Welcome to a summary of the Fourth Floor newsletter, your weekly feed of the biggest news, developments, insights, and analysis from the ever-evolving world of influencer marketing.

Sign up here to get the full version of the newsletters, delivered free to your inbox every Wednesday at 12 noon.

Author: Scott Guthrie | #060 | 15 June 2022

Influencer Marketing | Social Platforms | Quick Links | Column

Creator fees surge due to scarcity & transparency

Increased demand for their work and better pay transparency for influencers are pushing up creator fees. More money spent will translate into a greater scrutiny of ROI. Brands need to focus on their corporate and campaign objectives, and how they’re going to measure success. This leads to better use of campaign analytics to ensure pay rates live up to success rates. There’s more on this topic, complete with added colour and quotes, in this Marketing Brew article.

The struggles of Amazon Live shopping

"While I can go on TikTok Live and engage with my followers about all different subjects for hours, talking non-stop for an hour about Amazon products feels a lot like QVC," one influencer told the Business Insider news outlet.

Does the issue lie with Amazon Live or with livestream shopping as an entire subcategory in the US? And, if endemic to the subcategory, could it be that the wrong creators are chosen to front the work in the first place? "To be successful on Amazon Live, you have to be a host, you have to have a personality for it, and I don't think everyone has that," one talent manager told Insider. "I think that is part of the challenge. It's certainly not for everyone."

As influencer marketing matures, so it becomes ever more nuanced. Different influencers excel at different points in the sales funnel. This ranges from building awareness and helping brands remain top-of-mind at the top edges of the funnel, to engaging with their community, answering questions, and building brand knowledge at the centre, through to more directly selling the product at the lower end…

We’re clear for take-off: Travel influencers are back

A reminder that influencers are often creative directors, as well as content creators skilled in photography. Influencers "bring a keen eye to your hotel and showcase to you something that you didn't think to do, which shows your hotel in a really interesting light," according to a spokesperson for the upscale Langham Hospitality Group, quoted by CNN. Not all hoteliers agree with the benefits influencers bring. This has more to do with the selection of best-fit creators whose content and values chimes with the hotel brand, however. This month four years ago I wrote about the financial benefits enjoyed by hotels when working in partnership with best-fit influencers.

Other stories in the Influencer Marketing section explore the subjects of zero-waste creators, humanising the metaverse, and virtual influencers. Sign up now

Influencer Marketing | Social Platforms | Quick Links | Column

TikTok: New tools helping digital wellbeing

TikTok has rolled out tools to help its users track and manage the time they spend in-app. A dashboard helps monitor screen-time. Break reminder messages are introduced to help limit time spent scrolling. TikTok users aged 13- 17 will now be reminded of the app’s screen-time limit tool the next time they open it, if they spend more than 100 minutes scrolling in any single day.

Sheryl Sandberg: the book, the wedding, the $1.7 billion net worth

The seat pad of Sheryl Sandberg’s Herman Miller has barely had time to cool, but the theme music has already turned sinister over the reasons for the departure of Meta’s former COO.

Sandberg has long been credited for much of Facebook’s growth. Yet, she’s now at the centre of an internal Meta investigation looking into her use of company resources. Allegations hinge on whether Meta staff helped her write a book and plan a wedding. On one side you have a book written to help women overcome grief and a wedding planned to help Sandberg overcome her own grief. On the other hand you have an executive bound by corporate codes, worth an estimated $1.7 billion, and so amply able to finance her own book and wedding preparations.

Instagram introduces grid pinning

Instagram now allows users to pin up to three posts to their profile. Pinning posts is hoped to help showcase users’ favourite moments. Creators may benefit by using the feature to pin deals or contests, or display three pieces of sponsored content.

This Social Platform section also contains stories on sensitive content control, TikTok avatars, and Instagram’s new creative tools. Sign up now

Influencer Marketing | Social Platforms | Quick Links | Column

→ Lancôme Nets $1.5 Million in 10 Days on Douyin

→ 44% of Chinese Gen Z say bloggers and influencers were among their top three sources for product recommendations (versus just 10 percent in the US) [McKinsey’s China Consumer Report 2021]

Influencer Marketing | Social Platforms | Quick Links | Column

Each month the newsletters brings you an exclusive column from Scott Guthrie. This week Scott looks at community custodians. Here is an excerpt…

Puppets, Star Wars, and creators as community custodians

Dinx combines two of my pet peeves: puppetry and the Star Wars franchise. But this article isn’t about me, or puppets, or even Star Wars. Dinx is interesting from an influencer point-of-view because of the way he works with his TikTok followers, elevating them into a self-reliant community.

@starwarsdinx is a Muppet-esc puppet TikTok influencer. His TikToks are mostly about Star Wars. As his audience grew, so technology and time thwarted him from being able to answer every comment.

At the beginning of the month, Dinx laid out his stall, uploading a TikTok providing viewers with the rules for commenting on his posts…

Sign up now

Issue 60 of the newsletter can be read in full here