What Happened
Similar to so-called “influencer marketing,” where brands turn to social media stars to promote their products and services, Forbes is now offering brands a chance to connect with industry experts in certain areas to help brands get the word out for their content. Working with social media analytics firm Traackr, Forbes will connect brand advertisers participating in its BrandVoice Premium program to “a network of journalists, academics and bloggers who wield influence in key subject areas” to promote their content to a more targeted audience via their own social network. The expert influencers won’t be paid to promote the branded content, but Forbes can ask these influencers to create content on the brand’s behalf that would be posted on Forbes.com.
What Brands Need To Do
While Forbes’ BrandVoice initiative comes with a rather hefty threshold of at least $100k ad spending per month for a minimum of six months, it nevertheless illustrates the growing importance of leveraging social influencers to get branded content in front of the right audience. At a time when 14% of internet users are now using ad-blockers to avoid online ads, it is especially important for brands to use branded content to spread the word.
For more information on why brands should leverage partnerships with social influencers and content creators to reach new audiences, check out the Ad Avoidance section of our Outlook 2016.
Sources: Wall Street Journal