Why an influencer gets more likes than one of Australia’s top surfers
Natalie Giddings takes a look at two of Australia’s most successful women in their respective fields: one of Australia’s top female surfers, and an Instagram influencer. When comparing their engagement, she was surprised to discover good lighting and brunch shoots far outranks raw surfing talent.
We did an exercise recently where we evaluated more traditional brand ambassadors or spokespeople (usually ex-sports professionals or TV personalities) against some up-and-coming social influencers. Even I was staggered by the results.
In this example, you can see a post sample from Sally Fitzgibbons and Cartia Mallan. For those who don’t know Sally Fitzgibbon is a professional female surfer and Cartia Mallan is one of Australia’s prominent vloggers on YouTube.
Both have very similar follower counts on Instagram. In fact, at the time of writing, Sally has more than Cartia. But when you hold their posts side by side, the audience involvement and interaction is almost 10 times more for Cartia.
Nowhere is it mentioned in the article that Cartia Mallan has a business relationship with The Remarkables Group:
http://www.theremarkablesgroup.....ease-spam/
“One of the influencers I work within the beauty vertical, Cartia Mallan…”
Hi Vested Interest,
Thanks for flagging that business relationship to us, we’re checking that out with Natalie now.
Regards,
Paul
I wondered about that too….
Hi – to clear this up for you. We do not represent Cartia. We are in no way getting any kind of monetary benefit, or any other form of kickback from mentioning her in this from this article. We resigned all of our talent at the end of 2016. Indeed, we are completely independent advisors in influencer marketing and approach influencers based on the brand brief and objectives. We worked with Cartia for one beauty brand video mid last year and a recycle fashion brand last month. This was a paid arrangement, where we paid her one behalf of the brand.
If anything, I’m giving away a valuable trade secret here. Her content is a terrific example of what can be achieved, particularly on YouTube right now.
Natalie, do you think that disclosure (about your dealings with Cartia) should have been mentioned up-front in the article? Oversights like that can call the whole premise of the article into question.
A better thing to do would be to admit to the error and give a mea culpa. Instead of saying that you were actually doing us readers a favour by giving away your trade secrets.
Again – There is no vested interest here whatsoever. We do not have any contracts, rebates, JVs or any kind of preferred supplier agreements with any influencers, influencer networks or platforms. We work with 100’s of different influencers. Do I need to disclose if I booked a campaign once in a Bauer magazine if I discuss one of their mags?
With regards to your example of Bauer magazine, no, you wouldn’t need to disclose having worked with them before if you were to hypothetically write an article about their magazines.
However, you would look a lot less suss if you did disclose it up front, especially more important if the article focuses heavily on them and paints Bauer as the next best thing since sliced bread, as you have with Cartia.
Natalie, I’m not sure you understand the basic premise of full disclosure. This simple lack of understanding is why so many people are sceptical of influencers. #sponsored. Yeah right.
Dear Vested Interest, I once did an ad on ARN radio, should I disclose that any time I ever talk about marketing? Or how about that one TV ad I booked back in 2014? This is an example. I don’t understand how you aren’t grasping this concept. Its obvious she isn’t getting any fiscal or PR benefits from promoting Cartia Mallan. It is an EXAMPLE.
Wouldn’t it have been a terrific article if Natalie wasn’t wearing her interests on her vest.
This comparison is daft.
It almost comes across as if the professional surfer (Sally) isn’t very good at posting on social media compared to the professional social media poster (Cartia), when that wouldn’t really be surprising. I would expect professionals to be good at what they do..
If we’re going to compare, let’s compare apples with apples. So, in your next article, Natalie, can you compare how well Cartia surfs at Waikiki compared with Sally?
Thanks!
My point exactly – leverage experts for their specific skills.
Well i’m sure if RipCurl was asking for recommendations on who to endorse a surfboard she wouldn’t recommend Cartia Mallan. The article is outlining the difference between using traditional ambassdaors on social media as influencers compared to actual professional influencers. Cartia is a mere example and the author is in no way saying you should only work with Cartia Mallan, its an example for petes sake when comparing two people who are used for the same purpose. It would be like an auto brand giving a traditional ambassador (usually a sportsperson) a car and thinking they have ticked the ‘social influencer’ box. I’m going to go ahead an assume that none of the people making these comments have any actual experience or expertise in influencer marketing.
This article is deceptive dishonest and not useful.