Jeremy Barbara

Influencer Marketing Consultant // prev influencer marketing @SeatGeek, @Current, @SundaysForDogs

[Jeremy Barbara @JeremyBarbara]

burger king: sing along to end commercial

me *sobbing*: whopper whopper triple whopper junior double bacon whopper

[u m a m i @u_m_a_m_i]

Sony owns a patent that would force viewers to exclaim the brand name during commercials to end them.

[Jeremy Barbara @JeremyBarbara]

wemby is only analytically 7'4"

[Jeremy Barbara @JeremyBarbara]

TONIGHT!!!! on daily influencer marketing tips, episode 9 (it’s not actually night time, but I watched too much love island and needed to get that out, sorry) Today's tip:

(side note: seeking investors for Influencer Marketing Island where we dump a bunch of brand and agency reps on an island and see who locks in the campaign with the best ROAS)

This might be the most important tip I’ve given because not following it will make everything else I’ve said completely useless.  We’ve found the influencer, we’ve done the work, we’ve determined that they have real influence over their audience, their audience matches our target demo, it’s the perfect fit!

Please, do not send them a word-for-word script full of brand taglines and buzz-words

When you send a word-for-word script to an influencer, you’ve circumvented the whole reason that influencer marketing works.  They know how to speak to their audience better than you can. That’s why you are working with them. So instead, educate them on your product/service, give them things you want them to touch on, and sure, give them a list of some fun/crazy ideas you thought of. But then, let them cook, fam (hello fellow kids). The audience always knows who’s really talking.

Having the wrong goals (like I talked about yesterday) will amplify this mistake… but more on that TOMORROW NIGHT! (*day)

[Jeremy Barbara @JeremyBarbara]

Day 8 of posting an influencer marketing tip that should help any business:

Pick a primary goal, do you want to:

A) source tons of pieces of content to churn out as Meta/TikTok ads?

B) build a rolodex of trusted influencers who are authentically promoting your product to their audience?

Like I said yesterday, neither are wrong, but they are different. ‘B’ is influencer marketing, ‘A’ is a paid social strategy. Here's why:

A) Creators who make great thumb-stopping ads that will convert leads on Meta/TT probably don’t convert their own organic audience, because it’s so clearly an ad. This is why the term UGC creator even exists; they know what they’re good at. this goal is about sourcing paid content

B) ‘Influencers’ (as I've been defining them over the last week) have major sway with their organic audience, but the way they talk to their audience is not optimized for your paid channels, so it may not work as a paid ad, but that’s also not really why you’re paying them.

your paying influencers to reach their audience using their trusted voice, which expands your awareness. a true self-sustaining influencer program is focused on doing that; tapping into new audiences via influencers. And sure, by doing this you’ll naturally get yourself some paid ads that work well, but that’s not your primary goal when building an influencer program

get good at finding influencers that have an audience resembling yours, get good at letting the influencer talk to their audience the way they want to about your product (tomorrows post), and get good at measuring the results (a months worth of posts at some point soon). thats an influencer program

and if you find a creator that is both converting their audience AND their content is crushing as a paid ad, lock them in for a long, long time.

[Jeremy Barbara @JeremyBarbara]

Day 7 of posting an influencer marketing tip until I forget or something:

(celebrating 1 week of not forgetting or something)

I spent most of last week talking about how to tell if a creator has influence, but theres something I want to clarify and expand upon here. When I talk about a creator having influence, I mean influence over THEIR audience. Using influencers to promote your product to THEIR audience is what I consider true ‘influencer marketing’.

If, however, your primary goal is to source pieces of content from creators to use as paid ads on Meta/TikTok or to boost/whitelist, it's no longer about their audience, it becomes about yours. That doesn't make that strategy wrong, in fact everyone should be doing it, but it is different, and I’d consider it part of your paid social strategy more than it is influencer marketing. My advice is you need to pick a primary goal, because trying to do both with the same creators/objectives will have you missing the mark on both.

number 1 immediate killer of your influencer program is having too many conflicting goals. I’ll expand upon this more tomorrow.

[Jeremy Barbara @JeremyBarbara]

Posting an influencer marketing tip every day, day #6:

Working titles: Sunday Mini Tip, Hot Take Sunday, Jeremy’s Too Lazy To Do A Full Tip Sunday, any other suggestions are welcome in the comments (not engagement farming I promise)

HOT TAKE 🚨: Stop making influencers use your campaign hashtags, in fact, don’t have campaign hashtags in the first place

[Jeremy Barbara @JeremyBarbara]

Daily influencer marketing tip day #5 (pretend this was posted yesterday (sorry cross posting is hard)):

Welcome to the Saturday Summary ™️ where I post a lil recap of the last week of tips mostly because I don’t feel like writing a whole post on a Saturday and you don’t feel like reading whole post on a Saturday:

1. Not everyone with followers has influence, not everyone who creates content has influence

2. Best way to find the right influencers is to use social media as if you are your customer

3. Look for signs of real “influence”: consistent views, cross-platform audience, shows their face

4. Long form content is king, creators who can get that level of attention usually have strong influence

HAGS (have a great saturday)

[Jeremy Barbara @JeremyBarbara]

Day 4 of posting an influencer marketing core fundamental until I'm over it or someone venmos me a million dollars (I wonder what will happen first):

A creator's primary platform and the type of content that they create says a lot about how much influence they have. I had this dumb graphic in my brain for a long time that I've now tried to translate on paper called the Intent vs Attention Matrix (patent pending.. jk but dont steal it plz). Its not as fancy as it sounds, think of it like this:

Intent: do people seek out their content, or is it fed to them? Think algorithm based platforms like TikTok versus search based platforms like YouTube. On one, you are being fed content, on the other, you are seeking it out

Attention: how much time does someone have to dedicate to consume their content? Think twitter (yes, its twitter, and pluto is a planet).  you spend maybe a few seconds of attention on any given tweet, versus a podcast, for example, where you may listen for hours at a time

Influencers who’s primary content ranks high on both of these metrics have massive influence, because their followers are seeking out their content and spending 10+ minutes of their time consuming it.  Obviously some platforms naturally rank high on both, and coincidentally I believe they are the platforms where most companies are able to build sustainable influencer marketing programs (YouTube, Newsletter, Podcast, Twitch, etc). Others rank somewhere in the middle, and, as a result, are more hit-or-miss with your influencer program (TikTok, Reels). And some you should really only use as a value-add in negotiations (sorry, twitter).

There's a reason most creators try to funnel their audience towards one of these higher ranking platforms, and a reason that only a few succeed in doing so

if you can decode my handwriting, you unlock the tool
(venmo is @jeremybarbara btw)

[Jeremy Barbara @JeremyBarbara]

Posting an Influencer Marketing fundamental every day until I don’t feel like it anymore, day #3:

(sorry, I’m back to the drawing board on acronyms)

no matter how you source and discover potential creators to work with, determining whether they actually have ~~~influence~~~ is both art and science. as you test more and more creators, you’ll start to get a feel for this yourself and what signals work for your brand, but here are some universal good signs:

1) Consistent views: major fluctuations are a red flag, they might be hitting it big on SEO sometimes, or just have a knack for catching the algorithm once in a while. Getting consistent views is hard, and it means those followers are tuning in no matter the subject. 10/10 times I’d work with a creator getting 100k views on every single video versus a creator ranging from 10k - 10m

2) Does their audience follow them across platforms? 1M subs on YouTube with 300 followers on IG is a yellow flag. It doesn’t mean they don’t have influence, but ask yourself why their audience doesn't follow them around. Consistency across platforms is also hard, and it means people are tuning in no matter where they post. Some creators only focus on one platform (thats why this is a yellow flag) but get in the habit of asking yourself these kinds of qs

3) Do they show their face?  This is actually huge, believe it or not. Things like meme pages, faceless youtube channels, tiktok voiceover b-roll pages, etc, they just dont have the same influence as someone showing their face, and theres plenty of data to support this (and i’d say this to their face… zing!!!!)

4) What is their primary platform/content type? This actually says a lot - and it deserves its own post… NEXT TIME, ON {working title, comment your ideas}

[Jeremy Barbara @JeremyBarbara]

@theandreilucian thats the goal, especially in AI land - appreciate you

[Jeremy Barbara @JeremyBarbara]

Daily Fundamental Influencer Marketing Tip (‘FIMT’) Day #2:

(I dropped the ‘TWWFABNWBA’, it’s cleaner. thanks Justin Timberlake)

I’ll emphasize a point I made yesterday on sourcing the right influencers, you have to do the work (I know I’m sorry).  Everyone will pitch you an ‘ai powered’ sourcing tool that ‘scrapes the internet’ for all of the ‘perfect creators’ with ‘high engagement’, and while you can use that (for a price), I’ve still never seen a better way to source than getting onto the social platforms themselves and getting involved.

Log into YouTube/TikTok/IG with a fresh account and start searching/engaging as if you were someone in your target audience. Start with the lowest hanging fruit. Selling dog food? (shoutout Jia Guan) low hanging fruit = searches like ‘dog training tips’. work your way outward, ‘i got a new puppy vlog’, ‘hiking with my dog’, and eventually completely adjacent topics that your target demo might like.  Recurring creators will pop up. These might be creators your customers follow and watch, and they could be a good fit. But you’re not done. more tomorrow…

OH A CLIFFHANGER?? I think the kids call this ‘aura farming’

[Jeremy Barbara @JeremyBarbara]

Fundamental-Influencer-Marketing-Tip-That-Will-Work-For-Any-Business-Not-Written-By-AI (FIMTTWWFABNWBA) Day 1. Pretty catchy, no?

the word influencer is used too much. not everyone who creates content is an influencer. not everyone who has followers is an influencer. influencers have… influence. and it’s not always quantitative. do the work, watch some of their content: who is it for? read some of their comments: what are they saying? when you start finding passionate audiences that sound like your customer, you’re in the right place

[Jeremy Barbara @JeremyBarbara]

Influencer marketing works. For any business. No exceptions.

*pause for emphasis*
(I already hate writing these posts)

I’ve spent the last decade building influencer programs into the top acquisition channel at various companies across a wide range of industries, and have advised a handful of others to do the same.

Every company is different, but there are fundamentals that I believe never change. And so for the next however many days until I get bored or sick of mean comments, I am going to share one bite sized tip that I believe will help any company in any industry build a sustainable, measurable, and (very) impactful influencer marketing program.

My goal is to be concise, information dense, and to add value to you with no strings attached. and hopefully just funny/corny enough and poorly written enough for you to know that its written by me, a human person

I’m starting a new chapter, building my next influencer program at @doolaHQ , so if you’ve been thinking about building a program for your business, let’s do it together. See you tomorrow for tip #1 🫡

[Jeremy Barbara @JeremyBarbara]

Ted Lasso spin-off QB room

[Adam Schefter @AdamSchefter]

Browns’ new QB room:

🏈Deshaun Watson
🏈Kenny Pickett
🏈Joe Flacco
🏈Dillon Gabriel
🏈Shedeur Sanders

[Jeremy Barbara @JeremyBarbara]

@businessbarista adding 'cracked' the the resume

[Alex Lieberman @businessbarista]

Takeaways from my convo with a cracked influencer marketer...

[Jeremy Barbara @JeremyBarbara]

@businessbarista @LiquidDeath @jolieskinco sell me this pen

[Jeremy Barbara @JeremyBarbara]

me when the influencer agent says 'we dont want to price you out' after pricing me out

[Jeremy Barbara @JeremyBarbara]

@woodyjohnson4 Sell the team

[Jeremy Barbara @JeremyBarbara]

@Reid_Moncada @fittedcloset 👏 👏 great content

[Jeremy Barbara @JeremyBarbara]

could be u (or someone u know)

https://t.co/drTQSfE4VV