Have you heard of Influenster? It’s an invite-only review site, sort of, where people who are active and influential in social media can receive and evaluate products. and they are now promoting ink pens.
(Pando Daily explains the Influenster concept in more detail.)
What caught our attention about the site is that Pentel and Pilot seem to be among the early pen companies using it to promote their products.
Specifically, Pentel included the EnerGel in the College VoxBox goodie bag that Influenster sent to 5,000 college students, and Pilot has a page of reviews for the Pilot FriXion, earning an average grade so far of A-.
The influencers who receive these items respond with detailed reviews, as well as videos and photos of the pens at work. If they also complete tasks such as following the companies on Twitter, adding them on Facebook and sharing their favorite products on their own social networks, they become eligible to receive prize packs.
For example, Pilot offers a set of FriXion pens and highlighters worth $US50.
We already know what most of you are thinking…how can you get in on this? There’s an application where you can request an invite to join the site. It seems to be mostly based on the breadth and depth of your social networking.
Meanwhile, we’re excited to see these pen brands reaching out to younger pen users on a platform like this. Traditionally, youth are pretty jaded about marketing tactics, so it will be interesting to see whether Influenster can establish any level of trust, and then whether other pen companies get involved.
What do you think?
By the way, do you know why do people say ink pen?
I can’t help but think that the reviews generated this way are worthless, like celebrity endorsement in TV ads. They are not unsolicited and not independent, but the reviewers interest is not obvious.