\r\nAre you aware that influence marketing may guide your next reading choices or insinuate itself within the most iconic museums and festivals? But what does it consist of in concrete terms, how is it used in the culture domain and with what impact?\n\r\n<\/p>\n\n\n
\u2018Influence marketing\u2019: a conjunction of two words which seems both so crystal clear and abstract. What are we talking about when, when we come across this concept in a conference, an article or a post on social networks?\u00a0According to the illustrated Encyclopaedia of marketing<\/a> (in French), it involves \u2018the whole of the practices aiming to use the recommendation potential of influencers and other content creators for commercial or marketing purposes.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The practice of engaging with opinion leaders or people with expertise\/legitimacy in a specific domain is not new. However, it has metamorphosed in regard to the emergence of social networks. Gradually, this marketing trend has also gone digital. The Culture R\u00e9gie (a dedicated site specialised in marketing<\/a>) explains: \u2018throughout its history, influence marketing has constantly evolved to adapt to changes in consumer habits and to technological advances. It encompasses a wide range of platforms and types of influencers, offering brands numerous opportunities to connect with their target groups in authentic and meaningful ways.\u2019 One of the first examples of influence marketing in the digital era dates back to the beginning of the 2000s, a period when blogs represented the Holy Grail of every \u2018cool\u2019 person on the web. Heather Armstrong, a highly followed blogger, went into partnership with the Ford automobile brand. The outcome? Her \u2018Dooce\u2019 blog acquired a massive audience.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, influence marketing is no longer exclusively used to promote car, clothing, make-up or food brands. It is also gaining traction in the culture domain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Delphine Jenart, a lecturer in cultural communication practices at the UCL Fucam and digital culture mediation at the IHECS, explains: \u2018The figure of the culture critic is very familiar to us. A journalist such as Hugues Dayez (RTBF) remains the cinema prescriber for a large proportion of the generation of 40\u201360-year-olds in French-speaking Belgium. What has brought about the shift from the culture critic on primetime channels to the cultural influencer who for the younger generations perhaps now has more credibility when it comes to choosing a book to read, a film to go and see at the cinema, a site to visit?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n The expert responds to this question and explains it by the fact that the media are evolving. \u2018Our relationship with the media is changing; we no longer get our information or make our cultural choices in the same way. The influencer is in a way a \u201csymptom\u201d of our networked medias; it therefore makes sense to see influence marketing entering cultural institutions.\u2019The notions of \u2018marketing\u2019 and \u2018culture\u2019 would appear to be antithetical in Europe\u2019s cultural institutions, specifies the KIKK <\/a>coordinator for wake! by Digital Wallonia<\/a>.\u00a0 Yet, she develops her argument: \u2018it is an alloy with which people are much more comfortable across the Atlantic, but that is in the process of changing. The digital transformation we have been living through for a good twenty years or so has progressively encouraged this convergence, in particular through the urgent need to diversify the cultural sector\u2019s sources of funding, as well as its audiences, with the objective being rejuvenation.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus, more and more influencers are having a real impact on the cultural choices of the young generation. That is for example the case of Fran\u00e7ois Coune. A Belgian queer literary critic, he is followed in particular for his literary recommendations on his Instagram account @livraisondemots<\/a>.\u00a0\u2018Marketing\u2019 + \u2018Culture\u2019: since when and why has this match been considered feasible?<\/strong><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
#BookTok: the hashtag which is wreaking havoc on the world of literary publishing<\/strong><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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