jman's Twitter Musings: Nov 24, 2019

Instagram tipping it's influencer hand

Taylor Lorenz @TaylorLorenz

As I’ve said a zillion times and I said again on CNN last night, and will continue to say, hiding likes is not “killing” insta influencers. They (along with others) will still have access to the rich back end data brands need

buzzfeednews.comInfluencers Say They’re Not Worried About Instagram Likes Being Hidden — In Fact, They Support ItCaroline Calloway, Elsie Larson, Emily Schuman, and more of the biggest influencers in the game weigh in on Instagram’s big change.

For anyone who is still skeptical about whether or not “Influencer Marketing” works, it’s time to put that argument to bed. Brands always have, and always will, use people to help influence other people to buy things. Just like Michael Jordan helped Gatorade acquire people to drink their sports drinks, David Dobrik helps Seatgeek acquire people to download their sports ticketing app. 

If we reference Taylor Lorenz tweet, the only influencers that are going to be “killed” with their likes being hidden, are the ones who didn’t have any influence in the first place. As the saying goes, “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked.” Well guess what, Instagram is taking the tide down! I’m sure the legit influencers are happy to expose the frauds so more of those brand dollar$ flow to them.

Savvy marketers know that measuring the impact on their business doesn’t necessarily correlate with the number of likes on a given post. I’ve come across countless articles where influencers with gigantic followings can’t even get to double digit sales. There are effective ways to measure the impact of marketing efforts, and I assure you the major players in the influencer marketing game are paying close attention to sales, not likes.

So what comes next for Insta? If they are following the YouTube playbook, I would expect Instagram to focus on growing it’s in-house agency that specializes in Instagram influencer marketing. Instagram by Facebook has a data moat and they can undoubtedly use this info to play matchmaker between brands and influencers. That way they can take a skim off the top of these deals that, in aggregate, are worth north of a billion dollars. 

Until next week my tweeps!