Influencers vs. Brands, who will win?

You’ve probably seen several articles circulating about brands “outing” influencers who have asked for free things in exchange for exposure.  Well, I have an issue with both the influencers and brands on this.  First of all some of the pitches from influencers or their PR people are just pathetic.  Lose the pompous attitude and maybe, just maybe, brands will agree to your terms.  Influencers aren’t entitled to everything, however, sometimes brands pitch the worst terms as well.  A lot of brands expect a lot of extremely well known Influencers to work for free.  What people don’t understand is there is a lot more that goes into being a blogger/Influencer.  It’s not just taking pictures and posting about it.  I’ve talked about it many times here before, but my Sundays (my only day off) are spent taking outfit photos, or photos for my blog, editing, and then writing a post about it.  Not as much recently because I’ve decided that I needed a bit of a break from this.  Like most bloggers, taking photos and editing them yourself can get tiresome, and some bloggers aren’t even full time.  They work regular full time jobs.

Influencers

Stop acting entitled

You are not entitled to free things.  There was an article recently where a guy who owns an Ice Cream shop has gotten quite a few Influencers ask for free ice cream in exchange for exposure.  STAHHHHP!  It’s an ice cream.  You can’t afford an ice cream?  I talk about brands that I buy from all the time in my posts.  If it’s a product I truly do like, I’m going to introduce it to my followers regardless if I pay for it out of pocket or if I get it for free.  The owner of this shop is just trying to make a living.  I’m sure that if he was to give out free ice cream to all of the people who have asked him, he’d probably be out a lot of money.  You need to realize that people out there work hard for their own business.  From what I’ve been told, having your own business in the food industry can be extremely rough.  Not only do you have to work crazy hours, but there’s a lot that goes into it.  You have to have your food inspected and hold specific certificates.

There was another article recently about an Influencer who had their PR person reach out to a Photographer asking for them to photograph her wedding for free.  Do you have any idea how much money that Photographer would lose?  That is an entire day’s worth of their time, then all of the time it would take to edit the photos, and that’s not worth it.  Personally, I would say no to this too.  I don’t care how much free exposure I would get, that is a lot of time put in for something that I may get 5 followers from that will legitimately use my service and not just like some of my pictures on Instagram.  Free exposure doesn’t mean anything to a photographer.

You may not have the right target market for them, and Influencers nowadays have followers from all over the world.  If you’re based in Florida for example, your followers over in Europe are not going to use this photographer.  Yea, maybe they will take a look at their photos or follow them on social media, but that’s about it.  The pitch that I read from the PR person was horrendous.  Then she threatened by saying she was going to “out” the photographer and how the Influencer’s mom was dying, so this would have been a nice thing to do.  Girlfriend, that is no way to conduct business.  Y’all gotta work on your pitch and drop the pompous attitude.  Also, don’t threaten to be outted, because the photographer did nothing wrong.  Of course her responses were a little bit petty towards the end, but she had every right to decline.

Exposure means nothing

What if you aren’t the target audience for the brand?  What if your followers are bought?  Of course there are many brands nowadays that have smartened up and have started looking at analytics for followers and engagement, but I’m sure there are still some crazy loopholes.  Some small businesses just can’t afford to take that chance on only free exposure.  A few months ago I started actively promoting my photography business.  If I have someone schedule a shoot with me for my rate of course I’m going to take it.  Even if they are someone like a mom who wants family photos and has a private Instagram account, I’ll take that over free exposure by a huge influencer any day.  That mom might love my work enough that she will tell all of her friends about me who will come to me as paying customers, let’s be real here, moms TALK.  That influencer who offers me free exposure won’t pay and if she tells her friends about me, if they aren’t in this area, that means nothing to me.

Your pitches are horrendous

The pitches that I have read are absolutely terrible.  Some are very blunt and to the point, but you do realize you have to sell yourself, right?  You have to show the brand why it is worth it to work with you.  Giving them your Instagram statistics should be one of the last parts of your pitch.  Starting off with “you should work with me because I have 100k followers” is stupid.  No offense, but you sound like an entitled brat.  You have to tell the brand about yourself and your blog.  A brand wants everything outlined to them.  They shouldn’t have to go read your blog or check all of your platforms to see what your following is.  Send your media kit/analytics along with your genuine pitch.

Brands

This is the new era

As much as it pains me to say this, this is the new era of advertising.  If you are a smaller business, you can advertise on your own on platforms like Facebook or Instagram.  For example, if you are a furniture store, you’re obviously looking for local business, not someone on the other side of the country.  Either you advertise on Facebook, or you pay for local advertising.  Someone like you won’t need bloggers or influencers to advertise for you because it’s just not cost effective.  If you are more of a remote or online business, then reaching out to bloggers might actually work for you because it will be less cost effective than hiring an advertising agency.  Unfortunately, Influencers are the new celebrity.  There are some Influencers who are bigger than some celebrities.

You’re no better than the Influencers

Just like I said in the Influencer portion of this post, lose the pompous attitude.  Some brands respond with the nastiest emails.  All you have to do is respectfully decline.  I’ve pitched to brands before and either they didn’t respond, or they very politely told me no.  Don’t say who the Influencer is, because there is no need for that.  There was an incident with a hotel over in Europe a while ago, and the hotel didn’t quite black out the Influencer’s name and the internet ripped her apart.  Some of the comments that were left on her Instagram were completely unnecessary.  They were rude and the keyboard warriors did their fair share of online bullying.  There is no need for something like this to happen.  If you want to “out” Influencers, don’t mention who they are.  Believe it or not, they are trying to make a living just like you, and there is a lot of money to be made in this industry.

Here is a little story time about brands not being any better than Influencers.  The other day I received an email from a brand who had some product on Amazon that was originally almost $200, they had the audacity to tell me I can buy it at a discounted rate and review it on my blog.  I’m not trying to act entitled, and I know I’m coming off as if I am, but why?  Brands need to understand that if you want a blogger to review something you need to properly compensate them.  I know bigger bloggers who not only demand free product, but monetary compensation as well.  I don’t demand monetary compensation (I know a lot of bloggers/influencers will hate me for this) because since this isn’t the way I make my living, I’m ok with just receiving free product.  However, do not ask me to review a product that I only get a discount for.  I’d rather spend my almost $100 on something like, um, food for the week.

Being an Influencer is a full time job

As a baby blogger, I can attest to this being a full time job.  For a lot of bloggers who do everything on their own, you have to learn HTML, photo editing, and invest time and money into this.  You never really get a day off from this industry.  Constantly having to research social media trends/trends in general and beating algorithms can get really exhausting.  With so many people doing this whole blogging/influencer job, the market is so saturated that you really have to be extremely unique or just be Instagram worthy (skinny, long wavy hair, with your entire outfit from Nordstrom and be super boring) to be seen.  I got so burnt out that I had to take a break from blogging, read those posts here and here.

Have Influencers wiped out Blogs?

At the end of the day, blogs are starting to become extinct and not relevant anymore, in my opinion.  The new age Influencer on Instagram and Youtube ruined that.  People want instant photos or videos.  They don’t want to click on a link and read a blog.  Creating content and sharing stories and my thoughts on this blog is more fun for me than how many likes I get on a picture on Instagram.  My engagement has dropped so much in the past year on Instagram, and to be honest, I’m over it.  Instagram is just a platform I use to get the word out about my blog.  Another issue is not many people like to read anymore.  Why would you want to read about my life, when you can scroll through countless travel Instagram accounts that you live through everyday?  I mean, let’s be honest, what Influencer or Brand wants to read a little blogger’s rant about how they are acting like idiots?  I’ll continue to post on this blog until I’m ready to move on, but I know that I won’t have as much traffic as I used to.

Now, let’s move on to the weekly linkup!

xoxo Monica

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 I do deClaire  // Elegantly Dressed & Stylish // Glass of Glam// Shelbee on the Edge