News

Forbes – In all the ongoing buzz around influencer marketing and its ever-growing appeal to brands of all kinds, there’s one topic that rarely gets mentioned: the importance of first-party authenticated data.

Admittedly, data integrity in influencer marketing isn’t quite as exciting as splashy brand/creator partnerships and stories of viral TikToks that empty retailer shelves. But without verified data, marketers can’t actually trust the metrics they’re getting from their influencer campaigns.

Thanks to the speed at which news of internal problems at a company can spread on social media and create a public relations nightmare for the business, crisis management skills are in high demand today among PR professionals. When issues occurring inside an organization make their way into the public eye, the negative reaction of consumers can have a devastating effect on the brand’s bottom line.

Influencer marketing’s popularity has been on a seemingly never-ending rise, with marketers valuing influencers’ reach like never before. With the Covid-19 pandemic continuing to impact industries and wreaking havoc on everyone’s plans, digital creators have stepped in as a powerfully effective alternative to traditional advertising.

The seemingly instant popularity of the short-video platform TikTok took some marketers by surprise, and it has only continued to grow. While teenagers were initially viewed as the platform’s primary users and audience, and they certainly do spend a lot of time on it, TikTok’s reach has expanded dramatically.