Our guest this episode is Kurt Uhlir, well known startup adviser and board member! We talk to Kurt about influencer marketing. Marketer in the Middle is where the region’s top marketing leaders candidly discuss the intensity of the ever-shifting sales & marketing landscape, especially where B2B and ABM is concerned. Hosted by Mike Stiles and Michael Valverde.

Influencer marketing is getting people to talk about their experiences with the brand. Micro influencers can often be more effective at this than big name celebrities.

Influencer marketing is not paid, although many celebrities do get paid to interact with or mention the brand. But that’s advertising. That includes paying for reviews.

The laws used to be more ambiguous around when you have to disclose that there was compensation to an influencer, but they’re getting better and cover monetary and non-monetary compensation. Either way, consumers know the difference and it’s far less authentic when they realize it’s essentially an ad.

It’s easy to find people who have small, but highly relevant communities that are the perfect audience for your brand. The prestige and cred the influencer gets from being associated with a brand motivates them to have a relationship with you, pay isn’t necessary.

Social media did change how we communicate. But the marketing hype that it would be free didn’t pan out. Expectations got busted. With stellar content, it is easier to get seen, but there’s still a cost to distribute content that gets opened. Average content won’t cut it. And publishing inconsistently won’t cut it.

For your content to win, you have to have a great story arc that fits into a master brand story arc. It has to be authentic, which usually means customer-obsessed. It has to trigger an emotional connection.

Some marketers use the promise of giveaways to get engagement and sharing, but the effort should be about getting users to join a community they can be passionate about. Those are the people that will participate and share. But they must buy into your mission. People want to be part of something bigger.

Apple’s always had a charismatic CEO, plus a few levels of employees under that who became influencers in specific areas. You have to enable the people in your org to be champions for you and trust them to lead communities on your behalf.

Influencer marketing is one of the better ways to cut through the content noise. It’s success by a thousand cuts. Yes, an email blast might generate touchpoints, but leveraging influencers can reinforce or raise those touchpoints.