brand ambassadors vs influencers - what’s the difference?
ambassadors vs. influencers
what’s the difference?
Is there a difference between influencers and ambassadors? Yes.
Updated: July 9, 2021
Brand ambassadors and influencers can be cornerstones to your brand’s storytelling; but, how do you differentiate between the two seemingly interchangeable terms? Both types of brand partnerships will feed your marketing strategy so understanding the nuances of both influencers and ambassadors is essential. Differentiating influencers vs. ambassadors will help you determine who to call on when you’re looking to promote or grow your brand and how to structure the partnership with the people you choose. In a world with COVID, protests, and political unrest, brands should take a long and hard look at who they are working with and the reasons behind the relationship, as it may have far reaching impacts, both positive, and potentially negative for a brand.
So let’s get to it.
Who and what are brand ambassadors?
A brand ambassador is a brand enthusiast who knows and loves your brand, represents what your brand stands for and aligns with your values. An ambassador is someone your team would trust to represent your brand at a trade show, industry event, out on the web and beyond. Ambassadors can be looked to for writing blog content, hosting a Facebook live, product testing and development, writing product reviews or making word-of-mouth recommendations, as well as being featured in your marketing materials. They are essentially a real-life extension of your brand, and as a happy bonus, may get coverage in media publications as earned media.
Ambassador relationships are typically long-term and are mutually beneficial for the ambassador and the brand. The interaction is less of a transaction and more of an ongoing relationship where a brand and ambassador help each other accomplish common goals. Brand association is important to ambassadors. By supporting an ambassador’s adventures and lifestyle, you are helping increase exposure not only for your brand, but for the sport and activity - hopefully increasing participation and awareness. Often brands can re-purpose and re-share content from ambassadors.
Ambassadors are also a great resource for brands to take a stance on an issue. A brand can choose to align with activists in specific communities to elevate an issue or purpose and reinforce a brand’s stance. Activists who choose to serve as ambassadors won’t partner with brands that don’t represent a cause authentically.
Check out these ambassador teams from our Verde clients:
Who and what are influencers? What is influencer marketing?
In the broadest sense, influencers are folks that capture and influence an audience online and/or in person. Influencers range from Instagram personalities with millions of followers to lesser-known bloggers with super niche audiences. Now, it’s important to note, all influencers you work with may not be perfect representations of your brand, but they can potentially reach a specific audience that aligns with your customer profile, as well as grow awareness of your brand. Influencers can be thought of more as a transactional customer acquisition channel. In some cases, influencers can crossover and be both an influencer and a brand ambassador.
Here’s an example of how you can leverage an influencer to grow awareness: If your brand is solely focused on high-intensity core athletes, you may want to work with an influencer in the adjacent space whom caters to a more everyday athlete to grow awareness and build a tool for a new customer acquisition channel. More specifically, say you are a bike brand who is laser-focused on high-performing, the type that are Leadville 100 finishers (shoutout to Kristin Carpenter, our CEO/Founder, for finishing the Leadville Trail 100 MTB), but you are looking to expand to a larger audience without alienating your current customers and followers, finding influencers in the broader biking space would be a good tactic to entertain.
As with brand ambassadors, an exchange for content can come in the form of monetary payment, gear discounts/gifts, affiliate links, all inclusive trips, or other agreed upon options. However, we consider this as more of a transactional relationship - these engagements can be valuable for quickly tapping into a new audience or market, but be intentional with those you engage…having Kanye pitch your skis might not be the best idea.
Something else to be aware of is that your brand might be one of many brands working with one influencer. When considering a partnership, scroll through the influencer’s channels and find out who else they might be working with. Be on the lookout for misaligning brands and competitors.
how to use influencer marketing - Examples:
Alright, let’s look at a few examples. In this example, Honda teamed up with a group of outdoor influencers including Sasha Digiulian, Chris Burkard, Joey Schusler and Rafa Ortiz to take part in the #300ftchallenge campaign. The campaign hinges on the factoid: “Did you know that the average person scrolls 300 feet of social media content on their smartphones every day?” It was labeled as sponsored, indicated by the hashtags attached to each influencers post; #HondaPartner and #300ftchallenge. Do these athletes own and drive Hondas? Probably not. Did they build a contract and agreement that made it impossible to say no? Most likely yes.
Other examples include current celebrity partnerships like Megan Rapinoe’s cheeky ad with Hulu during the World Cup finals. If you’re a Stranger Things fan, you’ll also appreciate the partnership between Caleb Mclaughlin and Planet Fitness, advertising a summer campaign that invites teens to join Planet Fitness for free.
Hulu's paying us lots and lots and lots of dollars to tell you that #HuluHasLiveSports. Watch us in the World Cup this summer - live on @hulu! #TeamHuluSellouts #HuluSellouts #ad pic.twitter.com/qNeY1OW7xR
— Megan Rapinoe (@mPinoe) May 10, 2019
What’s the benefit of having one or the other?
Influencers are important for brands looking to grow in a specific market and reach a targeted audience. If you need to create a very controlled and tailored message it can be easier to find someone to partner with and pay for their work. Influencer relationships (mostly) guarantee a certain outcome and don’t require months of courting. You can pick influencers up and run with them for specific campaigns or contract periods during peak season for your brand. However, as influencer engagement rates hit all-time lows, make sure you do your due diligence when vetting ones to work with.
Ambassadors are a key part of your brand persona. You rely on these people like you rely on your employees to keep the brand ethos running. Think of them as a pillar to your brand that can provide deep insight into your product and target audience. Ambassador relationships take time to nurture and will pay off in the long run with quality representation and content.
While both ambassadors and influencers will cultivate brand awareness in a more organic way, it’s important to keep in mind the overall goal of your activation so that you can best determine which type of partnership makes sense for any given marketing strategy.
How do you find or recruit new ambassadors and influencers?
First, figure out what the mission, vision, and values are for your influencers and ambassadors. It is important these people align with the goals of your brand, otherwise, you could find yourself in a difficult situation. We recommend establishing a set of expectations and values ambassadors and influencers agree to follow before signing on. Diversity, equity and inclusion is incredibly important here - learn more on how to do that on our blog post here>. Make this a top priority when recruiting people to work with. Having a diverse team allows you, as a marketer, to be exposed to other points-of-view, new stories, and to learn from. This can have wide reaching effects for your organization, customers, and your sports/industry.
Next, decide if they will be paid in product, money, or exposure (or a combination of all three). Please be aware of any laws requiring payment for services. In addition, think about adding these people to your brands’ affiliate program, which will allow them to receive a commission for any sales they drive.
When you are ready to begin recruiting, create a game plan on where to reach out, whether you are looking for micro-influencers, macro-influencer, mega stars, or something in between find what works for your brand. Just remember, follower counts are not the only thing to look at. Does this person have good content? Is their audience highly engaged? Do they represent your brand well?
Tap your internal network and partners:
We recommend using your internal network. If you are a brand manager of a ski or snowboard brand for example, chances are you know a few athletes within your network who you know and trust. This tends to be lowest risk in terms of contract fulfillment and creating a very collaborative environment. In addition, ask the organizations you have a relationship with for ideas and suggestions.
Tap into your existing customers or partner/advocacy programs:
You most likely have brand advocates within your customer database. Why not set up a landing page with a form (using your email service provider’s form or Google Forms, which you can embed into your site). Once you have the criteria set, send an email blast to your customers, and queue up social media posts and ads targeted to your fans and followers.
Browse hashtags and location tags:
You can utilized location tags and hashtags on platforms such as Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, etc. While this is a good way to find people, this is often the most labor intensive and often times, DM’s will go unnoticed. If you plan to recruit with this method, we recommend doing outreach from your brand account vs. a personal account.
Hire an agency:
With the explosion of social media, there are no shortages of ‘influencer recruitment’ agencies. These agencies can be effective, but can often be quite expensive. They use automated tools to scrape social media networks based on keywords and hashtags. If you are a larger brand, this can be the right approach to find a good amount of top-tier influencers, but might not be right for all brands.
For smaller, more niche brands and industries, look for an agency who has establish quality relationship with influencers and ambassadors. At Verde, we have a database more focused on the outdoor/sports industry, who we work with on a regular basis, in addition to our personal relations within the outdoor community.
In summary:
Decide who you’d like to work with
Define your success metrics
Reach out and recruit
Have fun, learn, listen