Have you ever purchased something because a well-known person you admire used the product or service?
I’m guilty of this — I recently bought myself a new waterski because a professional water skier and micro-influencer, Whitney McClintock, shared a video on Instagram of herself using the ski.
I was in the market for a new ski and followed Whitney for quite some time. Since she used this particular ski, I should, too — if Whitney promotes it, why wouldn’t I love it?
You might be thinking, “Slightly questionable logic, Kristen.” Maybe.
But did Whitney’s post get me to buy the ski? Oh, yeah. (And I do love my new ski, for those wondering.)
This is just one example of a tactic businesses use across virtually every industry: influencer marketing.
Influencer marketing often involves using channels such as social media, blogs, columns, digital and print ads, and television. Influencer marketing is increasingly more popular among businesses because traditional advertising has become less effective in attracting leads and customers.
Influencer marketing works because it uses tactics like word-of-mouth marketing and social proof, which are now critical aspects of any successful marketing strategy.
Customers trust their peers, friends, and people they admire more than the companies selling the products and services they buy and use.
Before diving into the different types of influencers, let’s review the difference between a brand influencer and a brand ambassador, as they’re often confused.
How Influencer Marketing Works
Here‘s a quick step-by-step guide to influencer marketing. We’ll explore some of the steps in depth later on.
- Step 1: Determine your brand’s goals with its influencer marketing campaign.
- Step 2: Know your target audience, their behaviors, and their interests.
- Step 3: Understand FTC guidelines and adhere to those guidelines when working with influencers.
- Step 4: Compile a short list of influencers you’d like to collaborate with.
- Step 5: Research your choice of influencers. Evaluate their social media, content, and cadence.
- Step 6: Reach out to influencers both privately and personally.
- Step 7: Collaborate and create content together to attract your target audience.
- Step 8: Track results. How is the content performing? What are some things you should do differently?
Influencer Marketing Stats Marketers Should Know
Influencer marketing is an investment — to get it right, you must devote time to finding the right influencer to promote content that appeals to your target audience.
Depending on your specific marketing goals, you must also spend money and/or resources to reward the influencer, run various campaigns with the influencer, and more.
Here are some statistics to help you understand the lay of the land.
- Influencer marketing yields the highest ROI, along with blogging and social media shopping tools.
- In 2021, roughly 58% of marketers said influencer marketing was the most effective marketing trend, ahead of SEO, experiential marketing, and short-form video content. (HubSpot Blog Research)
- 80% of marketers say influencer marketing is effective, and 89% say it works just as well (if not better) as other marketing channels.
- Instagram is the most popular platform for influencer marketing. However, Facebook is considered the most effective social platform for influencer campaigns. (HubSpot Blog Research)
- 71% of marketers say the quality of customers and traffic from influencer marketing is better than other sources.
- The most prominent challenge marketers face with influencer marketing is measuring the ROI of the campaign. Cost is the second most prominent hurdle marketers face.
- Of all age groups, Gen Zers trust influencers the most.
- 33% of Gen Zers have bought a product based on an influencer’s recommendations.
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1. Brand Influencer
A brand influencer has a following within a niche they regularly engage with. Because of this, they have the power to impact their purchase decisions.
The significant types of brand influencers are:
- Micro-influencers
- Celebrity influencers
- Blog influencers
- Social media influencers
- Key opinion leaders.
We’ll define each type as we move on.
For example, social media influencer @carlosdharrisjr recently partnered with ECCO Shoes to promote its product. Harris tags the brand in his posts to increase its awareness and encourage them to learn more about it.
2. Brand Ambassador
A business hires a brand ambassador to work under contract to help them achieve specific goals: increase brand awareness and boost conversions and sales.
A brand ambassador’s contract is typically long-term, from several months to years. During that time, they represent the brand and its lifestyle and know deeply about the business’s products or services. They don’t necessarily need to be an influencer before becoming an ambassador.
For example, Quest Nutrition’s brand ambassador program requires all interested individuals to apply to their program. Quest looks for individuals who embody their brand, are positive product spokespeople, create social media posts to promote their products and live the Quest lifestyle.
Anyone who fits their criteria can apply and has the potential of being accepted. Applicants aren’t required to have a highly successful YouTube account, thousands of followers on Instagram, or a popular blog to become a brand ambassador.
3. Micro-Influencer
Micro-influencers — like Whitney — have a relatively modest following of thousands or tens of thousands of people. They create relevant content for their audience and communicate with them via social media platforms, blogs, other written publications, websites, and forums.
Due to the size of their following and the type of content they create, they typically have high engagement rates. A smaller audience allows micro-influencers to bond with the people who follow them more regularly (compared to a celebrity with millions of fans) via their channel.
This makes them appealing to work with for businesses looking to develop personal relationships among their target audience.
How to Work With a Micro-Influencer
Micro-influencers can be established on a variety of channels. So, once you’ve chosen the micro-influencer to partner with, you can have them write a post about your service, share an online review, or post a picture on Instagram with one of your products. Due to the manageable size of their followers, they’ll be able to engage with your target audience on the content they share about your products and brand.
This way, they can answer any questions the audience members may have about your products, communicate their experience with your products, and direct audience members to your website or customer support team if necessary.
Micro-Influencer Example
Sisters Hermon and Heroda are fashion micro-influencers with roughly 89K followers on Instagram.
In addition to sharing fashion looks and tips with their followers, they are also disability advocates and often share what it’s like being deaf.
In their ad, the duo shared a video illustrating how being deaf can be considered a social barrier and how that can make you feel powerless.
They then introduce the brand Molton Brown and how its latest fragrance makes them feel “audacious, intense, and passionate.” In the caption, they continue to share how the brand’s collection resonated with them because of their life experiences.
This is an excellent example of how influencers can effectively tie their personal stories to a brand’s product, strengthening the messaging.
4. Celebrity Influencer
Celebrity influencers are famous people with large followings — typically millions— known across many industries. They’re widely recognized and, therefore, have the potential to be very successful in influencing your target audience.
Even if your target audience doesn’t overlap with all of your celebrity influencer’s fans, having them promote and/or use your product or service is a powerful form of social proof. Since celebrities are so well known, they’re effective at reaching multiple audiences across various channels.
How to Work With a Celebrity Influencer
Since celebrities are so well-known, there are many ways to work with them. You may focus on social media, print or online ads, TV commercials, blogs, or other written publications.
You can ask the celebrity to:
- Post a picture or video promoting your products.
- Share the benefits of using your products.
- Offer coupons and discount codes to their audience.
Celebrity Influencer Example
In a recent Instagram post, supermodel Winnie Harlow shared a position where she rocks a Fendi back, with a short copy that reads, “The first secret to success is believing in yourself.”
Image SourceFendi’s mission is all about turning dreams into reality. Harlow has been vocal about her struggle with bullying as a child due to her appearance. However, that didn’t stop her from pursuing her dreams of becoming a supermodel.
She serves as a symbol of perseverance and confidence, which is in great alignment with the brand. As a brand, you want to ensure that the influencers you work with align with the audience you want to reach and your values.
5. Blog Influencer
A blog influencer writes for their established blog and has thousands, or millions, of subscribers and readers. Their reach and influence set them apart from other bloggers (meaning they aren’t just writing for themselves or a tiny group of people).
How to Work With a Blog Influencer
To collaborate with a blog influencer, you may write a guest post for their blog, ask to be mentioned in one of their posts, or sponsor a post about one of your products or services. If you sponsor a post on the influencer’s blog, you can also provide images of your products for them to share.
Blog Influencer Example
A popular lifestyle blog influencer is Hannah Bronfman of HBFIT.
Bronfman writes about health, beauty, fitness, and creating a life that makes you happy and feels good. Between her blog subscribers, social media following, ads, the book she wrote, and the app she created, Hannah has millions of audience members and fans who keep up with her life.
Her blog features a variety of product, gym, and spa reviews. She collaborated with Face Gym, a local facial studio, on a sponsored blog post about their services and facial treatments.
Bronfman included information about the unique studio, facial experience, why her audience would love Face Gym’s services, and a coupon code for their first visit.
There are also pictures of Face Gym and the services they offer in Bronfman’s blog post to give audience members a better idea of what to expect from the studio regarding services and atmosphere.
6. Social Media Influencer
Social media influencers are well-recognized on social platforms, such as Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter, and are followed by thousands or millions of people.
Social media influencers share content about various topics such as health, workouts, cars, diet, outdoor activities, travel, fashion, art, beauty, and interior design.
How to Work With a Social Media Influencer
Once you find a social media influencer with an established image that works for your brand, posts content you feel complements your products or services and has followers who are also members of your target audience, you can determine what content you will have them promote.
If the influencer is on Instagram, you may have them post a picture with your product and tag your social account. If they’re on Facebook, you can ask them to share a live video of them opening your product, and if they’re on Twitter, you can have them write a brief statement about your product and pair it with a picture of them holding it.
On YouTube, you may have the influencer share a video of them using your product while explaining why they love it.
On any social media platform, you can also have an influencer host a contest or giveaway with your products or share coupon codes.
Social Media Influencer Example
Tabitha Brown is an actor and vegan influencer who gained popularity on TikTok and Instagram through her buoyant personality. Her 3.9M followers on Instagram are health-conscious individuals who enjoy learning about Brown’s vegan recipes, lifestyle, and life advice.
Recently, Brown partnered with plant-based meal company Orro and posted an image on Twitter of her pouring one of their products into a glass.
The post directs the audience to the website, where they can learn more about the brand and discover their line of products.
Because Brown is such a vital figure in the plant-based, vegan community, she was a great partner for the brand via influencer marketing. She has a strong community of non-vegan followers who enjoy her personality and content. This allows Orro to reach multiple personas potentially.
7. Key Opinion Leader
Key opinion leaders (KOLs) are high-level experts on a specialized topic within a particular field. For example, a KOL might specialize in makeup application, the Paleo lifestyle, or Bikram yoga.
A KOL is an excellent option if your business wants to attract audience members in a specialized field. Due to their expert knowledge on a particular topic, KOLs are trusted contributors in their industries and have followers of people who are also invested in those subjects.
KOL Example
Kandee Johnson is a makeup influencer with over 3.9 subscribers on YouTube and over 1.8 million followers on Instagram.
She’s a makeup artist pro — her expert knowledge of makeup application makes her a key opinion leader in the makeup and cosmetic industry. Kandee shares thousands of makeup tutorials, tips and tricks, and product reviews on YouTube and Instagram.
She has shared sponsored content for BoxyCharm — a subscription service that provides customers with several new beauty products every month — promoting their service and her favorite products in the box among her millions of followers and fans.
BoxyCharm’s target audience includes lovers of beauty products, cosmetics, and makeup, which works with Kandee’s massive base of followers. They had Kandee share a post with one of their boxes, describe which products inside she was most excited about, and tag them in her post.
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Let’s dive into how you can create an influencer marketing strategy for your business. This strategy will allow you to manage all aspects of your relationship with an influencer. It’ll also ensure they’re successful in helping you achieve your campaign goals.
1. Determine your campaign goals.
The first step is to create goals for your influencer marketing strategy — these will help you measure the success of your campaign. Think about your objectives in terms of SMART goals.
When developing influencer marketing SMART goals, there are three factors to remember: reach, relevance, and resonance. These will help you focus your goals on the different aspects of influencer marketing.
Use a free template to determine your SMART goals.
- Reach is the ability to deliver content to your target audience through an influencer — it helps you improve brand and product awareness. For example, how many people on Instagram see the content an influencer posts about your product?
- Relevance is the level of connection your audience feels to your brand, product, or service due to an influencer’s work — it’ll help you enhance brand loyalty. For example, if your audience sees a celebrity they love and admire with your product, they might feel strongly connected to it.
- Resonance is the ability to drive audience members to a specific action because of an influencer’s content — it’s all about impact and memorability. Resonance helps you increase your follower count, drive traffic to your site, and boost conversions. For example, if your audience reads a blog post written by an influencer about your product, they may click on the link in the blog post that directs them to your website so they can buy it.
2. Define your campaign audience.
Regardless of which type of influencer you work with, your target audience will remain the same. Different influencers may have different ways of connecting with your audience, but your business’s overall marketing goals and buyer personas don’t change.
Before moving forward with your influencer marketing strategy, work with your marketing team to develop and learn about your buyer personas.
This will help you identify the exact type of customer you’re going after and, therefore, help you determine what kind of influencer and content will appeal most to them to ensure your target audience is aligned with that of the influencer.
Learn how to build buyer personas for your business.
3. Set your budget and choose your influencer type.
Based on our review of the six major types of influencers, you should be able to determine which type will work best for your business’s goals and target audience. From there, you can start building a budget.
For example, if you’re a startup with a low budget, you might choose to work with a micro-influencer. If you’re a mid-sized company with more resources, you might decide to bring on a celebrity influencer or work with a KOL who’s highly regarded in their industry.
HubSpot Blog Research found that marketers typically pay between $501 and $10K for nano, micro-influencers, and macro-influencers, with $10K+ budgets reserved for mostly mega influencers.
According to the survey, roughly 90% of marketers have a budget for influencer marketing, with 45% allocating between $100K to $500K.
4. Get familiar with FTC guidelines
Yes, there are guidelines, and you must follow them for your brand, reputation, and legality. The Federal Trade Commission has rules in place to prevent issues such as false advertising and scams.
One rule is that influencers cannot hide their “material connections” to a brand they endorse. It must also be clear when content is an ad versus a genuine post.
For example, if an influencer happens to find a perfume they really like and decide to talk about it on their platform, it may not count as an ad if they don’t have a deal with that brand.
However, if the brand is paying the influencer to discuss and endorse their perfume, the influencer needs to state the content is an ad. That’s why some influencers use “#Ad” in their posts.
Click here to learn more about FTC guidelines.
5. Choose your influencer and review their work.
Once you’ve determined the type of influencer you want to work with, it’s time to identify the right influencer for your company.
Quality of content and engagement are the top two factors marketers review when considering an influencer on social media, according to a 2021 survey from HubSpot Blog Research. Surprisingly, follower count falls fifth, behind alignment with company values and branding.
However, this aligns with recent data showing that brands care less about the size of influencers’ following, as they give more weight to other elements.
When considering someone for a campaign, ask yourself (and the influencer) the following questions:
- Does this influencer and their lifestyle fit my brand image?
- Have they worked with any of my competitors?
- Who is this influencer’s current audience?
- Is my target audience active on the platform/channel primarily used by this influencer?
- Does working with this influencer make sense for my budget?
- Has this influencer used any of my products or services before? Are they a customer?
- Does this person have a personality I want to work with?
- What will this influencer expect from me?
6. Develop your campaign messaging for your influencer.
Once you’ve chosen an influencer, it’s time to plug them into your campaign. Work with your marketing team to develop your campaign messaging and determine what content your influencer should (and should not) publish.
Be sure to share your brand guidelines — including details about your brand voice, tag lines, and language to avoid — with your influencers so they can remain on-brand with their content. Remember, whether an influencer posts about your product or service once or 100 times, they still represent your brand and business. Ensure they have the tools to do so accurately.
In this stage, you should also determine whether your influencer will be creating content for your campaign on their own or if you’ll be providing the content for them to post.
Lastly, discuss how they will help you boost traffic with their content and which target metrics you can expect per post or piece of content.
7. Finalize campaign expectations with your influencer.
Finally, review your expectations for them and any expectations they have for you. Remember, your chosen influencer may have worked with other brands before yours — meaning they may already have their processes for doing business.
Additionally, their expectations will differ depending on the type of influencer they are. For example, a micro-influencer will have different expectations for how you communicate with them versus a celebrity. A micro-influencer may speak directly with you, whereas a star may have an agent share on their behalf.
Lastly, you’ll want to ensure these expectations are written, agreed upon, and signed by you and the influencer — you can organize all of this information through an influencer contract. This will help you avoid any issues and discrepancies down the road.
To help get the ball rolling, here are some examples of the expectations to review:
- How this influencer will be paid or rewarded (money, swag, discounts, coupon codes, etc.)
- How long you’ll be working together
- How you and the influencer will be communicating with each other
- Any other terms of contract necessary for your specific business to review
8. Pay your influencer.
Influencers don’t work for free.
You’ll need to discuss compensation early so you can both be on the same page about what the work will entail if you decide to move forward.
If you’re a small company with little to no influencer budget, there are still ways to collaborate with influencers. You can offer:
- Swag (such as clothing, accessories, or product samples)
- Free products and/or services
- Access to discount codes and coupons
9. Measure your campaign results.
Lastly, you must measure your influencer marketing strategy results. This is how you’ll determine the level of success you’ve had in reaching your audience with the help of the influencer.
According to data from a 2021 HubSpot Blog Research survey, revenue is the most crucial metric to marketers when measuring the impact of an influencer campaign.
To start, refer back to the SMART goals you set (as well as influencer marketing metrics) to help you determine whether or not you’ve achieved your objectives.
Here’s more detail on which metrics you’ll want to keep an eye on when measuring your influencer marketing strategy success:
- Engagement: Keep an eye on all engagement involving content shared by the influencer about your brand and products. Engagement includes interactions such as Likes, shares, Comments, Retweets, Mentions, Direct Messages, and Reposts on social media, blogs, and forums.
- Reach: Determine your reach, or how many people see your influencer’s content about your brand, by looking at your overall number of views.
- Resonance: Learn about the level of resonance — or the actions completed — by your audience members after they consume and/ or interact with the influencer’s content involving your brand.
- Brand Awareness: Measure your brand awareness among the audience members of your influencer as they begin sharing content related to your brand. There are quantitative ways to measure your brand awareness, such as direct traffic and social engagement, and qualitative — such as social listening and awareness surveys.
- Clicks: Review the number of clicks on the influencer’s content about your brand, whether it’s a direct link to your website, a CTA, a social media giveaway, or a signup form.
- Conversions: Calculate your conversions (the number of leads who become customers) from your influencer marketing strategy. You can calculate conversions on your website or through URLs (such as discount/ checkout codes found on the influencer’s social media account or blog) by dividing your conversions by your overall number of visitors.
- Return on Investment (ROI): Calculate the return on your influencer marketing investment by dividing the return (or benefit) by the cost of the influencer marketing investment.
- Follower Count: Track the increase and decrease of your number of social media followers or blog subscribers over time to see whether or not the influencer is helping you boost your follower and/or subscriber count.
In terms of measuring the success of the influencer’s work, Meltwater’s Influencer Marketing Suite, BuzzStream, and BuzzSumo both have analytics tools built into the software to help you measure the success of the influencer’s work.
You can also opt for a BuzzStream or BuzzSumo alternative with similar analytics software. These types of software are beneficial in determining ROI from your influencer marketing strategy.
Google Analytics is excellent for tracking overall traffic directed to your website and the number of leads converted. The software profoundly examines acquisition, behavior, and conversions related to an influencer and your visitors.
For example, if you ask the influencer to conduct a giveaway or contest, look at the number of people participating. Say you give the influencer a discount code for audience members to use at checkout and see how many people used it to make a purchase.
If you provide the influencer with specific URLs with tags to particular posts or landing pages, you can also track their performance by looking at the number of leads directed to those pages.
Now, onto measuring influencer marketing success on social media. HubSpot’s Social Tool can help you pull specific engagement-related data from various platforms, like reach and interactions.
Your respective social platforms may also have built-in analytics tools, such as X Analytics and Instagram Insights.
Do you still need some inspiration for your influencer marketing strategy? Let’s look at three successful strategies implemented by major companies.
Influencer Marketing Examples
Your business can look to many successful influencer marketing campaigns for guidance when trying to think of ways to reach your target audience. Here are a few examples:
1. Hydro Flask and Andrea Hannemann, Social Media Influencer
Andrea Hannemann, more commonly known as @earthyandy, is a social media influencer based in Hawaii.
Her account, which has over one million followers, depicts her life — she’s a vegan, earth-conscious, and outdoorsy mom and wife.
She has an affinity for clean eating, cooking, and plant-based foods and products. Andrea regularly posts beautiful pictures and videos of her lifestyle and diet (which her kids and husband participate in) and receives hundreds of thousands of interactions on her posts.
Andrea was featured in a video sponsored by Hydro Flask, which she posted on her Instagram page, showing how the reusable, insulated, and functional water bottle fits into her life. The post was also a giveaway, receiving close to 400,000 likes and over 40,000 comments.
Hydro Flask identified a social media influencer whose lifestyle and content fit their branding and image and conducted a highly successful giveaway. The post increased their brand awareness among Andrea’s one million followers.
It also helped move traffic from Andrea’s page to the Hydro Flask Instagram page, as her post included several links taking audience members directly there to learn more about the company.
2. Dunkin and Ben Affleck, Celebrity Influencer
Ben Affleck is known to walk around Hollywood sets or on the streets with Dunkin products in hand. Recently the coffee and donut company teamed up with the award-winning actor for a series of commercials, ads, and funny videos to promote their products.
In 2023, the company added another celebrity to their ads — rapper Ice Spice.
3. American Express and Leo Chan, Social Media Influencer
Leo Chan is a famous fashion blogger with over 100K followers on Instagram. over one million subscribers. He also has a popular lifestyle blog called Levitate Style.
As part of a paid partnership with American Express, Chan posted on Instagram to outline the benefits of having an AMEX card while putting it in the context of his day-to-day adventures.
This is an excellent example of how brands can pair up with influencers who match the audience they’re attempting to reach.
How Influencer Marketing Will Change in 2024
Innovative industries are continuously changing; influencer marketing is no different. Influencers and marketers are finding new ways to reach audiences and promote products.
As we move into the new year, there are five critical ways that influencer marketing will be changing. Make a note of these changes as you adapt your marketing strategy.
-
AI will become more prominent in influencer marketing.
Meta is paying A-list celebrities like Paris Hilton, Naomi Osaka, Snoop Dogg, and TikToker Charli D’Amelio millions of dollars to use their likeness for fictional AI chatbots. While Meta is making headlines for the move, it’s not the only sign AI will become more integrated in influencer marketing.
Influencer marketing platform Upfluence recently incorporated ChatGPT into its program for advanced messaging features. Furthermore, many creators generate digital characters to act as influencers online or interact with followers.
2. Micro-influencers will have a more significant impact.
Micro-influencers may seem like the most minor players in the influencer marketing game, but they pack the biggest punch.
Our most recent State of Marketing Report shows that micro-influencers produce better results than mega-influencers. That’s because as influencers become more popular, sometimes their engagement goes down.
So, it’s no surprise that 64% of marketers worked with micro-influencers last year while only 27% worked with mega-influencers.
According to HubSpot Blog Research, brands must consider follower count when considering influencers. It’s more about the quality of their content and their engagement rates.
Micro-influencers will likely have more influence than celebrities in the future.
3. Influencer activity will extend across multiple platforms.
A recent HubSpot Blog Research survey found that Instagram is the most popular place for influencer marketing. However, surprisingly, the platform does not bring in the highest ROI.
Turns out, that’s Facebook.
This doesn’t mean that Instagram is fading into the background anytime soon. However, it seems more brands are expanding beyond Instagram and considering how other channels can support their marketing efforts.
As a result, influencers are diversifying their platforms and building followings on YouTube, Pinterest, Facebook, X, Threads, and more.
Influencers and content creators have always maintained a presence on multiple platforms, but successful influencers will have audiences that follow them across various accounts.
4. Employees and customers will become influencers.
We’ve talked about the power of marketing through your customers, but have you considered how powerful your customers could be as influencers? Customers are people who already know about, like, and own your product; this makes for an easy transition from customer advocacy to customer influence.
The same goes for your employees — people who’ve invested time and creativity into growing your business. This factor alone gives your staff genuine credibility.
Employees can be natural advocates as people already engaged with developing your product or service. In the coming year, we’ll see the rise of these two parties as brand influencers.
5. Businesses will invest in long-term relationships, not one-off campaigns.
You‘ve read about it in this guide — identifying and connecting with the right influencer can be tough and expensive. In the past, brands usually hired influencers for one-time campaigns. However, as we move into a new year, we’ll likely see brands building long-term relationships instead.
This effort saves marketers time, energy, and money and allows the influencer to build trust with and significantly impact a brand’s audience.
Long-term relationships with influencers also increase credibility for whatever product or service the influencer is marketing.
Kickstart Your Influencer Marketing Strategy
Influencer marketing has become increasingly popular for brands to invest in. With the rise of word-of-mouth marketing and social proof, it’s a great way to connect with audience members, enhance brand awareness, and boost conversions.
By identifying the type of influencer best suited for your business and developing an influencer marketing strategy, you’ll improve your reach among potential customers.
So, begin developing your business’s plans for incorporating influencers in your marketing tactics today so they can help you build new and lasting relationships with your target audience.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in May 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
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