Influencer expert Martin Faltl: "A fundamental strategy is often missing".

Advertising Week: Influencer marketing is on everyone's lips. But who is considered an influencer anyway?

Martin Faltl: You often hear the phrase, "Everyone is an influencer." But an account that is relevant enough for brands to be interested in it has a certain number of followers, depending on the thematic niche.

Many companies determine how much they'll pay for a post based on the number of followers in particular. In your opinion, does that make sense?

The number of followers is actually a big driver for price determination. From my point of view, it doesn't necessarily make sense, or in other words, it shouldn't be the only factor. Basically, companies should consider several quantitative factors. Reach is a useful criterion, to be sure. But the engagement of posts is much more relevant than the mere number of followers. There are also qualitative criteria, such as how the content fits the client and what collaborations already exist.

Nevertheless, an astonishing number of brands still blindly trust agencies - without taking a look at the actual audience data of their followers themselves.

About a year ago, SRF Data investigated the influencer world and found that one in three followers was not genuine. Has anything improved for the better since then?

Yes, the awareness of the clients has increased. Today, they increasingly rely on data when selecting influencers. Nevertheless, a surprisingly large number of brands still blindly trust agencies - without taking a look at the actual audience data of their followers themselves.

How do you recognize fake influencers or fake followers?

Profiles that are not backed by a real person can be recognized by unnatural post behavior, but also by googling a person. Every real person with many followers also leaves other digital footprints and can show not only five Google results. Fake followers can also be identified using a chart analysis. This shows whether the follower growth shows unnatural jumps. SRF has also published its code, which is available to anyone to perform analyses themselves.

A recent study by the e-commerce network Bazaarvoice shows that more and more users doubt the authenticity of influencers. Many have the impression that influencers specifically take advantage of an easily impressed audience and are also too materialistic. Do you have any solutions for how influencer marketing can remain credible in the long term?

It is important to recognize the commercial interest in such "studies". There are also studies of influencer marketing platforms where the result is: influencer marketing brings 13 times more return on investment than all other marketing measures. That's not true, of course. Basically, however, I can imagine that the credibility of influencers suffers if suddenly every post is "sponsored by". Clients ruin the influencer landscape for themselves by not paying attention to qualitative criteria in the selection process. Ultimately, credibility is only a question of selection: It is best to choose an account that is not completely commercialized.

Clients are ruining the influencer landscape for themselves by not paying attention to qualitative criteria in the selection process.

Meanwhile, more and more money is flowing into influencer marketing. The consulting firm Goldmedia estimates that the roughly 30,000 digital opinion leaders in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland generated sales of 560 million euros in 2017, and that the figure will continue to rise. Do you think this development of more and more money being put into influencer campaigns is justified or hype?

The ratio of influencer marketing to the rest of the media budget is still vanishingly small. The shift is happening much slower than expected because many brands are too comfortable to try something new. At the same time, the communication budget should be distributed according to consumer attention - and there is a lot of catching up to do for many brands. The disadvantages of TV budgets are only not discussed because they have been around for a long time. At the same time, it is not possible to measure what de facto comes back. The figures are much less precise and are based more on estimates than in influencer marketing. Accordingly, the distribution of the budget is unjustified.

How can you measure success in influencer marketing?

At the media level, you can measure how much attention a campaign has received in the form of interactions. If you choose campaign formats that are associated with tracking links, if you give out discount codes or link to a landing page, you can measure actual traffic to a store or conversion to a product purchase.

What can companies expect from their influencers - and what not?

One should expect professionalism. If you contractually agree on a cooperation, it should of course be adhered to. However, this is not always the case. You should also be able to expect that the influencers deal with the brand in order to deliver good quality. There are big differences in this regard. If you have had a bad experience with certain influencers, you should obviously not work with them in the future. But companies also need to understand that content creation means work and should be compensated accordingly. It is important to allow influencers creative freedom and to plan enough time for content production. It happens time and again, for example, that customers reuse content for print or digital extensions without consulting us. That is not very appreciative. So it's not just brands that can expect more professionalism from influencers; it's the same the other way around.

How do companies find the right influencers for them?

If a brand is looking for very large influencers who resemble classic testimonials, they are known in a small market like Switzerland anyway. But if you're looking for smaller, more specific niche influencers, you can use tools. There are various providers for this in the European region.

Companies should take a long-term approach to working with influencers and treat them like an important stakeholder in the company - not a billboard.

What typical mistakes do companies make in connection with influencer marketing?

This may sound trivial, but the biggest mistake is that a basic strategy is often missing. Many companies don't think about what purpose they are pursuing with their program. Because influencer marketing is a hype topic, an arbitrary campaign is quickly launched. Without thinking about the long-term concept behind it and how influencers can be used for products outside of the campaign. Yet there are good opportunities to collaborate outside of a simple product placement campaign. For example, some brands solicit feedback from influencers on their products or even develop, brand and market products together. Influencers are experts in their topic area, so such an approach makes sense. The fact that many companies do not yet recognize and implement this is a mistake. Companies should design their collaboration with influencers for the long term and treat them like an important stakeholder of the company - not like a billboard.

Are there any peculiarities in the Swiss influencer market that companies should be aware of?

The biggest peculiarity is the language. Many Swiss influencers produce content in High German or English. Accordingly, most of their followers live outside of Switzerland. If a company only wants to work the Swiss market and only goes by the number of followers, this can lead to poor budget allocations. Because the actual target group is much smaller than expected.

What is the situation here in Germany with the labeling obligation? In Germany, the case involving the Berlin fashion blogger Vreni Frost has shown that, legally speaking, the issue can become a minefield.

In Switzerland, too, there is a labeling obligation when you advertise products with content. However, as far as I know, this is rarely checked in practice. Nevertheless, I would advise every brand and every influencer to label more rather than less in order to protect themselves. Also because I think consumers are already jaded anyway. Labeling is so omnipresent that the negative effect is small. We often make the mistake of underestimating consumers. Of course they understand that it's advertising when products are prominently displayed.

The first influencer training course in Switzerland starts on October 19. Cost: 5,000 francs. In your opinion, is there a need for such training?

No, I don't think so (laughs). Success comes to those who are to some extent artists. These are people with a great intuitive understanding of content. They experiment a lot and learn quickly. I don't think you can bundle this knowledge in a systematic way and teach it theoretically. It would make more sense to have course packages on legal and business-relevant topics for influencers who are already active. You don't become an influencer through a certificate, but through social validation of other people. And you can't acquire that in a course room, but only in the real world.

There are stories of dropouts who find the constant pressure of having to be an ever-glowing online personality too much, such as Zurich fashion blogger Aleks Nikolic. On the other hand, it is also apparent on the user side that following ever-happier posts can make people depressed. Does an ethical discussion also need to take place in connection with influencer marketing?

People who present their lives better than they are and present only a curated excerpt to their fellow human beings have been around long enough. Advertising is also nothing new. For me, therefore, it does not open up any new ethical questions. Of course, we can have an ethical discussion about the social media landscape in general. But that would go beyond the scope of this interview.

Interview: Ann-Kathrin Kübler

The interlocutor: Martin Faltl is a psychologist and has been conducting research at the Institute for Customer Insight at the University of St. Gallen since 2015. As part of his work, he investigates interpersonal relationships in social media and their impact on consumer behavior. In addition, he heads the research and strategy department of the influencer marketing technology provider Reachbird.

This article first appeared in Werbewoche 17/2018, October 19, 2018, focusing on influencer marketing.