This type of marketing is seen as a form of collaboration, a business will work with an influencer to promote something. This could be a product, service or the overall campaign. This post will delve into different forms of influencer marketing as well as how it can benefit your company.
Image credit: @tracy-le-blanc
Social Media Influencers
Around two-thirds of North American retailers use a form of influencer marketing to boost their sales. Celebrity influences are seen as the original form of influencer marketing but with the increase in social media popularity, there has been a decrease to only 28% of retailers using paid celebrity influencers.
Social Media Marketing may be a cheap way to reach your customers. However, using an influencer can increase the price depending on who you use and how many followers/fans they have occurred. This is a relatively new form of marketing that is ever-growing in this modern age. If this isn’t convincing enough; a survey found that 34% of daily U.S. Instagram users purchased a product after a blogger/influencers recommended it. This may be due to the swipe-up feature for Instagram stories which is available for accounts with 10,000 or more; they can link the product directly.
An influencer is someone who quite simply influencers others, this may be through social media or political talks to name a few. Picking the right influencer is crucial for your business if this is a form of digital marketing you chose to utilise. The right influencer can reach your target audience, build brand trust and drive engagement; while creating original content that is associated with your brand. The influencer needs to match your companies core values as they won’t be working with your marketing team to design their post.
6 Tips to Find and Keep the Right Influencer
1
TRUST IS KEY
The audience you are attempting to reach must trust and respect the opinion/values of the influencer you collaborate with. Without this trust foundation, your business will struggle to see any tangible impact on sales and/or brand reach. Look for how many views, likes, comments and shares that the post is receiving this will help shape the follower segments that you aim to reach. The loyal followers that are linked to the ‘trustworthy’ influencer you collaborate with may connect with your brand and transfer to your following as well.
Have a look at this example; whereby Calvin Klein makes use of celebrity influencers such as Shawn Mendes, Noah Centineo and Kendall Jenner in their #MyCalvins campaign. These influencers procced to post on their social media accounts hashtagging and @-ing Calvin Klein. They have used this type of marketing in an effective way by combining both a visual ad and social media campaign.
2
OBSERVE THEIR TECHNICAL SKILLS
It’s very easy for people to become an influencer but it’s not easy to become a successful influencer. Are they skilled in crisis management? Do they have knowledge of graphic design? These can be essential for them to increase their platforms and have a development in their own brand. If this is a strong brand your association with them can strengthen your own brand image.
3
PLAN YOUR BUDGET EFFECTIVELY
High reach influencers will mostly expect to be paid for their work; depending on their reach this can get very costly. Nano-influencers may do the same work for free but their reach will be a lot more niche, a larger influencer will require a bigger budget and may be used across many different social media platforms.
You can consider using an affiliate or commission payment structure rather than a front out flat fee.
A baseline formula can be considered as:
$100 x 10,000 followers + extras = total rate
4
LOOK FOR SPONSORSHIP SATURATION
Look into how many times they recently posed sponsored content on their platforms. If they are already subjecting their followers to a lot of paid posts, the engagement rate of said followers may have decreased over time. Thus reducing the reach of the influencer marketing technique. This is not to say that one cannot have any sponsored content; if they have a few then it can be inferred that they are a popular influencer.
5
ALLOW CREATIVE FREEDOM FOR THE INFLUENCER
The influencer you’ve chosen should resonate with your target audience, in line with your own values. If this is true and this influencer speaks to your brand’s mission/ethos; the influencer should be allowed to have creative freedom. The collaborative relationship with a said influencer may break down if you attempt to impose strict rules on them. Additionally, these guidelines may dampen the influencers spirits to work with you; thus resulting in a less engaging post, that won’t connect with their followers.
6
INVITE SAID INFLUENCERS TO BRAND EVENTS
These influencers can greatly benefit your business; they shouldn’t be thought of as a one-off opportunity. By continuing the relationship they will be more inclined to further promote your brand. An invitation to a brand event can result in them talking about your event on their media platforms, furthering your brand recognition and product promotion. These type of events can catch huge media attention; resulting in possible other influencers requesting a collaboration.
This blog had the purpose to discuss how one might go about Influencer Marketing; an ever-increasing form. Be conscious of the fact that the influencer need not have a massive following to make an impact on your business.
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Further Reading
- What is Influencer Marketing: An in Depth Look at Marketing’s Next Big Thing
- 7 Marketing Tips to Help Grow Your Brand on Instagram
- 36 Influencer Marketing Statistics to Shape Your 2019 Strategy