Running digital marketing for your own organization or client’s organization is tough.

When I’m done with work, after sitting in a chair for eight hours, staring at screens, and thinking about complex questions like how do I reach this person, how do I explain my decisions to my clients, and how do I make the audience care, I’m exhausted.

There is one proven trick that makes the job of reaching your audience and stirring their hearts a bit easier and a lot more fun.

God has done it and continues to. It’s been employed by diplomats, generals, kings, emperors, writers, and business leaders.

Here’s the person you need…

The Influencer vs. The Tastemaker

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a tastemaker is “One that determines or strongly influences current trends or styles, as in fashion or the arts.”

According to Influencer Marketing Hub, the definition of an influencer is “someone who has the power to affect the purchasing decisions of others because of his or her authority, knowledge, position, or relationship with his or her audience,” usually through social media platforms.

Wait, hold up. What’s the difference?

Honestly, there isn’t a ton of difference. But, in my opinion, there are important nuances. Hear me out.

Here’s my premise: Every tastemaker is an influencer, but not every influencer is a tastemaker.

Some influencers gain influence because they got the part, they won the election, they wrote some songs, etc. I think there are tiers of influencers. You are less or more influenced by people, regardless whether we’re talking about 7th grade, where you work, or TikTok. Often, influencers have shallow, product-based relationships with legions of people via screens.

But tastemakers can’t gain influence this way. They MUST live and breathe what they are talking about. They are the audience they reach, and they’ve become masters, or “super-influencers.”

It’s true that tastemakers can grow into global influencers who market products, ideas, and services unrelated to their tastemaking, but the further you drift from your “lane,” the weaker your influence. Tastemaking will always come from what tastemakers live and breathe. That’s where your greatest influence should be because you understand it best.

A gaming tastemaker hangs with gamers; a makeup tastemaker understands the struggles and motivations of people who use makeup daily; a pickleball tastemaker… you get the idea.

Your tastemaking comes from what controls your time. 

Of course, what controls your time can change.

But We Listen to Influencers, Don’t We?

It’s true.

The aspiration to be like influencers moves us to buy, vote, think, and act like the people influencing us. But this is a different behavior, and not necessarily a healthy one.

You don’t have to aspire to be like a tastemaker because you are already just like them.

If tastemakers are supposed to have a much deeper, inherent trust, their recommendations will be more authentic and will implant longer-lasting changes deeper in a person. 

When you buy, vote, think, and act because of a tastemaker, you are more confident about that decision, and you more easily and vigorously defend it.

Influencers may have the larger followings, but tastemaker followers are more loyal.

A Tastemaker Is Better Than You at Reaching Your Audience

If you aren’t the tastemaker for your audience, why do you hire a tastemaker? What can they do that you can’t?

I’m talking about plucking a person out of the crowd you want to reach and tasking them with talking to that audience on your behalf.

That means you need to know your crowd. But more importantly, you are giving a significant amount of communications control to your tastemaker.

If you want to reach 18–29-year-old women on Instagram who have workout goals; fathers of teenagers on Reddit who want to get back outdoors; or Americans dealing with loneliness…

• Hire an 18–29-year old woman to run your Instagram
• Hire a dad with teens who wants to be an adventurer again 
• Hire a marketer who has dealt with loneliness

Whatever your product or service or mission, put your social and digital communications in the hands of an audience member. If you are that audience member, so much the better, because then you are also cut from the same cloth as your target audience.

It’s not about the platform—a solid marketer can learn a platform. It’s not about the tools and the content—content creation and distribution is part of the job. It’s about the deepest connection with the audience—that is harder to learn and harder to fake.

Success Comes from Knowing Your Audience

Any successful marketing and communications comes from knowing how to say something valuable to the right person.

Tastemakers live and breathe what’s important to your audience because they ARE your audience.

Your responsibilities may pull you away or disconnect you from the everyday of your audience. It’s your tastemaker’s job to be in tune all the time.

And for goodness’ sakes, don’t distract your digital marketers with other audiences they know nothing about. When possible, put them on accounts where they will thrive because they get it.

I know it’s not always possible. Sometimes we have to work on projects where we feel like the furthest thing from the target audience. It’s the job of brands and organizations to think about this when considering who should manage external communications.

How Do I Use Influencer Marketing to Evangelize?

For the Church, we’re not selling products. We’re saving souls. Do we need influencers?

Yes, but an influencer is not enough. The Church needs tastemakers. And ones who will evangelize.

We need digital apostles. “Digital missionaries” as they were called when they gathered at the Vatican in July.

That means social media, marketing, content, metrics… all of it.

Apostles have to be tastemakers for life itself—how to think, how to act, how to critically assess what the world offers vs. the Christian faith. This is a major task, and it’s why Jesus handpicked twelve men from the everyday, including a zealot and a tax collector. Men who could speak to their own.

Our modern day digital apostles are tastemakers of faith. They will promote devotion, virtue, and the supernatural, rather than mascara, meal deals, and getaways. It’s going to take great faith… and great creativity!

Influencers build personal brands.

Apostles build Christ’s brand.

Who Are the Digital Apostles of the Church?

While anyone can run your marketing, not anyone ought to run your marketing.

Tastemakers for the Church need to be committed to holiness and simultaneously understand how to reach Catholics who are distant from the Church.

Now wait! Before you say, I want to reach all Catholics… and protestants… and everyone!, let’s think about the many Catholic personas in the U.S.

Yellow Line Digital talks about this in more detail in its report Reach the Next Gen of Catholics.

Not every Catholic is in the same place. Look to age, geography, income, education, career, habits, political leanings, friend groups, pastimes, and other psychographics.

I guarantee you it’ll be hard to authentically speak to the struggles and successes of 60-year-old Catholics when you’re 22 and vice versa. There are exceptions.

I mean, you don’t have to literally be 31 to reach a 31-year-old. I’m not saying that. I’m saying you need to be a tastemaker. Parents know parents, teachers know teachers, skaters know skaters, and so on.

When hiring, think about whether that person can be the tastemaker. Or whether they can at least immerse themselves and learn to be a tastemaker. A digital apostle could be right under your nose.

Who are the tastemakers in your life? Not sure what kind of tastemaker you need? Learn more about our Health Checks. Join the conversation! Shoot us an email at info@yellowlinedigital.com and follow us on LinkedIn.