How To Have Influence in a world of Influencers?

I recently entered a Facebook competition, something I have never done (I'm not a fan of 'like & share' competitions), however, the competition was to win tickets to the 'Image Magazine's Networking Breakfast' meeting in The Marker Hotel, sponsored by Mazda Ireland - all you had to do was simply comment below with why you wanted to attend. So in the hope of attending the event, I took the chance, entered and was delighted when I saw I had won!

I attended the event and enjoyed every second, and left feeling very inspired, they also had a very nice Mazda MX-5 parked right outside on display for us all to drool over as we arrived. 

Fast forward to a few days later when I receive an email from the Mazda Ireland team, asking me when I would like my Mazda experience... Now, I must admit, I thought by 'Mazda Experience' they meant, a VR (Virtual Reality) experience or something along that lines and that I had possibly just missed it at the event that morning. But, it was to 'borrow' the Mazda MX-5 RF for a weekend of my choice…

I had never heard of winning a car for a few days, but being a car lover, I replied straight away opting for the June Bank Holiday weekend - I figured the weather had to be somewhat decent and I would get away with dropping the top at some stage over the course of the weekend (you just never know what way the weather will go in Ireland), plus it’s a long weekend :)

So we booked the car in for that weekend and I immediately shared the news with close family/ friends, who all had the same reaction I did - who gives a brand new car away so freely to someone for a whole weekend? They didn't believe me until the day I collected it, sent on some photographs/ turned up in the car!

But, it's really very clever Marketing.

Some brands give 'Influencers' and 'Bloggers' 'freebies' to promote to their followers, sometimes they're paid to promote, regardless of whether their own values align with the product (it happens).

What we can see happening, is that a lot of these 'Influencers' may have the same kind of following, so companies and brands are paying for promotions in front of the same audience… So, how and where do you reach that pivotal wider audience?

What Mazda has done here, is given a refreshed approach to influencing, by bringing it back to basics, word of mouth. I feel influencing will evolve somewhat and we’ll see more of the 'silent influencers' - the 'influencers' among that wider audience - quality, not quantity, if you will. Mazda are in it for the long win, building their relationship, with their audience, through their audience, and building that trust that all brands want with their customers, and I think it's something we can all learn from.

Mazda will reach a wider and possibly a more viable audience by letting people borrow their promotional car for each weekend of the year - imagine the online reach of 52 people in one year, considering how many social platforms we all have these days, with (generally) a couple hundred/ thousand following each account. If each winner posted a picture of themselves with the car, imagine the reach they're looking at. The people entering the competitions for the ‘Mazda Experience’ will more or less be car lovers of some sort, so you're already reaching your target audience in that regard.

I didn't spread the news of winning the car very far until the day I had it, no one was really going to care, right? Now obviously, being a lover of driving and photography, I snapped a few photos of the car and shared one or two across the few platforms that I use. I was eager to see if anyone who didn't know how I came to have the car, would ask me how or why I had a brand new Mazda MX-5 RF! Sure enough, within hours of posting one of the photographs, I received a message:

“‘How’d you get that Mazda, having only 1,000 followers’”

A great example, that our current digital generation and the way we see social media and networking at the moment, is all about the 'Influencer' and their reach. But, everyone is an influencer. I feel 'Influencers' as we know them today, will evolve down the line, as we continue to figure out social media networking for businesses. It will be important for brands themselves, to build their own relationships and trust with their own audience to achieve real quality reach on social platforms. The top ‘Influencers’ these days do have reach, no doubt about it, but the 'silent influence' is certainly strong, after all, viral videos go viral because everyone shares them, because everyone has the power to influence in some way, and that's the maximum reach and visibility every brand strives to achieve in a social media campaign.

Social media/ networks are evolving at such a rapid pace that I really think this gives us all good food for thought as we continue to figure it all out, as we map out our social media strategies and ROI objectives.