CURATED
Curation isn’t a term you would normally associate with everyday life. We tend to use the word when discussing artistic arrangements or programs, e.g. exhibits in a museum or gallery.
In this age of social media however, I daresay each and every one of us is living a curated life. Why so?
It’s simple really: what passes our ‘quality control’ i.e. what we deem to be shareable to the world, we post it up on our various social media accounts to be immortalised forevermore in time while the rest of the lot never see the light of day. Picture perfect memories and what-have-yous.
We only want to project a certain image for the rest of the world to consume. The retakes, candid shots and behind the scenes images easily outnumber the final, ‘approved’ post ten to one.
Have you ever stumbled across an account on Instagram posting pictures of mundane lives on their feed? If you have, how often?
Social media as a platform wields substantial clout that people can feasibly sustain a living from it. Just as gaming or eSports is no longer frowned upon as a meaningless waste of time, social media no longer remains purely social. The trend of social media influencers is not nascent per se; it has been around for a solid several years.
Be that as it may, Forbes lists content marketing and influencer networking as one of the marketing trends of 2018. Brands and companies are allocating and channeling larger budgets into content marketing and engaging social media influencers. I wager seven out of ten posts you see on Instagram are in promoting a certain brand or is sponsored in some shape or form.
It would seem that social media influencing will be around for some time yet and isn’t about to fade away. Even Singapore’s Ministry of Finance engaged influencers for a campaign to promote their Budget 2018, albeit to a less than desired outcome.
I know they worked with a marketing agency on that campaign but I wonder if the Ministry consulted a PR agency beforehand.
As a PR practitioner, it is our duty to help an organisation or brand safeguard its image and reputation. We may be seen trawling through social media frequently and aimlessly, but that is not down to personal compulsion. We do that because it is part of the job today.
We do that to keep abreast of what people in the industry are doing. We do that to unearth potential influencers who could have a harmonious relationship with our client.
We recommend influencers to the client not just based on their number of followers or how famous they are, but based on a holistic assessment of various criterions such as whether they would have conflicting interests or if they are alien to the client’s segment. They may have influence over their followers but that doesn’t mean their followers are blind sheep.
For example, it begs questions when say someone who is primarily in the beauty circle is engaged to talk on a topic such as tyre safety, wouldn’t it?
For us, we take into consideration their credibility in delivering the client’s key messages, in line with the overarching marketing strategy organically without it looking bizarre or out of place. This is a critical component which can be overlooked sometimes when all people are chasing are figures.
In short, in a time of perpetual curation, we are curators of the client’s branding and image and presenting them to the audience through channels that are relevant.
Darren
Feb 2018