Influencer marketing has become one of the MAIN things many professionals working in social media are asked to do. Whether you are at an agency or working for a brand, engaging with influencers is one of the components of a successful and current social media plan. As a professor, I know many of my fellow colleagues are actively teaching influencer marketing.
How is influencer marketing taught or incorporated into assignments? Most often, we see professors ask students to identify influencers for a specific topic or brand. Others have integrated analysis into their assignments, where students are asked to look at influencer data.
These are all fine and good, but – we have to raise the bar in how we approach influencer marketing. There is a difference between teaching influencer marketing and actually doing influencer marketing. It’s not only key to cover influencer marketing in our classes, but we have to apply what we are covering in class into action.
This is what I was able to do first hand with my class this semester for my PR class (#FrebergPR). My class is working this semester with The Breeders’ Cup as our class client and our main events we will be covering are at the end of October and the beginning of November.
But, when classes began at the end of August, we were asked if our class could help out with an influencer event in September at Churchill Downs. It would be an event where students would help out in every step of the influencer event from brainstorming to creatively executing the event in a month’s time.
How did my students respond to this? They said:
Bring it on, Dr. Freberg!
I was very proud of my students not just saying yes, but they were excited. They wanted to put forth the extra work in doing this project. Many have said – this will give me an opportunity to share this experience when I am applying for jobs after graduation.
Influencer Event at Churchill Downs
The influencer event was held at Churchill Downs, which is home to The Breeders’ Cup next month. We had all students coordinate and work together on the influencer identification and research part. The group leaders for each group were in charge of the coordination and communication with the influencers.
We had two group leaders who were able to come on site and help out with the creative execution of the event.
Candice Champlin and Megan McLeroy were FANTASTIC! They were very professional and really did a tremendous job! Below Megan and Candice are getting a walk through with Marty (our amazing host and great professional at Churchill Downs) before the influencers come.
By the way, Candice and Megan are both undergraduate students graduating this year. I was BEYOND impressed with what they did for this event – they have my complete endorsement. Some of the best work I have seen. In other words, if you are looking for strong social media candidates to join your team – hire them! They truly made my a #SuperProudProf this weekend!
We were able to host the influencers in the Stakes Room down at Churchill Downs (which was so awesome!). It had a great view of the track and the food was divine! Everyone was super helpful and nice in the Stakes Room (thank you, Marty!) and the influencers had their own table where they could meet each other, create content on their channels, bet on horses (Danielle won like $600!!!!), and take in the atmosphere. Megan and Candice were able to chat with each of the influencers to answer any questions they had, talk about the class and The Breeders’ Cup, and how they got started in social media!
So, what did this all encompass? What were some of the lessons we were able to take away from this event?
Creating evidence you have actually DONE influencer marketing. Like all aspects of social media, there are people who say they have done campaigns and there are others who have launched influencer campaigns. Yet, many times you do not see the actual evidence they have done this work in real life. That’s what is SO important about working with real clients like The Breeders’ Cup and Churchill Downs. You are able to not only say you have done this, but show others – hey, here’s evidence of what I was doing for this event.
Case in point, Candice here was documenting and sharing content as well during the event and making sure to capture the overall atmosphere at the event. One thing professors can help out with is ask the students – what can I do to help you out with this? Both Megan and Candice were busy working on creating content, coordinating with the influencers, etc – this was the least I can do for them by providing evidence they were not just at the event, they were working on an influencer activation for The Breeders’ Cup at Churchill Downs.
Reviewing criteria for influencers. This was the first task I had for the students. They were in charge of doing research and providing a list of influencers they feel would be good to have here at the Churchill Downs event for The Breeders’ Cup.
This criteria were the ones I listed in my new social media book. The students had to provide a rationale for why they feel these influencers would be relevant here for this event. The students did everything when it came to reaching out to the influencers. They coordinated the invitations, shared the contracts and social media expectations with them, and were able to work with them on site.
Add on to your assignment expectations for influencer marketing. Just talking about influencers and identifying them is one thing, but there is a WHOLE LOT more than just identifying influencers. That’s just the beginning.
Sure, it’s good to have a table in place to outline key influencers. But, do you know how to take the next steps? What are the next steps? How do you approach these influencers? What are some things you need to do on site (ex. parking, meeting areas, dress code, etc)? What are the must haves the influencers need to be aware of for the event? What does an after action report look like?
All of these questions are necessary to answer. Yes, having exercises where you identify influencers is one thing – but you need to have a game plan for the complete event. You need to have invitation memos, contracts, coordination with other partners, fact sheets, social media deliverables and overview of the event, social media wish lists, etc.
That’s why I will be sharing some of these ideas in Stukent’s Fall Digital Summit later this month. Super excited and I hope to see you all there on October 24th!
Analytics are your best friend. Data is our best friend, and this was the biggest part of what we had to do at the very beginning of the planning to the end. Research and monitoring were done throughout this process, and it is so important to have the right tools to do this.
We were very fortunate to work with some companies (like Talkwalker) to get some great insights on the overall coverage of BC during the course of the event. We were able to track and really analyze the impact of each of these accounts. Major thanks to Albane and Talkwalker for this!
These will be insights that will be included in the final report my students will be working on for The Breeders’ Cup.
It’s also good to also provide an after action report of what the influencers have done as well. It’s good to explore their overall impact on their channels, and see what they have been able to do to help drive engagement, reach, and traffic for the brand, Again, great real world application for students as they enter the social media space! They not only need to know how to run analytics, but also how to interpret these insights into actionable strategies and recommendations.
Be aware of what unique experiences need to be documented and captured. This is the key element here for influencers – they want to be able to have unique experiences they can then share with their community and audiences.
We had a list of features going into the event we knew we wanted to capture, but it was good to get a walkthrough ahead of time so we could see where everything was located. We also have to think about where (ex. platform) to share these experiences. I was able to do a lot on Twitter, but other influencers focused their work on Instagram. Is this okay? Of course! You want to make sure the influencers are comfortable in sharing where they feel most comfortable. All of these points were discussed ahead of time of the event.
At Churchill Downs, there were many things to capture, so you want to make sure the influencers were aware of this. There was a set schedule (which was featured on the Churchill Downs app) that provided the influencers with an overview of the schedule for the night. From DJs, art displays as part of the Forecastle Foundation, and of course the races were a highlight here as well!
Another highlight for us was the Silent Disco. I had never been to one myself before, so this was a new experience for me! This was definitely the place to be when the sun went down! Such a cool feature!
Summary
Overall, I was very, very, VERY pleased and impressed with how my students did on this project. They all showed a level of professionalism and confidence in their work that made them appear they have been doing this type of work for years.
I would like to send a special thank you to all of the influencers who came to our event and were part of this great experience! It was great seeing you all here and we can’t wait to have you all here as part of The Breeders’ Cup!
I am grateful to Shona, Kaitlin and Marty for helping us coordinate everything for this event and for allowing my students to get this amazing real world experience!
Interested in coming to The Breeders’ Cup? You should be! It will be the event to go to this fall! Here’s the link for where you can get your tickets.
Hope you all are having a great day!
Best Wishes,
