebiBebi, Hülya Aslan, Orkun Işıtmak, PintiPanda, Zeonnn, Kerimcan Durmaz and more… These are not the names that I personally follow, but a few of the names that I find successful in their work…
Who are the social media phenomena that you find successful in the world?
Joy Cho, James Corden, Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg (PewDiePie), ZachKing come to mind first.
How many yeras have you been producing projecets on Influencer Marketing as an agency? Can you give examples of your most succesful projects? How did you work with which brand and with which phenomenon? What results did you get?
We have been producing projects nonstop for the last 2 years. Here, we pay attention to a few issues while producing a project.
tipeffect.com aka T.I.P Effect Influencer Marketing Agency is part of our group of companies; Other parts of Purple Pan Advertising Agency www.purplepan.com and Gaming in Turkey Gaming Agency www.gaminginturkey.com. This inseparable trio is actually like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
When we are going to produce a project for a brand; first we need to know the brand and its target audience well, and as soon as possible, we first experience the brand and the product ourselves. In this way, we can list the most suitable influencer for the brand much more easily. If the brand needs it, all of our companies (pieces of the puzzle) make a plan from A to Z and work for the influencer marketing channel to give the most effective recycling. (Social Media Usage, conventional channels, digital marketing channels, such as SEO + influencer marketing)
Some of the work we have done;
Nescafe – Zeonnn
AHAVA – Ayşe Tolga, Sebi Bebi
MODGREY – Hülya Aslan
Migros – Bloodrapper
I shared our Nescafe example with numbers in the previous section. AHAVA is a dermacosmetics brand. The biggest disadvantage was that it was not on the field yet, only for sale on the internet. In other words, users only buy a product they have experienced or heard from someone they trust, especially since the target audience is women. We prepared for AHAVA with the question of how we can make up for not being on the field. Social Media, After preparing the digital marketing setups, it was time to choose our influencers. The problem here was that it was necessary to work with a lot of influencers in order to spread well, but this meant too much budget. Together with AHAVA, we have created a really valuable beauty chest. We put the most beautiful and high quality products of AHAVA in it and sent it as a gift to influencers. What we really, really want here is to capture a real and emotional bond between the influencer and the brand, beyond money. And we achieved that too. Valuable names such as Sebi Bebi and Ayşe Tolga, who like and are already using our products, have experienced and introduced our brand.
What kind of work will you undertake as an agency in 2017 and beyond?
Our primary goal will be to expand our influencer pool. We will try to offer different options to our customers in many networks, especially Youtube, Twitch TV Instagram and Facebook. What I mean by this is that we aim to create a wider spread package for our customers by keeping both micro and macro influencers together.
Our second plan will be to create our own influencers and channels. We are already a very young team and we will develop our team as influencers at the same time as it is a team that is cooked in the kitchen of the business. Of course, this is a long-term plan.
We have projects for the game industry that we are currently working on, the cosmetics industry, the textile industry and the industry we call lifestyle, which we are waiting for their time to be published.
As an agency, we do not prefer to go from brand to brand very tightly. Instead, we are advancing on the principle that the work we do should be less, but it should be good. This already brings us the next job automatically.