I've been covering a lot about influencer marketing over the last few months.

In my latest post about it, I shared how I used to work with influencers. 

I think everyone has their own formula and every brand have their own process or strive to develop their own process but there are some basic, important steps that must always be considered and need to be part of any influencer marketing campaign.

With that in mind, I was quite happy when I stumbled upon a good infographic that explains the roadmap or 10 key steps to run an influencer marketing initiative. 

Before I show it to you, I want to emphasise that the very key thing (and because of that the first step in the roadmap) is to define your goals - what are you trying to achieve, what does influencer marketing mean to your business and how do you expect it to help you with your overall business goals? 

These are some fundamental questions you need to have answered if you are hoping to get budget for influencer marketing. As we all know, every money spending decision must be justified.

If you work in marketing and PR, you know there’s been a sea change. The old “push” tactics the industry once relied on no longer work well in the digital age.

As a PR professional, journalists and media folks are your consumers and today’s consumers increasingly reject top-down, interruptive messages trying to sell a story.

What they accept and crave is relevant content that draws them in, engages them, and helps them write the stories they know their readers want.

They want tactics that are inbound.

The problem, however, is most PR firms are still outbound organisations trying to survive in an inbound world.

What’s Not Working in PR?

2020 is here and I hope you are excited and ready for it. 

I also hope you've got your goals set up and if you work in marketing or PR, you have your work goals as well. 

But to achieve those professional goals, you'll have to be aware of what's going on in the industry and consider what might make your job easier or more difficult, what could be an opportunity or a thread. 

Threads especially must be considered early as these are risk factors that can ruin your efforts. 

So what should you expect in the world of content marketing in 2020? 

Quite a few exciting things. And some pretty logical focus areas. 

I've picked out three key trends that in my opinion are crucial and you can check out the other seven in a nice infographic below.

Content Marketing Focus Areas in 2020:

A few weeks ago, I shared how I started my career in PR and where it got me. (If you haven't read it, check it out and come back.)

In my early days, I used to do a lot of traditional media relations as in pitching journalists and national media. Shortly after that, came the influencers - the bloggers and the YouTubers. Instagram wasn't big at that time. 

I wouldn't say that the influencers changed the game on how to do proper media relations. Regardless whether you're pitching journalists or bloggers, YouTubers and Instagrammers, the principles are the same if you want to do it right.

But the very key principle is to treat them like human beings who have their own goals, needs, ways they like to communicate and make decisions. 

You need to be a bit like an anthropologist if you want to succeed when working with influencers. 

But let me tell you about a typical scenario that I used to encounter almost every week when I started working in PR and had to deal with influencers.

I started my career in PR. 

That was a conscious choice, I wanted to do PR. 

When I was at university doing a BA in International Business in Germany, you could say that I fell in love with Public Relations during a module in Marketing where I got exposed to PR for the first time. 

That was also the time when social media started to pick up and businesses were trying to figure who owns it and how to do it for their benefit. 

Authors and prominent PR pros like Brian Solis and David Meerman Scott got me more hooked and so I decided the follow PR as my career.

But a degree in International Business is not the typical path to get into PR, especially because you don't learn anything about press releases or working with the media. 

So I had to learn all that by myself. How? Through books and internships. 

I decided that if I wanted to get a job in PR immediately after I graduated, I had to gain practical experience. 

So after my first year at university, I found a small social media agency in a town in Germany close to where I was living at the time and interned there for three months for free. 

Was it easy - for the first time working in such a professional setting and without getting any money?