Social media influencers playing larger role in business marketing strategies

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Social media influencers were invited to the launch of The Foundry, a new Hartford restaurant on the 20th floor of the office tower at 400 Columbus Blvd. The social media hype helped lead to a barrage of reservations.

Contributed The Foundry, a new restaurant in downtown Hartford.

Contributed The Foundry, a new restaurant in downtown Hartford, launched with the help of publicity from social media influencers. The restaurant did not pay them.

Contributed The Foundry, a new restaurant in downtown Hartford.

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By Andrew Larson

Six hours after a new restaurant in downtown Hartford, The Foundry, opened on Jan. 16, its tables were fully booked for the week.

Soon, reservations were booked through the whole month. The restaurant has drawn such interest that reservations typically require 30 days’ notice.

The Foundry has many selling points, from its panoramic views of the Capital City and lively and urbane atmosphere to its open kitchen design — situated on the 20th floor of downtown’s landmark Hartford Steam Boiler building.

But the successful launch was peppered with some marketing magic, too.

Immediacy, relatability

Cheshire-based marketing firm Rebellion Group orchestrated the strategy behind The Foundry’s debut. It included bringing in about 15 social media influencers to a preview event, where they could sample the food and shoot photos and videos.

The attendees were not paid to promote the restaurant — they were merely given an experience to share.

Rebellion Group called the marketing campaign “a symphony of connections.”

The results were impressive. The Foundry’s Instagram followers (which now total more than 18,000) increased 260% after the first five days, and the engagement rate across its social media channels increased 4,660%, according to Rebellion Group.

Social media influencers — including content creators, celebrities and others with a significant online following — are playing an increasingly important role in generating publicity for businesses, from new product launches and restaurant reviews to real estate listings, experts say.

They are also part of what’s becoming a big business. In fact, the influencer marketing market was expected to reach $24 billion in value at the end of 2024, experiencing exponential growth from $1.6 billion in 2016, according to an analysis by Influencer Marketing Hub.

Meantime, more than 85% of the 3,000 marketing, brand and public relations professionals surveyed by Influencer Marketing Hub said they planned to dedicate a portion of their budget on influencer marketing in 2024, and 60% planned to increase their influencer marketing spend.

Anthony Anthony

“First and foremost, influencers have reach, and so in an ever increasingly fractionalized and balkanized media ecosystem, more and more people are getting information from alternative sources,” said Anthony Anthony, Connecticut’s chief marketing officer. “So, it’s not just news media or even television, but online sources, and in many ways, they are filling that void.”

Marketing firm Adams & Knight in Avon even collaborated with social media influencers in the human resources sphere to promote a client’s health savings account offerings.

Michelle Bonner

“It’s completely changed the way businesses connect with people,” said Michelle Bonner, vice president of public relations at the agency. “Traditional ads — TV, print, radio — still play a huge role, especially for building broad awareness and credibility. A well-placed TV spot, a feature in a respected magazine or a high-impact billboard can reach people in a way that social media can’t. There’s a reason brands still invest in them.”

What influencer marketing does differently, Bonner said, is create a two-way conversation, which engenders trust.

“Instead of just telling people about a product, influencers show it — how it fits into their life, why they love it, what makes it worth trying,” Bonner said. “And because it’s coming from someone their audience already trusts, it feels less like marketing and more like a genuine recommendation.”

There’s an underlying trend that people respond more to what they consider “authentic” marketing, Anthony said.

The state’s advertising strategy has changed accordingly.

“We don’t do highly polished video, highly polished commercials,” Anthony said. “We’ve changed to user-generated, cell phone-filmed content because people respond better to that than they do the polished stuff. This type of influencer media certainly speaks to people more authentically.”

Last summer, the state Office of Tourism invited social media influencers to the Connecticut exhibit at the Big E. Also, influencers helped promote the launch of Connecticut’s new Christmas movie and oyster trails.

They will also participate in the March 14 promotion of the state’s new Pizza Capital Trail. At least three social media influencers will join a panel of food critics to judge the state’s best pizza.

Bonner calls social media influencers “the natural evolution of PR” because “influencers bring something traditional media can’t always offer: immediacy, relatability, and built-in trust with their audience.”

“It’s effective because it’s word of mouth,” Bonner said. “If you think about it, it’s just in a modern, scalable and highly targeted format. People have always relied on recommendations from trusted sources, and influencers have simply become those sources for their audiences.”

Free vs. paid

There’s a distinction in the influencer world between content for which the creator receives compensation from the brand they’re promoting, and when the creator does not receive anything other than free access and, perhaps, free samples.

The Federal Trade Commission requires paid social media content to be labelled as “#sponsored” or “#ad” to distinguish it.

Some influencers use both paid and unpaid methods. In either case, the terms are negotiated in advance.

The proliferation of influencer marketing is even changing perceptions about the importance of objectivity in building trust. Social media influencers are generally their own bosses, free from the demands of a corporate environment.

Social media brands are built around authenticity, honesty and transparency. But they aren’t bound by the tenets of journalism, such as impartiality.

James Dowd

“The value of social is people are not chained in meaning, the influencers are not bound to an editor. They are their own editor,” said James Dowd, Rebellion Group’s chief creative officer. “The term I use is ‘we’re authentic.’ We turn to social because we’ve seen the corporate entities define things and dictate the terms of experience, and then social media came in and said, ‘No, let’s empower the people.’ So, you choose who you want to believe. You choose who you want to listen to, and if they are open, if they’re honest, if they’re raw and they’re authentic, it’s more believable.”

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