Let’s talk about the rise of clout-chasing influencers on social audio and how important it is for brands who partner with them to do their due diligence before getting into any contractual agreement. We also hosted a Clubhouse room about this topic and had a very engaging conversation.
Social audio storytelling is taking the world by storm. And with that comes the aftermath of influencers. So today, we’re talking about clout-chasing influencers. And the last thing I want to do is talk about the same thing everybody else talks about here at Clubhouse. I see a lot of recycled thought leadership in several of the rooms I’ve attended, so I have assembled a diverse panel of individuals I know in the industry to provide their perspectives.
Now I’d like to say just a few words before we start.
Everyone is influential to some degree. Some have small circles of influence, while others have vast circles of influence.
I am not the influencer police. I have been critical in the past of people who refer to themselves as B2B tech influencers, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what I think.
Everybody has their vibe and side hustle, and I can’t hate against that.
But when clients come to me and say, “We want to work with this clubhouse influencer … I’ve heard them speak in a room with over 300+ people, and they have 15,000 followers”.
I have to do my due diligence and ensure that it’s a wise investment and one that can deliver actual business value.
So over the weekend, I did a little experiment. I did a Clubhouse analysis and scraped all the profiles looking specifically for people who have terms like “award-winning,” “global keynote speaker,” influencer, and “featured in media publications like Forbes, Fortune, the New York Times, and Fast Company, etc.
There were well over 100K profiles that had some variation of these keywords. I chose 10.
I spent about 45 minutes Googling every ten people to collect their handles across social media. Of the 10, four had just a few public social media channels, very small audience sizes, inconsistent posting cadence, and just about zero engagement. All of them had Twitter accounts that started in 2021. Here’s a more robust Clubhouse analysis in case you want more details.
I took the rest and then ran them through an algorithm that we use to help determine real influence – audience size, topical relevance, engagement rate, and search visibility.
And this group seemed to be fairly influential. Although I couldn’t determine what they were influential about. Many self-identified as influencers in growing audiences across Clubhouse, entrepreneurship, innovation, and personal branding, and that’s about it.
So, please take what you want from this experiment, but it could be argued that Clubhouse participation is an excellent B2B marketing strategy for enterprise technology companies.
Is there an issue with people being so hungry and obsessed with being influencers? I would say yes. The next question is: Should brands be on Clubhouse? I’ll let you answer that one.
Related Content