The future of branding and influencer marketing elucidated by Sherri Nourse

If you are a budding entrepreneur, a small business owner, or someone who likes to listen and learn from highly motivated people, you are probably familiar with Sherri Nourse. She’s the founder of AmbitionMedia from which emerged @motivationmedia, her popular IG handle, which she describes as a ‘hub and educational resource for entrepreneurs and business people.’ With over 2 million followers on Instagram, Nourse’s power is a ‘heady’ mix of motivation, resilience, and believing in your potential. And as she shares her inputs on the future of branding and social influencing, they might as well be considered prophecies for the world of social media. Let’s see what she has to say.

Nourse is from LA. Starting from the ground up, she established AmbitionMedia as a premium social marketing firm aimed at marketing to ‘the entertainment industry, Fortune 100,500, personal brands, automotive, travel, fashion, and lifestyle.’ Her choice of names is among the first things that you notice about Nourse. Added to the blend of ambition and motivation is @PositiveVibeQuote; a space of hope that works towards keeping its visitors inspired and encouraged to make their dreams come true. According to Nourse, “I know the power of words, they can encourage, discourage, attract and repel. Choosing the right name for my company was as big as deciding what to do with my life. It had to reflect me and my responsibility as a privileged individual.”

With 300 million page views per week, it’s safe to assume she’s hit the nail on the head. But apart from honest and positive names, what else is written on the walls of the future of branding and social influencing? According to Nourse, “the future is lit as long as you know how to engage with your clients and keep their interests intact! After all, on social media, you are not just competing for eyeballs with the biggest company out there, but perhaps your ju-jitsu expert neighbor or that distant cousin with cool moves.” In short, the stakes will be high in the future.

She stresses the need to accept the fact that “the current way of working is already traditional” if your business is not on social media. As people and companies become more and more connected in the future, it’ll not be a question of if you are on social media but how often. Social influencing and branding according to her is walking through fire, so to speak, and therefore, “must come out the other end warmer”, that is to say, the future of social media advertising is “not going to be a cold place where jargon and long-winding conversations run galore”; instead it will be a place of care and mutual respect.

Times-are-a-changing and social media might pave the way for the return of social niceties offline too. But that won’t be the only outcome. She encourages her followers and visitors with practical knowledge like “make interesting videos and to do that do interesting things in life” this makes work all play indeed. Videos, she says, will have “even more power than they seem to exhibit right now. They can express and engage with human emotions in such a way that static ads simply don’t”.

Nourse stresses the importance of storytelling to make the most of “the future that is on its way to your OS”. As an influencer, she knows that “positivity sells” but not just any positivity, “positivity that’s practical, that works and becomes a part of your life itself.” So if you are headed for the future of social media, don’t forget to pack your best stories.