Whether macro (100,000 to 1 million followers) or micro (10,000 to 100,000 followers), influencers help your marketing impact through authentic connections with their community.

In this article, we’ve curated a list of the top statistics to show how influencer marketing can expand your reach online and drive engagement with your target audience.

Understanding Influencer Marketing

Fundamentally, influencer marketing is a content strategy that uses individuals with dedicated social media followings to endorse a product or service.

Many brands collaborate with them to leverage their established credibility and reach within their community, often through platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Influencers effectively bridge the gap between companies and their target audience.

Unlike traditional advertising, influencer marketing capitalizes on influencers’ personal connection with their followers, leading to more organic and impactful engagements. It’s a fusion of old-school celebrity endorsement with a contemporary, digital twist.

The type of influencer you partner with depends on your brand. Here are the four types:

• Mega: 1M+ followers
• Macro: 100K – 1M followers
• Micro: 10K – 100K followers
• Nano: 10k or less followers

It’s up to you to decide if influencer marketing is right for your business. If unsure, check out the statistics below to help you decide.

General influencer marketing statistics

1. Over half of Gen Z and Millennial consumers (53%) say they would consider buying products based on their favorite influencers’ recommendations. (Traackr)
2. In 2024, 84.8% of marketers saw influencer marketing as effective — a slight increase from 83% the previous year but a drop from 90% in 2022. (Influencer Marketing Hub)
3. 63.2% of brands worked with the same influencers across different campaigns in 2024, up from 61% in the previous year and 57% in 2022 — a clear indication that brands prefer building relationships with familiar influencers vs. repeating the influencer selection process for each campaign. (Influencer Marketing Hub)
4. In a global 2024 survey of brands, marketing agencies, PR agencies, and other professionals, 37.6% of respondents reported that their organizations collaborated with up to 10 influencers, while 14.7% said they worked with over a thousand. (Statista)
5. Brands are working with 33% more micro-influencers each year. (Statusphere)
6. The primary goal of influencer campaigns is to create user-generated content (56%). Driving sales (23%) ranks as a secondary objective. (Influencer Marketing Hub)
7. On the micro-influencer marketing side of the equation, the top goals for campaigns are brand awareness (65%), repurposing content for ads (22%), and increasing in-store sales (13%). (Statusphere)
8. Within the last 12 months, 87% of the content that brands requested from micro-influencers was in the form of short videos, like TikToks and Instagram Reels. (Statusphere)
9. The most effective micro-influencer videos on TikTok and Instagram Reels tend to be 20-40 seconds long. (Statusphere)
10. 63% of marketers plan to use AI in executing their influencer campaigns (Influencer Marketing Hub)
11. 55.8% of those brands will use AI for influencer identification, 18.6% for locating and distributing relevant content, and 5.7% to detect bogus influencers and engagements. (Influencer Marketing Hub)
12. 62.2% of marketers reported using virtual influencers in 2024, up from 60.4% in 2023. (Influencer Marketing Hub)
13. In the U.S., 52% of social media users follow a virtual influencer. (Harvard Business Review)
14. 23.8% of social media users aged 16-64 watch influencer videos and vlogs each week. (Meltwater)
15. 22% of marketers say influencer marketing is their most cost-effective customer acquisition channel. (Convince & Convert)
16. Over half of influencers face discrimination online, with TikTok being the most problematic platform, accounting for nearly 60% of reported incidents. (Influencer Marketing Hub)
17. Videos with voiceovers get more views on TikTok and Reels than those without. (Statusphere)

Influencer marketing statistics about growth and rates

1. Influencer marketing has grown from $1.7 billion in 2016 to an estimated $24 billion by the end of 2024. This includes a notable 29% jump from $16.4 billion in 2022 to $21.1 billion in 2023, reflecting strong ongoing growth despite economic challenges. (Influencer Marketing Hub)
2. TikTok leads social platforms in engagement, with rates reaching 15.04% for smaller accounts and 10.53% for million-plus followers, far outperforming Instagram’s 2.05% average and YouTube’s highest of 3.47%. (Influencer Marketing Hub)
3. Brands prefer to work with small (nano – 44% and micro – 26%) influencers instead of expensive macro-influencers (17%) and celebrities (13%) (Influencer Marketing Hub)
4. The top three highest-paying platforms for influencers are YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. (Influencer Marketing Hub)
5. On Instagram, nano-influencers charge between $10-100 per post; micro-influencers charge between $100-500 per post; macro-influencers charge between $5,000-$10,000 per post (Influencer Marketing Hub)
6. On TikTok, nano-influencers charge between $5-$25 per post; micro-influencers charge between $25-$125; macro-influencers charge between $1,250-$2,500 (Influencer Marketing Hub)

Influencer marketing statistics about budgets and income

1. In a 2024 global survey of marketing agencies and brands, 22.4% of respondents allocated 10-20% of their marketing budget to influencer marketing, while 26% committed more than 40%. (Statista)
2. 85% of marketers have a dedicated influencer marketing budget, while 59.4% planned to increase their budget in 2024. (Influencer Marketing Hub)
3. On average, businesses gain $6.50 in revenue for every $1 spent on influencer marketing. (Convince & Convert)
4. It’s now the norm to pay influencers (40.8%) rather than just give them a free product (30.8%), and the most common payment method is now a percentage of sales value. (Influencer Marketing Hub)

Influencer marketing statistics about measuring success

1. 80% of brands track sales from their influencer marketing campaigns. (Influencer Marketing Hub)
2. The most common ways to track sales from influencer marketing campaigns are email addresses (29.9%), referral links (28.4%), coupon codes (14.7%), and product SKUs (4.2%) (Influencer Marketing Hub)
3. 54.3% of brands track the ROI of their influencer marketing campaigns through impressions/reach/views, 23.5% by clicks or engagement, and 22.1% by sales or conversions. (Influencer Marketing Hub)

How are you complementing your influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is just one piece of your content marketing strategy. You still need high-quality content as a foundation. If you’re not sure where to start, ClearVoice has you covered. Our content solutions and social media content writers help maximize your social media marketing’s effectiveness and drive engagement. Talk to a strategist today to see how we can increase brand awareness and ensure your success.

The post 30 Influencer Marketing Statistics for 2025 appeared first on ClearVoice.

As more brands and companies become aware of the value of inbound marketing, they dedicate more budget to SEO content.

However, with the good comes the bad.  If you want to rank well on search results, it’s vital to know the best practices for writing content specifically for SEO success. This article will explore the top tips for writing SEO content and how you can incorporate them.

Top Tips for Writing Content for SEO

In this post, we asked the top content and SEO experts to break down the top do’s and don’ts of writing content for SEO. Here’s what they said.

Clearly define your SEO goals

Before you start writing content for SEO, it’s vital to understand your brand’s goals and audience. Lexi Boese, an accountable opportunities expert for The Digital Opportunities, suggests answering these questions first:

• Are you looking for customers to be led directly to purchase a product, or are you trying to establish credibility upfront?
• Do you understand your customers?
• Do you have a list of competitors’ websites ready?

“There are many different approaches to an optimized website, but not all of them will be aligned with your business,” she adds.

Some may need long-form content, while others thrive on short-tail. As you create your SEO-optimized content game plan, make sure to create an individual strategy with measurable results over time. This will allow you to see progress and success.

Don’t expect a website to go from spot 100 to 1 overnight

Remember, SEO takes a long time, and there are no quick wins. When you begin to create and track SEO-optimized content, try to keep in mind it will take time to get results. You need to have the right blog architecture, but above all, you need to have a really good SEO strategy.

“When done correctly, SEO builds a strong foundation for a highly-trafficked website, but it only serves as a piece of the puzzle,” Boese says.

By implementing evergreen content that’s refreshed frequently, pillar pages, FAQs, and other strategies, you will gradually create an impactful SEO blueprint that increases website traffic, domain authority, and high rates of inbound marketing retention.

Know your brand

Before diving into the brief, Kelsey Reaves, an SEO consultant and the founder of SiteSee, says it’s valuable to understand your brand or company’s stance on a specific topic.

Some questions to consider when writing content for SEO:

• What is the takeaway someone should have when reading the article?
• How does your product/service tie into this?
• How can you make the content easy to digest and scan?

With these answers in mind, you can create a detailed outline of what you will cover to meet the reader’s needs.

“How you win the SERPs is by sticking with your particular narrative throughout an entire article, and at the same time, fulfilling the intent of that query,” Reaves adds.

SEO content briefs need to be brief, comprehensive, and stay within the brand’s voice and mission statement.

Don’t just focus on the keywords

In addition to the outline of your SEO content brief, you will need to integrate specific keywords to assist in ranking. Too often, writers get hung up on the keywords and end up creating robot speak. Melissa McHugh, the SEO manager for POLYWOOD,  says you want to make sure to include the right specific topic keywords, but the bulk of your brief should focus on the on-page elements needed to be successful.

“If there are posts or products you need to link to, they should also be on the brief. If there are contextually relevant topics you want the piece to cover, make sure to specify what they are and how to use them,” she continues. This gives you a more rounded piece of content.”

Pro tip: if you need help developing blog niche ideas for your next post, use a blog topics generator. Remember, your blog topics should match your audience’s search intent, answer their questions/problems, and present your product as the solution.

Answer Google’s questions

While 600 to 700 words per page of your website is recommended, there is no magical word length that will equate to a higher ranking. According to Boese, it’s important to remember that Google crawls sites to find the most accurate answer to a search inquiry.

As a marketer, she says your job when writing content for SEO is to make your content as straightforward as possible.

“We always suggest that our clients think about what their potential customers may search for online and how our clients can make sure they’re answering all questions with quality, scannable copy on their website,” she adds.

Don’t add content for the sake of adding content

Don’t try to overexplain or add metaphors or fluff when writing content for SEO. The audience wants to read as little as possible to find their answer. Readers can tell when an article is drawn out to meet a specific word count.

Reaves says. “Back in the day, there used to be a lot of emphases placed on word count, which led to the skyscraper method and unnecessarily long articles,” she continues. “As someone searching on Google, the last thing you want to see is a 2,000-word article when you’re simply looking up the definition of a term.”

Focus on your customers first

If your keywords aren’t answering the questions your customers (or potential customers) are looking for, they won’t resonate. Boese suggests keeping a spreadsheet of all the questions your client’s customers ask — during chat sessions, social media, or customer support emails — and using those as a baseline for building your FAQ section or a blog post that answers FAQs.

“Add your keywords as you’re writing the responses,” she says. “We did this for a dispensary client and saw an 83 percent increase in organic traffic to the FAQ page over six months.”

Don’t plagiarize other people’s work

Though it’s a fundamental lesson of journalism training (and, well, common sense), sometimes it can be tempting to copy and paste from similar websites. This is a big no-no ethically — and when writing content for SEO.

“Google is constantly searching for the most relevant answer to the search inquiry while weeding through ‘spam’ websites,” she says. “If your website has FAQs pulled from other websites, you’re not doing yourself any favors. We’ve seen many websites penalized for this where they’ve gone down in rankings dramatically.”

Write relevant content that provides value

SEO manager Melissa McHugh says one of the biggest reasons evergreen content fails is that it focuses too heavily on driving traffic and not enough on providing value.

As an example, at her company, Polywood, their desert furniture buying guide only drives a few hundred visits per month, but the traffic is consistent and, more importantly, it drives revenue.

“The post is successful because it focuses on walking a user through all our furniture choices as objectively as possible,” she adds.

Don’t let evergreen content stagnate

When writing content for SEO, it should be considered a living-breathing document that needs to be refreshed and reevaluated many times. As McHugh explains, you want to send freshness signals to search engines and make sure the information on your content is up-to-date, so that it remains useful to the reader.

“As a general rule, evergreen content should be updated no less than once per year,” she says. The exception to that is if something changes in your industry, it should be updated more often. “We published our desert home buying guide a year ago in May, refreshed it in mid-March it saw its highest revenue month since it was published,” she adds.

Use internal linking + easy navigation

Pillar pages and topic clusters create an excellent internal-linking structure to keep users engaged with your content. However, the navigation must be easy to access to help with SEO.

“Websites with strong internal linking almost always outperform sites that don’t,” Reaves says. “Depending on your site size, it can make sense to use a dedicated subfolder for each pillar page and then have each subsequent topic live under that subfolder. Not only is it easy for users to understand and navigate, but it also makes it easy for Google to know exactly how the pages on your site relate to one another.”

Don’t orphan pillar pages from the rest of the site

Sometimes Reaves sees pillar pages linking to other related articles, but then it stops there.

“Pillar pages should be linking to related landing pages, glossary pages, hub pages, and vice versa,” she explains. “Internal linking is super important for SEO, and I’m constantly surprised by how even adding a few internal links from different sections of your site can hugely impact performance in the SERPs.”

Build quality backlinks

‘E-E-A-T’ stands for ‘experience,’ ‘expertise,’ authoritativeness,’ and ‘trustworthiness’ and is part of Google’s SEO algorithm.

Kelsey Reaves says building high-quality backlinks is part of increasing your authority and trustworthiness in the eyes of Google, and it can’t be ignored when writing content for SEO.

“Viewing your link prospects as partners allows you to build a network you can reach out to time and time again whenever you’re looking to place a few backlinks,” she says. “To return the favor, you can mention them in a new post or a guest post on another website. Creating link partnerships like this allows you to create a steady flow of backlinks over time with little effort.”

Don’t work on SEO campaigns sporadically and then stop

Once you create your SEO content plan, update your website and blog, and check through all of the boxes, you’re done. Right? Nope, you’re only getting started.

As Reaves explains, companies with the best content engines and high domain authority have workflows for every significant facet of SEO — technical, content, and link building. “You don’t want to focus solely on one area. All are an important part of the recipe in increasing your authority,” she adds.

Ready to Create SEO Content?

SEO should be an important — and beneficial — part of your marketing toolbox. By creating captivating content that both engages your audiences and integrates the right keywords, you build trust within your industry and with your customers.

Step one is just getting started — and if you need a top-notch SEO strategy or content help, we’re always here to help.

The post The Do’s and Don’ts of Writing Content for SEO appeared first on ClearVoice.

The use of quotes is also a way to avoid plagiarism and misinterpreting a source’s input or comments. Quotations are used to describe the title of a piece of work, book, movie, TV show, and academic paper.

In digital writing, branding, and journalism, block quotations may also be used to break up text or emphasize an important statement.

How to use quotation marks

You might be surprised by how many times you’ll need to use quotation marks in various pieces of communication, from emails to articles.

Writing a direct quote

When interviewing a source for an article, blog, or general piece of content, you can use a direct quote to share their commentary verbatim.

Example: “Writing is my favorite pastime. It gives me great joy and allows me to express myself effectively,” Katrina shared.

Paraphrasing without direct quotes

Rather than using quotation marks, you can paraphrase a source’s contribution.

Example: When asked about her hobbies, Katrina raved about the personal benefit of writing as a therapeutic practice.

Proper grammar for quotation marks.

Quotations in writing can be tricky sometimes, it’s important to follow a few standard guidelines to be grammatically accurate.

In American English, the rule of thumb is to keep commas and periods within quotation marks. Other forms of punctuation are tricky.

Most of the time, semicolons, dashes, and colons will go outside of quotations. However, exclamation marks and question marks can be inside or outside. It’s best to ask for a style guide from your client or publication to be safe.

Capitalization: With quoting, capitalization varies depending on what part you are sharing. Generally speaking, the first word of a complete sentence should be capitalized. However, if you are only quoting part of the sentence, you do not need to capitalize.

Example:

A complete sentence: “I find writing to be fulfilling, challenging, and exciting,” Katrina shared.

Part of a sentence: When describing writing, Katrina described the practice as “fulfilling, challenging and exciting.”

Quotes within quotes: When a source is quoting what someone else told them or perhaps, sharing a book or movie they like, the rules of quotation shift. Rather than using a double quotation, you’ll use a single quotation.

Example: “The book that changed my perspective on writing was ‘The Artist’s Way’ since it challenged me to write every single day for many weeks,” Katrina explained OR “My middle school English teacher pulled me aside and said, ‘You know, if you love writing, you can make a career out of it.’ That moment was a turning point,” Katrina shared.

Now that you know how to use quotation marks properly, you can be more confident in your business communications.

Need help creating grammatically correct content? Talk to a content specialist at ClearVoice today to get a quote.

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Gathering information on a user’s browsing history — including saves, likes, time on site, and other data — brands can better position themselves to reach the right audience at the right time. This, in essence, is behavioral targeting.

Here, we interview marketing executives to get their best tips for success, as well as behavioral targeting examples of effective strategies from brands you may recognize.

The key to behavioral targeting is to bring genuine value

As the name suggests, it’s a strategy where marketers follow your behaviors to better target you as a customer through advertisements, newsletters, web copy, blogs, and content in general.

When experts allow behavioral targeting to guide their interactions with users, it becomes more personalized and valuable and thus more likely to resonate, explains Clair Simpson, the director of marketing at Oncue.

“In a world where consumers are inundated with ads 24/7, marketers must use their available data to create personalized messaging that brings genuine value to the people for whom it is intended.”

3 do’s of behavioral targeting.

Before we get into the behavioral targeting examples, let’s take a look at three do’s for success with this tactic. As you start to research the most impactful ways to add behavioral targeting methods, it’s recommended to keep a few tactics in mind.

These do’s include:

• Do think outside of the box.
• Do make it personalized at the right time.
• Do remember contextual targeting.

Do think outside of the box.

While content writers understand every reader and user is different and requires various touchpoints to take action, sometimes, advertisers can be narrow-minded.

For example, say an advertiser is selling a skincare product and only focuses on a person’s online behaviors surrounding skincare. This isn’t a holistic approach since many aspects of a user’s lifestyle could shape how they think about their beauty routine, explains Payge H. Kerman, the president of Wink Digital.

“Thinking outside the box can enhance the quality of the ads and the relevance to an audience,” she continues.

“If advertisers are looking to target skincare ads for a company that focuses on vegan skincare, they should also look at other behaviors of vegans outside of the beauty industry, too. This includes searches for organic produce, plant-based meat purchasers, anti-hunting activist groups, business owners with eco-friendly mindsets, and so on.”

Do make it personalized at the right time.

Sending the right message at the right time in the buyer journey can make the difference between gaining a new customer or losing them, Simpson says.

“As a marketer, it’s important to use data to determine what is and is not important to a particular user,” she explains.

As an example, when you look through the traffic and analytics report from a client’s website, you notice that a user has engaged with a specific email campaign more than anything else. This is a learning process since you can look at the content within that newsletter and the time of day it went out, what time they clicked, and so on.

“This data can then be used to create a personalized campaign that is more likely to resonate with the customer since it is something in which they have already expressed interest,” Simpson adds.

Do remember contextual targeting.

To put it simply, Kerman says behavioral targeting is nothing without contextual targeting. What is ‘contextual targeting’? As she defines, it allows you to look at content on a webpage and use that to reach users with particular interests.

Here’s an example: an advertiser is exploring placing ads for a non-toxic paint company. The first audience buckets that innately come to mind are home buyers, those who are relocating, residential businesses, and so on.

However, Kermans says if you happen to target someone who falls into one of these categories but is also a destructive graffiti artist, their paint could end up in a place they didn’t intend. And sadly, it could damage the brand’s reputation.

Bottom line: Pay attention to all of the activity of a potential user and set up safeguards to target the correct customers.

3 don’ts of behavioral targeting

Now that you’ve seen some examples of what to do with behavioral targeting, let’s look at what not to do. Though you can’t discount the benefits of behavioral targeting, there are many ways to get this strategy wrong. The biggest ‘don’ts’ include:

• Don’t forget about low-hanging fruit.
• Don’t harass your customer.
• Don’t give your users ‘feed fatigue.’

Don’t forget about low-hanging fruit.

When we’re in the trenches of meeting our client’s goals, we’re all guilty of making the process overly complicated. While, yes, you should be mindful of valuable ways to target your customer, there’s nothing wrong with capitalizing on what Kerman calls ‘low-hanging fruit.’

As she puts it, sometimes the best answer is the most obvious one.

“Behavior can be erratic, but it’s largely predictable. Don’t forget to target and observe the ‘easy’ wins, too,” she adds.

Don’t harass your customer.

The purpose of behavioral targeting is to edit your message across various mediums to reach certain users specifically. The personalized touch is what makes it incredibly beneficial, but well, at times, it can come across as creepy or strange if it’s too often, too much, or hits too close to home.

As Simpson says, this tactic requires marketers to walk a fine line between providing ads and messaging that is genuinely helpful — and making a potential customer feel like your company is harassing them.

“A good behavioral targeting campaign will subtly get your product in front of someone who is already considering it and gently push them into becoming a customer,” she continues.

“And bad behavioral targeting will irritate the potential customer with too many ads and possibly turn them away from your product. When it comes to launching an effective behavioral marketing campaign, less is more.”

Don’t give your users ‘feed fatigue.’

Behavioral targeting techniques can create the opportunity to build various pieces of content. However, sometimes, the same user could be served the same article, newsletter, or advertisement if they fall into several audience segments.

When this happens, it creates what Kerman calls ‘feed fatigue,’ making the customer feel bored or frustrated with the brand. “If using behavioral targeting to re-market to audiences, make sure to mix up the types of content you show a user to they stay engaged,” she suggests.

3 effective behavioral targeting examples

For many marketers, case studies are an easy — and informative — way to digest new concepts. Here, our experts share the most compelling behavioral targeting examples to create inspiration.

Netflix

How many times have you aimlessly browsed Netflix, looking for something to watch, and somehow, they suggest the perfect TV show or movie? It’s purposeful — and a great behavioral targeting example.

Simpson says. “By utilizing available data for each viewer, Netflix can create personalized marketing campaigns that are driven by the viewer’s previous behavior,” she continues.

“A viewer is left feeling like Netflix knows them so well that they can predict what they want to engage with next, even before the viewer knows it themselves.”

Amazon

Another effective behavioral targeting example of a company is Amazon. Just take a look at the advertisements you receive and the emails lingering in your inbox.

As Simpson shares, Amazon users will often see emails or ads based on what they were browsing but didn’t purchase, or products they may like based on previous purchases.

“Perhaps you never searched for a particular product, but when that product is displayed with no effort on your part, the urge to make a snap purchasing decision can increase,” she adds.

An artist’s course

One of the best cases of behavioral targeting Kerman has worked on was an artist’s online course. She wanted to reach users worldwide for her self-paced Art-to-Print course, which focused on turning original art into high-quality art prints.

Kerman’s team evaluated the behaviors of her audience, including those who recently quit/left jobs, who purchased acrylic paint, who were looking for framing tutorials or the best printers, and more, to provide the users targeted ads for her course.

As a result, her client was able to generate $70K for months from a $4,500 investment. That’s a win!

Need help creating content for your behavioral targeting campaign? Talk to a content specialist at ClearVoice today about your needs.

The post The Do’s, Don’ts, and Examples of Behavioral Targeting appeared first on ClearVoice.

While ‘storytelling’ is a buzzword these days, it describes a branch of strategy that’s worth exploring called anecdote marketing. As you can guess from the name, this is when companies tell short tales — aka an anecdote — as part of their content initiatives.

No matter the industry or the goal, connecting with consumers and potential customers on a human level will make them more likely to convert or take action. Here, we explore this effective tactic and offer valuable insights on including this messaging technique in your work.

Anecdote marketing uses storytelling to connect with customers

Anecdote marketing is essentially incorporating strong storytelling into campaigns or your content, says Paulina Galoostian, the co-Founder of Tella Nails and the associate director of influencer marketing at Who What Wear.

“With successful anecdote marketing, your consumer will walk away with a clear message, which means to have strong storytelling, you need to have a strong narrator or point of view,” she continues.

Anecdote marketing can take form in many ways, including:

• Video campaigns.
• Social media stories and posts.
• Blog content.
• Personalized newsletters.
• The ‘about’ section on a website.

The goal is to use the personal background to connect with the customer on a deeper level. Many times, anecdote marketing has a target audience in mind, from new parents and retirees to entrepreneurs and so on.

Why is anecdote marketing meaningful to content strategy?

Savvy content marketers can catch a customer’s attention, earn their trust, motivate them to take action, and then continue to support a brand and/or product by remaining loyal.

Though all parts of the lifecycle require different techniques, anecdote marketing is beneficial in the customer relationship’s beginning stages.

As Akin Adebowale, the co-founder of Blacktag, puts it, anecdote marketing is impactful because it helps build deeper and stronger connections with core audiences by allowing them to envision how the product or service fits into their lives.

“Many consumers are now seeing through the performative marketing strategies, campaigns, or social initiatives many brands have taken part in recently,” he continues. “We see a lot of brands capitalizing on social media moments for their own gain, playing on trends and being reactionary, which just doesn’t resonate with audiences.”

However, with anecdote marketing, you meet customers exactly where they are, highlight their needs and offer solutions without being self-centered on the brand.

2 impressive anecdote marketing examples

Adebowale says people react to and connect with brands that tell an authentic story and develop a real perspective on a topic that fits with a larger mission.

As an example, Galoostian says Nike is notorious for creating these powerful messages through short yet powerful videos. Most recently, they released a video highlighting pregnant athletes as they trained through each stage of gestation.

Not only was it shared by expecting moms, but children resonated with the snippets since many see their mothers as superheroes.

“Nike has brilliantly tapped into anecdote marketing for years. They consciously focus on the narrative/narrator of the story to tap into the consumer’s ethos,” she adds.

Another example is Maybelline’s decision to cast Manny Gutierrez as the first male star of the ‘True Match Foundation campaign in 2016.

“This told a clear story: makeup is not just for women. This empowered male, female and gender-free consumers and content creators to try these brands, resulting in sales,” Galoostian continues. “This clearly showcased we support all genders, which was something their competitors could not demonstrate in their marketing.”

How to use anecdote marketing

To start investing in anecdote marketing, experts say it’s essential to take a few steps to pinpoint your campaign’s right direction. They include:

• Work with diverse influencers to bring your story to life.
• Always tie back to the larger mission.
• Find brand ambassadors who have interesting, genuine, and niche backgrounds.
• Make it digestible.
• Tell the founder story.

Work with a diverse community to bring your story to life.

Since most anecdote marketing provides a human experience, you need, well, humans to tell these stories. Whether it’s the byline on a blog post or the face of a video campaign, Galoostian says it’s vital to consider ethnic diversity, body diversity, location diversity, and other factors to reach as many people as possible.

As she explains, if you don’t approach a variety of different people from varied walks of life, your delivery can come across as siloed or inconsiderate.

For example, she says if you’re building the content strategy for a fashion company that’s coming out with a jacket in October, think about the geographical variants of shoppers.

“Consider working with an influencer in Los Angeles and an influencer in New York to see how each would style the look,” she continues. “Clearly, the styling would be different since the weather in those two locations is drastically different in October. This way, your consumers can be inspired on how they should style the coat depending on where they live.”

Always tie back to the larger mission.

In the Nike example featuring expectant mothers, the focus was the message that women are still athletes and can do anything. This promoted equality and brought it back to Nike’s mission to inspire communities to move and remain active.

With anecdote marketing, Adebowale says it’s vital to ensure the initiative always ties back to its larger mission and with the core audience. While you make and tell dozens of stories, they should relate to the business’s goals and values.

“The message of your story should outlast a single campaign and be something you can continue to identify your brand with as you grow,” he adds.

Find brand ambassadors with genuine and niche backgrounds.

Another way to approach anecdote marketing, according to Galoostian, is to create an ambassador program where you tap into the networks and followers of various influencers, celebrities, and so on.

While most of these opportunities will be through paid campaigns, they can tell a brand’s story in their own unique style, capturing the niche communities they’ve cultivated. “Weave in your brand ambassadors to your marketing initiatives so they can become the narrators,” she adds.

Tell the founder’s story.

One of the lowest-hanging fruits of anecdote marketing is the founder’s story. After all, entrepreneurs are often inspired to blaze their own trail after a life-changing event or seeing a need that needed to be filled. To start putting together the background of the leader of a company, Galoostian suggests asking them these questions:

• Why did you start the brand?
• What is the goal of the company?
• How is the company different?
• How have you been personally inspired by customers?

“It’s an ethos story that resonates well with consumers and makes them want to support the founder, not just the product. You can do this with interviews, podcasts, blog posts,” she adds.

They should all have a home on your website and/or blog and be a place where they continuously connect on the first-person level with their customers and fans.

Make it digestible.

With so much content, so much competition, and too much choice paralysis, it’s the brands that stand out that are successful. In other words, a story through anecdote marketing techniques can break through the clutter much more quickly than an ad or a promotion because it sticks with them, says Minna Khounlo-Sithep, the co-founder of The Product Boss.

“Your customer can see themselves in the story and actually visualize how that product would potentially help them transform a problem into a solution or resolve a pain point in their own life,” she adds.

However, she notes that many business owners hear the word ‘anecdote’ or ‘storytelling,’ and it can feel daunting because we think it needs to be elaborate stories or long narratives, but it doesn’t.

Instead, she suggests making it digestible. After all, customers have short attention spans, so keeping it shorter is better.

“Think of it as collecting mini-stories that you can pull from when you are talking about your products in conversation, video, social media, or email,” she continues. “Sharing stories on your social media of gift-giving ideas and stories of customer reasons for buying is a great way to implement anecdote marketing and to engage with your audience.”

Need anecdotal marketing content to help connect with your customers? Talk to a content specialist at ClearVoice today.

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What is a social epidemic? A social epidemic refers to ideas, products, and behaviors that spread rapidly through a population in the way that a virus spreads.

In his 2000 debut book, ‘The Tipping Point,’ Canadian journalist and staff writer for The New Yorker Malcolm Gladwell discusses the social epidemic concept.

Particularly now, it’s a relevant, easy-to-visualize analogy. Much like a health pandemic, a social epidemic is a marketing strategy that relies on the power of virality.

When a company discusses its desire to ‘go viral’ on the internet, they’re hoping to create a social epidemic reaching millions. Sometimes, this happens with luck, near-perfect timing, or the right type of relationships and connections.

Other times, it’s executed through a variety of efforts from content marketers and experts. Here, we explore the concept of social epidemics, as well as guidance on how to set your clients up for success in this competitive arena:

What is a social epidemic?

A social epidemic refers to ideas, products, and behaviors that spread rapidly through a population in the way that a virus spreads, according to Kelly Chase, the director of brand, content, and communications for the popular photo decor company Fracture.

“This population could be a specific niche or a community, but with the ever-increasing connectivity fostered by social networks and internet culture. Or, the population could be much larger — and much like a true epidemic, these viral moments have the potential to break through and become a part of our larger cultural awareness and dialogue,” she explains.

What’s tricky about strategizing to create a social epidemic is that they are often unpredictable and, seemingly, come out of nowhere. Then, suddenly, overnight, exponential growth happens, creating a viral buzz that pays back in dividends.

Chase says many factors contribute to this possibility, but in most cases, they’re fielded by a fortuitous combination of the following:

• A ‘sticky’ idea. Sticky ideas are generally simple, unexpected, credible, and impactful.
• Finding champions with the right audience, like influencers, journalists, and other game-changers.
• The right context and timing.

As an example, Chase says sea shanties are a recent social epidemic that the internet is loving. If you’re unfamiliar, this is when one person begins singing one part of a song (like the bass), and then other people join in for different parts, ultimately creating a virtual video choir.

You can think of it as ‘Pitch Perfect’ but on TikTok.

“Seas shanties are extremely sticky in that they are simple, non-pretentious, and they create a sense of connection and community because the more people participate, the more fun it is,” Chase explains. “The collaborative nature of TikTok made it the perfect place for sea shanties to thrive, and influential accounts quickly gave them a signal boost.”

Why you should tread carefully with starting a social epidemic

Going viral is great, right? After all, who doesn’t want to be internet famous? Though, in theory, it’s beneficial to brands, it should come with a few precautions, urges Christopher Tompkins, the CEO and the head strategist for The Go! Agency.

Like a virus that spreads quickly, a social epidemic can create many ramifications for companies if they aren’t prepared to meet the surge in demand that often comes from virality.

A classic example is the brands featured on the television show ‘Shark Tank’ who see a surge in traffic and orders and then don’t have the supply to meet it.

“These could be more demand than supply, a loud negative company image, widespread disengagement of your target audience with your company,” he shares. “While there are positives, I think of viruses being infectious, so make sure you are monitoring your brand to make sure you manage this groundswell properly and wield its power correctly for your brand.”

To prepare for a social epidemic, Tompkins says to ensure you’re ready for the effects of the campaign on your infrastructure:

• Is your website able to handle the traffic?
• Do you have the team to monitor the campaign response properly… and quickly?
• Do you have enough people to answer the phones?
• Do you have enough stock to fill orders?
• What is your plan B if there is any fallout? These campaigns are more than just throwing out something disruptive and waiting for the windfall.

How to create a social epidemic

Create a campaign.

It happens way too often for Tompkins: a company contacts him and says, ‘I want to go viral.’

However, as with most aspects of developing a successful business, you can’t just want something to happen; you need to create the blueprints to make it a reality.

To do this, Tompkins says creating a campaign that reaches a broad audience on various platforms is essential. Most importantly, there needs to be an idea around the movement that has the power to disrupt, infect and resonate. “Lots of thought, planning, and budgeting need to go into this effort. While some are lucky by going viral out of the blue, 98 percent of the world are not as lucky,” he reminds.

Prioritize social listening — and move quickly.

Social listening is exactly how it sounds: the ability to tune in to your audiences on social media channels and your website. Without having a pulse on what your followers are saying, how they’re reacting, and what’s happening in the greater world, you will miss all social epidemic opportunities.

Chase says anyone who spends time on Twitter is familiar with the idea of the ‘main character of the day.’ In short, it’s usually someone with at least a moderate social following and some level of influence who tweets something, and it becomes the main point of conversation on Twitter for the day.

“Whether it’s Bean Dad or the guy who claims to have found shrimp tails in his Cinnamon Toast Crunch, the commentary that builds around these shared social moments often spills over to other platforms and even into the national media,” she says.

“Marketers who want to harness these shared conversations need to be ready to jump on them as they are happening in real-time — and respond to them in a way that is authentic and interesting.”

Harness the power of influence.

Influencers often seem like shiny, golden things: they make a living off promoting products and document it through glamorized photos. In reality, they do live up to their name since they can influence their followers’ buying decisions.

However, not everyone is ethical, and Chase says it’s vital to research quality influencers who make sense within your industry. While they will charge for their promotions, it could be worth exploring if they have a proven track record with paid content.

Tompkins also says not to discount the value of your supporters. aka your customers.

“Once you cement your campaign, you need to mobilize the troops. Reach out to any past customer, supporter, or connection who will be willing to spread your message via their own channels,” he adds.

Don’t go too niche.

For content to truly go viral, Jamie Hardin, the CEO and founder of GreenLit Marketing, says it needs to appeal to the masses.

“Test your ideas on your family, neighbor, or friends that aren’t experts in your industry. If they look at you funny, maybe your content needs to be revised so you can better appeal to a broader audience,” she explains.

Focus on these three pillars.

For marketers looking to replicate viral content, entrepreneur and marketing expert Kristina Libby says there is a theory by artist and creative thinker Makimoto Fujimura that’s helpful to keep in mind. He believes that movements occur because of three pillars:

• Creative ideas
• Financial support
• Political willpower

When Libby first founded the Floral Heart Project, a COVID-19 memorial effort that grew viral over the fall and winter, she added these three elements and saw increasing growth.

She created a visual concept, 1-800-Flowers.com supported financially and organizationally, and COVID support groups joined with political willpower.

“What we need is more integration, which means companies need to reduce their instance on being the sole beneficiary of their viral content,” she shares. “Content does best when it is actually social, and it is viral only when it helps to support more than your brand.”

Be realistic.

Lastly: Don’t set your sights too high. Or, more importantly: never promise virality to a client. As Chase says, the reality is that creating a social epidemic is probably not realistic for most marketers.

“Finding the perfect balance of idea/product, influence, and context is extremely tricky and often relies on a certain amount of kismet for a marketing moment to rise to the level of a social epidemic,” she continues.

However, that doesn’t mean that it’s not something to aspire to: “To be successful in today’s world, marketers need to understand how ideas can break out of our digital lives’ constant noise and gain traction,” she adds.

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