The Influencers in Public Relations

What are influ­en­cers in pub­lic relations?

Quantifying is often chal­len­ging, espe­cially when mak­ing sense of human beha­viour. But most of us are faced with cat­egor­ising influ­en­cers in social media anyway.

While you can find dif­fer­ent types of online influ­en­cers on vari­ous plat­forms, I’ve chosen to look more closely at the media com­monly tar­geted by businesses.

Here we go:

The Influencers in Public Relations

In pub­lic rela­tions, influ­en­cers are indi­vidu­als who have man­aged to grow a sub­stan­tial audi­ence, which has the poten­tial to affect a spe­cif­ic organ­isa­tion either pos­it­ively or negatively.

Influencers = inde­pend­ent con­tent cre­at­ors with influ­en­tial plat­forms and fol­low­ings of poten­tial import­ance to a brand. ¹Silfwer, J. (2020, January 15). The Influencers in Public Relations. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​i​n​f​l​u​e​n​c​e​r​s​-​i​n​-​p​u​b​l​i​c​-​r​e​l​a​t​i​o​ns/

Establishing and main­tain­ing good rela­tion­ships with stra­tegic­ally chosen influ­en­cers for the organ­isa­tion is often crit­ic­ally important.

“Influencers in pub­lic rela­tions are emer­ging stake­hold­ers who gen­er­ate a state of opin­ion in the digit­al com­munity that sur­passes tra­di­tion­al pub­lic opin­ion.”
Source: The Role of Prosumers in the Interactive and Digital Processes of Public Relations ²Polo, M. (2020). The Role of Prosumers in the Interactive and Digital Processes of Public Relations. 161 – 174. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​4​0​1​8​/​978 – 1‑7998 – 3119‑8.ch012

How To Categorise Influencers

There aren’t stand­ard­ised ter­min­o­lo­gies for influ­en­cer mar­ket­ing and influ­en­cer rela­tions, and no gen­er­al fol­low­ing sizes or engage­ment ratios exist. However, it’s pos­sible to make approx­im­ate distinctions.

I recom­mend using the fol­low­ing tiers and nam­ing con­ven­tions for cat­egor­ising dif­fer­ent types of influencers:

Learn more: The Influencers in Public Relations

Influencer Size Variations per Platform

To account for how dif­fer­ent types of cre­at­or-based plat­forms work, I use this mat­rix to cat­egor­ise social media influencers:

A few con­sid­er­a­tions for this matrix:

On vary­ing cre­at­or-plat­form influence:

“Our research showed how trust is earned over time, with con­sumers tend­ing to trust influ­en­cers on leg­acy plat­forms such as YouTube more (28%) than those on new­er plat­forms such as Instagram (22%) and TikTok (15%).

However, influ­en­cers on both YouTube and TikTok fared well when com­pared to more tra­di­tion­al brand endorse­ments. 37% of 16 – 44-year olds trust a YouTube influ­en­cer more than a high-pro­file fig­ure or celebrity. Meanwhile on TikTok, almost a quarter (23%) of the same age group agreed they trust a TikTok influencer’s recom­mend­a­tion over a friend.

And the sur­vey shows how trust is con­vert­ing into sales for brands. Over a quarter (27%) of con­sumers have been influ­enced to pur­chase a product or ser­vice by cre­at­ors on YouTube in the past six months, fol­lowed by 24% of con­sumers on Instagram and 15% on TikTok. This increases to almost a quarter (23%) of 16 – 44 year-olds on the plat­form, show­ing how dif­fer­ent demo­graph­ics inter­act dif­fer­ently with each plat­form.” ³Keane-Dawson, M. (2020, June 9). How will influ­en­cer mar­ket­ing pro­gress in 2020? Influenceonline​.co​.uk. https://​influ​enceon​line​.co​.uk/​2​0​2​0​/​0​6​/​0​9​/​h​o​w​-​w​i​l​l​-​i​n​f​l​u​e​n​c​e​r​-​m​a​r​k​e​t​i​n​g​-​p​r​o​g​r​e​s​s​-​i​n​-​2​0​20/

Influencer Marketing vs Influencer Relations

There are three main types of influ­en­cer mar­ket­ing (digit­al mar­ket­ing) and one primary type of influ­en­cer rela­tions (digit­al PR):

Influencer Relations (Part of Digital PR)

Influencer out­reach (earned media) = the influ­en­cer receives invit­a­tions, demos, or exclus­ive mater­i­al without strings attached.

Influencer Marketing (Part of Digital Marketing)

Influencer advert­ising (paid media) = the influ­en­cer will pub­lish the brand’s pre-made con­tent in their channels.

Influencer spon­sor­ship (paid media) = the influ­en­cer will read a script to con­vey an offer­ing fol­low­ing the brand’s instructions.

Influencer col­lab­or­a­tion (paid media) = the influ­en­cer show­cases the brand’s offer­ing by cre­at­ing con­tent sim­il­ar to the influ­en­cer­’s reg­u­lar content.

Advertising, spon­sor­ships, and col­lab­or­a­tions are typ­ic­ally referred to as influ­en­cer mar­ket­ing, and out­reach is typ­ic­ally referred to as influ­en­cer rela­tions.

Organisations look­ing to util­ise the poten­tial reach of rel­ev­ant influ­en­cers will be wise to pay atten­tion to these dis­tinc­tions. ⁴Silfwer, J. (2020, January 15). The Influencers in Public Relations. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​i​n​f​l​u​e​n​c​e​r​s​-​i​n​-​p​u​b​l​i​c​-​r​e​l​a​t​i​o​ns/

Learn more: Influencer Relations vs Influencer Marketing