Why social media influencers and business may not be a good mix – business influencers should be experts who command respect
- The Singapore government’s recent attempt to use Instagram influencers to promote the budget was a total failure
- Other marketers are learning the lesson that you need to hire credible online influencers to promote businesses
When Singapore’s Ministry of Finance commissioned influencers to help promote the national budget to younger Singaporeans in 2018, the campaign was a dismal failure. The fashion and beauty bloggers hired to help sell the budget were widely seen as totally unqualified to discuss high finance.
“I imagine somebody decided: ‘Lets get young people to understand the budget’,” says Andrew Taylor, head of public relations at the media and advertising giant Ogilvy Asia-Pacific.
“It’s an easy trap to fall into – they are a young demographic, birds of a feather flock together – and so ‘we will get like-minded people to talk to them’.
“But then, the audience doesn’t buy it, since it’s not the message they expect from a content creator, or from the Ministry of Finance. So they … are outraged that they are assumed to be so stupid.”
Singapore’s high rate of social media use creates a market ripe for social influencers. Yet as the Ministry of Finance realised, the credibility of influencers is essential for any message to take hold. That applies especially to business-to-business (B2B) influencers.