influencer marketing

Definition

Paying people with large social media followings to promote your product, operating on the principle that strangers trust other strangers more than they trust brands. It's word-of-mouth marketing for the selfie generation.

Example Usage

Our influencer marketing campaign with @FitnessGuru2000 generated more engagement than six months of our own social posts combined.

Origin

Evolved from celebrity endorsements in the 2010s with the rise of Instagram and YouTube

Fun Fact

The influencer marketing industry is projected to be worth $21.1 billion, proving that getting paid to post photos is indeed a viable career.

Source: Social media marketing practice

Related Terms

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brand safety

Ensuring your ads don't appear next to content that makes your company look terrible, like extremist videos or conspiracy theories. Surprisingly difficult to achieve at scale.

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Clickbait

Headlines designed to be so irresistibly intriguing that you click before your brain can stop you. "You won't believe what happened next" is the marketing equivalent of dangling a laser pointer in front of a cat, and we all fall for it every single time.

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Pain Point

A problem that a customer or employee has, rebranded as something clinical so you can charge money to fix it. Every pain point is someone's job security -- if the pain goes away, so does the consulting contract.

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spend

The total amount of money allocated or actually spent during a specific period, often used by marketers and finance folks who apparently forgot the word 'spending' exists. It's become corporate jargon for any expenditure, particularly in advertising and budget contexts. Because why use a verb when you can awkwardly noun-ify it?

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testimonial

A customer endorsement weaponized for marketing purposes—genuine or conveniently edited praise that companies display to convince skeptical prospects that their product actually works. In its purest form, it's an unprompted tribute; in reality, it's often solicited, incentivized, or cherry-picked from thousands of responses. The video testimonial is its most powerful evolution, because nothing says authentic like professional lighting and a lapel mic.

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UGC

User Generated Content, which is a polite way of saying you're using your customers' photos and videos instead of paying for a professional shoot. It's the marketing equivalent of asking someone to bring a dish to a dinner party you're hosting.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

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