It’s been a bit since we’ve talked to an influencer about their journey, their approach to monetization and their advice for brands and other influencers on how to do this influence thing. Today, we’re going to spend some time with Heather Watson. 

She’s the person behind Her Kentucky. Yeah, I asked Heather to come on the show because she’s in my neck of the woods as we say around here, so she’s top of mind. We’ve collaborated a couple of times for some brands here in bluegrass … heck, it turns out after a conversation or two, we realized we crossed paths back in high school, even.

But there’s a whole lot of relevance for influencers and brands everywhere in this conversation. Heather’s audience is, shall I say, middle-aged and older women. Her primary influence mechanism is a blog and longer-form writing, not TikTok videos or Instagram stories. Yes, she’s influential and active on the social channels that are relevant to that audience — Facebook and Instagram. But the wisdom of knowing your audience and what engages them is something she gives sound advice about.

Heather also brings the perspective of a geographic influence to the table. For those of you who run or work with local or regional businesses, someone with a bazillion followers on Instagram isn’t going to do you a lot of good. You have to find the Heather Watsons in your world to reach a higher percentage of a relevant audience to make influence marketing work smarter for you.

It was quite interesting to chat with Heather about the nuances of being a local and regional influencer, the story of HerKentucky’s evolution and how she’s monetized her content over the years. Pay close attention to the brands she mentions for partnerships, especially you influencers out there. She’s very smartly gone after very specific companies that her audience would find appealing, and who want to reach that older, discretionary income-friendly female consumer.

This episode of Winfluence, the podcast, is sponsored by Julius. If you’ve read my book, you know I’ve depended on Julius for influencer discovery and campaign management for some time now. When I’m looking for the right influencer for my clients, Julius allows me to search across Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Twitch, Twitter, Pinterest, Blogs and more. When I click into an influencer’s profile, I can see their audience demographics, what other networks they have reach through and quickly scan their recent posts to decide if they’re a right influencer for my brand. All the pieces of campaign management are there, too. Julius allows you to reach out, document contracts, share and approve influencer content and, of course, measure the ROI of each campaign, influencer or post. You owe it to your brand or agency to do a demo of Julius today. Go to jason.online/julius and request one. That’s jason.online/julius.

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