September 19, 2020 Antonio Aguirre, Jr. Influencer Marketing is overly UNDERPRICED. Here’s why:

I wrote this on my social media account about a year ago and I wanna pounce on this one again through my blog. Influencer marketing is overly underpriced if you work with plenty of micro and even nano influencers. They’re very authentic for one because even if they have fewer following, they have a strong fanbase that genuinely believes/trust in them and what’s gold is that they reply to comments and DMs. Imagine if a million follower celebrity endorses your products and you as a fan comment asking like what size is that shoe, and the celebrity doesn’t even bother replying to that? As a brand, you do get exposure for your products, but the actual product turnover for your brand is very low. That’s why it’s called social media, you put content out, people reply, and you respond to them, that’s interaction. Some even turn off comments, that’s way worse.

Some people think interacting with their following is simply posting something and their followers liking it. It’s not. I’m not a firm believer of paying for endorsements from big name celebrities that doesn’t make sense. Depending on your type of brand, you’d rather build a strong long term relationship with these people through the products you truly believe in, rather than paying them money to promote. Followers of brands see through a brand’s BS now unlike recent years. I think that brand loyalty shows a lack of authenticity for people locked into a certain brand endorsement only, especially when it’s a paid endorsement. Brands need to wake up from their traditional ways of thinking or else they will sink into oblivion.

That’s why as a brand owner and entrepreneur myself, I’d rather give so much of my product to these influencers or whatever you wanna call them instead of paying them or paying for overly priced billboards and commercials on TV that don’t capture the right audience. That’s another case to talk about sometime.

Question of the day: Who are your favorite micro and nano influencers? Those with 10k or less followers. Comment below!

Featured photo: Me prepping FILA packages for influencers