The Digital Customer Journey: Data, Profiling and CRM Report

This report, prepared for Northumbria University's MK9701 module, delves into the digital customer journey, focusing on data, profiling, CRM, and influencer marketing. It examines the impact of influencers on brand awareness and loyalty, exploring trends across platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and the rising star, TikTok. The report highlights the significance of authenticity in influencer marketing, discussing the differences between macro and micro-influencers, and the importance of choosing the right influencers to reflect brand values. It also analyzes the effectiveness of influencer marketing advertisements, the need for creative freedom, and the impact of transparency. The report concludes with a discussion of future trends, emphasizing the continued dominance of Instagram and YouTube while acknowledging the growing importance of TikTok and the need for brands to adapt to changing consumer preferences.

Northumbria University
MK9701 The Digital Customer Journey: Data, Profiling and CRM
Influencer Marketing
Student: Lukas Dolinskis
Student number: 18035289
Words: 2145
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Contents
1. Introduction........................................................................................................................3
2. Influencers impact on the brand........................................................................................3
3. Influencer marketing trends...............................................................................................4
3.1. Influencers on Instagram and Youtube platforms......................................................4
3.2. The rising star: TikTok..................................................................................................5
3.3. Authenticity.................................................................................................................6
4. Conclusion...........................................................................................................................8
5. References..........................................................................................................................9
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1. Introduction
Marketing has many different and effective strategies which can be used. However, in
research from Jones (2017), one of the most effective digital marketing strategies is social
media marketing. One of the most significant parts of social media marketing is influencers
and the content they create. Different famous people influence in businesses achievements
always been very important; according to a timeline, the digital era of influencers started
with Instagram in 2010 (Brooks, 2019). Just before the Instagram era, these influencers have
been called bloggers, in 2013 Youtube blog star Huda Katten launched her beauty line Huda
Beauty and became one of the most successful bloggers on Youtube channel. In 2015, Vamp
marketing agency co-founded a way of how to connect brands and content creators; in
general, this moment is the official birth of influencer marketing (Brooks, 2019).
Influencers are one of the most potent business runners and mostly are faces of
campaigns. Depending on the market and industry, businesses can interact with influencers
in many different ways. The relationship between the company and influencer can be
decided on geographical position, demographic indicators, and other criteria that will be
discussed later. Also, benefits which companies receive from campaigns with influencers can
be different. Besides, influencers also can be divided into two categories, macro-influencers
and micro-influencers. Macro-influencer is a group of famous people or celebrities, and they
can be known in one or more countries, and micro-influencer is a group of bloggers or group
of people who have fewer followers than those from the macro-influencer group (Tiautrakul
& Jindakul, 2019, p. 3). According to their follower quantities, these two groups can also be
divided into smaller groups, and niche influencers who live a specific lifestyle according to
their ethnicity, religion, or sexuality and create content for that group of people (Barbe,
2020). Other authors divide influencers into more groups; however, all of them are based on
a number of followers. From a large group of influencers, marketers need to choose the
best options and create a strategy that could fit the marketing budget. The trends they use
in this specific area will be identified and discussed following.
2. Influencers impact on the brand
The main goal for brands is to target their audience desires and needs. Influencers can
help businesses reach their audience or at least more similar to those they want to reach.
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"The image a brand gains from its social media influencers helps build direct relationships
with its key consumers and encourages brand loyalty" (Glucksman, 2017, p. 78). Social
media has many tools on how to interact with consumers. However, every marketing
department must be able to evaluate achieved results. According to an article from Gillin
(2008, p. 5), there are many significant factors, starting with the quality of content that is
difficult to measure and finishing with much easier factors, such as page views and search
engine rank. However, nowadays, marketers are trying to reduce risk of low-quality content
by choosing the right influencer and ensuring that the content will be tailored for the
audience and 100% unique (Join Marketing, 2018). Other criteria for evaluating impacts
include participation level, prominence in the market, and frequency of activity. Influencers
can raise brand awareness with the right audience. However, it is necessary to choose the
right influencer who reflects a brand and audience (Hinai, 2019). Moreover, these
influencers can become brand ambassadors and humanise a brand by giving a personality
(Neate, 2019). In research from Duris (2017), the author thinks that influencers can be
advocates and defend brand reputation by sharing positive thoughts and experiences.
3. Influencer marketing trends
3.1. Influencers on Instagram and Youtube platforms
According to the research, Millennials and Generation Z are more plausible to be
affected by influencers than any other generation (Droesch, 2020). The leading two
platforms where influencers are the most followed by these two generations are Instagram
and Youtube (Morning Consult, 2019). However, there are a few discrepancies between
both generations females and males (Table 1).
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Gen Z Men Gen Z Women Millennials Men Millennials Women
The favorite site or platform for following influencers

Table 1: The popularity of platforms to use for following influencers between generations
and genders (Morning Consult, 2019)
The same platforms can have different popularity between genders. The reason is
simple, and mostly it depends on the type of influencers and content they are interested in.
For example, "men mostly follow influencers talking about gaming (62%), sports and
exercise (41%) and food (35%), while women tend to follow beauty and skincare (59%),
fashion (49%) and food (47%) influencers" (Ortiz, 2020). Instagram is a platform for
photographies and short videos, and the fashion influencers are more tend to introduce a
product by wearing it and then tagging the brand name of the picture they post
(Nandagiri & Philip, 2018, p. 61). Youtube is a different kind of platform, influencers there
have more time to express their opinions and explain all product or service features
adequately (Nandagiri & Philip, 2018, p. 61).
Influencers have more power to impact customer when creating original content. For
example, research shows that when choosing the product, people are watching many
different reviews, not only those who follow, they are more likely to remember the content
that was created more interestingly (Nandagiri & Philip, 2018, p. 63). By the way, audiences
are more likely to spend more time on Youtube than on Instagram, accordingly 40 minutes
and approximately 20 minutes (Khalus, 2019). Youtube looks like a preferable platform as it
has more room for creativity. However, Instagram is quicker to create content. Marketers
recommend using both platforms. With Instagram, influencers can attract customer
attention and with Youtube to show all advantages of the thing they introducing.
3.2. The rising star: TikTok
2020 was a year with a lot of negative surprises. However, chaos is a ladder, and this
chaos let TikTok become one of the biggest stars of 2020. Tiktok became one of the most
popular apps, with over 738 million downloads in 2019, and approximately 2.6 billion
downloads in 2020 (Iqbal, 2021; Doyle, 2021). TikTok is more comparable with Instagram by
the format of content. However, the story which was popular on Instagram may barely
reach any likes on TikTok. Influencers at TikTok meet a slightly different audience, according
to Haenlein et al. (2020, p. 7) TikTok users are younger than any other platform audience.
"Despite the perception that TikTok is a Gen Z playground, its culture of fast-paced
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information sharing is successful for decidedly non-Gen Z-driven brands and industries"
(Mazouri, 2020). Many Instagram influencers had to create an account on TikTok to go along
with new trends. Despite the popularity they have on another platform, not all of them
become popular on TikTok. By reaching a new audience, brands started to hunt new famous
creators and offer them to co-operate. TikTok is interesting because their videos can
become viral much faster than anywhere else because of the format. This aspect gave
brands an idea to create their original music, and then their influencers use the brand's
sound, leading to virality and engagement (Mazouri, 2020).
TikTok, for example, promotes content based on its algorithm, the details of which
remain unclear. That means that most of the time, video can become successful just
because of luck (Haenlein et al., 2020, p. 21). However, it is not entirely true, to gain
attention on TikTok creator need to involve the viewer in the first few seconds. The luck of
video depends on a few factors, according to TikTok, it starts from the interests which
person express as a new user and adjust for things that were indicated as not interesting
(TikTok, 2020). Influencer marketing advertisements work better when creators have all
freedom for creativity, then the collaboration has more authenticity, and the content
reveals the sponsorship (Mediakix, 2020). Also, TikTok allows creators to insert a link to their
profiles, and brands can follow and track traffic to their website straight from the app
(Foxwell, 2020). This feature allows brands to control their influencers and reorganise
marketing strategy during the campaign. Another way for brands to start partnerships with
influencers is to employ them. First brands which started recruiting influencers was
Sephora, Dunkin Donuts and Wendy's. Of course, after this action, a large number of retail
brands started to hire and compensate their current employees for posting content on
social media to form a network of brand influencers (Mintel & Dubina, 2020).
3.3. Authenticity
Authenticity is one of the most important attributes in the products and brands.
According to Chronis and Hampton (2008, p. 112), more and more consumers desire
authentic content about the products and brands they consume. However, consumers
understand branding as inauthentic because of their commercial intention from sponsors
(Holt, 2002, p. 83). Sometimes influencers found themselves inside the traps because of
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brands and their needs. They desire to focus on products they are passionate about and are
challenged by commercial opportunities to showcase brands they would not like (Audrezet
et al., 2017, p. 509).
First of all, brands need to be careful with choosing influencers. They have to know the
needs and values these influencers provide. However, influencers can represent brands
from different aspects. They can disclose critical touchpoints of the brand and have more
influence than the content which brands present directly to consumers (Noise, 2020).
People prefer to get information from a similar age person with similar interests and values
than from seemingly characterless brands. This is why companies need to be careful of what
kind of influencer they choose and how influencer will manage to create an authentic
connection between all three parties (brand, audience and influencer) (Noise, 2020).
However, sometimes some brands and influencers should carefully consider how they will
promote the product. Few years old case shows that some brands are not always fit for
influencers, such as mouthwash products if promoted non-authentic. Influencer Scarlett
London received many adverse reactions after many posts where she promoted Listerine
mouthwash; people reacted as it does not help eliminate lousy mouth breath (Stewart,
2018).
There are many examples of the relationship between brands and influencers. One of
the most interesting examples is airline companies collaborations with influencers. Most of
the people like to travel, and everyone wants to feel what kind of experience can have
during flights with the best airline companies in the world. There is a trend when influencers
create video blogs and posts during the flight about different classes, food and other
services. Airlines give full creative freedom to capture all travel experiences and ask to
create as natural as possible content for their audience (Quance, 2015, p. 16).
Another example is the fashion and beauty industry, which is the largest on social
media platforms. Interestingly, 45.8% of brands named micro-influencers (10.000 - 100.000
followers) are more useful for their brands (Statista, 2019). This industry faced a problem of
inauthenticity, and the audience could not relate themselves anymore with content
creators. However, a big push came at the start of 2019, the UK's Competition and Markets
Authority published guidelines for influencers about how to tag posts paid by brands
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(Codrea-Rado, 2019). This action has helped with increasing authenticity and transparency.
Influencers started to show their real-life as it turned out more relatable. According to the
marketer, a high level of authenticity on influencer social media life can strengthen the
audience's connection, which can be converted into a better engagement (Canning, 2020).
4. Conclusion
According to a report mentioned before, looks like Youtube and Instagram will
maintain leaders positions for an uncertain time while other social media platforms are not
even close to leaders (Morning Consult, 2019). Moreover, the content which both genders
prefer most of the time is different. Women still create more content about beauty and
fashion, while men prefer to talk about gaming and sports. As mentioned before, the beauty
industry is the largest, that also show the difference of share of sponsored content on
Instagram is very big between female (84%) and male (16%) (Statista, 2020a). However, the
main rules are the same for everyone; original content has more chances to be remembered
by consumers.
TikTok helped to rise for the new generation of influencers. There is much luck
because of a fuzzy algorithm when any video can get attention, however, to keep attention
for a long time can only creative people. Brands give full creative freedom to influencers as
engagement can be higher, and influencers can maintain the same style. Another good thing
is that brands can track all influencer engagement data straight on the app.
Authenticity, confidence, inclusive and high-quality content is one of the keys to social
media influencers' success. Influencers are these people who had broken the wall between
followers and the brands; advertising always happened without a more noticeable response
from consumers. Authenticity means a lot; despite that, many articles authors mentioned
how important it is to find an influencer which is reliable and could fit the brand. People will
see an influencer as the brand's face, and they need to see reliability in the relationship
between all brand, influencer and finally audience.
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