How to Adapt to Rapid Shifts in Influence Marketing

Fortune Favors the Bold

If there’s one thing that never changes in marketing it’s that things are always changing. How do we keep up with the constant shifts in the digital landscape?
By always changing our approach, of course!
Jim Tobin is a shapeshifter and a true pioneer of social media and its dominating use in influence marketing. He believes in taking the time to get to know your influencers, creating partnerships, rolling with the punches, and setting up success that keeps on coming.
And Jim is certainly no stranger to the world of marketing. His company, Ignite Media, was one of the first to facilitate social media for marketing purposes. His second company, Carusele, is designed to make it even easier and quicker for brands to buy in.
If we’re lucky, some of his experience and savvy marketing insights just might rub off on us through this Influence Pros Podcast.

In This Episode

• Why your company must constantly evolve
• How well-crafted posts can keep bringing returns long after initial campaigns 
• Why it’s important to think through the ramifications of any content
• How taking time upfront will save you time later
• Why quality is more important than quantity

Quotes From This Episode

“I would much rather have five people create great content than 50 people do lousy tweets.” —@jtobin
“We always, if we wanted to engage [influencers], tried to find a way that they could benefit from being involved with our brand. And early on, 2008, 2009, 2010, we had to give people content, credibility, backlinks, and traffic.” —@jtobin

“I think some people really mean ambassadors when they say influence, just genuine product fans. I think other people would say celebrities because they mean reach. I think there’s ample evidence that celebrities don’t actually have influence in most cases. And then there’s influencer marketing, which means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.” —@jtobin

“It’s kind of the cliché, ‘If you do what you love, you’re never working.’ But that’s really what influence started as. You didn’t originally pay influencers. This was something they did as a passion that has evolved into a career. I think that’s kind of a cool aspect.” —@redfoxstrategy
“One of our core values from the beginning is that we weren’t going to get a big list and spam the list. We wanted to communicate one at a time with each influencer and ideally speak to them on the phone prior to every campaign.” —@jtobin
“We also pick them sort of one at a time. That’s a big labor upfront. As people try to scale influencer marketing, a lot of them are trying to shortcut that upfront labor. But we found that we get better results if we know these people.” —@jtobin
“Influence is not the same as reach. Influence means you’re changing minds. Reach means you’re generating impressions. They’re very, very different. I think those things are going to do battle over the next year.” —@jtobin

Resources

• In the News: “Beating Ad Blockers with Native Content, Experiences”
• Ignite Social Media
• Carusele
• Jim’s Twitter: @jtobin
• Fixer Upper

Would You Rather

Would you rather have your flight delayed by eight hours or get your luggage lost?
Wow. I will go with get my luggage lost. I feel like if I have to walk into a meeting in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, I can talk my way through that. But I can’t miss the meeting.
Would you rather never have a vice like coffee or alcohol again or would you never have TV including the HGTV network again?
My life would not be the same with either choice. I think I would have to give up the vice. TV is such a connector to the world. I’d have so much FOMO that if I couldn’t connect to the world that way, I wouldn’t be able to function.
Would you rather lose your hair completely and be bald for the rest of your life or grow up and be covered in like 1970s era body hair?
Oh, that is impactful. I understand the need for the audience. But I think I would pick losing my hair over being covered like that Geico caveman guy. Yeah. I would try to do something like Michael Jordan or somebody like that to try and pull off the look.