The Tea on Influencers

By Emma Stevens

Personally, I think using influencers in PR is a cop out. PR is about being a creative, quick thinker. PR is not about having another “influencer” do your job for you. 

Don’t take this the wrong way, I understand the appeal and reasoning behind it… but do I think it is stellar PR work? Not really. 

I understand that we have a tendency to trust who we follow, so why not market to a big following? My answer: the loss of authenticity. Just yesterday I read an article about celebrities who copy and post captions advertising their products that were sent to them but forget to remove the entire PR email from the caption. Whether this is laziness, lack of time, or just generally not caring that much about your followers, it seems enormously disrespectful and certainly not trustworthy.

As a consumer, when I see a post regarding a product, all I can think about is how inauthentic it is. I don’t believe Kim Kardashian really loves to eat blue gummy bears to make her hair grow longer. Then there’s the case of the Fyre Festival, which was promoted by every model imaginable but in reality left people stranded with no music, food, venue or safe place to sleep. 

I want us to seriously consider who we are trusting. Companies are continuously having to pull sponsorships after hate tweets surface from a celebrity endorser, or a scandal occurs involving someone who has sponsored a product. PR professionals are having to PUBLICLY remove themselves from the media storm and apologize for any involvement. I’m certain that this impacts a brand after the scandal, so why not pick someone trustworthy from the get go?

If we want to pitch our product by way of a famous endorser, we have to remember that everyone is human. Vet your prospect carefully. Kevin Hart lost his chance to emcee the Oscars because of homophobic tweets from years ago. It’s our responsibility to know our influencer, to avoid costly and embarrassing mistakes.

One more point: PR is centered around having a key message and promoting it to the best of your ability. How can I take a message seriously when the post before it was about your dog’s new sweater or you in a swimsuit? I respect people who post these photos if it’s their personal account. What I have a hard time with is mixing business with personal profiles. 

A company that I believe has found the happy medium in PR practices is Patagonia. They don’t search for content, instead they promote authentic content that has developed naturally. Patagonia honors its customers and their real life stories, which often relate to their products.

Recently, Patagonia promoted public figure DeRay McKesson, who has become known for always wearing his favorite blue patagonia. DeRay has an incredible voice and message, and he luckily really loves his patagonia vest. Patagonia highlighted this on their account with a lengthy post about DeRay without asking to tag him in every photo or to endorse the brand. Instead they let DeRay post about Patagonia’s new campaign, “wornwear,” and highlighted it on their instagram a couple days later. This is TASTEFUL and authentic. 

My opinion on influencers? Let the story come to you. Let the product and your campaign create a conversation.