Influencers And Their Importance – Danica Kombol On Spark.Me

Who are influencers and what do they actually do? How much can you accomplish just by being a person who can influence people on social media? What does Macy’s have to do with chefs?

All of these questions were answered in the amazing talk from Danica Kombol on the first day of Spark.ME conference. In an energetic and truly eye-opening talk, Danica traced back her roots to Croatia, described what does she do in life, and why does she think influencers are currently one of the biggest marketing opportunities in the world.

An American with a Croatian name, Danica has had an astonishing career in marketing and has cooperated with some of the world’s most famous brands and names. The first thing she wanted to know is why do we think people go to parties. An interesting question, with a pretty straightforward answer: to get around other people. We as a species love nothing more than socializing and sharing stories. This is precisely what Danica’s presentation was loosely based upon. As a storytelling species, we enjoy seeing and hearing what has happened to others, and to hear stories is one of the main things we’re interested in.

Think about it for a second – all that we use social media for is to tell our friends and followers the stories from our lives. Be it Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and Snapchat, we are thinking of new ways to tell stories to other people each day.

The Art Of Storytelling

If you really think about it, the apps that are aimed at telling stories are truly the apps that are downloaded the most and are the most loved amongst people.

The thing with stories is that we love them so much we don’t really check if they’re true, and marketers bombarded us with stories for a long time, just to make sure we bought their products. With the last economic crisis in 2009, we simply lost faith in everyone, starting from our banks to our media, and turned to bloggers for their opinions.

We consciously orient ourselves towards people who influence us and do so without hesitation. It surely has something to do with the possibility of choice, regardless of the topic of interest there’s always someone who blogs about it, and there’s always different styles of blogging so you can enjoy the bloggers who are more serious or those who are more humor-oriented, it’s entirely your call.

The latest storytellers are the people we probably never met, but we like, share and click on their stories because we enjoy it, and we enjoy the style of bloggers much more than “conventional” media such as TV and radio. We’re also much more likely to buy something if we get a recommendation from someone we trust, such as a family member or a blogger. Extensive research has already shown that, and the reality really does go to show that people are more and more oriented towards opinions from other people they deem worthy of their trust.

Bloggers Shape Opinions

Our influencers are truly shaping our life, and that’s not a bad thing. We are simply in an era where we choose who to trust and with whom to bond.

All of these points were explained very well in Danica’s presentation, and the culmination of her efforts to explain modern storytelling were two stories, of course.

The first story revolved around Macy’s and the way Danica’s company cooperated with influencers to triple the amount of guests at cooking events held at Macy’s stores. This was possible by cooperating with leading food bloggers, and asking them to write about these events.

The second story revolved around a complete rebranding of a famous influencer’s blog to TheArtMuse.Me, and the subsequent campaign aimed at promoting .ME in the United States. The campaign was a huge success, and once again proved that the influence the influencers have is really, well, influencing.

Danica’s presentation surely was thought-provoking and is sure to spark a few ideas in the minds of the present spectators, something we always enjoy to see.

We’ll continue to update you with the latest articles from Spark.Me conference in Budva, Montenegro, so be sure to follow us for more news and inside info!