Teri's Take: Videos vs. images, celebrities vs. influencers and an IG Update

Table of contents

Here’s your weekly recap of what’s up in the world of influencer marketing and social media. This week, it’s all about choices. Still images vs. videos in ads, celebrities vs. influencers, and muting vs. unfollowing. Whatever your choice is, there are sure to be some pros and cons.

The article: Video or Images: Which Performs Better in Facebook Ads?

Spoiler alert: the answer is, it depends!Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all answer when it comes to advertisements. Otherwise, all ads would look the same and that would get real old, real quick. The article reveals that when tested, optimized images outperformed some videos, and videos outperformed some images.The key to knowing what’s right for your ads is to test, test, test! (Luckily, Facebook’s Personalized Ads feature makes it easy to A/B test ad copy and creative. And influencer marketing allows you to source large amounts of content that you can test at scale.)If you’re interested in knowing what all outperforming ads have in common, the article found that clear objectives, eye-catching content, and less text all help to boost the performance of your ads. Square videos, bold colors, and images with minimal text also tend to perform better.More on this topic:

The Article: Introducing Mute: A New Way to Personalize Your Feed

Remember the Black Mirror episode when people had the ability to mute people in the real world? Well, Instagram has made this (very convenient) feature, a reality. At least in your virtual world.If you haven’t already heard, Instagram announced that their “new feature lets you hide posts in feed from certain accounts, without unfollowing them.”Disagree with your distant relative’s political views? Mute. In a fight with your significant other? Mute. Getting major FOMO seeing your friend's vacation photoshoot? MUTE! The good news is, unlike when you unfollow someone, the accounts you mute will not be aware that you’ve muted them. And of course, you can always unmute an account.Why is this relevant? For brands, it’s going to be even more important to post content that your followers will enjoy in order to avoid being #muted. Keep your eye out for a blog post all about creating Instagram content your followers actually want to see.More on this topic:

Instagram Updates You Don’t Want to Miss: Including One That Hasn’t Been Released

The article: How to Determine if Your Brand Should Go With a Celebrity Endorser or Influencer

We’ve all seen celebrity endorsements that just don’t quite mesh. Remember when Polaroid announced that Lady Gaga would be the creative director of her own specialty line of products in 2014? When hearing the news, Kanye West said what many of us were thinking, “I like some of the Gaga songs, but what the f*&$ does she know about cameras?”. The partnership ended soon after.This article stressed that marketers should think about whether their celebrity or influencer partners "personal brand aligns with the company mission". The article makes the following distinctions between celebrity endorsements and influencer marketing:

While the point of the article is that there are both pros and cons when working with influencers and celebrities, I want to debunk one "con" to influencer marketing this article stresses:The article says, “It’s not worth spending lots of money on an endorser that doesn’t have a large enough reach.” This statement is just plain false because influencer generated content, especially from micro-influencers, is significantly less expensive than a celebrity's content, not to mention professionally produced content. So, brands really don’t have to spend "lots of money" when partnering with influencers.Plus, the value of influencers isn’t based solely on their reach, but in the content they produce. For example, this beauty brand spent on $50 on a video and image that has been repurposed in in-store retailers, their website, social media, and blog –saving them thousands of dollars in content creation.More on this topic:

If you’d like a monthly recap of influencer marketing best practices and industry news, subscribe to our blog newsletter!

Sharing options:

More From The Blog