Disclaimer:
This blog might offend self-proclaimed, professional or hobbyist bloggers and also, the people who plan to start a blog in future but well, you can’t hide yourself under the rock forever, can you?
We hear about bloggers – and then there are influencers. The real art is to identify who’s what!
In simple words, a blogger is simply a person who blogs about anything – literally anything. That means he/she is a person who’d write about things, events or anything of his/her interest in a very informal style (more like a diary note) to satisfy his/her craving of writing things and putting on Internet.
Whereas an influencer is way more than that. That person is someone who is influential enough to impact the decision making abilities of people; somebody who’s followed by tons of people on social media. Yes, you can easily refer him/her as a social media rock star, an Internet celebrity or whatsoever.
What we need to understand is the fact that a blogger is NOT an influencer but an influencer can be a blogger. If a blogger introduces him/herself as an influencer – don’t trust. Because metrics define social influence, not the person.
By metrics, we mean numbers. What differentiates an influencer from a blogger is that staggering number upon which he’s relying on. The metrics such as engagement rate, reactions, shares, comments, virility factor, impressions, views and all these KPIs makes an ordinary social media user into an influencer – a social media star and this is what he demands money for!
Let us make this simpler for brand managers (or brands) in general because they’re the ones who are confused in making a choice whether to opt for bloggers or influencers to amplify their campaign/brand’s communication – the answer is simple.
If you want ‘stories and articles’ that don’t look or sound like boring press and corporate releases about your brand and campaigns, go with bloggers. You’d end up getting tons of people who’d write about your brand in different styles and tones for you.
But if you want to get your brand/campaign noticed by millions of people and want people to keep talking about it – no second thoughts, go for influencers!
But how to distinguish between a genuine and fake influencer? We’d disclose that magic trick to identification in our upcoming blogs. Stay posted!
