When snapping a photo of yourself with a group of friends on the beach, all of whom are enjoying a cold Coke, or perhaps a Sprite, publishing that image instantly creates value for the Coca-Cola Company. Assuming many people viewed and liked the post on social media, it’s likely that some were subconsciously inspired to buy a Coke the next time they encountered it while picking up groceries, making the image’s value tangible. This is the kind of advertising that is nearly priceless to big brands, both because it has become increasingly important to their bottom line, but also because the sales stemming from organic, unintentional marketing efforts cost little to acquire.
User-generated branded content is a growing niche, but many still stumble into it, as illustrated in the example above. While strategies that encourage a customer to become a brand advocate are gaining in efficacy, there are still many obstacles in the road. For aspiring influencers and brands alike, getting the recipe right is difficult and imprecise. However, engagement visionary Jet8 has recognized in blockchain the key to unlocking better and more sustainable models. The company has already begun deploying it to their successful marketing platform Jet8, which will lead to more concrete retail insights for its partners.
Let Them Have Their Cake, and Instagram It Too
Despite trends indicating that organic, peer-to-peer influencer marketing is more effective than ever, for many companies it remains a pipedream instead of a goal. Data shows that 49% of online purchases are based on peer-to-peer marketing decisions, but this number grows to 70% when polling millennial consumers. Accordingly, up to 73% of companies surveyed by Forrester have budgets that include space for influencer marketing, yet it still pales in comparison to the money earmarked for paid ads.
It’s clear that companies spending money to drive peer-to-peer brand interaction can obtain excellent results, but the difficulty by which these results are measured means that only firms with enormous budgets and dedicated marketing departments will shoulder the burden. Tracking individual influencers across disparate social media platforms, calculating their ROI and collective performance, and gathering granular insights from this data is a chore, so many opt to pay fewer, more well-known influencers directly. This model is easier to implement and has a more observable impact than its grassroots counterpart.
However, there is no competition. Media that is earned accounts for four times the revenues of paid media, so businesses continue to search for the perfect compromise. The going is rough—most roles in this newer marketing dynamic have thus far encountered obstacles up and down the value chain. This may be from brands that are having trouble gaining traction but can’t afford the traditional influencer model, to users that want to make an impact as an influencer but can’t find anyone to reimburse them for their content.
A Jet Set Influencer Future
All the woes that come with organizing a complex, incongruent marketing operation like a peer-to-peer influencer campaign are addressed with blockchain. Jet8 has built a tokenized version of its already-successful influencer platform on blockchain called J8T, a cryptocurrency that brands will reward to users who engage in value-added activity on social media. These brands will be able to track with irrefutable accuracy, thanks to the ledger, how influencers represent themselves in the ecosystem and what works best.
Being on the blockchain means that brands will be able to effortlessly track the performance of all their participating influencers across all social media platforms, and know instantly what makes that person successful. It could be something as small as a color that the brand’s biggest token earners use, which brings them key marketing clues that they can use to address a wider audience. For influencers, the ability to instantly earn J8T in proportion to their contribution, and redeem them at the brand they’re representing, means a real way to acquire value for what used to be given away. It also locks this value inside the airtight influencer brand dynamic, ensuring that the investments of both parties receive returns relevant to what they want to accomplish via the interaction.
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Impressively enough, Jet8 has already established a robust toolset designed to link brands to target audiences, including a comprehensive social media app connected to all the relevant platforms. With JETS (the precursor to J8T), Jet8 conceptualized the tokenization of their business before most had even heard of blockchain, meaning that the rollout of their upcoming project will be both highly precise and widely anticipated. The introduction of cryptocurrency and the ledger to their existing recipe will have an accelerating effect on the momentum they’ve already attained, and brings increased transparency, global accessibility, and performance as well. This lateral move will help the company achieve its mission to become the standard bearer for connected and decentralized engagement networks, giving them first-mover status in this up and coming sector.
Jet8’s ICO is one of 2018’s most highly awaited—logical given their experience and impressive string of industry successes. For many, the continued rise of J8T is a foregone conclusion, and brands and future influencers alike are already eagerly expecting the final ICO date to be released. The company is acting with deliberation to ensure the smooth execution of their pre-sale and to onboard J8T into the JETS system, so participants would be smart to register and educate themselves in advance of the pre-sale’s publicized date. For those companies and individuals interested in joining the influencer revolution, prepare to climb aboard.