Attracting clients in the trust economy
I saw an article pop up ‘has the influencer bubble burst?’ Saying that the age of the influencer appears to be dying.
It talked about how last year a Philadelphia-based YouTuber had six figures worth of brand deals canceled in thirty days. He has half a million followers, and makes money on YouTube by telling other people how make money on YouTube...
“For influencers, brand deals have dried up in the past year. Most of my friends who were charging $30k per video are struggling to fill their sponsor slots for $10k.”
Well, on paper, still seems decent money to post a video?
But we have to remember that their whole brand is built off of upholding a lifestyle that’s more like $20k/month. Jets, houses. Whatever.
They went on to point to how the more relatable influencers doing better. Basically those with a bit more of a 3D, and less plastic personality. And then of course there’s the anti-influencer movement, where they tell you ‘not to buy.’ (Repulsion can be a form of attraction).
My take is that the influencer show will run on, with the key characters dropping off every 3-5 years with little harm. And those that last, will either be real people, or, 'bigger' influencers whose platform is actually created by institutions who prop them up despite a lack of either talent or quality product. The word 'influencer' ain't accidental. They’re telling you what they are. Their primary role is to be one link of persuasion in the money flow or narrative chain.
Anyway, all this alongside the obscene increase in scams we all get (via SMS, voicemail, email, Facebook marketplace to name a few), means the walls of the ‘whole thing may’ be cracking. Or at least shifting.
What does ‘the whole thing’ mean?
The trust walls are higher than ever. As faux influencers fall each week, people continue to wake up to the game that’s been played for the last ten years. Already, every email, post, website, and meeting ain't ‘looked at’ the way it was five years ago.
Even Price Waterhouse Coopers (who, do screw a lot of things up), got this one right in their consumer indexes - pointing to a 20%+ increase in the importance of ‘trust’ when buying, from 2020 to 2022.
Trust in all major bodies (media, social media, governments, biz-ness) has been plummeting for years. Up to 50% depending on your source.
The link between ‘trust’, media, and health and wellbeing went to a new level in 2020.
I just saw one study over in the U.S, that over 50% of the population doesn’t just ‘not trust’ the media. But they believe they are there to actively confuse the population. I’m just the messenger.
On the biz-ness side?
If correct, this would see a recalibration of what ‘good’ business looks like. And a shift in trust would look a lot like a ‘risk off’ environment. But it ain’t quite the same. Risk off means a move to cash or safe havens. That may be happening a little. But my feeling is that this is more of a reallocation of risk and a slower buying cycle. Meaning, some businesses are thriving at record highs (even in risk on industries), others are struggling to cut through.
Things rarely sell because they sound good on a singular instagram post. Or because they look good. They have to pass a gauntlet of tests that tap back into the basic human nature on how we build desire and trust over time.
Social media marketers are telling brands that they need to be more ‘human’.
They need to have their ‘values’ clear. But it’s deeper than that…
Who are the people behind the business? Is there a clear story pointing to a better future?
[We see this with both new, and bigger clients as we speak, especially in health, money, or support work. What does trust look like not just personally, but culturally in that space? Not just surface level, but behaviourally, and in marketing and sales.]
This ain’t complicated, but for sure it takes a bit more work with marketing.
A marketing plan for a bigger business we work with might now have components across video, written, and in person. And, in several cases, direct mail. While it may have been just YouTube and ads previously.
New businesses may have a dream of popping only on instagram, but our marketing model suggests picking at least two out of three between social, asset building (long form content), and live networking.
Even with simple, single channel marketing, having enough depth, and a clear story on what the business is about is key.
A lot of gurus talk about the attention economy.
Gary Vee, et cetera. Gary Vee also gives business advice of “don’t cry over spilled milk.” Maybe true, but difficult to work with.
These guys have obviously done very well and have been a linchpin in crafting part of the narrative (particular NFT’s, AI, et cetera).
But if we think in terms of ‘attention’ only, we end up chasing, rather than building trust or vision. I think of it more like a vision economy than an attention economy. We might notice the stimulus, but we won’t go deeper unless there are enough dominos lined up to create vision.
We’ve seen businesses go viral multiple times on short form platforms, with little to no business impact from that. I know of others through mutual contacts, with 1M+ followers, but no revenue.
Are the numbers real? In some cases yes. But still, attention is different from trust.
The fundamentals have been here since the start, but as a culture, we’re getting more sensitive.
Rightfully so.
More sensitive to the content, and to the platforms. There’s the cliché line that when you watch a little kid (I saw this again the other day), they can already swipe on the iPads at one or two years old. Our consciousness is getting more tuned to the digital age.
If you read the RA MA article, Guru Jagat used to speak of this sensitivity as well as part of the shift to the Technology Age. The big role of the meditation was to be able to clean the subconscious mind effectively, to deal with this stuff and stay sharp.
But all of that’s to say that by now, we all noticed the saturation of claims and false promises at some stage. So not much gets past the BS detector.
The good side?
A recalibration of what ‘good’ business looks like.
A long time ago when I owned the gym and started writing about health stuff, I used to love the work of Dr. Steven Porges. Particularly, his stuff on neuroception. Our natural human ability (at birth) to asses threats. Every time Ruby goes to see her niece, she tells me how she’s one of the few people the baby will smile at straight away. Babies are great at that. So are dogs. Anyway, back then I liked that stuff because if you want results at a gym, I figured you need to have a generally ‘positive’ perception of your environment.
Anyway, we’re just getting better at this in the online and business space.
We’re better at picking up cues throughout the whole buying journey as to whether we move forward with the purchase.
Anyway, in my limited, but I dare say accurate opinion, this is good.
But even if you see it as a negative because some of the old game ‘tactics’ ain’t working the same, as McKee teaches us, every negative in the story can set up a positive.
Example:
The NFT bubble has already set up a pendulum swing back to a small, but growing appreciation of real art that celebrates beauty and nature.
The AI copywriting swing is already putting the wheels in motion for those who appreciate and want to learn how to write well.
The fast talkers on Facebook ads are giving people a better understanding of what a calm nervous system looks like, from someone who isn’t after a quick buck.
(Side note, the music seems a little stuck in a loop since the 2000’s? But hopefully that comes back around as well…)
A whole new (old) set of skills are coming back into the forefront:
Writing. Speaking. And getting off the sidelines, to convey quality ideas and stories with others.
My guess? In that order.
Now you might say, “well that’s always been the case.” Sure. Even Dan Pink wrote about it in his pop classic, A Whole New Mind, and a shift to the conceptual age. As have many others. But most of these predictions were largely off the back of the information age, rather than a splintering of trust.
Anyway, this can all feel like ‘swimming upstream.’ It takes a little more effort to clarify the business story. More effort to do the marketing. More effort to learn how to sell in a clean way.
Still, savvy business owners are seeing that building sustainable, rewarding businesses over time ain’t just ‘possible’ but there’s actually a process.
Fundamental skills that have been around for decades. Just applied to media in a slightly different way.
The future is probably a little different, but the future is bright.
Let's keep up.