Searching for influences – social media users often with large followers who often use their platforms to make money promoting products or events – to reinforce government messages is a relatively new strategy being developed by administrations around the world, and Canada does not is an exception.
According to a CTV News analysis of documents recently submitted to the House of Commons, more than a dozen federal departments and agencies have used influencers to help get their messages out over the past year.
“Influencers or creators on the Internet do a great job of creating a close-knit community, a specialized community, with a common interest, a shared experience. “And we know people are more convinced to change their minds or change their behavior when it comes to the message,” said Elizabeth Dubois, a professor at the University of Ottawa whose work focuses on the intersections of communication, technology and politics.
“And so influencers and creators are really great at tailoring messages to a specific audience. “One great advantage of using these kinds of influences to get government messages is that you can reach specific communities.”
The data, presented in response to a Conservative survey, show that of the federal entities that disclosed their related costs between January 1, 2021 and January 31, 2022, Health Canada was the top spending segment when it came to contracts with influencers.
Most of their bill, totaling more than $ 130,600, was for an “influencer campaign in support of the COVID-19 vaccination marketing and advertising campaign.”
As part of this public relations effort, the department entered into a contract with the digital marketing company Mr & Mrs Jones Inc. to help them design and develop the campaign, sign up and pay influencers, and keep track of the content being produced.
“The campaign of influence complemented the Government of Canada’s overall strategy to help everyone in Canada make an informed decision about COVID-19 vaccines,” the department said.
More than a dozen influencers then went to their accounts to share information about the Canadian government’s vaccination campaign. Among them was self-proclaimed model and actor Sukhman Gill, who shared a post about making an informed decision when he had to roll up his sleeve to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
“During these crazy times, there was a lot of false information being spread. Personally, I wanted to make sure I was getting the right information, so I decided to visit the Government of Canada website to learn more about COVID-19 vaccines. “I immediately learned a lot of things that made me feel much better and I answered many of my questions,” he wrote to his nearly 20,000 followers on Instagram.
French-language “@jemmyechd” posted a video discussing what contributed to her decision to get vaccinated, encouraging her followers to visit the government’s vaccine information website. Since its publication, her CV page on Instagram still includes a link that directs people to this COVID-19 vaccine link.
As part of this contract, and most of the others disclosed by the government, there was a requirement to make a public disclaimer that the content was sponsored and that the influence was paid for by the government. However, this was not the case with all the deals analyzed by CTV News.
Dubois said that as the use of government influence campaigns increases, it is important that paid government messages be labeled as such, describing the current landscape as “a bit of a gray area”.
Destination Canada was another federal entity that reportedly had influential parties. The National Tourism Promotion Agency said it had paid to work with NHL defender PK Subban and NBA player Kyle Lowry in 2021, but the agency did not say which vendors they worked with, nor did it reveal how much they spent, saying it would could jeopardize their strategies and “competitive position”.
Subban’s collaboration was part of a “Canada is winter home” campaign and included the sharing of a video “through paid and organic support” on both Subban and Destination Canada.
Lowry – who is not Canadian, but is well known here for his time with the Toronto Raptors – also participated in a Destination Canada campaign at an unknown price. The partnership saw Lowry participate and then share a video with him as well as messages from fans who said they missed him because the team was playing basketball season in the US due to pandemic restrictions, according to the agency archive.
Canadian Heritage attracted influencers last year in their efforts to promote events, and in some examples participated in something that appears to be micro-targeting, working with influencers based in different cities to promote local events.
For example, the department spent $ 120,000 on contracts with tour groups in six different provinces last December, including local influencer payments, to promote the Winterlude’s national ice-skating championship in their area this winter.
“Do you stay? “I actually forgot how nice it is to get out of your house… I could not ask for a better weekend, the kids had a great time on the ice rink, watching the carving on the ice!” wrote in Saskatchewan the self-proclaimed “lifestyle and family blogger” Joselyne Effa in a post on her Instagram page, which currently has more than 18,000 followers.
Canadian Heritage took a similar approach when announcing their “Christmas Lights across Canada” event, seeing influences from the National Capital Region publish about the event.
To promote the “See it all” campaign last spring, Telefilm Canada teamed up with a dozen influencers, seeing them participate in social media to promote Canadian cinema.
In a post in French on his Instagram account, which currently has more than 40,000 followers, Montreal-based Carl Hardy and self-proclaimed “instababe” wrote about the role that cinema has played in his life and its promotion Online catalog of Telefilm Canada.
“For the government in particular, it can be really valuable to pursue so-called ‘micro-influencers’, who are less influential followers who are really associated with a particular community instead of really large-scale ones,” Dubois said.
The Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation (CDIC), a federal company in Crown, said it had spent more than $ 95,300 on campaigns to promote confidence in the Canadian financial system, but did not disclose who agreed to the job, citing privacy issues.
Explaining why they were looking for influencers for the job, CDIC said that “working with influencers to create messages that resonate in their community is an effective way to reach demographics that may not interact with traditional media channels.”
Seeking to reach out to different groups and non-traditional media consumers was also an approach adopted by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and the Privy Council Office when using smaller-scale campaigns to address a range of issues, including Indigenous Month History and the dissemination of culturally relevant information on COVID-19.
Aiming at a wider audience, Export Development Canada (EDC) has partnered with recognizable personalities in the Canadian business community to promote their work.
They ran a $ 120,000 campaign that saw Canadian entrepreneurs and Dragons Den Michelle Romanow and Nicolas Duvernois create, produce, and promote content related to a SME Awareness Campaign.
“Export Development Canada has been my trusted partner in growing my business in the United States. “It may be scary to escalate internationally, but it doesn’t have to be,” Romanow wrote, directing her 60,000 Instagram followers to learn more about what EDC is doing.
In their filing, EDC noted that the cost of the campaign was more than just paying the influences to publish, but included other costs, including production and management fees.
The agency also noted that the budget per influencer was “subjective based on the value of the influencer”. In determining this value, the service said it took into account, among other factors, the level of influence based on the number of followers.
Assessing the value of influencers’ posts, including engagement statistics, is something Dubois said is commonplace in the industry, although he warned that as turning to influencers becomes a more common advertising tactic, governments should take action. to ensure that their partners are not We do not inflate their number through the use of bots or other account manipulations.
“These kinds of statistics that are used to determine how valuable a particular influencer is can be manipulated. “And we want to make sure that every time the government spends money on this kind of thing, it does it in a way that will be a ‘better quality’ situation,” he said.
