Influencers and Brand Ambassadors: The Faces Behind Our Brands
When you think of an influencer, what’s the first thing to come to come to mind? Popular, beautiful, glamour, outspoken? What about a “Brand Ambassador”? Popular… I know, the difference between the two always gets so blurry if you’d look at how big brands roll it out, and if you’re an ordinary person or an aspiring social media celeb, you’d never be sure which to be part of, because honestly what’s the difference?
Influencer marketing or Brand Ambassadorship is part of marketing and ought to add value for any brand, which means each of our trusted businesses must execute this intricate part perfectly enough to have impact, increase market connection and leave a lasting impression. While for our respective influencers and ambassadors, nothing keeps organizations intrigued more than intention, authenticity and unadulterated growth and articulation. Yet for brands to communicate what they stand for using influencers or brand ambassadors, they ought to know just when and how to integrate any of these into their marketing strategies.
What’s The Difference?
Brand Ambassadors are groups of people or individuals whose values, lifestyle or content already aligns with what your brand stands for. They are usually long-term (6–12 months+) and already have an attachment towards the brand, oftentimes already creating content or redefining brand in some way. Put simply, they are experts in marketing your brand.
They repeatedly gladly promote your brand through word-of-mouth and consistent content online through a storyline. E.g. a cosmetics product ambassador regularly engaged users about the product from its advantages, emotions about it and the entire journey until its intended result is obvious.
Influencers on the other hand have quite a solid reputation, and social media following. Through content story-telling, they authentically show followers (and users) their product usage journey and influence us to use the product or service. Their expertise aren’t in a specific product or service but in a field or industry. They are great for short — term campaigns or events.
The past two decades have warranted brands to redefine how they execute their marketing and communication, the disconnect normally associated with all of it rather has a defect in market retention. More has to be done to connect, build impact and leave a lasting impression. This is so imperative to building cult-like long — term consumer behaviour for any of our brands, big or small.
What Does It Mean for Brands?
Though playing an integral part of the criteria, popularity should not just be at the forefront for brands’ next influencer or ambassador. They are the faces, or rather, the identities behind their businesses. This, at its core means their brand; what they stand for, their values, their online content and attracted traffic should be exactly what they’re looking for. Importantly so, social media engagement should be an added plus for them: do they engage their followers, how they engage them, and what impact does their brand voice have on their following? What value will the collaboration have on your brand (reach, engagement, sales or connection)? How will you measure this value and over what time period?
I have noticed the local market has tendencies of taking influencers and turning them into brand ambassadors, which is not an entirely bad strategy but, before doing so, the aforementioned questions have to be considered. Are services or products maybe not performing as well, then influencers would be perfect, as influencers. This is where social media listening can be executed and a connection improved to a rather disconnected brand altogether.
As for conduct? It is very important that brands stipulate forms of conduct online and offline so that our ambassadors and/or influencers do not (directly or indirectly) act or speak in such a way that it ruins the image of the business. Equally as so, value should be measured from both ends to make all concerned parties engage in a worthwhile project.
And For Our Influencers & Ambassadors
It does go without saying if you have any intentions of being an influencer or align yourself with any brand, content is king and conduct is queen! Basic skills on online marketing are not just for marketers and entrepreneurs, but for all those who wish to build an online image. Your social media (I don’t mean just your Bio) should show that you’re intentional, engaging and well knowledgeable (and articulate) in any field, product or service you see yourself part of. Build your craft and be patient with it, never sacrifice quality and stay focused.
The true impact of this, comes in the ability to communicate value over negotiating pricing. Also, decisions should never be made at the sacrifice of their values and overall “brand’. Ambassadors and influencers need to know how to measure engagement and strategize on content to grow and improve and following engagement. Social media users are suckers for content, so you must be a beast with documenting and curating.
Any Similarities?
· Both influencers and ambassadors are chosen for their authority or influence over their followers, regardless if its for a specific product, industry or field.
· Both are recruited for the same end goal in mind: create content for the product for their followers and ultimately retain or acquire consumers.
· Both should have the ability to increase trust over the brands’ consumers through authentic and consistent content.
Ultimately, we need to start building trust with our consumers and influencers are intricate part of this. What is missing is the intent from both ends of brands and influencers [and ambassadors]. There are a number of influencers to look for in the industry that have definitely found their niche and would be interesting to observe how brands collaborate with them.
Ms Kiva
Sk’afthin
Phil Vigilante
Lerato Mphaka
Tkay Nthebe
Likeleli Monyamane
Alongside all of this, is rather the growth of nano and micro influencers. This, accompanied by the changing social media trends, would dwell much on engagement, reach and authentic content which will prove a great challenge for our influencers and ambassadors. For Lesotho, the impact [on the market] of these collaborations is what I’d look forward to the most.
