She's the Business: The Influencer Panel

On 19th November I attended a really inspiring event called She's the Business. The aim of the event was to "empower women to embrace their inner creativity and entrepreneurial spirit" and I can wholehearted say it exceeded in doing so. I decided to go to enhance my knowledge and understanding of the business world, how people network and create business ideas. I also wanted to hear what the guest speakers were going to talk about as many of them were media marketers and content creators for businesses.

The event ran a series of panel talks with female entrepreneurs, Q&A's and business workshops, all of which helped tackle fear in starting business ventures, lack of confidence and most commonly impostor syndrome. The event was held at The University of Manchester and they provided us with a brilliant afternoon of creativity, inspiration and networking.

She's the Business helped me gain a huge insight into the business world as a woman, instilling further how important it really is. I was able to delve into my own field of business regarding Herricane. Over the course of a few weeks, a series of posts will be dedicated to She's the Business. I hope to share what I experienced and learned from all the influential women in business there, not to mention a very exciting competition that I won that helped me further in my vocational endeavours, that I will talk more about in due course.

I'll begin my first blog post of the series by starting with The Influencer Panel, consisting of well respected bloggers and social influencers such as Emma Campbell, Rosie Ann Butcher, Samio Renelda and Holly Wood. (pictured left to right.)

Rosie explained that the problem with the celebrity influencer is that they can sometimes create an untrustworthy atmosphere with their audience when regarding business promotion. There poses a question on how influential they really are, and a social influencer-marketer needs to be trustworthy with what they're promoting in order to be a genuine and credible social influencer.

Holly: "I think that's a really key point isn't it, because there is a difference between having a big following that 'double tap', like your images, want to find out who you're dating next... and then actually having a truly engaged audience that buy into you as a brand and you as a person, the things you're doing, the things you're buying, and that's the kind of key differentiation between influencers... following doesn't necessarily matter."

It's easy to see why social media influencers tend to get a bad reputation when some influencers are so highly recognisable in the media and yet have no genuine loyalties to the bands they're promoting. When, as a matter of fact, the world of promotion and business marketing is moving simultaneously with the social media world as it creates the quickest and largest ever platform for business promotion. This is precisely what Herricane is, and after hearing the girls talk so passionately about their field of work and what they write about, it made me proud to say I was just like them, just on a very smaller scale.

Social media can be a powerful thing, making social media marketing imperative when it comes to promoting businesses. The panel moved onto positive attributes when it came to social media marketing and it being a "good tool to have". Samio homed in on the idea that you can essentially find and advertise straight to your target audience. "Whether you're, for example, a Love Island contestant, with 3 million followers or a blogger with 10,000 followers, you've usually got a key audience you've targeted yourself... for example I have a lot of African American followers so if a brand came to me and they want to promote a product and that's their target market, it's really good for the brand." Followers are important to an extent in terms of developing the promotion of products to a wider audience, but as long as influencers like the girls on the panel are passionate about what they do and promote things they would use themselves, businesses are bound to benefit from their marketing platform.

The panel implored that it was necessary to build relationships with the businesses they work with and not simply promote one another sporadically. Emma liked to see herself as an ambassador for companies she works with because she is essentially putting her faith into their product, creating sincere brand awareness for her audience. Both influencer and business work in co-operation with one another. Research is essential for both influencer and business so that they are aware they're working in harmony.

Companies tend to gift, pay or creatively collaborate with influencers/bloggers to endorse their products as a form of gratitude or payment. In light of this, Rosie stated that she often disregards pushy or demanding companies as "I really care about what I'm putting out there... I spend a lot of time creating good images that I will go onto promote." Infuencers have authority as content creators to pick the products they want to advertise.

"It's more like brand awareness" Samio added. "if I work with a brand it's because I genuinely like it." The importance of not putting any pressure on creative, marketing influencers is fundamental when regarding their promotion of your business. Emma concluded by saying she often works with businesses such as hotels or restaurants that can incorporate many different business aspects she can go forward in promoting. "An event might be set up at a location and it might be sponsored by a gym-wear brand or a healthy eating brand. I know that all the content I'm going to make that day is across a varied set of brands but all in that one industry."

After a refreshing and revitalising talk with the influencer panel I realised, as a blogger myself, its important to recognise your business venture and what you are trying to do with it. Media marketing for women in business is hugely important to me and that's precisely why I started Herricane. Hearing these women, who were probably once in my position, talk about their sincerity as social influencers and believing in their craft, solidified my aims with the magazine and blog. It also helped decrease my impostor syndrome that was subconsciously lurking in my mind.

As a business owner, its important to approach the right media marketing influencers when regarding your brand. Equally, it is important for an influencer to do the same. I loved hearing these women talk so passionately and can't wait to tell you more about what happened in the workshops in the next bog.