Influencer Marketing Center of Excellence: Expanding the Purpose of Influencer Marketing in Customer Experience Strategy

Influencers, by definition, have such rich consumer knowledge and relevant topical expertise that to not include them in initial campaign research, ideation, strategy, and planning pose significant missed opportunities. As modern business leaders struggle to remain influential and trustworthy themselves, not inviting the influencers who are influencing their target audiences into the boardroom is lost business insight.Influencers enable marketers to engage with consumers in ways that they never have been able to before. As IMR matures as an enterprise-level strategy, internal alignment to how influencers impact brand marketing and communications will become even more important. Trust is the new social proof and brands’ many different touchpoints will need to reflect that in the form of influencers’ opinions (i.e., influencer recommendations, advocacy, ratings, and reviews), which requires internal shifts and education in how brands communicate and act in these channels.