The Miner: Issue 6

Hello beautiful people! It's time for your weekly dose of OMG, LOL, and WTF in influencer marketing.

I just want to take this moment to point out that my birthday is December 21st. So you can slide into my DMs with a Happy Birthday 🥳 ooooor you could buy me a coffee. Please and thank you.

I hope you enjoy this week's edition and don't forget to tell your friends. Hit "reply" with any and all feedback and if you read a good link send it to info@carbonaugust.com. Here we go!

DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH

💎 December is my favorite time of the year. Not only because it's my birthday, but because all of this year's stats and next year's predictions hit the web. Later and Fohr put out a free report called "State of Instagram Influencer Marketing In 2020" and it has some interesting gems. One of my favorites was that captions are key. You guys know I've been saying this FOREVER. No one wants to read "Purple is my favorite color. Comment below with yours. 🌈" Like it is practically 2020. Get. It. Together. This report is really for brands, and is pretty much an ad for Later and Fohr, but you should read it anyway.

💎 Your girl made Influence Weekly's Top 100 People In Influencer Marketing for 2019. This is a great list to comb through and see what LinkedIn requests you should send out! INFLUENCER also made Forbes gift guide for budding Instagram influencers along with some other cool items that should be on your radar.

💎 Please come read this fascinating piece titles The Age Of The Instagram Face: How social media, FaceTune, and plastic surgery created a single, cyborgian look. You're welcome.

💎 With the end of IG likes looming like a cloud that keeps threatening to rain on you brands are trying to figure out how to get metrics from influencers. If they use hella expensive tech they'll still be able to get those stats, but brands with less cash will be getting the numbers straight from you. This means you'll be able to talk about likes and comments but also about SAVES and SHARES. I've been telling you guys for months that these numbers were going to be important. On every post tell people to save and share. People can like a photo without seeing it. Bots can comment without reading. But only people who thought your content was valuable will save and share. Those are the real metrics of influence.

💎 Stop trying to go viral. Once all is said and done you may have more followers, but they don't really care about you. But if your dad makes you go viral, I'm ok with that.

[Today is the LAST DAY to enroll in Influencer Business Plan for $0 and get your first month of payments on me. We're going to be killing it for 100 days and I promise you will be salty if you miss it.]

GOLD MINE

💰 Unsplash is building a branded stock business. Instead of brands just reposting your organic content, they can head over to Unsplash, buy it, and you'll get paid. Of course the devil is in the details, but this is definitely a revenue stream to watch.

💰 Rachel Hollis is getting a talk show. Even when you think she's done the most she does even more. I haven't read either of her books BUT I know a good hustle when I see one. When building your brand always think about what's next. We can't all be in retirement homes doing sponcon for dentures and diapers. Or can we?

💰 Canva is jumping right into the video editing game. So if you've been dragging your feet on video content because your editing skills are trash, this may give you the push you need.

💰 There isn't always a wave to ride in influencer marketing that isn't hair gummies, tummy tea, or fashion nova. BUT if you are obsessed with CBD products you can make crazy amounts of money right now. You should be pitching 24/7 because influencers are the only way these brands can advertise.

[Are you coming to my brand building workshop? I cannot wait for LA, Atlanta, Dallas, and Chicago in 2020. Canada I might be headed your way so stay tuned!]

BLACK LUNG

⚫ Last week we touched on what happens when a vegan influencer starts eating meat again. This week the NYTimes talked about what happens when a wedding influencer gets a divorce. Their case study: Molly Guy formerly known as Stone Fox Bride and now known as Stone Fox Ride. With lives so public on social media after a big event you can either pivot or delete the whole thing. This isn't really a bad story, but it's sad influencers have to deal with audience perception when they're in the middle of their own life-altering moment. But this is the life we chose so...

⚫ An influencer accepted a t-shirt in exchange for a post. But she didn't post. Then she tried to sell the t-shirt. I just can't. This is messy.com.org.edu.

⚫ A now-fired employee at Facebook was getting paid to reactivate banned accounts. I mean they're all over this, but can they can't do anything about the impossible hoops you need to jump through if your account is hacked?

[You don't have to live this influencer life alone. Come join the Carbon August facebook group and get your community on.]

That's it for this week's edition of The Miner. Don't forget to tell me your thoughts and share this issue on social!