Guest post by Paula Hahn Managing Director at Marina Maher Communications (MMC). An expert in marketing to women, she heads the Media Connections practice, focused on managing brand dialogue via traditional and social media.
Time is proving that no matter how much social media changes, the core rules of engagement remain the same. Transparency and authenticity have been points of entry recommended by social media experts since its beginnings.
Now, in what seems like decades later (in social media years), transparency and authenticity might well be referred to as “best practices” in any engagement activity. The blogosphere is especially demanding of something “real.” In fact, if you’re a marketer, online influencers generally agree that getting free products to review is great, but the trump card is the authenticity and transparency something experiential offers.
A recent event produced by my agency with client CoverGirl®, bears this out. CoverGirl® invited Los Angeles-area online influencers to a Beverly Hills salon to witness make-up artist Molly Stern get Parks & Recreation star Rashida Jones red-carpet-ready for the MTV Awards.
It doesn’t get much more real than inviting a group of people in to watch you get ready. And the online influencers recognized that for what it was: transparent and authentic.
They loved the behind-the-scenes experience and the transformation tips from Stern – particularly because they saw how effortless the make-up application was. Better yet, they loved their own transformations afterward. It doesn’t get any more authentic of an experience than that.