Influencer: the Marmite of marketing strategies; a $24bn industry with countless statistics proving its effectiveness, with a growing culture of scepticism over the authenticity of influencers themselves. But, change is afoot. As world-renowned marketing teams invest in a hyper-local strategy, Influencers have changed their names to Content Creators, adding ‘building a community’ to their ‘day in the life’ videos.
As the stigma of loneliness begins to dissolve, a consumer’s attention is switching from finding para-social relationships with individual influencers to actual relationships in a community. People are no longer afraid to admit they’re looking for connections – you only need to look at the year-on-year rise of engagement within the City Girl Network local communities to spot that.
With that attention shift comes a sharp transfer of trust into community recommendations, and marketing spend is starting to follow it. Look at Sweaty Betty sponsoring These Girls Run, Vitality sponsoring ParkRun, MPB supporting our very own City Girl Creatives and hundreds of businesses joining the City Girl Network Directory. Our advertisers have found they’ve also attracted and retained talent, just to add a bonus point.
Of course, B2B marketing has long embraced the power of community influence. Loch Associates has had over £100,000 worth of business leads just from my own personal recommendations due to its investment in local business communities like Platinum Business. I became a Xero and SumUp customer because they both sponsor Lewes FC.
It’s a signal that they share the same values, care about their customer, and will offer the same loyalty that’s expected of them. It’s also reflective of the rise of Corporate Social Responsibility policies, and the call for them to go way beyond a tool for attracting the right talent. 84% of millennials believe it’s vital for a business to make a positive impact on society, beyond just making a profit (Deloitte, 2024).
Communities are part of someone’s identity, influencers represent their interests. It’s why Mrs Hinch, ‘Queen of Cleaning’, has been so effective: she has her mighty Hinch Army. Nearly half a million people share, discuss and evaluate cleaning product recommendations, building genuine relationships with each other and vastly increasing the sales of sponsors like Zoflora as a result.
There will always be a place in society for powerful and influential para-social relationships with individuals like Mrs Hinch; they can be great tools for information, education, entertainment and advocacy. But the Hinch Army community is the real purchasing power and it’s the recommendation economy that they’re really led by.
It’s no surprise that Facebook’s rebrand has local tools and recommendations at the heart of its technology, recognising the sustainability of community purchasing power.
It’s also no surprise that, in 2024, we’re seeing a shift back to the familiar: emotional connections through local communities. With an anxiety-inducing news cycle of political change, wars, natural disasters, and a cost of living crisis, people are finding more safety, comfort and trust in a collective.
We’ve found that the success of our newly launched deals and discount app, the Friends Pass, has found success not just through community support, but community engagement. The more you share your experience with a product, the more you want others to experience it too (which, coincidentally, is why I also have Zoflora in my cupboard).
It’s harder to measure the ROI of community marketing over an online individual influencer. A community is a whole ecosystem of individual lives, whose online conversations move to the real world – in offices, on buses, at hairdressers. It goes far beyond the UTM parameters on a YouTube video.
At least 30% of attendees to our active events are wearing Lululemon and Sweaty Betty as a direct result of them investing in local running groups. A group of London Girls have switched to BarryM Face Calming drops because of their involvement in a recent City Girl Network event. My neighbours have got Vitality Health Insurance because their friends go to Parkrun.
When you’re next examining your marketing strategy, consider this: with a community, you’re not just speaking to your target audience, you’re investing in them. And they, in turn, will invest in you.
Pippa Moyle
CEO + Founder
Our Communities: Brighton, London, Manchester, Bristol, Bath, Leeds, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Worthing, Liverpool, Newcastle, Chester, Milton Keynes, Oxford, York, Cardiff, Glasgow, Perth and Rural Sussex
