The Click&Connect Influencer Marketing Conference Took Place in Riga: What Local Bloggers and Celebrities Discussed

On 5 June, the influencer marketing and e-commerce conference Click&Connect took place at the five-star Pullman Riga Old Town hotel in Riga. It was attended by leading online marketing specialists, as well as opinion leaders—bloggers and well-known people in Latvia. They included actress Vita Baļčunaite, event host Jeļena Tonova, entrepreneur Vlads Korjagins, authors of leading portals and magazines Jevģēnija Šafranek (brunch.lv), Inna Avina (“Ļubļu!”), Almaza Pirha (3ade.lv), fitness enthusiast and blogger Kristīna Grante, one of the most popular vloggers and Instagram bloggers Evelīna Parkere, photographer and traveller Roberts Sils, showman and Dinamo Riga technical director Armands Simsons, and journalist and blogger Jeļena Vjušina.

The conference’s central topic was influencer marketing—how local businesses can use opinion leaders to promote goods and services, as well as the various specific features of different industries and trends.

The Click&Connect conference became the best platform for businesses and opinion leaders, or “influencers,” from across the Baltics to meet and begin cooperating.

The discussion with the influencers was heated: each of them is a distinctive personality, and on some issues they were unable to reach agreement among themselves. This led to the conclusion expressed by actress, singer and host Vita Baļčunaite: “We are all very different. Each of us has our own principles and understanding of which goods and services we are willing to promote and which we would never promote. For example, I would never agree to promote plastic surgery services if the operations were performed without medical indications. I believe that we should accept our bodies as they are and learn to love them. But that is only my personal opinion.” The only thing all the opinion leaders agreed on was that none of them would promote political parties.

The popularity of influencer marketing is growing in Latvia, and a similar trend can be observed elsewhere in the world, although nuances always exist. “There really are more and more advertising requests from businesses, but the problem is that businesses are accustomed to traditional advertising and want to see the same kind of advertising on bloggers’ social media. It’s boring! I have my own style and my own ‘special touches.’ Quite often, a company wants to commission a ‘dry’ and inexpressive press release, ‘as if’ written in my name. Convincing them that this is not how it should be done is a major headache, so sometimes it is easier to decline the cooperation. Businesses want advertising to be creative, but also ‘clean,’ neat and polished. Yet no one reads such publications; such texts do not work. Businesses must not cling to old canons,” said blogger and Brunch.lv editor Jevģēnija Šafraneka.

Fashion blogger Jeļena Vjušina offered another recommendation: “When choosing an opinion leader for cooperation, you need to get to know the person and understand their attitude towards the business being promoted, and develop an effective campaign together, because that will benefit both parties. It is important for a blogger to maintain their image; they genuinely care that the goods and advertising do not cause dissatisfaction among the audience they have built up over many years.”

Before beginning cooperation, the style of the particular blog or vlog must be studied, because no one is prepared to change the format of their entire blog to promote a single advertising message. “I will not turn my profile into a rubbish dump where anything is advertised for money. My blogging style is what it has become. If you like it—welcome; if not—goodbye,” said Armands Simsons categorically. The showman and Dinamo Riga technical director runs his blog on Instagram, where he talks about life, family and work. One day he discovered that he had an audience of 29,000 followers. “Suddenly I became an influencer. Wow! That wasn’t the goal. But this is the 21st century, and it would be a sin not to use this opportunity. If you are not on the Internet, you are nowhere,” says Simsons.

It is also worth checking the quality of the audience. Jevģēnija Šafraneka recommends using online platforms where it is possible to see whether a blogger has a “bought” audience. One of Latvia’s leading YouTubers, Evelīna Pārkere, recommends asking the blogger during a personal meeting to open their phone and show the statistics, so that all the necessary data can be seen with one’s own eyes. Evelīna notes that fraudulent cases already exist in our country. Even if the audience is “real,” Evelīna recommends carefully considering how closely the blogger’s audience matches that of the particular brand.

“In Latvia, using the audiences of opinion leaders for promotion is only just beginning, so there is not always a clear model for cooperation. I recommend starting by looking for bloggers who have a relevant audience, assessing the level of audience engagement, and only then discussing how much a particular publication or video integration costs. Prices can range from a few hundred to several thousand, if we are talking about an audience of millions,” says conference co-organiser, lecturer and founder of the DreamCafe.lv agency Alina Lisina.

The conference also featured prominent digital marketing professionals: Dmitrijs Krasnovskis—the conference co-organiser and an internet marketer with successful experience in international markets, and founder of the “Advanced Learning & Communications” agency; Jānis Rozenblats—founder and CEO of Mailigen, Latvia’s leading email distribution platform; Antons Sapriko—head of the successful Latvian IT startup Scandiweb; Kristiāns Patmalnieks—a digital marketing specialist at the Infinitum8 agency; and Jakovs Udodovs—head of the international internet agency Global Internet Marketing.

“We believe that our conference helps businesses improve the effectiveness of their marketing strategies and find common ground with local ‘stars’ and celebrities—because it is precisely they who shape and influence public opinion in Latvia and even beyond its borders. Businesses must recognise the importance of such cooperation and be able to ‘integrate’ appropriate opinion leaders into their overall communication strategy,” concludes Dmitrijs Krasnovskis.