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Influencer Engagement Strategies – Frameworks for Brand Managers
Conference Paper · January 2013
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Arpan Kumar Kar
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Kar, A.K. and Chakraborty A. (2017). Influencer Engagement Strategies – Frameworks for Brand Managers. Business Frontiers, Vol. 9. PP. 1-3.
Influencer Engagement Strategies – Frameworks for
Brand Managers
Kar, A.K..
Business Fundas, http://business-fundas.com
Convent Road, Kolkata, India
editor.blogging@gmail.com
Chakraborty, A
Tech Talk, http://tech-talk.org
Khidderpore, Kolkata, India
editor.webposts@gmail.com
Abstract— Influencers have grown from a non-traditional
method of brand promotion to one of the more effective
strategies in all of marketing. Brands must build a connection
with their audience in order to be successful. This involves
gaining their attention, building trust, and making sure the entire
effort doesn’t sound too much like a pitch. Brand influencers
bring a sense of authority and credibility to these efforts. They
can incentivize viewers to check out content they may have
otherwise passed on, and even help brands expand their audience
in the long-term. Here are a few ways brands are activating
influencers in 2017.
around these influencers as an extension of strategies of native
advertising and subliminal advertising.
Keywords—Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing,
Marketing Communications, Web 3.0, Influencer Marketing.
I.
INTRODUCTION
Influencers have grown from a non-traditional method
of brand promotion in this digital era to one of the more
effective strategies in all of marketing. Brands must build a
connection with their audience in order to be successful. This
involves strategies for gaining their attention, building trust
with stakeholders, and making sure the entire effort doesn’t
sound too much like a marketing or sales pitch. A lot of subliminal advertising strategies are implemented through
influencer engagement. Brand influencers bring a sense of
authority and credibility to these efforts. They can incentivize
viewers to check out content they may have otherwise passed
on, and even help brands expand their audience in the longterm (Brown & Hayes, 2008).
There are many obstacles standing in the way of that
influencer engagement, the least of which (but no less
challenging) being continuity. Experienced marketing
managers and product developers will learn to plan around
these roadblocks. Here are a few ways brands are activating
influencers in 2017.
II.
AN OVERVIEW OF CHALLENGES
In this era of digitization, influencer marketing (also influence
marketing) is a form of marketing in which focus is placed on
influential people rather than the target market as a whole
(Kar, 2014a; Kar, 2014b). The strategy focuses on identifying
the individuals that have influence over potential buyers,
decision makers, consumers and orients marketing activities
Figure 1: Influencer Marketing Process Funnel
Brand Influencers Can Highlight Areas of Expertise
People like getting their information from those who
are in the know, and brand influencers bring the necessary
authority to boost a content’s reach. Brands want to be viewed
as trustworthy, and this means enlisting the help of people
who have plenty of experience in the areas they’re trying to
focus on (Erdoğmuş & Cicek, 2012). Expert insight can also
help a brand come across as more fact-focused and
informative than salesy or pitch-based. This means that the
communicated message needs to be in media as a form of
native advertising (Ferguson, 2008).
One of the best ways to use a brand is by appealing to
the individual directly. A common practice in content
marketing, brand marketing also benefits from a viewerfocused model. The easiest way to implement this is to allow
for interaction between creators and their audience.
Using Influencers to Encourage Interaction
One of the most difficult things for many brands is
getting a two-way conversation going. Interacting with
viewers and subscribers is conducive to long-term
engagement. People will stay around when they’re part of the
discussion (Kim & Ko, 2012).
Brand influencers can incentivize even the most reserved
individual to comment on and interact and share their opinions
on a piece of content or even the brand as a whole. Influencers
help brands acquire feedback this way, making it easier for
them to adapt and grow.
Sometimes a brand may grow as a direct result of the
feedback they receive. When there is a disconnect between a
brand and their audience, influencers can function as a great
way to bridge the gap through social interactions which can be
actively and objectively captured and measured through
emerging technologies like social CRMs (Kar, 2015).
Sometimes a familiar face with a good standing is enough to
put any brand on the right track.
Selection of influencers
Selection of influencers fall under the classic vendor
selection problem (Kar et al., 2011). Literature indicates that
the vendor selection problem is a multi-criteria decision
making problem which has both qualitative and quantitative
criteria for assessment (Pani & Kar, 2011; Kar, 2013a; Kar,
2013b). Similarly, identifying influencers is a tough job
amidst all the spam created in social media where individuals
strive to showcase popularity and hence demonstrate influence
for personal and commercial reasons. Digital marketing space
is hence filled with spam profiles which is difficult to
segregate and requires machine learning algorithms and
advanced analytics approaches (Chakraborty & Kar, 2016;
Chakraborty & Kar, 2017).
Focusing on Specific Issues and Areas
Being a niche brand can be extremely difficult, as
these lesser-known areas are usually harder to make an impact
in. Though there may be less competition, those who
specialize in these areas usually have high expectations.
For brands focusing on very specific issues and ideas
with their efforts, sometimes getting the right influencer can
truly put things in motion (Subramani & Rajagopalan, 2003).
A good example of this is Vanessa Selbst, a high-ranking
poker player who focuses her efforts on various equal rights
issues. Selbst is the top women’s poker player on the planet
with earnings of over $11.6 million. As a Texas Hold’em
standout, Selbst has been an advocate for women in sport for
many years. Her high profile has been an asset to influence
young women to start playing poker and other sports.
Brands are using influencers when narrowing their
efforts, allowing them to gain the proper credibility when
entering new territory. The functional blocks of social media
facilitate in the decision making process in this context
(Mangold & Faulds, 2009). When it comes to gaining a good
reputation quickly, being in good company is important.
Brand influencers can incentivize even the most
reserved individual to comment on and interact and share their
opinions on a piece of content or even the brand as a whole.
Influencers help brands acquire feedback this way, making it
easier for them to adapt and grow.
III.
CONCLUSION
The digitization of products and processes have
significant impact on the outcome of any industry operating in
Industry 4.0 in terms of massive improvements of
expectations from all stakeholders. With the emergence of
digital marketing using platforms of web 3.0, this is further
going to take the product commercialization to a new level
with the influx of sensor driven practices and big data
analytics showing the way (Chauhan et al., 2016).
Digital businesses like e-commerce portals would
have to take in the perspective of the user groups and multiple
stake-holders to remain competitive (Kalelkar et al., 2014).
We feel that the conceptual model of academic research would
benefit the practice if utilized significantly. It is imperative for
future research to address these concerns of current limitations
of business models by the digitization of both products and
processes.
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