I want to be painfully honest with you today, gang. What we do in the influence marketing space, or the marketing space overall, often seems to me to be superfluous. Will the world survive if marketing died? Sure it would. Heck, some people would even say it might be a better place. Sometimes, I’m not sure those voices are wrong.Don’t get me wrong! I love what we do. And I do think that connecting brands to the audiences that can benefit from knowing them has meaning. While that might be a stretch for someone who markets luxury footwear. It becomes more relevant for those of us who do it for non-profits or businesses that have a real impact on people’s lives. But when I stumble across someone who looks at the creator economy or influence marketing and sees a real path to change the world, I am both excited and humbled. Excited that what we do can have great meaning and impact. Humbled that I’m some schlep who does it more for money than for a greater purpose. Last spring, my friend T. Adeola, invited me to speak at an event he was putting on in Dayton, Ohio. T, who is more formally known as Temitayo Adeola Osinubi but thankfully is comfortable with just T, is an experienced digital marketer. I met him years ago at an event he says was the first digital marketing event he ever attended. He’s done time with several brands over the years, including Proctor & Gamble. He also teaches as an adjunct professor at more colleges than most people can name. It’s that role of educator that makes him invaluable to our community. I saw how invaluable in Dayton almost a year ago. The event was a creator camp – a weeklong workshop to teach people how to be content creators. The attendees? Underserved children in disadvantaged communities. And, to an extent, their parents. T asked me to come talk to both groups about the creator economy and how there is real opportunity for young people to earn a living from content creation. The focus of the event, and the organization T leads, which is called STEM Whisperers, is to disrupt what he calls the School-to-Prison pipeline and give at-risk youth inspiration, training and opportunities in the creator economy. I get chills just explaining it. T uses the data that kids today say they want to be influencers, YouTubers, Instagrammers. Not astronauts or doctors or lawyers. He thinks we should be embracing that and fostering their education, aspiration and opportunity. T also just launched a companion podcast for STEM Whisperers on the Marketing Podcast Network. It’s called Tiny Giants. I was honored to be the first guest on the first episode this month. I invited T on to talk about the problem, his solution and what challenges he needs our help overcoming to make STEM Whisperers successful and disrupt that misdirected pipeline for our young people. Pay attention folks … I’m going to ask you to jump in and help him in the discussion. I think you’ll see why. T. Adeola and the finest reason to focus on influence marketing I’ve ever heard of is coming up on the show.Winfluence is made possible by Cipio.ai – The Community Commerce Marketing platform. What does that mean? It’s an influencer marketing software solution, but it has additional apps that function to tap into your brand community to drive commerce. Community Commerce Marketing moves beyond influencers to fans and followers, customers, employees and more. Try its generative AI application, Vibe Check, with a two-week free trial at cipio.ai/vibecheck, and generate a library of social captions in minutes you can use right away.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices