Travel Brands Need to Rethink Their Influencer Relationships
Skift Take
Brands need to re-evaluate their approach to influencers, ensuring there’s strategy and business results from the blind payouts.
Colin Nagy (@CJN) is executive director at The Barbarian Group.
The way hospitality brands approach travel influencers is broken.
Take a quick scroll through Instagram and you’re likely to see a highly paid, stylish person or photographer hawking something from a brand with little to no disclosure.
The asking price for a quick Instagram post these days? Big guns can command 10k a snap or beyond. Brands are basically handing over silver briefcases of money and generating unknown returns for their business. And there’s been a cottage industry of talent managers, brokers and intermediaries that are profiting from the gold rush.
The industry is drunk on likes but often fumbling in the dark when it comes to tangible business results.
Of course, the numbers can be persuasive. According to a recent Nielsen report, influencer content can lift brand familiarity 88% more than content directly from the brand. A Burst Media report called out a highly successful campaign can earn $6.85 in media for every dollar spent. There’s been countless examples about the value of
