If you give me a follow me on Twitter, the very first thing I do is to check your bio. If I see “influencer” written there, I don’t even bother scrolling down to see what you are about and possibly follow you back. I have a particular disdain for anyone with “influencer” written in their bio. I’m of the school of thought that if you have to tell people that you are an influencer, then you are most assuredly not. Real influence, I believe, is felt and not proclaimed.
Too often, unfortunately, we mistake influence for follower count, for popularity and for sphere influence. Truth is, there is often a very thin line between the above and so it is often very confusing to people who do not work in digital marketing or have not really sought to understand the underlying dynamics of the issue. Which is why I am going to use ONE primary factor to show what I think is the best way to describe an influencer and how a business can leverage their following to get something for yourself; like using them to sell your products, for example.
In Cameroon, we are still very far from having influencers that wield the type of power that other influencers in other countries, even just in Africa, have. I am going to limit myself here to digital influence only. And when we consider just that one aspect, the closest we have to an influencer in ONE sense of the word is Coco Emilia.
I remember a blogger who called himself an influencer, and a digital marketer arguing over that. And the marketer told the blogger to go to his Facebook page and announce that he was going to be at a popular bakery in Bonanjo at 2pm and see how many people turned up to see him. It was a really funny but pertinent argument.
Now, the guy you see in the picture that accompanies this post is called Marques Brownlee. Marrques is 25 years old. Ten years ago, when he was still in secondary school, Marques opened a YouTube channel and started reviewing tech gadgets that he owned. Fast-forward 10 years later, 8.8 million people have subscribed to his YouTube channel. He has 1,124 videos there that have been viewed a total of 1.6 billion times!
Marques is what they call an influencer, in the true sense of of the word. A tech influencer, to be even more precise. You want to know why?
Because over the course of 10 years he has learned, sought and researched tech products, and he has HELPED people, via his YouTube channel, to choose what tech products are best for them. In fact, Marques is so popular and trusted that tech companies send him their gadgets for free so he can talk about them on his channel. He has also interviewed tech giants like Bill Gates and Elon Musk for his YouTube channel.
That is where my preference for influencer marketing lies. I have always thought true influencers to be people who produce value and who attract the people who want that particular value or similar bundle of values. Best believe that anyone who is subscribed to Marques’ channel is either a tech geek or someone who really trusts his opinion about whether or not they should buy the new iPhone.
So if Marques says your product is good and that people should buy it, you have close to 9 million people that have you in their favour. That is huge, even for a company like Apple!
In the same vein, there is a 7-year-old kid who made $11 million in 2018 from YouTube, reviewing toys.
To come back to Cameroon, if we have to factor out the musicians and footballers, we begin to see that the influencer farm has almost no crops. On the basis of the numbers themselves, we have a huge problem. We are about 25 million people in this country. 3.5 million of us are on Facebook. Instagram has 470,000 users in Cameroon and 77, 000 are on Twitter. You begin to see that digital influence is very limited and that the bulk of your marketing effort should be focused on outdoor advertising.
I once wrote an article here where I asked if or not Daphne’s personal brand walked hand in hand with that of the flour brand for which she signed on as a brand ambassador. One of our followers commented that if the flour brand really wanted an ambassador, they should have gone with Chef Nina Ngassa.
I agreed with her. I mean Ngassa Nina has been actively showing us on Facebook what her hustle is and so she can make a convincing spokesperson. The only difference between Chef Nina and the title of influencer will be based on the issue of PROVISION OF VALUE. Go back to the Marques formula; if Nina had been providing value like sharing videos on how to season chicken properly, or wash ndole correctly, inter alia, then she would be making her case stronger. So when she tells us to use this brand of flour because the dough is better, we will believe her more. You begin to see how tricky it is?
But let’s move away from value-creation and talk demographics. I mention that there is a thin line between being an influencer and having a large social following. In that same Daphne article, I mentioned that if Blanche Bailly were to tell you what lingerie to buy, you would likely take to her advice. From her videos and photos, you can see how she has positioned herself to be someone that you would likely take such advice from.
But here’s the thing, I follow Blanche because I love her no-fucks-given attitude and personality. I also really, really like her music. That being said, I am not one to complain when she lets me rinse my eyes on her ample bosom. Best believe there are many guys who follow her on Instagram for the same reason. If you, a Cameroonian company, want to leverage her Instagram to sell female blouses, you will be shocked at how paltry the numbers will turn out. And it ain't just about the gender of her followers, but also how old they are, what their purchasing power is, and how many of them are in cameroon.
But I know that since I have been insisting on value-production, the question of Kim Kardashian is going to come up. That is a classic case of popularity and influence. The truth is, Kim K is the last of an almost extinct breed. If you look at the most popular TV people in the U.S from the mid to late 2000s like Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, Kim K is the one person who is able to wield that kind of influence. People who have Kim K number of followers on Instagram are either pop stars, movie stars, or footballers. It is very, very hard to break that mould.
In Cameroon, Coco Emilia is the only one who followed that formula and seems to be making something off of it. She notably signed on as a brand ambassador for Belaire champagne. Coco is a party girl and that endorsement fit right in with her as a person and with the brand too. Gotta give them props for that one.
Social media is polluted with people wanting to follow the Kim K formula and many are yet to reach a tenth of her status. A trend we have been seeing lately, on Instagram particularly, is brands moving away from these influencers with millions of followers to those with following in the lower thousands; micro-influencers. The argument is that most of the macro-influencers have lost their authenticity and are endorsing many brands. If you ask me, authenticity smells a bit like value.
So my advice to anyone that wants to become an influencer in these digital streets is find something you love and use it to provide value. Define who you want to cater to, carve yourself a niche, give people good value for free, leverage the different social media platforms, be consistent and be patient.
As for brands that want to leverage the following of people that they think are influencers, everything has been said about that already. In sum, you are better off advertising a music and branding conference on PoiseSocial than you are at advertising football socks. Anyone who has been following PoiseSocial for the past two years and who understands this article will know exactly what I mean by that.
I am not saying by that Tino and I are influencers
- Wandji Wilfred.
**Note: Marques Brownlee is not associated with the Ballantine's #TrueMusicChalllenge. To know more about the competition, visit our last post.
*This article was first published in June 2019. It has been heavily modified and updated