Jessica Sanderson

It's actually an interesting story. I didn't really know anything about influencers because back in 2006 there wasn't really a spaces for us, and we were known as just bloggers. I started a blog about cupcakes, wasn't expecting anything, but I somehow ended up getting invited to The Martha Stewart Show in 2009, and that kick started my journey. Right after that, I sold my blog and moved into the field of graphic and web design. In 2010 I started a parenting publication called Modern Day Moms. My tagline was not another mom blog, gained a lot of followers, and around that time social media was starting to get attention. The terms influencers, algorithms, and talent agencies were new to the society and had to do everything we could to gather attention from brands. I worked directly with the companies like Google, Honda and Dyson. Fast forward to 2018, I had a huge following and got tired of being on the influencer side so I sold everything and started working on the opposite end connecting brands with influencers. I would come onboard with a lot of different companies, agencies, and told them how influencers marketing works. That's how it went and continues until today.

I would say the biggest thing now is the affiliate marketing. Influencers, especially bigger ones, feel more secure because it is more like a long-steady stream of income, and this phenomenon is really interesting for me. Second one, finding influencer that relates to the company. We got a lot of tools out there right now to find suitable influencers, which didn't exist back in the day and also dealing with talent agents. Word of mouth also plays big role nowadays, especially since pandemic there's a big aspect of community that goes into the field of influencers and a lot of people got successful there.

I found it interesting that influencer marketing is actually more successful when they are more organic and less spammy. There's one brand that actually made CDs based on hate comments they got on social medias. There's also an oat milk company that promoted their products by saying that "technically our product is not milk based on our legal team but you can". Its almost like disruptive. I did a campaign with pabst blue ribbon and used their beer cans into candles, so it was beer can-dles and that was very successful. Letting influencers have creative control over their audience because the more you tell them what to do, the less likely you will have people resonating with them. Creative freedom is the number one goals for any successful influencer campaigns.

I think the biggest one is reach. Essentially you're working with influencer not just to help promote the company, but their contents need to be relatable to be able to drive Call to Action. Having influencers with great reach will help you gain new followers, impressions, and engagements to your company. Engagements is also a big one. Sometimes I just re-share or remix the contents from another influencers, and having another influencers that are engaging with the communities is pretty nice. Then comes Call to Action (CTA). Connecting with the audiences, engaging with them, understanding your audiences and finally being able to convince them, works better instead of just spamming them.

We work with a lot of different people from mega influencers, to celebrities to a student. I think the most important thing is that they should have influence in their community. You just need to look at many different aspects instead of focusing on specific niche like micro or mega influencers. Just tap into all of them and work with them in various ways.

I would say finding the right influencers who don't inflate their numbers. You might be spending a lot of money and don't get the results if you choose the wrong influencers. If you're hyper-focused too much just on their follower numbers and don't actually look at their engagements, that will never help you. Next one is communicating with talents agents. They're amazing, they handle a lot of talents but its almost like putting a second step between you and the influencers, while you could actually talk with the influencers directly, it's really time-taking. Third one, I found that catering campaigns to specific influencers tends to be more successful than putting up a campaign with everybody chipping in. For example, a mega influencers with millions of followers versus a college student with hundreds followers who are friends and they might talk to hundreds of their friends on a daily basis. The college student would actually do better than the mega influencers, you just need to look at a different perspective instead of being blinded by how many followers does an influencer have.

Recently CBS News came out with a study that states that 86% of young American adults between ages of 18-24 want to become social media influencers. A lot of them see their parents living the 9 to 5 work shifts and wouldn't want to be in the same position. The future is really all about designing the life that they love. A lot of platforms are getting revived, like LinkedIn has started to get more popular with the younger generation. I think influencers are just going up from here. At Sound Advice, we're dedicated to educating and motivating the younger generation, aspiring entrepreneurs, and potential influencers by providing guidance and support in navigating the unique financial challenges they face, helping them take small steps towards their goals and avoid the mistakes I made on my own journey.