Okay, now it’s confession time. I’ve been holding onto this knowledge for awhile because I saw it as a competitive advantage — something our agency knows but almost everyone else hasn’t figured out yet. But honestly, I’m so tired of seeing people fail in this industry while blaming the content creators, that I felt compelled to share this.

Here we go.

Fast-forward to 2019, and you’ll be hard pressed to find any sponsored content created by influencers that isn’t trying to encourage you to make an immediate purchase. Typically, they’re given direction by the sponsor and may even need to have their content approved prior to upload. The trouble is, consumers just aren’t that eager to buy stuff. They’re not excited to see yet another makeup brand on their newsfeed. They don’t want to hear about what new white-labeled supplement brand their old high-school-friend-turned-social-media-influencer is now sponsored by. They don’t care to read about all your product features and benefits, and to get them to click on your website link in a social post won’t happen literally 99.99 percent of the time.

Screw data — consumer attention is the most valuable commodity. Without attention and action, there would be no data. To gain the attention of the consumer requires the marketer to truly understand their target audience and have the ability to put content in front of them that they actually want to consume.

Rarely will a message coming straight from a brand have a large enough impact to cause substantial action. Influencers are today’s catalyst to getting a message in front of consumers. They break the ice and introduce brands to the people that ultimately make shareholders happy.

One of the major reasons that cause things to fall apart is when the influencer’s content reads like a sales pitch. They hold up the product in the photo and proceed to tell their followers what the product is, why they use it, what it does, and why people should check it out. Awesome, but who cares? Who wants to consume this content? Certainly not me, which is why I’m here.

The cold and bitter truth is that nobody will love your product more than you do. But there is some good news — you have knowledge, experience, and opinions that can provide value to someone’s life. Your brand needs to channel this into content in the form of blog posts, videos, and emails. Rather than having influencers send top of funnel traffic to your sales page, have them direct your customers to the valuable content you have waiting for them.

It’s important to understand what your customers want to know. By using social listening tools, you can uncover what it is that would interest your customers enough to spend 10 or 15 minutes consuming your content. Learn the questions they have and the problems they seek solutions to — that doesn’t require they purchase anything. By doing this, you will earn the permission in the mind of your customers to further engage with them. After all, consumer attention is the most valuable online commodity.

When this attention is not only warranted, but also desired, you will have a much easier time building a tribe of raving fans. Expect that nobody will make a purchase the first time they stumble across your brand. They want you to earn their attention, and the price can be paid in content you create for free.