What’s the biggest takeaway from Adweek’s NEXTECH conference? Marketing’s future is data-driven, and it’s time to get on-board. Our tech-savvy Marketing Manager, Lauren Balasco, shares her insights—detailing how marketers can use emerging AI technology to give their influencer campaigns a competitive edge.
The new possibilities of AI
How has the rapid evolution of emerging technology (from virtual reality to mixed reality) helped brands to engage with, and win over, consumers?
That was the question on everyone’s lips at Adweek’s recent online conference, NEXTECH. Machine learning capabilities and access to data has never been better, so there was a lot of excitement around the possibilities that are about to unfold.
There were many great talks from industry leaders including VISA, The New York Times and IBM—but the most interesting element was seeing how integrated Artificial Intelligence (AI) will help skyrocket influencer marketing in the coming years.
Making AI work for marketers
From vetting at scale to measuring ROI, the sheer number of references to AI integration made it clear: this is a skill that marketers need to master to future-proof their brands—particularly those who work closely with influencers and brand advocates.
Ryan Detert, Chief Executive Officer at Influential, highlighted the need for integrated AI to analyse influencers’ natural language and, using psychographics—the study of consumers based on their activities, interests, and opinions—understand if influencers are genuinely invested in your brand and target audience.
“Generation Z has three main objectives when it comes to building a relationship with a brand: access, authenticity and trust”, Ryan said.
“People trust people. With the power of AI we’re now able to understand the intentions of influencers like never before”.
Cognitive analysis technology is helping marketers to cherry-pick influencers whose personalities, followers, demographic and social conversations closely match the needs of any given brand or marketing campaign. By using this technology, marketers can eliminate any guesswork, and guarantee impressions among their target audience.
IBM Watson: a case study
Just take IBM Watson. This innovative platform uses machine learning to carefully match brands and advertising agencies with appropriate influencers, amplifying their marketing messages and dramatically increasing levels of engagement.
So, how does IBM Watson do it?
- Analyses 47 traits to ensure that an influencer’s voice will maximize results.
- Analyses 5 billion social media followers (by demographics) to help clients reach the right audience.
- Created a mobile app where influencers can check in on personality profiles to streamline their work, and increase audience engagement.
To give you an idea of what this technology is capable of, IBM Watson partnered with Hyundai to produce content and received 100% positive sentiment from users. This is almost unheard of, and helped to send their engagement through the roof. Hyandai are now combining IBM Watson data with their own social data to sell on this new technology to their own clients.
The perks of integrated AI
So, what will happen if you don’t use AI-generated data? Well, the risk of an unsuccessful campaign is much higher. When backed by AI data, brands are afforded a level of safety that was previously unknown.
Artificial versus human
But it’s important to point out that making the most out of the available data doesn’t mean that human creativity will be lost. Integrating AI-powered insights into your content strategy simply means that, when you do decide to embark on a particular creative project, it will be that much more relevant, engaging and targeted—and more likely to strike a chord with your audience.
Although advancements in AI are exciting, there’s no escaping the biggest pain-point marketers face: measuring ROI from influencer marketing—especially for hyper-specific micro-segments offline.
But, like the rest of digital marketing, influencers and their algorithms are here to stay. And with AI continuing to improve how effective and efficient these avenues are, it’s only a matter of time before we can measure offline success.
Grabbing the AI advantage
So, how can marketers take advantage of AI right now?
- Influencer classification—gathering and analysing invaluable data about influencers and linking each creator to particular interests, demographics and industries.
- Sentiment analysis—AI can gauge the sentiment of post comments, and draw vital conclusions about a brand’s audience and desires from their reactions.
- Partnerships—by making the most of insightful AI integration, brands can ensure they partner with the right nano-influencers to engage a particular audience.
Want to learn how Seeker can use their tech expertise to help your business win over customers? Speak to one of our digital specialists—we’d love to wax lyrical about the latest and greatest innovations and tools with you.