The Costs, And Benefits, Of The Influencer Economy

Retailers have lately found themselves in a tricky spot when it comes to marketing. Traditional advertising outlets, including newspapers and television, are losing out to digital at an alarming rate. Yet even on the digital side, it’s getting harder to place an ad that anyone will see. In June, Google announced that its popular Chrome browser would begin automatically blocking “annoying” ads and YouTube is set to eliminate its ubiquitous 30-second unskippable ad format by 2018. Millennials and their younger counterparts, Generation Z, have also expressed a strong aversion to advertising, and failed corporate attempts to sound cool have only made the landscape more difficult to navigate. This climate has given rise to a different sort of marketing strategy, via social media influencers. It’s a category that used to be called simply “tastemakers” but now refers to a wide swath of popular online personalities who have the ability to sway their friends, fans and followers, subsequently influencing their purchase decisions. Read more at Retail Dive.