Influencer marketing is a rapidly growing and evolving niche in itself. We have seen it go from an unconventional marketing strategy to a globally accepted and trusted strategy. With the pandemic at our doors, it is only natural that people will likely spend even more time on social media.
So 2021 can see even further growth in influencer marketing without a doubt. With a dominating social media presence and the many benefits, it offers this is a natural course that influencer marketing will take.
Even with such growth and range, there are still some misconceptions about this marketing strategy. Sahiba Dhandhania, Co-founder, Confluencr shares her thoughts on the myths of influencer marketing.
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Let us Debunk Some of the Most Common Misconceptions About Influencer Marketing.
Online Content Creation is the Only Step in Influencer Marketing
Even though content creation is the biggest and most common way for influencer marketing to work, it is not the only way. Influencers can spread the word about a brand through word of mouth or their daily life experience as well. However, this mainly works with influencers who function on a smaller scale and audience.
The Main Stage is Social Media
Social media platforms are the predominant stage for influencer marketing. Platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc. work according to the brand’s objective but influencers can also impact other online areas as well. Forums, brand websites, and even e-commerce websites can be impacted by certain acts of influencers, such as publishing reviews or ratings.
High Numbers of Followers Means High Chances of Success
This is the biggest misconception when working with influencers. Firstly, a high number of followers does not guarantee high engagement and secondly, followers can be bought. Brands should rather focus on the amount of engagement that influencers draw. Larger engagement guarantees interest in the brand and also traffic on the brand website.
Finance is the Only Way for Compensation
While it is true that bigger influencers have to be paid a proper amount for the promotions. But a lot of smaller influencers ( influencers who have less than 1,000 followers or who have followers between 1,000 to 100,000) can be employed without financial compensation. A lot of these influencers are willing to work for free or free products as well.
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Only Gen z and Millennials can be Reached
This misconception is because only the younger demographic uses social media. The demographic for the audience depends on the social media platform. If your target is a younger audience you would probably go to a platform like TikTok but if your target is a little older then you can opt for Facebook or even Instagram.
Promoting a Brand or Product is The Only Objective
Surely promoting a product and brand is something we see influencers doing quite often but influencer marketing can also be used for other objectives. It can be used as an education platform where awareness is brought for various causes. Brands can partner up with influencers for charitable issues, humanitarian causes, or even community development.
ROI for Influencer Marketing Campaign
Many often wonder how ROI can be measured with influencer campaigns. with the help of different tools and analytics brands can measure the ROI. It is possible to know the performance of the campaign and also predict the sales. This is true for both short-term as well as long-term campaigns. The right date can help with ROI measurement.
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Influencer Marketing Campaigns can be Easily Managed by Brands
Collaboration with influencers seems like an easy task but brands should tread lightly when it comes to this type of marketing. Brands should have highly skilled members to identify possibilities of fraud or fake followers. There are various influencer marketing agencies to help brands to simplify the process. It takes tools, data, and the right algorithm to activate multiple influencers across social media.
Influencer Marketing is Very Expensive
The fee of an influencer depends on the size of the audience they can draw in. The difference is great depending on the number. While big influencers can cost a higher amount of money there are also smaller influencers who are comparatively cheaper. Some smaller influencers even collaborated for free products or for free. The budget varies accordingly.
Short-Lived Campaigns
Brands should focus on long-term collaborations with influencers for well-planned and executed content. This allows them to gain credibility and authenticity promotion. Influencer marketing should be included in a brand’s marketing plan like any other traditional media channel.
Wrapping It Up!
Influencers have been the interest of most of the world recently but this interest also brings misconceptions. We should work towards educating people about these misconceptions and the importance of influencers as strategic allies to brands.
Ontario Sunshine List is released every year and it reveals the salaries of public sector workers who take home a salary in excess of $100,000. This year the list features 300,570 names which is 30,000 higher than last year of public sector employees with salaries over $100,000. The Ontario Sunshine list also features five employees working at the Ontario Power Generation who are among the top 10 earners with the province’s highest salary nearing $2 million.
Ontario had passed the Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act in 1996 under the Mike Harris government and the stated aim of the act was to make the government more transparent and accountable. The $100,000 limit was a big deal then.
However the $100,000 in 1996 in relative terms in 2024 will be equivalent to $180,564.97. If you remove 300,570 people on this year’s Ontario Sunshine List for that salary threshold there you drop 279,781 names. In other words there will be many people who will not be able to own a house without help from family or an inheritance.
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In a nutshell it means that employees who take home a six figure salary package will still feel the pinch of Canada’s affordability crisis. The soaring inflation and rising cost of living a $100,000 salary doesn’t guarantee financial security in many parts of the country.
Also, to maintain the $100,000 threshold today, the province should have adjusted it to $55,381.73 in 1996. Ontario has fixed a threshold of $100,000, while the threshold varies in other provinces. Alberta, for example, has set a threshold of $125,888 for government employees and $150,219 for people in public sector bodies.
Not much information is available for the federal government, but a Canadian Taxpayers Federation access-to-information request revealed that 110,593 employees in the federal public service earned $100,000 or more in 2023.
There are a couple of options for Ontario and other governments with non-indexing disclosure requirements. Resetting the threshold to a number that makes more sense today and then continuing to index the threshold going forward seems feasible.
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We also don’t need to reveal the names of all individuals. The government could report aggregated salary ranges by job title rather than disclosing specific names below a second, lower threshold. This would maintain government accountability and transparency by still disclosing who the highest earners are.
As it stands, we have a list that publishes the names and salaries of potentially hundreds of thousands of people who could not afford to buy a house. This doesn’t seem aligned with the original intent of the disclosure act.
Some features of the Ontario Sunshine List 2024 are as follows:
The highest paid employee took a pay check of $1.9M
Public sector employees were paid salaries in excess of $100K
The Ontario Sunset list top position is held by Kenneth Hartwick, CEO of the electricity Crown Corporation with a salary of $1.93 million followed by chief strategy officer Dominique Miniere $1.2 million and chief projects officer Michael Martelli drawing $1 million as salary.
Public sector workers were paid counting in Bill 124 compensation
2024 budget revealed that Ontario deficit will triple
CEOs of the Hospital for Sick Children and the University Health Network figured in the top 10 list and each drew a salary of $850,000 each while CEO of the provincial transit agency, Metrolinx drew a salary of $838,097.
17 professors or associate professors at the University of Toronto drew a salary in excess of $500,000
Caroline Mulroney, president of the Treasury Board, stated in a release,
“The largest year-over-year increases were in the hospitals, municipalities, and services, and post-secondary sectors, which together represented approximately 80 percent of the growth of the list.”
Andrew Dudum, CEO and founder of Telemedicine Company Hims & Hers is facing flak on the social media after his reported statement that he wants to hire students and protestors who are taking part in the protest in support of Palestinians in Universities across the US.
A number of tech sector founders has also condemned his statements.
Dudum had posted on X,
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“If you’re currently protesting against the genocide of the Palestinian people and for your university’s divestment from Israel, keep going. It’s working. There are plenty of companies and CEOs eager to hire you, regardless of university discipline.”
He also posted a link to a page showing open positions at Hims & Hers.
X users have expressed their disapproval and have even called for a boycott Hims & Hers, and others said they are selling their stock in the company.
Cofounder of Palantir Technologies as well as the managing partner of early stage venture capital firm 8VC Joe Lonsdale responded on X and said
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“Real moral courage doesn’t involve joining a mindless mob, chanting anti U.S. and other woke pablum, following instructions not to debate or discuss your positions at all yet being indignantly righteous, while large numbers in the mob chant for violence and block Jewish students.”
While Hims & Hers spokesperson said Dudum were not available for comments, old posts by Dudum have been unearthed which puts in context his actions. Days before the horrific attack by Hamas’ terrorist against Israel on October 7, Dudum had posted –
“In pursuit for peace: Our leaders need to embrace nuance.”
Dudum further explained that he is a Palestinian American and had roots in and family in the West Bank and Gaza and said Hims & Hers’ values are based on a respect for human dignity and life.
Dudum wrote
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“It is upon those values that I believe all leaders and CEOs should use their platform today to call for an immediate cease fire. To actively recognize Israel’s right to defense and also recognize the means and manner in which they are responding violates international law. I ask us to find nuance, and share our voice today to help save innocent lives.”
Deadly protests have hit U.S. college campuses through last month and protest encampments have sprung across more than 40 colleges nationwide.
Police crackdown is on and there have been more than 1,900 arrests or detainments following a wave of activism at universities across the country.
Hims & Hers is a Telemedicine Company that links consumers with licensed healthcare professionals, enabling access to high-quality care for conditions related to sexual health, mental health, and more. It also offers its own range of products and is in a partnership with Los Angeles-based Hustle & Co. on media relations.
Trouble for Microsoft and OpenAI over copyright infringement is not coming to an end, as they face several lawsuits for violating copyrights.
On Tuesday, eight US newspaper publishers sued Microsoft for illegally reusing articles in AI products.
The 98-page long lawsuit further accused the tech companies of attributing erroneous information to the publishers.
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The eight newspapers that have filed the lawsuits include the New York Daily News and the Chicago Tribune.
They allege that OpenAI’s ChatGPT used their copyrighted articles to perfect its language models without permission.
The lawsuit was filed in a New York federal court on Tuesday. The publishers claim that OpenAI’s large language models, GPT-2 and GPT-3, were perfected using datasets containing text from their newspapers.
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The language models are designed to produce text based on human inputs and reproduce copies of the publishers’ works. Microsoft has been indicted for using newspapers for its Bing search index but seldom provided links to the original articles. Four months ago, The New York Times also filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing the tech giant of using data from its past content. It also asked for consent for usage, criticizing the use of full article excerpts in chatbot responses.
The latest lawsuit filed by the eight news outlets also demanded consent and fair value for using their content to perfect the AI language models. The lawsuit alleged that the AI tools literally regurgitate their content without directing users to the content source.
The lawsuit filings stated, “This lawsuit arises from defendants purloining millions of the publishers’ copyrighted articles without permission and without payment to fuel the commercialization of their generative artificial intelligence products, including ChatGPT and (Microsoft’s) Copilot.”
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The eight newspapers that instituted the lawsuits are as follows:
The New York Daily News and The Chicago Tribune, both owned by Alden Global Capital
The Orlando Sentinel
The Sun Sentinel
The San Jose Mercury News
The Denver Post
The Orange County Register
The St. Paul Pioneer Press
OpenAI’s Response
OpenAI did not directly respond to the accusations but stated that it takes great care to support the news and media outlets. It also stated it is in continuous partnerships and conversations with various news outlets around the world to explore new opportunities, discuss problems, and seek out solutions.
Microsoft also stated that OpenAI has entered into fruitful partnerships with a number of publishers, which includes The Financial Times, The Associated Press, Spanish conglomerate Prisa Media, and Germany’s Axel Springer.
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