Traditional journalism is dead, just ask the Internet. Except, of course, we know that’s not true, because traditional media – what some like to call Legacy Media – is going strong, maintaining a solid grip on the hearts and minds of millions upon millions of faithful fans and followers.

But what is the role of traditional journalists in the modern age of digital marketing and social media influencers? It’s a strong, vital role, to begin with.

Self-made billionaire Kylie Jenner had much to celebrate in 2019, and being the highest paid influencer of Instagram was likely on the list. As the former majority owner of Kylie Cosmetics, Kylie is one of the most influential people in the online beauty industry. Her Instagram posts have been valued at over one million dollars in traditional ad spending.

Somewhat surprisingly, Kylie is the first member of the Kardashian-Jenner clan to hit such a milestone; Kim Kardashian still only makes a mere $910,000 per post. Moreover, Kylie’s engagement rate between her 157 million followers is through the roof, and she posted Instagram’s most-liked picture ever when she announced the name of her daughter, Stormi. In less than a day, the post had raked in 13.7 million likes and close to 500,000 comments.

With the popularity of alcohol, it might seem like having a great PR campaign in the industry might be needless. Rampant competition in the industry, however, means that the companies that come with imaginative new PR campaigns generate renewed excitement in their brands. Here are some of the best PR campaigns that have graced the alcohol industry:

To encourage nighttime partiers to buy more of the drink, Heineken put LED lights on their bottles. Sound and motion trackers on the bottles allow it to turn it on when someone picks it up. The sound motion was meant for club-goers, as it means the bottle can light up in sync with the beat at a club. Adding more to the party mood, the lights activate at varying speeds, meaning that there’s a flurry of lights when there’s a bunch of unopened bottles.

Marketing is a data-driven industry, especially today with the increase in the use of social media platforms and the continued advancement of analytics available for marketing campaigns. But how does a brand leverage this data to its advantage? What data is necessary to compile and analyze? The answer will be different for each brand, but the general best practices for marketing analytics should still be followed.

Data matters, but not if it’s gathered and analyzed inappropriately. In fact, it’s easy to get overwhelmed when logging in to an analytics dashboard and seeing the swarm of numbers on the screen. Where does a marketing coordinator even begin to break all of this information down?

Everywhere we look, it seems that a brand is just waiting to entice us with flashy marketing or advertising. Influencers are everywhere, ads now proliferate on every platform we use on a daily basis, and even our smart speakers are starting to talk back to us and tell us what we should buy. Brands have gotten smart about where to find their target consumers, but one of the risks of the “ads everywhere” approach is that consumers can become jaded and sick of always being sold to.

In fact, studies show that ads can actually be more effective with a more minimal, less intrusive approach. The idea of being in the right place, at the right time, with the right message is one that pervades the digital marketing industry and presents an ongoing challenge to marketers.

The marketing manager is thrilled: all of the top-tier influencers who she reached out to have signed on to promote her brand of fitness equipment! Things are looking great, as these influencers have a lot of pull and engagement with their accounts.

She gives out instructions on what type of content she’d like to see and sends product off to the influencers for use. Now all she needs to do is wait for all of the glorious content promoting her brand to start rolling in.

Influencer marketing campaigns are making waves as a marketing strategy since it provides third party credibility and brand awareness to the right audiences. An influencer can enhance a brand’s visibility and social reach, usually beyond the capabilities of traditional media outlets.

Tapping into influencer marketing requires some planning and dollars so it’s important that our influencers are making a positive impact on the brand in terms of return on investment. It’s impossible to determine if your influencer marketing campaign is actually improving your business if you’re not measuring the effective of the campaign. Here are some tools to help keep track of how successful your influencer marketing campaign is:

The rise of the Influencer cannot be overstated, and Influencer Marketing can be your firm’s best secret weapon. Still, as with any industry, the world of influencers is not immune to fraudsters. Here’s five ways to tell if your future Influencer is really more of a follower.

Commit this formula to memory: