Informally known as "MS of IM"
Welcome to the introductory post in a series of content on the mathematics and economics of influencer marketing.This series is a first-person perspective of the impact of specific aspects of the industry from gen.video’s own CEO and Co-Founder, Bill Hildebolt.
With a new post released weekly, this "The Mathematics & Science of Influencer Marketing" will dive into Bill’s analytical & perceptive thought process to give readers an unmatched perspective of several topics.
A Brief Introduction
Whether you find it a fascinating topic and are as excited to get into it as I am, or you just need some specific answers, hopefully you’ll find something interesting to dig into in this series. If not, feel free to email us with specific topics or questions you’d like us to touch on.
In terms of my credentials in taking on such a heavy topic, I am the CEO & Co-founder of gen.video, which was recently rated #1 by enterprise clients on G2. I’ve been in influencer marketing or user-generated content for 15 years and so seen all of this up close and personal for a long time.
Equally important, I was an Econ major at the University of North Carolina and went on to become a teaching assistant for the Introductory Economics class at Harvard and won a teaching award. Somewhere in the middle, I spent a few years in finance and so suffice to say that I love trying to quantify and understand the economics of business.
That said, this is too big a topic for any single person to truly be an expert in so you should add your own wisdom and experience to everything I say. My insights are certainly impacted by the way we at gen.video have decided to attack the market and the clients we have. We think our philosophy is pretty spot on – at least for the clients we serve – but we also appreciate that this market is large enough that there can be vast differences in approaches and even definitions of success.
If there’s so much variation, why does this topic even matter?
It matters because given the speed at which influencer marketing has grown, we lack a common set of tools or even semantics for the drivers in the industry. Everyone – everyone! – has a limited view. For example, some of the truly self-aware influencers admit that they don’t know what they are worth or how they stack up against other influencers.
For brands, it can get difficult to see past their own industry since eCommerce itself is surging and there’s so much work to do. I’ve talked to enough leaders at other platforms and agencies to know there’s a ton of misinformation out in the space. And that translates – justifiably – into brand confusion and uncertainty, which holds the industry back.
If we can just help clear up some of the fog, this will be a success. To that end, some posts in this series may be painfully simplistic as we level set. Some may be beyond what you care about.
Hopefully some of the porridge will be just right.