- Brands increasingly partner with niche "alternative influencers" for targeted audiences.
- Talent firm Figures recruits experts, authors and thought leaders.
- Marketers shift focus from large followings to engaged communities.
- Partnerships center on newsletters, podcasts and intellectual projects.
A new type of internet personalities, often referred to as the so-called alternative influential, is also gaining popularity among marketers who aim to attain a closer connection with niche audiences, without relying on the reach that large-scale social media influence serves.
The new direction in which talent representation firm 'Figures' is positioning itself by recruiting thought leaders, authors, scholars and creative experts who have authority in a particular community yet comparatively small following online.
The fact that most mainstream influencers tend to promote consumer goods directly on sites, like Instagram or Tik Tok, is irrelevant to this group of individuals, as the growth occurs in form of newsletters, through podcasts or publications and cultural projects.
In talent management, like in literature management, there is the literary agent, or the conventional one made to work with models and film stars, and at the other end of the spectrum there are creator and influencer agencies, created to produce scale, according to Figures co-founder Jacqueline Kavanagh. These individuals do not identify themselves with either of the two worlds.
Sustainable fashion executive, Jaime Perlman, Sublime founder, Sari Azout, registered nutritionist and newsletter writer, Kat Chan and entrepreneur, Lucy Kumara Moore, make up the first list of the firm.
Brands are Searching Smaller, Yet More Attentive Audits
The rise of this new type represents trends in the greater context of digital marketing in which the brands are beginning to lose confidence in the importance of pursuing enormous social media visibility.
Influencer marketing has grown extremely fast over the last ten years, where companies have collaborated with thousands of content makers to advertise products on social sites.
Gap Inc. recently reported that its Old Navy brand added approximately 15,000 creators to its portfolio in the last quarter three times the number it had the previous quarter. Unilever is a consumer goods firm that collaborates with tens of thousands of influencers across the world, and has expressed intentions to increase that network.
With influencer marketing becoming more crowded, the company is redirecting part of its resources to people who might have a smaller audience, but one which was more attentive and interested.
The founders of business are whom we prioritize, and we understand that when these founders are not working, they are learning something new or pushing themselves in some other manner or another, Heather MacKinnon, the director of brand at fintech firm Mercury. He says, "We are not always going to take it over to the largest room we can possibly get, but to the room where there are the right people."
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Mercury is investing approximately 20 percent of its marketing plans in collaborating with intellectual creators that are operating podcasts, newsletters or YouTube channels that focus on startup founders and technology audiences.
The Power of More than Social Media
Most of the individuals in this new category do not identify themselves as influencers. Mindy Seu, a scholar and artist who created the book titled Cyberfeminism Index, explained that she has distributed her works online but never wrote with a direct purpose to social media.
According to Seu, she does not really view herself as an influencer, and the only difference is that she shares her work and events online, but not specifically to social media.
It is quite useful to have someone on your side to advocate you in all things that are not very comfortable, such as the pricing aspect of negotiations, and to determine what kind of deals makes me feel morally sound.
The talent agencies are making an attempt to form brand partnerships based on intellectual or creative projects, not on personal endorsements.
Examples, e.g. plans to work towards monetization of ideas-driven work including workshops, publications, performances and research projects.
Move Towards Community-Oriented Marketing
According to the industry pundits, the trend is an indication derived out of increased understanding that power can have different effects on experts communities.
Though, creators of celebrities continue to dominate any type of campaigns that necessitate mass exposure, marketers are starting to explore targeted collaborations that target specific groups.
Max Stein, founder and chief executive in talent management firm Brigade, wrote: "There will always be moments when mass reach is essential by brands. However, at times they require the contrary of such: to be deeply embedded in one community, and broadly in all communities."
Brigade, the creative professionals (such as writers, stylists and podcast hosts) agency, has negotiated brand partnerships between such brands like Adobe and Target and niche media creators like newsletter writers.
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To the marketing executives that have had to manoeuvre in an ever more fractured digital media world, these other influencers are other avenues of connecting to consumers via credibility and knowledge versus the mere number of followers.
With companies persistently experimenting with the concept of online influence, a shift in influencer economy towards niche thought leaders implies that this metric might no longer be based on traditional social media metrics.
