The Business Exchange Swindon & Wiltshire Edition 47: Feb/March 2020 | Page 15

SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCERS
EMBRACING YOUR INNER CELEBRITY -
THE VALUE OF SOCIAL MEDIA
INFLUENCE IN BUSINESS
In business it’s easy to be dismissive of social media influencers
especially if you are of a certain age. Yet if a celebrity offered to
visit your company and make a noise about that visit would you
embrace the opportunity?
This is what good social media influencers can do and they
are now part of a marketing mix for many brands. Why? The
statistics speak for themselves. The audiences on various
platforms are vast, global and activity can often be analysed:
• Twitter has 330 million monthly active users and 40 per
cent use the platform daily.
• LinkedIn has 610 million members and three million share
content weekly.
• Instagram has a billion active monthly users and 71 per
cent are under the age of 35.
In this context, if you connect with someone with a much
larger following than you, that will make you visible to
a portion of their followers too. In a large audience and
showcased by a trusted name over time, it’s inevitable your
own profile will grow or your products will be purchased.
There are even grades of social media influencers now, for
example, nano influencers and micro influencers. Definitions
vary around how many followers you have to have to fit into
these sub-categories.
What about Wiltshire?
We’re seeing the success of influencers crossing over into
the real world regularly now as they become celebrities. Last
year on Strictly Come Dancing, the vlogger Joe Sugg, also
originally from Wiltshire, was one of the favourites. Ten years
ago, this type of celebrity did not exist.
Some organisations and people will naturally attract a large
audience because of what they do. Local examples just on
Twitter would be:
• Wiltshire Police 65.1K followers on Twitter
• BBC Wiltshire 59.7K followers on Twitter
• Wiltshire Council 21.3K followers
(all figures correct at the time of publication)
Becoming a social media influencer when you are not in a role
which naturally attracts followers requires far more work and
effort.
Meet Carl Reader
One of those influencers is business adviser, author and
director of Badbury-based D&T Financial Advisors Ltd, Carl
Reader.
Carl, now 38, was an early adopter of all things social
online. Today he has a following of around 140,000 across
three main platforms and he is invited to speak globally about
leveraging social media. His main platforms are LinkedIn,
Instagram and Twitter – although he’s quietly building his
profile elsewhere. At time of writing he had 63.8K followers on
Twitter alone.
“You have to go quite far back with me to when I was about
16 when there were chatrooms and later MySpace and I loved
the social interaction it offered.
“From a business perspective Twitter was the first platform
which seemed, to me, to have a business angle. I joined in
about 2008 but it wasn’t really until 2011 when I started to use
it consistently and by 2015 I had a big audience.
“Many people write books and then seek to build an
audience for those books to get ‘out there’. I didn’t do that. I
didn’t publish my books until the audience was there so my
first book came out in 2015 (The Start-Up Coach) and then a
year later my second book (The Franchising Handbook) and
my next book is due out in Q4 this year.
“You do have to have a bit of an ego. When I talk about these
things in conferences, I say there are three key requirements:
business justification – will it lead to making money?; a bigger
vision – what do you ultimately want to achieve; and ego - you
have to be willing to be out there and accept all that comes
with it.”
What are the business benefits?
“One post is not going to cut it. Social media has to be part
of what I call the ‘marketing web’. Many people have false
expectations.
Everything needs to interlink. For example what’s the point
of spending £50,000 on a fantastic website and it just sits
there not being found? That’s not going to pay for itself. All of
it must work together; your website, your social media, your
public relations.
A large social media following demonstrates expertise in
your field, it adds a layer to your credibility and can open doors
for you. In my case it has led to investment opportunities and
brand ambassador opportunities.
How do you choose which brands to work with?
You have to be careful to be congruent with your beliefs
here. An audience can spot very quickly if you are not being
authentic.
I have set some ground rules. I ask ‘have I been a paying
customer for that brand myself?’ if I have not, I don’t do it.
I will only work with a brand which wants a longer term
arrangement – I don’t accept payment per post. That won’t
work for me. It has to be a win for me, a win for the brand and
a win for my followers.
Unexpected outcomes?
Being very active on social media has brought along
opportunities which I simply would not have had otherwise.
A recent one was being able to support Hungerford Town
Football Club; they were looking for help and, if I hadn’t had
the following I have, would they have taken me seriously?
The Club was facing disaster and yet they are in the
Conference South league and I have always wanted to be part
of a football club. Now I’m vice-chairman and I’m helping
them to raise sponsorship and they are looking at a rosier
future.
There is a reason that charities are keen to recruit celebrity
ambassadors to help them in their PR and yet we find that
easy to understand. Frankly, a good social media influencer
achieves a similar thing.
Carl Reader
carlreader
@CarlReader
THE BUSINESS EXCHANGE 2020
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