Why “content is king” now makes much more sense!

The topics scheduled for this Saturday were very promising: Photography and Influence Marketing. Something we simply CANNOT DO WITHOUT, no matter what profession we are in. Yu know what they say, if you’re not on social media, you’re nowhere. I would say, if your photos on SoMe are bad, close down your account.

That’s where Aida Redžepagić helped us. Optimistic and cheerful by nature, even if you don’t like to take photos, and it’s simply impossible that in these modern times you don’t like to take selfies at least, she will interest you in “small tricks of the trade“. It’s amazing how some “tricks” are so subtle, but mean a lot for a photo, especially for SoMe. And let me tell you that it’s so embarrassing to take photos with a professional photographer next to you… Every time I picked up a phone to take a photo of the people at the Academy, I thought, “Here it is, I must have done something wrong, how on earth am I going to post it?”. Forgive me, Aida, but here are the photos made before her lecture.

A photo can tell a story on its own. HOWEVER, when even a professional photographer tells you that content below a photo on SoMe is very important, then it gets an even deeper meaning. Consumers will identify with a product, service or story much more and absorb its message properly only if a photo complements the content and vice versa.

Kutcha Concept Store was the perfect location for the lectures because our practical work was based on taking photos, so we used a colourful interior and items from Kutcha to have Aida show us specific examples of what we could do with a phone camera. We don’t need full equipment to make good photos for SoMe – I know that now.

Lunch, coffee, a piece of fruit and we got to the second part of the day, when we talked about influence marketing. You definitely cannot get sleepy after lunch if you have Jan Amir Alić, Senior Brand Manager – Orbico Beauty, at a panel, because he is willing to share a multitude of information and examples. Today, the term influencer is very tricky. A double-edged sword. Some are appalled by the term, while others are ultimate fans. However, influencers have been present forever, ever since the public space was established. All those politicians, analysts, actors, motivational speakers, athletes, journalists… all those who have influence on public opinion are actually influencers, only today their messages and significance are more visible via social media. How to find credible influencers, what statistics to follow, how to approach them, these are questions that were answered using positive examples from our country, but we also covered failed campaigns. A golden rule is that we cannot and should not lie to people. The time when people blindly followed trends is over. Now, in a myriad of information, people check content they have been served. There is an interesting example of a beauty brand, which engaged a popular female influencer to endorse anti-age creams, even though it was a common fact that she had had several plastic surgeries. And what happened? Sales dropped by as much as 60%, she lost tens of thousands of followers, who publicly condemned her for attempting to sell them something that was not true, at least not in her case. The product may have an anti-aging effect, but the choice of the influencer was wrong. The brand lost its credibility and she lost both credibility and followers. We have to be aware of our audience, because a number of followers is not everything. Regardless of negative examples, we continued in a positive vibe with Naida Kundurović and Tomislav Cvitanušić. If you read at least one portal, then you’ve heard about their stories, which have been picked up by our and regional media. We can definitely say for them that they are the influencers who’ve earned their credibility and our trust, so it as interesting to hear a story from the perspective of influencers themselves. We had a million questions for them. how they choose campaigns to so, how to create content that audience finds appealing, how to place it on SoMe, and how big the impact of credibility of influencers promoting products is. It was not at all easy for them with all our questions, but we got answers to everything, while also having a good laugh and fun.

A message of the panel was presented in a case study about the Fyre Festival, the largest influencer campaign and the biggest fraud ever. It seems that, in addition to useful information businesswise, this Saturday brought some generally precious messages for all of us. That everything in marketing comes down to emotion and honesty. And then success follows naturally.

Until next Saturday;

Stay tuned…

Content Academy attendee