A couple weeks ago, Holly Mulcahy wrote about eschewing the use of comp tickets in order to create the illusion that a performance was well attended.
As an alternative, she suggests seeking out and recruiting influencers to share their sincere reflections on their experience with the people who follow them on social media or with whom they might associate socially.
One thing I realized was missing from the articles she linked to about leveraging influencers for your brand was clear disclaimers about a quid pro quo relationship with the product or service provider. A lot of those seriously engaged as social media influencers are pretty savvy and disclose that they have received products, etc for free, but still you often hear of some people losing credibility because they failed to disclose this relationship.
I was reminded of a story some years back where a movie studio paid a girl $1,800 to insert a reference to their upcoming movie in her valedictorian speech at graduation. Marketers have gotten a little more sophisticated since then (the movie bombed, by the way.) but the public has likewise started to evince a growing skepticism about the motivations behind why people are promoting things.
If you are trying to recruit people from your community whom you have identified as knowledgeable, enthusiastic and influential, they may not consider the need to event make a passing reference thanking your organization for providing them with free, premium seating, valet parking and drink vouchers to an event. Because you want to make a good impression and facilitate their experience, it is likely that you might offer all this and more.
Not only might there be backlash if people feel the influencer is being plied with benefits in return for a good review, it might damage the influencer’s credibility if their followers aren’t able to access the same experience they assume comes with the published ticket prices.
One of the things you may want to clearly establish with an influencer is the scope and nature of your relationship and what level of disclosure is appropriate.