There has been a ton of controversy surrounding influencer “giants” in the news lately. Considering everything from the disastrous Fyre Festival to the PewDiePie scandal, it seems like most companies are failing in regards to paid influencer marketing.
These high-profile paid influencer fails have further brought attention to the debate of paid influencer marketing vs earned influencer marketing. Jay Baer describes these two types of influencer marketing as follows:
- Paid Influence: occurs when people create content that promotes your company in exchange for money or other compensation. This is similar to celebrity endorsement.
- Earned Influence: occurs when people create content that promotes your company without being compensated for doing so.
The ‘Goliaths’ in this debate are the massive paid influencers with millions of followers while the ‘Davids’ are the smaller earned influencers.
As part of the webinine, Jay Baer will go in-depth with the pros and cons of both paid and earned influence marketing. The pros of paid influencer marketing include speed, potential impact, and identification ease while it carries cons of cost, authenticity, and potential legal problems. On the opposite end of the spectrum, earned influence is authentic, cheap, and safer, however, it carries with it issues of timeline and harder identification.
So who wins the debate?
Well, according to Jay Baer the answer is clear. Just like in the Biblical story of David and Goliath, Jay is sure that the ‘Davids,’ aka the earned influencers, are the best bet to come out on top for your brand.
What is Jay’s reasoning for this opinion? What truly is the difference between earned and paid influence? Can both be integrated into the marketing mix? All of these questions will be answered during Jay Baer’s upcoming webinine (a nine minute webinar) courtesy of Insightpool. Titled David and Goliath: Earned & Paid Influencer Marketing, the webinine will air on Wednesday, May 17th at 1 pm.
To register for the webinine, follow this link.
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