The Click&Connect Influencer Marketing Conference Was Held in Riga: What Local Bloggers and Celebrities Debated

On 5 June, the Click&Connect conference on influencer marketing and e-commerce was held 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. These included actress and singer Vita Balčūnaitė, presenter and public figure Elena Tonova, businessman and charismatic personality Vlad Koryagin, editors of popular portals and magazines Yevgeniya Shafranek (brunch.lv), Inna Avina (Lyublyu!), Almaz Pirha (3ade.lv), fitness enthusiast and blogger Kristine Granta, one of Latvia’s most popular vloggers and Instagram bloggers Evelina Parkere, photographer and traveller Roberts Sils, showman and Dinamo Rīga technical director Armands Simsons, and journalist and blogger Elena Vyushina.

As usual, the conference’s main topic was influencer marketing: participants discussed how local businesses can use opinion leaders to promote their products and services, as well as industry trends and specifics.

The Click&Connect conference proved to be the ideal place to meet and begin cooperation between businesses and influencers in the Baltics.

The discussion involving influencers was lively. They are all strong personalities and did not agree with one another on many issues. This led to a conclusion voiced by actress, singer and presenter Vita Balčūnaitė: “We are all very different. Each of us has our own principles and our own understanding of which products and services we are willing to advertise and which we would never promote. For example, I would not agree to advertise plastic surgery services if the operation is performed without medical indications. I believe that we should accept our bodies as they are and learn to love them. But that is my personal opinion.” The only point on which all the opinion leaders present agreed was that none of them would advertise political parties. 

Influencer marketing is growing in Latvia, as it is throughout the world, but there are certain nuances. “There really are more requests from businesses, but the problem is that businesses accustomed to traditional advertising want to see the same thing from bloggers. But that is boring! I have my own style and my own special touches. Yet companies often want to commission a dry, lifeless press release from me, merely presented as if it were written in my voice. Convincing them that this is not the way to do it is such a hassle that it is easier to decline the cooperation. Companies want something creative, but at the same time neat, tidy and polished. Nobody reads that, though, so such text does not work. Businesses are needlessly clinging to outdated marketing conventions,” said blogger and brunch.lv editor Yevgeniya Shafranek.

Fashion blogger Elena Vyushina recommends: “When choosing a blogger to work with, it is worth getting to know that person, clarifying their understanding of the business, and developing an effective campaign together that benefits both sides. A blogger also needs to maintain their public image, and it is important to them that advertising a particular product does not damage the community that has been built around the blog over the years.”

Before beginning a collaboration, it is worth studying the style of the particular blog or vlog, since none of the bloggers is prepared to change it for the sake of a single advertising message. “I am not going to turn my social media profile into a rubbish dump where anything can be advertised for money. My blogging style is what it is. If you like it, welcome; if not, goodbye,” said Armands Simsons, showman and technical director of Dinamo Rīga, emphatically. He had simply been running his Instagram blog, sharing details of his life, family and work, when one day he discovered that almost 29,000 people found it interesting to follow. “And suddenly I became an influencer. Wow! That was not my goal. But it is the 21st century, and it would be foolish not to take advantage of this. If you are not online, you do not exist at all,” says Simsons.

It is also worth checking the quality of the audience. Yevgeniya Shafranek recommends using online analytics platforms that show whether a blogger has “purchased” followers. One of Latvia’s leading YouTubers, Evelina Parkere, recommends asking a blogger during an in-person meeting to show their phone with the analytics page open, so that everything can be seen firsthand, since cases of fraud have already occurred in our country as well. But even if the audience is “real,” it is worth carefully considering how closely it matches the target audience of the particular brand.

“In Latvia, the use of opinion leaders to promote products and increase sales is only beginning, so there is not always a clear understanding of the cooperation model. I advise starting by looking for bloggers with a relevant audience, then assessing its level of engagement, and only after that discussing the cost of a post or video integration. It can start at several hundred euros and reach several thousand if we are talking about bloggers with an international audience of millions,” says conference organiser and lecturer, and founder of the DreamCafe.lv agency, Alina Lisina.  

Presentations at the conference were delivered by prominent digital marketing professionals: conference co-organiser, internet marketer with experience in international markets, and founder of the Advanced Learning & Communications agency Dmitry Krasnovsky; Janis Rozenblats, founder and chief executive officer of Mailigen, a leading Latvian company in the field of email marketing; Anton Sapryko, head of the successful Latvian IT start-up Scandiweb; Kristians Patmalnieks, digital marketing specialist at the Infinitum8 agency; and Yakov Udodov, head of the internet marketing agency Global Internet Marketing.

“We believe that our conference helps businesses not only improve the quality of their marketing strategies, but also find common ground and understanding with local ‘stars’ and celebrities. They have a significant influence on the formation of public opinion both in Latvia and abroad. Every business should understand their importance and know how to ‘integrate’ suitable opinion leaders into its communications strategy,” emphasises Dmitry Krasnovsky.

The information was prepared by Advanced Learning & Communications, www.alc.lv