Travel influencers with ‘no experience’ are getting paid by marketers to do the ‘best job in the world’
Travel influencers are getting paid by marketers to do “the best job in the world” with “no experience”, according to Lisa Squillace, director of program partnerships at Seven Network.
“I don’t believe in them”, Squillace told the audience at Mumbrella’s Travel Marketing Summit today.
“Are they actually relaying the best brand messages for your brand? Let’s go back a little more old school than influencers… think about people that have a legitimate background in what you’re trying to say and what you’re trying to talk about – that have some credibility.”
Sueanne Carr, partner at Queensland based marketing consulting firm Customer Frame, agreed with Squillace that the influencer market was potentially problematic, adding: “For us it’s just word of mouth on crack.”
“We’ve had a bit of an issue in the last few years around authenticity of social influencers, for us it’s about the authenticity of the person that you choose to represent your business.
“There’s no point being a five star spa retreat and having somebody that has an Instagram feed where they’re rocking out at Soho House in London every weekend getting drunk. That’s not in line with your brand.”
Despite the issues around macro influencers who are not properly vetted, Kim McKay, founder of Klick Communications, noted that micro-influencers were still a viable marketing method for travel.
“Something incredible I saw happen a couple of years ago, someone in my office was trying to decide where to go on holiday, they went on Instagram and checked #beach, and just went to the prettiest beach they saw,” she recalled.
Carr agreed, adding that the most effective influencers are those in your target audience to begin with.
“People are a little bit sceptical of it. It’s more about driving influencers in your customer group, and in your audience, because that’s far more authentic than any paid influencer.”
Overall, Carr stressed that influencers need to be just one strand of the entire marketing mix, and brands should avoid putting all their eggs in one basket.
“Often times we can bring social media so close to our faces that we don’t see anything else. If we’re so focussed on one thing, be it social influencers or social media – whatever it is that everybody else is doing – if we’ve got [our phone] up in our face, we’re missing a lot of things.
“That is a real challenge that we don’t put all our eggs in one basket.”
This is laughable, go back to TV ya cronie.
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Vacuous freeloaders. You’d be hard pressed to find more lame and insincere messages than those delivered by “influencers”. If ever there was a cash-for-promotion channel it is this. There are one or two exceptions, but essentially it’s a vehicle for lazy and superficial individuals to establish themselves as a supposedly legitimate marketing avenue. More fool on those brands who waste money and fall for this unadulterated cack.
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Wah Wah Wah a millennial stole my job. They don’t know anything. They use hashtags to research. Wah Wah Wah. Jealous much?
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I’d like to thank Laughable and Ryan for their fact-laden, well considered and well enunciated comments.
Seriously, is that the best you can come up with. You’re just jealous that our generation invented the internet.
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There, I said it.
A lot of influencer marketing is irritating and vacuous, with over-enthusiastic brand affection anybody can see through.
It also runs at 3am.
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Which generation would you be Marco?
If you’re over 50 then you can claim that your generation invented the internet.
If you’re between 31 and 49 you can claim your generation developed, and later on monetised the internet.
If you’re 30 or under a more probable statement is your generation ruined the internet turning it from the previous generations greatest information and communications breakthrough into a superfluous garbage dump of crap.
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Funnily enough I always find the industry and their people that feel the most threatened because they operate under such antiquated rules and processes and ways of thought that are the ones who come out swinging with this crap. Would you prefer to read something written by someone who sits in an office and talks about a holiday or a location, or someone who is actually in amongst it all, travelling, eating, seeing, experiencing. I know when I want influence I look to those that are actually doing it, not some crusty old fart who’s writing the same way they’ve always written. Time to stop casting this crap towards those you don’t like simply because you can no longer compete and feel inadequate. People follow who they want and are influenced by what they like, not by who holds a journalism degree. In 2018, a journo degree or media experience means nothing.
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maybe she should read this, taken from your own website
https://mumbrella.com.au/18000-journalism-degree-waste-time-452219
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