What that ‘No Influencers’ sign is really saying about CX challenges
To fully understand the angry discourse about influencers that’s coming out of Nantucket, I’d suggest first making a brief stop in Cinque Terre.
Based in northwest Italy’s Liguria region, Cinque Terre features five colorful, cliffside fishing villages that have proven popular tourist destinations. So popular, in fact, that the area is the subject of a new film titled ‘The Siege of Paradise.’
You only have to watch the trailer to see how the locals dread the influx of boats coming into their shores, and the young, often beautiful influencers who insist on waltzing through public restaurants loudly capturing content they’ll upload to social media.
Creators go home!
It’s possible that this film, or at least its core theme, led the owner of a Nantucket boutique known as The Four Winds Craft Guild publish an Instagram post showing a sign in their store that proudly reads, “NO INFLUENCERS.’
The post has sparked a viral, global debate about whether influencers positively or negative contribute to visiting a store like The Four Winds Craft Guild. It hasn’t necessarily been framed as a CX conversation, but that’s what it is.
A little too social?
For a long time, influencers were seen as an increasingly important part of the discoverability phase of of the customer journey. At least in some cases, influencers’ photos and videos could celebrate a business in a way that served as free advertising from an ostensibly neutral expert source.
As the influencer space has become more crowded – Goldman Sachs research suggested we reached more than 50 million influencers worldwide three years ago – the competition for content has intensified.
Influencers now threaten to disrupt customers from enjoying their visit to a business more than they than drive demand to a business.
What if a customer is waiting so long for an influencer to finish filming they don’t make it to the checkout?
What if customers avoid an aisle where a TikToker is narrating their shopping journey?
Tactics to encourage influencer etiquette
Even if more brands don’t put up similar signs, they may train staff to discourage endless selfies and constant filming in every corner.
CX leaders should get ahead of this by developing strategies to avoid the too-many-influencers effect:
- Create designated showrooms or events that specifically encourage content creation, like when a business opens or amid a product launch.
- Alternatively, setting up clearly marked and enforced “influencer free zones” that allow customers to enjoy themselves without becoming a background character in someone’s YouTube short or TikTok. If you can have a laptop-free cafe, you can have this.
- Developing closer relationships with influencers by allowing them to self-identify through branded mobile apps so they can be given guidelines about appropriate content creation.
This is admittedly a difficult area to govern since influencers can be amateurs as well as professionals. You need to expect at least a degree of content creation to happen in almost any public space now.
CX leaders will increasingly have to learn how to ensure customers are not only liking, sharing and subscribing, but feeling as though they can shop in peace.
