Celebrity endorsement in social marketing
Rich Rust,
Reputation Manager,
Yomego
4th October 2011
As any Mad Men fans will know, celebrity endorsement has long been a staple tactic of big brand marketing campaigns; getting the right famous face to front a
TV ad or to support a PR initiative is a proven formula. In social media, however, it’s not yet been widely used, although, seemingly, the impact on campaign
success is unquestionable.
A survey in the US earlier this year by Brand Affinity
(which has an interest in celeb endorsement) asserted the following:
- Endorsed Facebook messages resulted in a 50% improvement in cost-per-action (CPA) over non-endorsed Facebook advertising.
- Click-through rates are 21x higher with endorsed Facebook messages over their non-endorsed counterparts.
- Click-through rates for endorsed Twitter messages were 17x higher than non-endorsed Facebook messages.
- Endorsed Twitter messages resulted in a 72% CPA improvement over non-endorsed Facebook messages.
Another sign that the appetite for celeb endorsement in the online space is growing is an announcement by Google earlier this month explaining that celebrity endorsed
messages would begin to appear in search results www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/8774568/Google-to-add-celebrity-endorsements-to-search-results.html.
These are all pretty compelling reasons for any marketer looking to sign up a celebrity to help sprinkle some stardust on a campaign. But it’s important to remember
that the rules are different in a social marketing campaign.
Use talent in the right way
Users who engage in social media don’t want to be marketed to, so broadcasting sales messages directly to consumers in social channels from their favourite
TV stars is likely to annoy them. If, for example, I follow a popular TV personality, the last thing I want them to do is to suggest I may be interested in a certain
product or service in an unsolicited, commercial way. If, however, they are involved in a genuinely interesting campaign and offer insight, or some sharable content /
information, then I’m far more likely to follow a link they post, or take a look at a film they’re involved in.
There are clear theories developed in how to use celebrity successfully in traditional marketing, for example, a survey in Holland in 2010, claimed celebrity
endorsement altered brain activity: www.bbc.co.uk/news/10615182.
Social media campaigns, however, are yet to have clearly defined rules around the use of celebrity campaign endorsements, which is why it’s imperative to
use talent sparingly and more importantly still, to choose the right celebrity.
Social campaigns tend to be highly targeted, designed to reach a specific audience group so the choice of talent is crucial. But more important still, is ensuring
the talent is active in social media – do they have a strong social following and do they regularly engage? If the answer to these questions is yes and the talent
has a natural affinity with the product or service offering and resonates well with your target audience, then you may well be on to a winning formula.