K atie c ouric

Influencing the Influencer
Ken Cheng, founder and director at Jengo, a digital marketing and strategy
company, has advice for getting celebrities to notice your brand. He doesn’t
focus on building a huge following on Instagram. Instead, his team focuses
on reaching the people who already have that following and lets them do
the work of spreading the message for his clients. He explains that it’s not
about going to the biggest influencers or celebrities directly. You have a
much better chance of success if you focus on influencing the influencers
who influence your target influencer. (It might sound confusing now, but
wait for it . . .) There’s a network effect where smaller influencers influence
the bigger ones—their content moves upstream and is seen by more
influential people. To make this happen, first you need to follow the
accounts of the super influencers you’re trying to target. Then, look through
and discover which micro- or easier-to-reach influencers they follow.
Observe the types of posts that the big influencers like on the
microinfluencer’s accounts. Once you know if the microinfluencer’s posts
are related to the topics of your brand, and that the bigger influencer is

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paying attention to those types of posts, you can reach out to the smaller
influencer to post about your brand or message.
Adley Stump says that you can go through influencers’ posts and see
who comments to figure out who is in their engagement circles and to find
stronger influencers in your specific niche. Approaching the smaller
influencers first is a much more effective strategy than going to the big
influencers directly. Eventually you may reach them, but it’s smart to work
your way up the ladder from smaller influencers to larger ones.
Targeting smaller accounts that fewer people (albeit valuable people)
pay attention to has worked for Cheng on many occasions. He once worked
with a Vietnamese restaurant in New York that wanted big celebrity
attention. Initially, the restaurant tried to contact agents and publicists, but
nothing came out of it; it ended up just wasting money for a couple of
months. After this experience, it started targeting and having success with
influencers with around ten thousand followers, then those with twenty
thousand followers, and so on and so forth, until it started getting
influencers in the hundred thousand–plus range. It was at this time that
celebrities started coming to the restaurant on their own. Even Sarah Jessica
Parker ended up coming in and tweeting about the restaurant without any
solicitation or pay.
This process happened organically over time by influencing the people
around the big celebrity. Sarah Jessica Parker came in because she saw
other smaller influencers and friends whom she followed on Instagram
posting about a great new restaurant in New York, which encouraged her to
make the decision to go and try the food herself.