How Does An Influencer Influence Effectively?
Authentic: To be, or not to be, that is the question. Alex Payne, CEO & Co-Founder, The Influence Room, joined us for a Q&A to describe how influencer marketing is shifting towards authenticity and long-term partnerships, and why brands must move away from treating creators like media slots and focus on building genuine connections.
What are some mistakes brands often make with influencer-led campaigns?
Treating creators like media slots. Brief, post, move on. It’s hollow marketing, so no wonder it falls flat.
Also, stop scripting everything. Creators know how to talk to their audience. Over-controlling the message strips out the personality that made them influential in the first place.
But the biggest red flag? Working with someone who clearly wouldn’t use the product. If they’ve never mentioned your brand before and wouldn’t touch it off-camera, the audience knows. And they’ll keep scrolling.
Why is authenticity such a critical factor in influencer marketing today?
Because people aren’t stupid. They can smell inauthenticity from ten scrolls away. They can see when a creator’s heart isn’t in it, and will disengage instantly.
Authenticity doesn’t mean casual or unpolished. It’s about being aligned. Does the creator actually like the product? Would they recommend it without payment? That’s the difference between content that connects and content that’s ignored.
And this idea that brands have to tightly control the message? Let it go. Give your creator the tools, not a teleprompter.
How can brands prove the ROI from influencer campaigns?
First, define what ROI means for you. Is it awareness? Sign-ups? Brand lift? If you don’t know what you’re measuring, nothing else matters.
Then get your tracking in order: UTM links, unique discount codes, dedicated landing pages. Attribution doesn’t have to be perfect, but it needs to exist.
For brand-led work, focus on directional signals. Branded search. Follower growth. Save and share rates. Referral traffic. Audience sentiment. None of these are flashy, but they’re reliable indicators of movement.
Also, think longer term. Did your influencer strategy improve email engagement? Did it increase your click-throughs on paid social? The real impact often shows up a month later in places your boss isn’t even looking.
What role does user-generated content play in influencer marketing strategies?
UGC is one of the most effective, underused assets brands have. It’s what people post without a contract. That’s why it performs.
Tactically, it’s gold. It gives you scale, variety, and trust without the cost of a big production team. Smart brands have a UGC pipeline baked into every campaign.
They brief influencers in ways that prompt real reactions. They track and licence high-performing UGC. And they repurpose it in places where trust matters.
They also keep an eye on the customers posting without being asked. That’s your future ambassador pool right there.
This isn’t about “community vibes”. It’s about treating UGC as a serious creative and commercial asset.
Why should brands shift away from one-off partnerships and instead create long-term creator programmes?
Because frequency builds familiarity, and familiarity builds trust. One-off deals feel transactional. A long-term partnership looks like love.
When a creator consistently champions your brand, their audience starts to believe it's real (because it is). That’s when trust kicks in.
And over time, creators get better at telling your story. They get a knack for knowing what works, what lands and what flops. The guesswork disappears, and you’re left with true brand advocacy.
How can brands create marketing that provides real value and is authentic?
Start by actually listening to your customers. What do they love? Hate? Post about? Complain about? That’s your brief.
Then work with creators who sit inside your audience’s world. Let them lead the message. Give them context, not control. If the content feels a bit messy, good. Real things usually are.
Generic content is rarely an AI problem. It’s a briefing problem. If your brand voice is vague, ChatGPT just speeds up the blandness. Fix your process first.
The moment your content sounds like it was made for everyone, it hits no one. Trust me, your audience can tell the difference.
What are the key differences between brands that build communities and those that focus on transactional partnerships?
It’s the difference between creating conversation and shouting into the void.
Community-led brands reply to comments. They show up when they’re not selling. They treat creators like collaborators, not campaign tools.
Transactional brands drop in with a discount code and disappear until next quarter. That’s not community, it’s performance.
If your influencer strategy ends when the invoice is paid, it was never a relationship. Just a rented audience.
how do you see influencer marketing evolving over the next five years?
We’re moving from volume to value. From “how many followers?” to “how deeply do they care?”
We’ll see fewer “influencers” and more creators-as-strategic-partners. Less one-size-fits-all briefs, more collaborative planning. The best brands will stop briefing for content and start co-creating ideas.
Expect more performance-led influencer campaigns: creator whitelisting, affiliate codes, post boosting. If your influencer strategy isn't plugged into your wider paid and CRM strategy, you’re already behind.
And creators? They’ll be savvier. Expect them to push back on bad briefs, ask for data, negotiate usage rights properly, and build their own brands in parallel.
Join us in London at SocialDay’s Social Media Fest, 20-22 May, to hear Alex Payne’s session about the red flags of influencers you should avoid, and what actually works in 2025 for influencer campaigns. socialday.co.uk
