4. Influence ≠ Popularity
Engagement rates fall with larger follower bases
Engagement = average % of Followers
that interact with a post
Instagram Profiles Comparison
Source: Takumi analysis of 500,000 Instagram accounts
Stars / Celebrities
Diminished engagement
100k+ Followers
Traditional PR
Efforts
TAKUMI
Interest-based following
1-100k Followers
Expensive to engage at scale
5. • We want to make your life easier
• We take away the headaches for
brand marketers
• Get your time back and use it more
effectively
It can be a challenge sometimes
6. Pay to play
It may be a dirty little secret but…
• Influencer marketing is not earned media
• Influencers can help achieve earned media
• But you have to pay to play
Creative thought leaders
don't come for free
7. Brand benefits
Summary
Powerful. Micro influencers engage their
followers better than celebrities and stars
Convenient. Get easy access to micro-
influencers and launch large scale word of
mouth campaigns
Creative. Download and repurpose all posts
and expand your brand or campaign assets
Effective. Get maximum engagement per
pound spent
Growth. Build your own brand
Exposure. Work with brands that align with
your identity
Compensation. Get paid for your authority
and creativity
Influencer benefits
benefits
A Tale of Two Founders
Founded in March of 2015
Launched in November of 2015
Takumi is the result of two perspectives:
Our CEO and co-founder, Mats Stigzelius, is a serial entrepreneur who has historically worn the “marketing hat” in his various ventures. He, like many marketing professionals, bore the brunt of the logistical and resource consuming frustrations when it came to sourcing Social Influencers to support brand awareness and engagement. For Mats there had to be a better solution when it came to finding and leveraging the relevant social influencers.
On the side of the equation is Solberg Audunsson, our Head of Product and co-founder, whose conversation with a friend of his sparked the flame of what would later constitute a “micro influencer.” A friend of his was on Instagram and she had a couple thousand followers; her photos were of outstanding quality and she had really high rates of engagement with her followers. He asked if she had ever worked with brands before. The answer was no.
So why was this? How many other people on Instagram have several thousand followers, high rates of engagement, and amazing creative outputs?
Could there be a way to expose them to the brands that align with their content and personal identities?
And is there a way of doing so that eliminates the various pain points for marketing professionals?
So Takumi was born!!!
Takumi has streamlined the ability of brands to find and leverage micro influencers.
Our clients create campaigns on our web based dashboard, and those campaigns are funnelled to the relevant influencers on our mobile app
But Why Influencers in the First Place?
Influencers are part of the natural evolution of brand marketing. Social media directly impacts purchasing decisions of consumers as people look to their peers more and more for advice on consumer products and services.
Influencers aren’t necessarily celebrities, they have simply built a level of knowledge and/or expertise in given areas, which makes their content influential to those that follow them.
Their is a level of trust between influencer and follower, the content is more authentic and native to that user’s experience, and it doesn’t disrupt the UX say for instance like display ads might do.
So what constitutes an effective Influencer? Reach on its own is simply a vanity metric and does not equate to “influential value.”
Takumi conducted an analysis of 500k Instagram accounts.
As reach scaled up the relative engagement per post decreased (as reach goes into the millions, engagement dips well below 1%)
Our influencers start at 1k followers and average at about 10k, meaning they provide 2x more engagement per 100k followers than does a single influencer 100k+ followers.
Leveraging smaller “micro influencers” in a targeted way is more effective than simply one influencer. This is the difference between social influencing and social broadcasting.
But effectively leveraging influencers can be challenging…
Finding and leveraging influencers is not a cut and dry process. There are no standard operating procedures.
Finding the relevant influencers, even large ones is a logistical pain. Either it is done in-house and drains internal resources, or it is outsourced, and there is little transparency in pricing for influencer services
Micro influencers, while valuable assets are even more difficult to source and leverage because they need to found, briefed, and contracted at scale.
One of the things to consider once you have found influencers is how you approach that working relationship.
Paying smaller influencers to promote a certain product isn’t something brands and marketers necessarily something that brands and marketers don't want to talk about.
Because ultimately what they are trying to achieve and enable is earned media - the word of mouth advertising that is so crucial to a brand’s success
The debate between whether or not social influencer marketing constitutes earned or paid media is one that divides audiences.
At Takumi, we believe that social influencer marketing falls into the earned media category, even if you are paying for it. This might sound counter-intuitive, but let me explain:
On one hand, influencers can be ambassadors. They believe in the product or service and will promote it because of those factors. This is truly earned media. Peer-to-peer recommendations have replaced traditional ads and so and so influencers are essential to swaying opinions of consumers.
On the other hand, influencers are experts, thought leaders, and content creators whose time and creative outputs must be respected by the brands who approach them.
As a result, we take the stance that paying influencers is necessary and does not constitute buying loyalty. It is representative of fair compensation for the influencer’s time, expertise, and creativity.