There are a lot of ways to measure success. And “having influence” is one of them.
But let’s be honest, that’s not the ONLY way to measure success. I think there’s just a lot of emphasis on the whole “having influence” thing.
By now we all know that people in this space (I seriously hate saying influencers, but I’m running out of ways to describe us) have some serious leverage over their audiences. It’s so crazy! To think that the spaces where people once just wanted a simple creative outlet now have turned into BRANDS/LEGITIMATE BUSINESSES THAT BRING IN LOTS OF $$$…is SO crazy.
But what happens if you don’t necessarily have influence? Should you even be in this space???
I think a lot of bloggers/influencers/content creators get really discouraged when they don’t see an actual (read: tangible) return on investment. Whether it’s a product or service their promoting (sponsored or not), it can definitely feel crappy when people don’t respond well (aka buy into) to what you’re posting. It happens to me as well. In the grand scheme of things, I think there’s very few influencers who TRULY CONVERT (i.e. Arielle Charnas, Christine Andrew, Danielle Bernstein).
To answer the question above, THE ANSWER IS YES. ABSOLUTELY.
There’s so many ways to measure success that doesn’t necessarily translate to a purchase. I know many people think this is the ONLY measure of success or that brands ONLY look at sales. I’m here to talk you off the ledge and tell you that YOU ARE WRONG!
brand ambassadors
And I don’t mean that in like a #brandambassador way. I meant in a brand awareness way. While every brand wants to see sales, they also need help telling their story. I work with SO many new-to-me brands. And I also find so many new-to-me brands throughout my feed from other influencers. That’s kind of the whole point of this space, no? Bringing awareness to a company is SO important. I once read somewhere that it takes 7 mentions in order to influence a person. So just by mentioning a brand a few times, means you’re going to influence someone. It could be as simple as helping them recognize the brand logo or colors when they see an ad on the subway.
When I think about companies I actually make purchases from, a lot of them were because of influencers. Just because someone doesn’t purchase something right then and there or even within a few weeks or months. But it doesn’t mean they never will.
community builders
This is something I’ve been noticing over the last few years. I think after Instagram switched up the game on us, a lot of us started focusing on fostering a community and really watching those relationships build through the Internet. I think Grace and Liz do an insane job at this. Grace’s audience pretty much trust her on every single recommendation that comes from her. It’s INSANE. I mean I go to Grace for ALL the skincare recs. And then there’s Liz. I think she does SUCH an incredible job at being so real on her channels that it organically forms relationships between her and her readers. I think it’s so impressive and really, really hard to create and cultivate.
If you create a community between like-minded individuals, could you really ask for much more?
So you see, there’s a lot of other ways to measure success within this space. I think there’s space for everyone here. I think it’s really cool that different influencers are capable of doing completely different things. Whether you’re actually influencing purchases or simply informing someone about a brand…you’re impacting a person in one way or the other. What are some other ways to measure success?
