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Welcome to Fohr’s new video series serving you influencer marketing strategy and tips, Negronis with Nord! With this new series, Fohr’s CEO and Founder, James Nord, will offer influencer marketing strategy, tips and advice for anyone involved in the influencer marketing space–whether you’re an entrepreneur, influencer, content creator, brand ambassador, or marketing professional.
Each episode will focus on your most pressing questions about the space. You can submit your questions here. So, our question for Episode 1?
This episode includes:
James Nord: My name is James Nord, founder and CEO of Fohr. I used to have a show called Drink with James. Legally, I can't call it that anymore. For how long Tim?
Tim: Four years.
James: For four years, every week, made a video where I answered three questions from influencers about how to grow your accounts, about how to work with brands, about how to navigate contracting, about how to negotiate about literally anything. And in 2020, we got the cease and desist, we stopped the show and then basically I've been in a bad mood for 18 months. I've finally come out of my mood and I told Tim the other day, I said, "Tim, I am ready to go back on camera," and he was like, "But James, you haven't gotten Botox recently." And I was like, I know. That is how committed I am to this show.
I have changed my drink from whiskey to Negronis. Every week, if I have the energy for it, and I'm not too hungover, I'm going to grab a Negroni, I'm going to answer some questions about influencer marketing, and probably run my mouth about some random sh*t as well. That's how it works. If you watched Drink with James, same format. Send us questions. You can DM us. You can email anyone but me. You can put them in the YouTube comments. Come to our office. Actually don't come to our office. Send us questions, I will answer them if they're any good. If I don't get questions, I'll just make them up, ones that make me sound smart. So that is also fine.
It's been a year and a half since I've done this and you again might say to yourself, wow, you look like sh*t, but as I would say, the Botox is gone. So, let's be gentle. I want to talk about what has changed in the year and a half since I have done this. A lot. First, I got engaged. Thank you. I got engaged in October. If you don't follow me on Instagram, you should. I mostly use this show to promote my personal Instagram. I put together literally the greatest engagement the world has ever seen. I apologize to everybody out there who hasn't seen the engagement story that is currently reading my Instagram saying, wow, will I ever find love like that? I don't know. I can't answer that question. I'm here to answer questions about influencer marketing. I don't know if you'll find love, but I am off the market.
James: Number two, we have a refreshed brand and a new website that took us nine months to build this thing. It was so hard and so fun. And I am super proud of it. I'm just plugging it because if you haven't been, just take a little walk over, type fohr.co and scroll around so I feel like our efforts are worth it. We're super proud of it.
What about the industry? Well, all of a sudden people woke up and, and realized influencers were a thing. I have spent the last nine years of my life, banging my head against a wall, telling people that influencers were the future of marketing. That this was going to take over the world. And everybody said, James, 'you're wrong' and turns out, ha, I wasn't. Okay. I was right. Influencer marketing is the fastest growing part of the advertising industry. It is blowing up everywhere. You probably are sitting at Thanksgiving and granny was asking you about influencers and the creator economy. Irregardless, that has changed. We have exited a time when people didn't believe that influencers were a thing, that it was a bubble, that it was going to burst. That it's all, blah, blah, blah, blah, people just taking photos of themselves. You guys. You were wrong. And it is here to stay. And that is super exciting.
Influencer marketing is the fastest growing part of the advertising industry.
Fohr has doubled in the last year. We are operating in a new reality where we no longer have to convince people that what you do is powerful. And I am just so excited for that. And I'm excited for influencers. That you no longer have to explain what it is that you do when you say that you are an influencer. That's a big change.
James: What's another one. Prices. One we've got inflation. I'm not going to get into to the US's macroeconomic policy and the fed and interest rates. and all of that. Influencer pricing has far outpaced inflation. If you look at 2020 to 2021, influencer pricing went up on average, 42%. Holy. That isa lot. The influencer economy, influencer marketing is just that. It's a market. And when there was this enormous influx of demand into the market for influencers, there exists some scarcity of the influencers that you can work with. So naturally what happens, the price goes up. When there is more demand for something that is scarce, the only thing that you can do is raise your prices. So average 42% increase in prices.
As you think about your pricing, understand where the market is going and act accordingly. I'm sure my team will be upset to hear me say this, but if you haven't moved your prices up in a couple years, you should absolutely think about doing that because that is very real.
James: What's another thing that happened. All of a sudden we became creators, right? There was influencers and now there's creators. Is there a difference? What are influencers? What are creators? In my mind, there is a difference between an influencer and a creator. To me, an influencer, their business is helping people make decisions about the things that are in their life. Whether that is products, fashion, beauty, home or the choices they're making with vacations, restaurants, whatever it might be. The core content that an influencer is creating is about brands. A creator is more broad. It's just somebody that is creating content on the internet. So I would say that.
All influencers are creators, but not all creators are influencers. And if you look at the people doing comedy sketches on TikTok, I would say that's a creator, not an influencer. Bit of a nuance there. Everybody likes to use different words. But at Fohr, our core main business, the thing that we are focused on is still influencers. Because when you have a following that is interested in what you have to say about brands, that is so much more commercially viable than somebody that just finds you funny. You have the ability to impact people's choices. And that's at the crux of it, what marketing is. To have a following that is predicated on that type of content is still in my mind far and away, the most valuable thing you can be doing on the internet.
All influencers are creators, but not all creators are influencers.
You don't have to chase every trend. You don't have to be out there doing TikTok dances. Absolutely experiment. Absolutely try and expand what you're doing. You do not have to fundamentally change who you are and what you talk about to fit into what is happening in the world. It makes much more sense to do the that you're good at. I really like talking about beauty products and here I am learning some TikTok dance that I don't want to do and I'm not even a good dancer.
James: What's another thing that's changed. TikTok. I told you. I said, this is going to be huge. Get on TikTok, get on there early, build a following while the platform's still young. If you haven't started a TikTok, what are you doing? You need to start one immediately. And now look at it, right? It's minting millionaires left and right. Here's a great thing. It's still early. TikTok is still overwhelmingly a consumption platform, not a creation platform. The percentage of people who are creating content on TikTok is much, much smaller than the percent consuming it. Similar to Twitter. There is still time. It's not just dances.
The percentage of people who are creating content on TikTok is much, much smaller than the percent consuming it.
If you think that TikTok is just for Gen Z, is just for dance challenges, you are doing yourself a huge disservice. It isn't. Every day we see TikTok, new kinds of accounts doing well. It is still in my mind absolutely the most exciting platform out there. Absolutely the best place for you to build a following right now. If you think that TikTok is not for you, because the way you perceive TikTok is it's super young. It's all dances. It's all comedy. It's all sketches. Then I think you're wrong.
And I think that I would encourage you as I always say, just take 30 days. Say in the next 30 days, I'm going to create 10 TikToks. I'm not going to talk to my Instagram following about it at all. I'm not going to tell my friends or family because I'm embarrassed and just see what happens in my work. It might change your life. You could literally change your life this month. That's exciting, right? What am I doing in the next month? I don't know. Probably not changing my life, but you could do that. And so I encourage you to give it a try.
Over the next, God knows how many episodes, we're going to dive into the things that you can do to improve your life, to grow this business, to grow your account and hopefully to have some fun. And also feed my considerable ego and need for attention. So thank you all for joining. As always send in your questions and it's good to be back.
James: My favorite Olivia Rodrigo song is Deja Vu. The only answer. One, it's a classic good build. First verse slow. First chorus, slow, mostly just instrumental. And then the beat as it would, as it is, drops. Also who hasn't been in a relationship where they make somebody cooler. And then that person goes on to date someone else and passes off all the shit that you taught them as their own interests.
Tim: Would you say that you're normally the cooler person in their relationship?
James: Well, not currently. My fiance is definitely cooler than I am.
Cheers, and thanks for watching.
Influencers know what resonates with their followers. Brands know their product and how to sell it effectively. But we'll guess that neither party spends a lot of time trying to understand the business of influencer marketing. That's where this series comes in.
Negronis with Nord, featuring Fohr’s CEO and Founder, James Nord, will help you better understand both sides of the business of influencer marketing. James offers influencer marketing strategy and advice speaking to anyone involved in the influencer marketing space–whether you’re an entrepreneur, influencer, content creator, brand ambassador, or marketing professional on the brand side.
Get your questions answered about the influencer marketing industry - everything you want and need to know. Submit your questions here. And make sure to subscribe to the Fohr YouTube channel to get notified of new episodes.
Psst… You can still watch all 202 A Drink with James episodes here. Binge it – we dare you!
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