Earlier this summer in Cannes, Unilever’s CMO Keith Weed announced their push for greater transparency in the influencer marketing space. This marked the highest-profile answer to recent media attention around influencers who have paid for vast hordes of their followers. Fraud is the strong, but arguably suitable, term used for this situation. Influencers paying for huge numbers of fake followers makes it near impossible for businesses to measure real impact and create better experiences for consumers in the digital ecosystem. No matter the media storm, those within the influencer marketi ..read more

One of the greatest challenges we face in influencer marketing is wading our way through the pools of bullsh*t fake influencers. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame this on the influencer (well not 100% anyway). As brands and marketers, we have pretty much screwed ourselves by putting a major emphasis on reach. The bigger an influencers reach, the more they can leverage that reach in order to benefit financially or otherwise. So why wouldn’t they try everything they can to grow that reach with dubious methods, purchasing followers or otherwise? On the other hand, this is effectively daylight ..read more

Takumi Profile Takumi is an industry leading Influencer Marketing platform that makes it effortless for brands to work at scale on Instagram campaigns. Historically, working with a large number of Influencers has proven resource intensive and time-consuming. With Takumi providing pre-vetted and premium Influencers, brands can create authentic content that perfectly resonates with the Influencers audience. Since launching in 2015 Takumi has become the most active dedicated Instagram Influencer platform. The platform has already created 20,000+ pieces of content, completed 1750+ campaigns and ..read more

Whether it’s housing, currency or bath soap products…there is always a delicate bubble and it is always imminently going to burst. Many people run around, chanting of doom and considering whether it is worth living through the impending Armageddon or whether they should run away to a forest to live off a diet of woodlice and moss (I’ve heard this is going to be the next weight loss fad). The same can be said for the ‘influencer marketing bubble’. Log into LinkedIn and follow a handful of influencer marketing professionals, thought leaders or writers and you will quickly realise the theme of ‘f ..read more

Yes. –End of article–   Ok, ok. It isn’t actually that simple to answer. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will know that I love quoting the insane prices that some celebrity-influencer ‘collaborations’ have cost brands such as Kim Kardashian receiving a reported $250k for a single post on Instagram. With numbers like that, even I have considered getting into the belfie game… …but I digress. The purpose of this article is to highlight whether start-ups can work within a tight budget. The answer to this is of course, yes. Many businesses have and continue to work with key inf ..read more

Look, don’t get me wrong. I LOVE the iPhone. There is every possibility that I will end up getting the iPhone X, but with my contract having just come to an end and a vast price tag of £999 (entry level), it has had me wondering what else I could do with the money if I just kept my old phone. So, just for fun, I did a little research into other things I could do: 1. Buy 10 Pairs of Nike Dunks Probably my all-time go-to favorite trainer. I’d get two pairs of each colour and just walk around mix-matching them as a sort of statement that I am a sneaker fiend – who chose the sneaker lif ..read more

*This article was originally written by me and published on the Assembly blog.*   If you happen to be active in the influencer marketing community on social media platforms such as LinkedIn, you are likely to have been witness to at least a dozen discussions and debates around one key topic: “Should marketers pay influencers?” This is a fascinating topic – one that is both complex and controversial in the influencer marketing space. It is clear that many professionals in this area believe that the gold standard of influencer marketing is simply to not have a transactional relationship at ..read more

With all the buzz around influencer marketing, there seems to be one question that rarely gets the attention that it needs: “What are the real benefits of influencer marketing?” Don’t get me wrong, there seems to be plenty of content available on this subject. But this seems to be answered in one predictably flawed way: “REACH” Frankly, if your sole goal is reach I wouldn’t bother with influencer marketing and instead look at methods such as PPC or social advertising. Why? Because true influencer marketing gives pretty inconsistent results in reach/impressions. Often you will get much lower re ..read more

As you may know by now, I am a massive marketing nerd, with a particular passion for Instagram. I believe it is one of, if not THE, best platforms at the moment to create engagement with a target audience (obviously this does depend on the situation). So, it may not surprise you that every time the platform releases a new update that is going to change the way we market, my excitement usually gets up to levels that are just a little bit weird in all honesty. You can imagine the smile on my face this morning when I opened the app to find a new ‘poll’ feature available in Instagram stories ..read more

Instagram recently announced updates that will allow influencers to physically tag those they are partnering with in posts and stories. Not only is this fantastic news for the transparency of influencer marketing, but it is a gentle nod from Instagram to all those that are involved in influencer marketing, as something that Instagram have generally ignored in terms of functionality. No doubt this move is partially due to pressure from regulatory bodies and industry as the issue of transparency has been hotly debated in the past year. The most important aspect of this update, in my opinion, is ..read more