The real value of influencers

For every SaaS influencer marketplace that’s matching influencers with brands via algorithm, there’s a critic out there decrying their use. It’s inauthentic, they’ll say, and point to relationship-centric platforms like Ainfluencer as a model of how to do things right. We’re not here to say that marketplaces are bad, or that they’re ineffective, because there are many we’ve reviewed that are just plain great products. However, we are here to say that Ainfluencer is a model of how to do things right.

Influencer marketing became ubiquitous not because it was a cheaper alternative to celebrity endorsements, or because it’s just a more effective way to target advertising to specific audiences. You can do those things, of course, but that’s not the reason influencers have value. Their value is in the authenticity of their endorsements. Influencers become influential because they’ve cultivated a trusting relationship with their audience, not because that audience is big. The idea behind Ainfluencer is to capitalize on that influence, but not in a transactional way. The Ainfluencer philosophy is that influencer marketing is marketing to the influencer. Build a trusting relationship with them, and all else falls into place.

Perhaps the Ainfluencer philosophy is a function of the company’s age: they’ve been around since 2014, a few years before influencer marketing was a thing anyone outside of marketing was talking about. Or maybe it’s because the company’s founders—Brian Mechem and Brandon Brown—both came from the marketing world. Perusing through the Ainfluencer website, there’s a love of craft on display that’s impossible to deny. Marketing is something these two take very seriously, even when they’re making a purely technological play at it. And not just their own technology: Ainfluencer’s focus is on eCommerce businesses with integrations into some of the major shopping platforms. For all the coding and technical wizardry that goes into Ainfluencer, the website reads like a manual for couples therapy, with its focus on things like “relationships,” and “trust,” and “authenticity.”