Winfluence - The Influence Marketing Podcast
195 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 2 years ago - ★★★★★ - 16 ratingsWant Instagrammers and YouTubers to mention your brand? Or do you want to influence an audience to buy your product? Winfluence - The Influence Marketing Podcast explores the world of influencer marketing from a strategic perspective to help your influence efforts align with driving business value. Host Jason Falls, author of the companion book Winfluence: Reframing Influence Marketing to Ignite Your Brand, interviews brand managers, agency strategists, software vendors and influencers themselves to uncover the art and science of influencing audiences to try, buy or think differently. There's a difference between using influencers and actually influencing. Discover that difference and explore both online and offline influence on Winfluence.
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Episodes
The Influencer Marketing Firm Practicing Influencer Marketing
October 04, 2021 09:00 - 31 minutesOne of the industry resources I lean on to keep up with what is happening in the influencer marketing space is the Fourth Floor Newsletter, an email newsletter from an influencer marketing firm based in the United Kingdom. I came about it because it’s authored by Scott Guthrie, a counterpart of mine, of sorts, in England, who has a finger on the pulse of the industry there and around the globe. I listen to Scott’s podcast and know he’s incredibly knowledgeable about the space, so a newslette...
TikTok Creator Marketplace API Opens, Proof of Effectiveness Emerges
September 27, 2021 09:00 - 23 minutesIf you whittled down the biggest questions and problems brand managers are asking about today in influencer marketing, two of the top couple would be, “What’s the deal with TikTok?” and “What does this influencer marketing jazz even get for me?” The TikTok issue is layered, but one problem area has been related to the other. With no direct access to TikTok’s API, no one can really quantify success there other than knowing how many views a given creator’s video earned. But some big news hit re...
How is Name-Image-Likeness (NIL) Impacting Student-Athletes?
September 23, 2021 09:00 - 23 minutesNIL is short for name, image, likeness, and is the short expression that defines an important legislative move by the NCAA and NAIA, the two main college athletic associations in the United States. The maneuvers relax the definition of amateurism in those organizations to finally allow college student-athletes to capitalize on their name, image and likeness. Until the NAIA passed an NIL move last December, then the NCAA followed this past summer, a student-athlete taking money from a sponsor,...
It's Time to Do Away With Top Influencer Lists
September 20, 2021 09:00 - 15 minutesThe first thing many brand marketers do when they’re trying to find the right influencers for their upcoming campaigns is the first thing many of us do when trying to find something. They search. As in Google. Naturally, the query they often start with “top influencers in” whatever the industry is. And there they find listicles. Blog posts with a list of the top 10 influencers for this or the top 25 influencers for that. The inexperienced marketer might even stop there and say, ‘Here are my ...
What is the Role of Influencer Marketing in Economic Development?
September 13, 2021 09:00 - 12 minutesMost of you know I am from and live and work in Kentucky in the United States. And if you know anything about that state, especially the eastern part of Kentucky where I grew up, you know it has spent the better part of the last three or four decades trying to figure out how to overcome the economic void left by the downsizing of the coal industry. Both automation and regulation have forced coal mines to lay off workers who never knew another profession. The downturn in jobs meant high unempl...
Can Influencer Marketing Succeed with Product-Only Payment?
September 06, 2021 16:50 - 37 minutesCan you achieve influence marketing traction, then success without having to pay influencers? We’ve asked that question several times on this show and it’s a bit of a controversial one. One perspective is you might be able to, but you shouldn’t. You are, after all, getting not just access to someone’s audience, but also their talent in creating content, plus the content you can then negotiate to use. All three of those elements are worth money you would have to invest otherwise to get the sam...
Understanding the Nuances of Influence Marketing on YouTube
September 02, 2021 09:00 - 36 minutesOne avenue of conversation we haven’t really explored here on the show is diving into the nuances of influencer marketing within different social networks. A great creator on Instagram may not be very good on Twitter. A strong YouTuber may not help you at all on Facebook. YouTube is the first avenue I think it’s worth diving deeper into. Not only is video far more engaging for consumers, but YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world behind Google, which owns it. So a YouTube i...
How to Improve Prioritizing Influencers and Measuring Influence Marketing
August 30, 2021 09:00 - 13 minutesOf all the questions marketers ask about building successful influencer marketing campaigns, the two that stand out are the top two, by a mile: First, how do I find the right influencers? The second is how do I measure success of influencer marketing. And honestly, those two components of the process are probably the most important. You can have a great idea, messaging and such, but if you don’t choose the right influencers, it won’t succeed … at least not optimally. And if you don’t underst...
Leveraging Business Partnerships for Influence Marketing
August 26, 2021 09:00 - 34 minutesA recurring theme on this show is finding examples influence marketing, not just marketing involving online influencers. When we uncover a non-traditional perspective on this thing we do, it unlocks a lot of interesting thinking for all of us. I am one who geeks out about offline examples of influence marketing, but there are variations of the theme online, too. And you find those examples sometimes in the most unexpected places. Travis Huff cut his teeth in the digital marketing space with l...
How Old is Influencer Marketing? Older Than You Think!
August 23, 2021 06:00 - 12 minutesWelcome to Winfluence episode number 100. We started this journey back on September 2, 2020 when the old Jason Falls Show live stream turned podcast switched to an audio-only show dedicated to discussions of influence marketing. Thank you for joining me along the way. Here’s to another 100. In keeping with the theme, this episode is all about history. Not of the show, but of the craft of influence marketing overall. Some people think influencer marketing started in 2011 with the advent of Ins...
The Rise of the Independent Influencer Marketing Consultant
August 19, 2021 09:00 - 34 minutesIn my day job at Cornett, influence marketing is very important, but it’s not the only thing we do. So small businesses or startups that need consulting don’t typically fit into what I can provide. Lately, I’ve found that I needed either a small firm or an independent consultant to either manage something for us or to just refer the business to. That’s why I was excited to get to know our guest today. Meredith Jacobson is an independent consultant, but one that has gone a step further to prov...
Understanding True Influence
August 16, 2021 06:00 - 12 minutesDo you even know what true influence looks like? We get lost in the day-to-day of influencer marketing, where we count on people who post interesting things on social media to persuade their audiences to try and buy our products and forget the core thing we need to do … really influence people. Does seeing a product in the hands of a person you follow on Instagram have a real impact on you? Probably not. I follow Patrick Janelle, @aguynamedpatrick, who has been a guest on the show before. His...
The Future of Influence Marketing
August 12, 2021 06:00 - 38 minutesWe’re creeping up on a year of Winfluence the podcast and in that time we’ve talked to a number of incredibly smart people who are working to make the influence and and influencer space better for creators, brands, service providers, agencies and beyond. I think by now you all probably get a feel for my perspective on influence marketing being more about finding ways to create influence than finding people who are influencers. And the relationship building over time is preferred to one-off, t...
Are Influencers Worth the Investment? Do the Math!
August 09, 2021 06:00 - 15 minutesAre influencers worth the rates they charge? Isn’t that the most frequently asked question among brand managers when it comes to influencer marketing these days? The answer, as always, is that it depends. It depends on what they charge versus what the brand gets in return. Determining that depends on a variety of factors. How many followers does the influencer have. What’s their engagement rate, which indicates how many people actually interact with the content. What’s the conversion rate of...
What Healthcare Can Teach Us About Influence Marketing
August 05, 2021 06:00 - 34 minutesEach episode of this podcast begins with me asking the question, "Want Instagrammers and YouTubers to mention your brand? Or do you want to influence an audience to buy your product?" I then say this podcast is about illustrating the difference between using influencers and actually influencing. There are few venues that underline the necessity of that approach than healthcare marketing. The short-term conversion approach to that audience is tacky. People who need healthcare now are in need o...
Will The Influencer Marketing Industry Keep Up With What’s Next?
August 02, 2021 11:30 - 11 minutesThe circle of life isn’t just an inspirational Elton John and Disney song. It’s an apt description of how a lot of things work, especially trends in the marketing world. Remember about seven or eight years ago when all the marketing talking heads were trashing QR codes? Alright, now think about how you’ve accessed the menu in a restaurant in the last couple of months. Whether it's the technology or just whatever method is hip at the moment, everything seems to come and go in cycles. And we’r...
Building and Launching an Influencer-Led Brand
July 29, 2021 11:30 - 34 minutesIn one of the chapters of Winfluence - Reframing Influencer Marketing to Ignite Your Brand, I tell the story of a fashion and style influencer who launched a product only to have it fall on deaf ears. The chronicle is of Arii, who was a teenager at the time and should have been lauded just for trying to start her own business based on her social media fame. Instead, she was mocked and declared a failure by the venom of social media users and the rubbernecking mainstream media of the day. I we...
Influencers Shouldn't Ask For Free Product?
July 26, 2021 11:30 - 24 minutesWinfluence - The Influence Marketing Podcast is serious, though playful and fun. We have interesting conversations about the industry, how brands can leverage influence, how influencers can better connect with brands and how the software companies and agencies all fit into the mix. We do that in order to help you get smarter, better and have more success leveraging influence marketing, influencers and all things related to the space. But we’re not above poking a little fun at our world, too. ...
The Power of Brand Alignment in Influencer Marketing
July 22, 2021 12:46 - 27 minutesProbably the most frequent quality of influencer selection I’ve talked about in the last month or so is brand alignment. Does the influencer match your brand in terms of values, aesthetics and beyond. The more aligned your influencers and content creators are with your values, your brand voice and perhaps content pillars, the easier their audience will make that leap to accepting you as a trustworthy brand. And the better your brand will be able to see relevant growth and engagement from thei...
Why Affiliate Marketing for Influencers Will Not Work
July 19, 2021 11:30 - 9 minutesInstagram announced last week it was testing new affiliate marketing tools for influencers. Many influencer marketing software solutions have begun integrating affiliate marketing components into their softwares as well. The reason is brands have been clamoring for them because brands think the affiliate model of marketing is going to magically make influencer marketing cheaper. They’re looking for an easy way out … a way to cut costs … and a way to disrespect content creators. Pay for perf...
Going Small with Micro-Influencers for Big Business Results
July 15, 2021 11:30 - 25 minutesWe’ve thrown around the term micro-influencer a lot on this show. The term refers to someone with generally around 5,000 to 50,000 followers. They’re probably not quite to the point of making a living doing it, but they have an impact on a fair number of people. Lots of brands love micro-influencers because they can be cheaper and less hassle to deal with. No offense to our mega-influencer friends, but let’s be honest, once you get someone whose primary income is through influencer marketing ...
What Brands Really Need From Influencers
July 12, 2021 11:30 - 11 minutesI know what brands want from influencers. But what brands say they want from them and what they actually want from them are different things. Ask a brand manager what they want from their influencers or influencer programs and they’ll say things like: Engaging content Enthusiastic endorsement Or the stomach-turning authentic collaboration But brands are not measured by the amount of content they collect. Or how many people endorse them. Nor by how many people see the endorsement. And auth...
Influencer Marketing from the Influencer's Perspective
June 30, 2021 11:30 - 27 minutesIt’s always a treat to get insight from influencers on the show. My research and analytics tell me most of you are brand-side marketers or agency folks that serve the brands playing in the influencer marketing space. So, when we have the opportunity to hear from a content creator, there’s a lot of insight to be had. How to work with them. What works well or doesn’t. How they view brands, agencies, pricing and beyond. A few months ago, I interviewed one such content creator for my other podca...
The Software Company Focused on Influence, Not Just Influencers
June 23, 2021 11:30 - 39 minutesThe underlying theme of my book Winfluence - Reframing Influencer Marketing to Ignite Your Brand, is that we have to stop thinking about this practice as all about influencers and think of it in terms of how to drive influence. That can come from online influencers with big followings, but it can also come from your own brand building influence in your industry. It can come from partnering with community leaders and elected officials. It can come from friendships and alignment with people who...
How to Connect Influencer Marketing to the Bottom Line
June 16, 2021 11:30 - 32 minutesOne of the biggest challenges for brands in influence marketing is tying all these wonderful content collaborations with creators back to the bottom line. Not only do brands not often have full or direct exposure to an influencer’s analytics, but many don’t sell direct to consumer, meaning sales data is often in the hands of another third party in the form of retailers. And if you’ve ever dealt with big box retailers you also know that sometimes, they just don’t share enough data for the appr...
How Confident Are You In What Influencers Should Make?
June 09, 2021 11:30 - 20 minutesAs the influencer marketing space evolves, so will the tools, platforms and services out there that make things better. We’ve interviewed some folks behind some of these startups here on the show already and we’ll continue to do so. I like to think we’re keeping an eye on what’s out there in case a better mousetrap comes along. One topic of discussion in the influencer and influence marketing space that has extended into the realm of software solutions and other attempts at making the industr...
Can we please kill Authenticity?
June 07, 2021 11:30 - 11 minutesTwo weeks ago I spent several hours judging entries in an influencer marketing awards contest. Part of the submission was for the brand or agency to describe their organization’s unique selling proposition. Every single entry had some version of the following in their answer: “We focus on authentic, transparent and human connections with our … blah blah blah.” You could literally copy and paste one agency’s answer to that question into the spot on any other agency’s entry and no one would hav...
The Ad Agency that Manufactures Influence
June 02, 2021 11:30 - 46 minutesWe recently had a conversation with Brandon Brown of influencer platform Grin about CGI influencers—computer generated avatars that seem to be real people posting influencer-like content and gaining followers. That conversation opened up some discussion about using the influencer landscape as a palette for creativity. We joked that Kentucky Fried Chicken should create a Colonel Sanders influencer account right now and avatar him back to life. But when you think of the influencer channel as a ...
The Truth Continues to Emerge About Influencer Fraud
May 31, 2021 11:30 - 13 minutesMy previous commentary that focused on the idea that Words Matter pointed out a flaw in semantics with how HypeAuditor reported fraudulent behavior. That semantic difference—a simple poor choice of words—lead Campaign U.S., a popular advertising industry publications, to post the statement that more than half of Instagram influencers—"engaged in fraud"—with 45 percent of accounts—"fake." Engaged was my problem. Because fraud can happen to an influencer’s account without the influencer having...
Value Mapping: The Next Level of Influencer Selection
May 26, 2021 11:30 - 35 minutesOnce upon a time, I was a fairly knowledgeable guy about social listening. (I still am, I think. But in the early 2010s I was kind of known for that.) Analyzing online conversations to mine for consumer insights became such a focus for me that I started a company around the practice. The Conversation Research Institute didn't last long because we didn't have artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to scale data analysis. We had a couple of people manually coding samples of con...
Which Influencers are More Effective? Mega- Micro- or Nano-?
May 21, 2021 13:19 - 23 minutesFor much of the last year or so in the influence marketing space, there has been a growing trend to move away from mega-influencers in favor of micro- and nano-influencers. Those with fewer than 50,000 or even 10,000 followers. The reasons, as we’ve discussed with several of our guests, is that the smaller the following, the higher the engagement rate … generally speaking. If the engagement rate for a small number of people is high enough, it means that influencer has actual impact on more au...
The Growing Trend of Influencer Houses
May 19, 2021 11:30 - 26 minutesOne of the fascinating new trends in the influencer space is that of influencer houses. You may have heard The Hype House, probably the biggest example in the U.S., is queued up for a Netflix distribution deal after starting on social media channels. There’s another in the U.S. called the Sway House, yet another called Club Beverly Hills. The concept borrows from the original reality TV show -- The Real World on MTV. Influencer Houses bring together some number of large audience content crea...
Can Paid Content Curation Give Influencers New Revenue
May 14, 2021 11:02 - 35 minutesI’ve had the good fortune to have built a respectable audience over the years, creating and sharing content on social networks, writing blog posts and articles, speaking at conferences and the like. My primary platform for much of that time has been Twitter. And the way I built a nice following there was by sharing good content. At one point in time I actually wrote the following on a sheet of paper that I stuck on my office bulletin board: Twitter Strategy -- Share good shit. The more I coul...
Solving the Problems of Influencer Marketing Programs
May 12, 2021 11:30 - 32 minutesNothing gets me excited quite like finding like minded people who are interested in and knowledgeable about the same things I am and having a good conversation. That’s why I started this podcast. I feel like I eat, sleep and breathe influence marketing these days. So I love talking to smart people who do the same. Henry Langer is one of those people. He’s the vice-president of customer success at Julius, my influencer marketing platform of choice. You’ve heard about them because they sponsor ...
What is Your Influencer Marketing Philosophy?
May 10, 2021 11:30 - 11 minutesWhen the first inklings of what we have come to call influencer marketing emerged in the late 2000s, Instagram, TikTok and SnapChat didn’t exist. Facebook was actually barely a thing at that point, because only college-tied emails initially earned access to the platform. YouTube existed, but web video was still complicated and cost-prohibitive for the masses. Influencer marketing back then was primarily focused on blogs and Twitter. IZEA was the first company to force the issue on turning so...
How Podcasting Can Change Your Influence Game
May 07, 2021 11:30 - 39 minutesIt’s pretty obvious that you believe in the power of podcasting. Or at least you’re willing to give it a shot or you wouldn’t be listening to this, right? Yes, podcasts are a great way for someone like me to share ideas and interview interesting people for people like you. Ideally, you find the episodes helpful and get smarter about influence marketing. But what switch needs to be flipped for you to see podcasting as a powerful trigger for your own influence? Phil Pelucha specializes in helpi...
The Power of Women in Influencer Marketing
May 05, 2021 11:30 - 33 minutesPeople don’t solve problems in a vacuum. At least most people don’t. Problems are usually solved when two or more people get together and collaborate on ideas. That’s the nugget of truth behind the concept of networking. You get together with others to share ideas, but also challenges, tapping into the crowd for resources, solutions and suggestions. Jessy Grossman knows the power of networking. She comes from the talent agent world where who you know is probably as important as anything. As s...
Guess What's Killing Influencer Marketing? Influencers.
May 03, 2021 11:30 - 10 minutesThere is a force at play in the influencer marketing space that puts the entire industry in danger. If that force isn’t reckoned with, and soon, the practice of leveraging individual content creators with attractive audiences on social networks for brands will die. This particular group isn’t killing influencer marketing intentionally, mind you. But they’re treating the space we all know and love as a money grab, rather than a way to build a sustainable business. For all the talk they spout a...
Taking a Multi-Tiered Approach to Influencer Engagement
April 30, 2021 11:30 - 30 minutesWhat’s the sexiest medical device you can think of? I recently discovered that eyeglasses are technically considered a medical device. And that puts them squarely in the crosshairs of style and fashion. Marissa Cundiff is the vice-president of marketing for Kenmark Eyewear, a manufacturer that supplies some of the most recognizable sunglass and eyeglass collections in the world. Vera Wang. Lilly Pulitzer. Gemma Styles and the list goes on. They do both their own brands and collaborations like...
An Influencer's Take on the SAG-AFTRA Influencer Agreement
April 28, 2021 11:30 - 39 minutesLast month the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists or SAG-AFTRA in the trade, unveiled a plan to account for influencers in its union. My initial take was applause for the move because it meant that an influencer or content creator now had at least a path to health benefits and pensions they don’t normally have as independent entities. As it turns out, the promise had some good sizzle, but not enough meat. Patrick Janelle is a lifestyle influencer and ...
When it Comes to Reporting on Influencer Fraud, Words Matter
April 26, 2021 11:30 - 12 minutesWords matter. Perhaps now more than ever. Why? Largely because the proliferation of information and content has forced all of us into attention deficit disorder consumption. We skim. We thumb scroll. We let our short attention span perceptions shift our understanding of the world around us without stopping to think. So words matter. If you see a headline that says “more than half of instagram influencers engaged in fraud” you probably don’t have the time or interest to read the story. You ass...
The Future of Monetizing Live Content
April 23, 2021 11:30 - 33 minutesThe world of live is taking over social media. There are hundreds, if not thousands of live stream programs happening all across Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn. Add to that SnapChat, TikTok and now Amazon Live, then add in the live stream platforms like Twitch, Only Fans and beyond. What’s hot is what’s live. In case you didn't know, I host a live stream interview show more broadly focused on marketing and creative practitioners with my team at Cornett on Tuesday mornings ...
The Perfect App to Make Customers Your Influencers
April 21, 2021 11:30 - 24 minutesWhat if I told you that you didn’t need to use influencers to grow your brand? At least not the way we often think of influencers. Imagine you could get people to endorse and post about your brand online without spending a dime and without giving away product? Sam Malone has figured out how to do that. He is the founder and CEO of Guru Club. It started out as an exclusive, invite only influencer marketing network. A marketplace of sorts. But Sam and his team quickly figured out that tradition...
Influence is Not a Static Quality
April 19, 2021 11:30 - 10 minutesI’m exploring something new on this episode of the podcast. Each Monday, as I have the time to do so, I’m going to post a shorter episode that isn’t an interview, but my take on an issue within influence and influence marketing that has been on my mind. In some cases, like today, the topic is going to be inspired by something I’ve written, either at JasonFalls.com, on Entrepreneur.com or elsewhere. In some cases, it will be one of my fun rants about a given thing. The thought process here is...
The Strength of Regional and Targeted Influence
April 16, 2021 11:30 - 31 minutesIt’s been a bit since we’ve talked to an influencer about their journey, their approach to monetization and their advice for brands and other influencers on how to do this influence thing. Today, we’re going to spend some time with Heather Watson. She’s the person behind Her Kentucky. Yeah, I asked Heather to come on the show because she’s in my neck of the woods as we say around here, so she’s top of mind. We’ve collaborated a couple of times for some brands here in bluegrass … heck, it tur...
What in the World is Up with CGI Influencers?
April 14, 2021 11:30 - 38 minutesWe’ve probably over-done the conversation on this show lately about fake influencers -- at least in the context of those who fraudulently buy followers and engagement to appear more influential than they really are. But there’s another kind of fake influencer out there that is potentially more frightening than the first. In case you aren’t aware, there is an emerging niche within influencer marketing of literally fake influencers … avatars. CGI-manufactured versions of what appear to be peopl...
The Reality of Fighting Influencer Fraud
April 09, 2021 11:30 - 24 minutesWe’re up to over 60 episodes of this podcast since it shifted to be totally focused on influence marketing and in that span we’ve talked to a lot of the executives at various influencer marketing software platforms. We asked many of them point-blank questions about how they’re dealing with influencer fraud. Most of them put on their sales hat, telling us how their proprietary thingamabob has a transverse positive quotion in the 98th percentile of whatchamajigger or some such nonsense. When I ...
Influencer Marketing Strategy from a Global Perspective
April 07, 2021 11:30 - 28 minutesThere are a handful of books in the market now about influencer marketing, beyond my humble entry into the space. We’ve talked to Neil Schaffer and Amanda Russel who both have books out on the topic. A few episodes back, we even spoke to the Professors -- Joyce Costello and Sevil Yesiloglu, who edited the first known college text on the topic. Gordon Glenister has thrown his offering into the mix, now too. His book is called Influencer Marketing Strategy and in it, he sources perspectives on ...
Discovering the Next-Level of Influencer Audience Building with Branded Apps
April 02, 2021 11:30 - 26 minutesIf you look at what is happening with the upper echelon of social media content creators --- influencers if you will --- they’re beginning to seize opportunities to return to the older mediums. Vikrant Mathur is facilitating that return. His company Future Today partners with high-volume YouTubers and content creators to build branded apps for distribution along channels most people consume on their home televisions as opposed to mobile devices or computers. Think about all the apps you prob...
What a Hollywood Actress has to Say About Influencers
March 31, 2021 11:30 - 30 minutesKelsey Formost spent a decade or so in an out of movies and television. She was in a film with Zac Ephron, had a guest spot on Modern Family, was also a successful screenwriter in show business as well. Today, she’s the director of content strategy for Tagger, an end-to-end influencer marketing solution. It was that perspective of a successful Hollywood actress that begged me to ask her what she thought of the fame-monger, wanna-be influencers—the kind that buy followers and engagement just ...