Bee Influence discuss influencer marketing at Pro Manchester panel ft. Social Chain & Charmie Jane

We were proud to have been involved in Pro Manchester’s recent digital marketing conference held at etc venues, Manchester.

Here we’ve taken a snippet from their write up of the day to focus on Influencer marketing. For the full blogpost, head to Pro Manchester’s write up by Mel Hill.

“The social media world is fickle to say the least, with people shooting to fame and quickly shooting back down in no time at all – this includes reality tv stars and influencers.

The recent introduction of influencer advertising has had both positive and negative reaction from social media users, but how thorough are influencers when they decide which brands to align with?

Our first panel discussion of the day was hosted by our Creative Co-Chair, Steve Kuncewicz – Partner at BLM. Steve was keen to get the opinion of Katy Leeson – Managing Director, Social Chain, Viv Yau – Founder, Bee Influence and Charmie Jane – a beauty influencer.

“Influencers aren’t cowboy ad creators”

Of influencers, Viv Yau, Founder of Manchester-based influencer agency Bee Influence says: “I look at them less as a media platform and more as an individual with an excellently engaged audience.

“People see influencer marketing as ‘cowboy ads’, but it’s a regulated, commercialised business used by hundreds of thousands of brands spending millions, so it’s right to be regulated. I think the more we standardise this the better it’ll be.”

Charmie Jane has built up a loyal following of people interested in beauty and fashion. Charmie creates her own content and will only align with brands who allow her to continually do this: “I appreciate when brands don’t look at me as an editor,” says Charmie.

“Brands that send me their guidelines and say how they’d like it to be shown, rather than discussing what I may like about a product or why my followers would like it tend to be the ones I stay away from because, for me it takes away from the authenticity of influencer marketing.”

Katy Leeson, Managing Director of global leading agency, Social Chain believes aligning your brand with the right influencer is important: “Whenever you match a brand with a celeb you need to think about whether your values align. You can’t predict if something’s going to go wrong.”

“The ones who get it right have a great relationship with the influencer and let them create content.”

If you’re interested in speaking at any future events like this, please contact their Sector Group Manager, Ilona Alcock on Ilona.alcock@pro-manchester.co.uk

Vivian Yau