Roughly 99 million Americans will make a financial resolution for 2020. That’s nothing to sneeze at!
While the New Year’s Resolution has become something of a cultural riffing-point (“So how long before YOU give up on your resolution?”), a good percentage of the global community still takes part in the mental exercise of using a new calendar year to assess their lives and pledge themselves to better habits. Why?
Because a resolution, if taken seriously, is not an empty gesture. Whether it’s committing yourself to a healthier lifestyle, opening yourself up to new experiences, or tightening up your wallet – a resolution that’s carried out can have very real effects on your life.
Well… if resolutions work for individuals, they can certainly work for companies.
Open Influence was a first-mover in the influencer marketing space, and as a result, we’ve witnessed our own influence on the industry at large. And believe it or not, influencer marketing is still in its beginning stages. Thus, the pledges we make now will ripple out into the future – our choices matter!
So we’re going to use the power of the resolution for a better 2020, not just for us, but for all of influencer marketing. The influencer space is our home – we want to make it the best it can be.
Resolutions for the Industry
1. Push the Boundaries of Creativity
They used to say that Content is King. (And yes, content IS king). But the phrase has also become somewhat of a platitude. After all, more content is being produced now than ever before in history. When even casual content production is the norm for just about everyone with a cell phone, how do you actually plan on standing out from the crowd?
Creativity. That’s why for 2020, Creativity is King.
We want to support and produce content that INSPIRES us, not just fills our feeds. If most social media users have an idea in their heads of what “a typical piece of influencer content” looks like, 2020 is the year we aim to shatter that perception.
2. Open the Influencer Space for More People
As a global community, we still have a lot of work to do when it comes to equality and representation. That’s true in all aspects of society, and as Adweek pointed out earlier this year, it’s also true of influencer marketing.
So how can the influencer community help?
We have to support content creators from all walks of life – as an influencer marketing company, that means making sure we include those creators in our campaigns. Luckily, our amazing brand partners have been supportive and encouraging whenever we’ve emphasized diversity and inclusion in the past – for 2020, it’s a matter of how can we do better. That starts with listening to the needs of our community members and ensuring their voices are heard.
3. Foster Authentic, Happy, Healthy Creators
One of the biggest trends from 2019 was the growing acceptance that, as a society, we need to adjust our relationships with social media. Whether it’s content creators dealing with burnout and backlash, or audiences dealing with bullying and false perceptions, we all have work to do when it come to making the web a better place.
As an influencer marketing company, that means working better with both our amazing brand partners and our influencers to ensure smooth communication and an easy process. It also means giving value to the metrics that matter – and makings sure our creators know not to value themselves on vanity metrics such as Follower count, etc.
Resolutions for Open Influence
1. Dig Deeper in the Data
One of our strongest assets as a company is the ability to empower insanely creative humans with data and insights that can only be found using our proprietary software. And don’t get us wrong – we are extremely proud of the work we accomplished in 2019.
(After all, it won us multiple awards!)
But that doesn’t mean we’re going to rest on our laurels in 2020. We’ve seen the caliber of content we can produce by pairing the world’s top brands with the the most talented creators. Now it’s our time to dig deeper, and find even better ways to drive results and deliver actionable data back to our clients. 2020 is the the year that Creativity and Data will cease being thought of us as two separate things and more as two sides of the same coin!
2. Do More for Our Communities
Open Influence has offices all over the world – working in many different locations means we have many different opportunities to make a positive impact in our respective communities. We pledge to do more activities to help our neighbors and community members in 2020.
For example, Open Influence is proudly partnering with the Conrad Foundation to support their annual Conrad Challenge, an entrepreneurship competition that aims to foster critical businesses and scientific skills in young adults. Support and access to education is something near and dear to us in the social media space – as an office, we routinely reflect on how many skills we’ve acquired through YouTube tutorials and other forms of social media content. We are part of a generation that believes social media and education go hand-in-hand, so we couldn’t be more excited to help the Conrad Foundation empower young minds in 2020.
If you’d like to get involved with us on a project for next year, we’d love to hear from you. Let’s make a difference!
3. Help Brands, Creators and Audiences Connect Over Shared Values
Influencer marketing is cool. Like, really cool.
It’s an exciting space populated by the world’s most entertaining and talented creators working on the hottest platforms. It’s about people who inspire, educate and explore the world for a living! Influencer marketing is so cool, it’s been the subject of media analysis, academic study and of course, many, many memes.
But our space is maturing, and as it does, so should our discourse. In 2020, we aim to elevate the discussion around why we do what we do, what it means to hold this thing called “influence,” and how can we use it for a higher purpose?
Fortunately, many of our amazing creators have been having these conversations among themselves and with their audiences. 2020 presents a great opportunity for influencer marketers – to help brands tap into and foster conversations around shared values and higher causes. Modern consumers are eager to connect with brands who take clear stances on issues that matter.
As Steve Jobs stated when discussing why Apple became the most enduring and valued brand of all time: “It’s not by talking about the Bits and Megahertz. It’s not about why we’re better than [competitors]… it’s about the question, what do we stand for? Where do we fit in this world?”
Just look at Pinterest’s Top Trends going into 2020. With access to such an enormous amount of data, Pinterest discovered that the strongest trends coming into the new decade aren’t around particular products or fashions – they’re about Balance, Conscious Consumption, and thinking Beyond Binaries.
In other words, Values.
And to kick off the near year, we’re seizing a great opportunity to highlight our own values at Open Influence. Our website redesign is entering its final stages of development, and will feature a an entire section dedicated to answering those very question Steve Jobs asked: What do we stand for, and where do we fit in this world?
Stay tuned for a fresh new look coming 2020!
*Photo by @beb.ounce
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So what are YOUR New Year’s Resolutions, either as an individual or as part of a larger organization? We’d love to hear from you on our social channels – and maybe even record a podcast together.
And as always, if you haven’t yet, be sure to:
