How the coronavirus is disrupting influencer marketing

Editor’s note: This article is a re-run as part of our countdown of top stories from the past year.

For PR pros and brand managers, influencer marketing might be an important way to engage audiences that are flocking to digital platforms amid the COVID-19 outbreak.

Courtney Worthman, senior vice president of brand and agency partnerships for Burns Entertainment and her colleague Stacey Gersten, also with brand and agency partnerships, share some of their takeaways from the current crisis.

Here’s how they recommend brand managers pivot with their influencer partners:

PR Daily: How is COVID-19 impacting influencer marketing?

Worthman and Gersten: The reason a platform like Instagram or TikTok is so successful is because it is human-to-human content. What’s more human and necessary than to connect in a time like this?

Influencers are not going to cease making content and they still have actively engaged—and now very captive—audiences. The biggest shift we are seeing is the messaging. The great equalizer is COVID-19 and the need for connection. At the end of the day, the messaging needs to be genuine and community driven, or it just won’t connect.

 PR Daily: What are some ways marketers and influencers can adapt?