Working with influencers – The Do’s and Don’ts
Do:
- Form long-term relationships
Your goal should be finding influencers who will have the potential to become brand ambassadors. Not only will those create more trust within your targeted audience, but they will also consistently promote your brand when new products or features are launched.
- Provide them with enough information and time to create content
Content creation takes time, so the more clear and concise your influencer brief is, the better. Make sure to be patient and set realistic expectations depending on which type of content and influencer you’re working with, as most are probably also working with other brands and have their content schedule to adhere to.
While it’s important to set boundaries and expectations, remember you’re collaborating with creative individuals. Influencers often create their content from scratch, so they may even be able to assist you in creating a successful campaign.
- Be transparent about your brand goals
It’s always a good idea to share your long-term marketing goals with the influencers you choose to work with. They might be able to provide you with insights or feedback depending on their experience working with brands similar to yours.
Don’t:
Depending on your marketing pursuits, you may only consider working with certain types of influencers or even be tempted to stick to ones with a large audience. However, those may not always bring the best out of your campaign. So, keep an open mind and consider working with influencers of all sizes to accommodate your brand awareness and engagement goals.
- Offer “exposure” instead of proper payment for their work
An unfortunately common phenomenon in the industry is to offer influencers “exposure” instead of the payment they deserve for their work. For obvious reasons, this does not respect the time and work they’ve put into the project. Simply put, treat social media influencers as who they are – working professionals providing valuable services for your brand.
- Only focus on the obvious metrics
While engagement and reach are definitely crucial metrics to keep track of when measuring the success of your influencer marketing campaign, there are many more that are just as significant and should be considered, such as brand mentions, use of campaign hashtags, post shares, and more.
- Approach them with a generic message
Most influencers you’ll be approaching to collaborate with are probably receiving hundreds, if not thousands, of brand sponsorship offers. So, knowing how to approach them can be just as important as any other part of your marketing campaign. Consider personalizing each message to the specific influencer you’re trying to reach. Explain how and why you’ve chosen to approach them. If possible, reference an article or a post they’ve posted that resonated with your brand’s values. Then, provide some insight into what your brand is all about, and establish the offer. If they don’t reply, you can try sending a follow-up message or email, but after that, it would be best to move on to the next influencer on your list.
Social Media Influencer Marketing – Instagram, Facebook & TikTok
We’ve broken down what influencer marketing is and the types of influencers you can use to reach your marketing goals. Now, it’s time to discuss some of the most popular social media platforms to utilize in your next influencer marketing campaign.
Instagram Influencer Marketing
With its immense focus on photo and video sharing, over 1.440 billion users, and 800 million unique monthly users worldwide, Instagram is an effective platform for engaging audiences. It has an impressive 0.56 percent engagement rate for posts done by business accounts and has also recently started incorporating branded content tools such as the paid partnership tag.
Using Instagram for your influencer marketing efforts over other social platforms provides the potential to reach its largest age group of users – aged 25 to 34, a demographic that responds well to influencer marketing.
Instagram Influencer Marketing Case Study
There are plenty of effective influencer marketing campaigns on the platform we can learn from when creating our own. Take Sony’s Linkbuds influencer marketing campaign on the platform as an example. The brand cleverly collaborated with a diverse selection of influencers, from tech enthusiasts to ASMR creators, to showcase the variety of ways potential customers can enjoy their new earbuds. So, what can we learn from Sony’s successful influencer marketing campaign?
It’s essential to keep an open mind and approach influencer marketing from a creative standpoint. Although you should identify and often stick to your business niche, it can be quite beneficial to branch out and experiment with different types of influencers that can bring the best out of your product or service and show its diversity. Check out our ultimate guide to Instagram influencer marketing to learn more.
Facebook Influencer Marketing
Facebook continues to be the top social media platform for individuals between the ages of 25 and 34. With over 79 billion active users, it remains a top contender for influencer marketing in the social media sphere. The platform offers many marketing tools that can help boost your brand’s campaigns, from branded content labels to groups, live features, and more.
Besides its sheer audience size potential, the platform’s most significant selling point for influencer marketing is the existence of particular niches. You can filter through audience interest tags to find communities revolving around your targeted topic, discover groups and pages that discuss them, and get involved by reaching out to influencers who are dominating those spaces.
Facebook Influencer Marketing Case Study
While your choices of influencers and marketing strategies can depend on your brand goals, a lot can be learned from brands that have succeeded on the platform. A notable example of a brand that got it right is one of the world’s leading athletic apparel companies, Nike.
Nike collaborates with athletes of all sizes and specialties to showcase the brand’s diversity. It utilizes user-generated content (UGC) but mainly presents well-known athletes on the brand’s official pages, Facebook Shops, and groups. This strategy works best on Facebook as the platform heavily promotes branded content (and could present some challenges when working with smaller influencers). So, what can we learn from Nike’s successful influencer marketing campaign?
Suppose you’re a brand looking to start an influencer marketing campaign on Facebook. In that case, it would be important to acknowledge that the platform favors working with macro, or more “traditional” influencers, such as celebrities and athletes.
Additionally, you should use Facebook’s branded content tools to maximize your brand’s visibility on the platform. Want to learn how to create a winning Facebook influencer marketing campaign? Then head over to our complete guide to Facebook Influencer Marketing.
TikTok Influencer Marketing
Compared to the longer-form and more polished types of videos we often see on Instagram or YouTube influencer marketing strategies, TikTok promotes organic, natural, and highly engaging videos that caught the eyes of the younger generations, who were the first to establish the app’s massive success. Today, the app’s algorithm is more sophisticated than ever, delivering unique content which accommodates the viewer’s interests, demographics, language preferences, device type, and much more.
Unlike many other social media platforms, TikTok provides micro-influencers and small businesses a lot of opportunities to grow their following and become popular very quickly, depending on how good the content they put out there is. The algorithm heavily rewards creators for producing entertaining, relevant content. It focuses much less on the number of followers they may have at the time.
TikTok Influencer Marketing Case Study
A brand that does influencer marketing on TikTok exceptionally well is the ever-popular Mexican fast-food chain, Chipotle. The brand collaborates with and features influencers on its page to showcase signature dishes and present new ones in creative and humorous ways. This strategy resulted in a community of over 2 million followers who enjoy interacting with the page’s content. So, what can we learn from Chipotle’s TikTok influencer marketing campaign?
The takeaway from this campaign is that TikTok should be treated as the light-hearted platform that it is. With an algorithm that favors creative, endearing, and shareable short-form videos and allows small creators to amass an audience in a relatively short time, the possibilities for effective influencer marketing campaigns are endless. You just need a little creativity and the right creators to make your brand shine. Make sure to read our guide to TikTok Influencer Marketing to learn more.
How to Create a Successful Influencer Marketing Campaign
Every social media platform is naturally different from its competitors. It has its specifications regarding which types of content, creators, and brands its algorithm will promote more than others. However, there are still some staple steps you can take when creating a winning influencer marketing campaign that can be applied to any social media platform.
1. Research Your Business Niche and Audience
These days, influencer marketing content is becoming much more personalized, making it so that successful brands are the ones that understand the intricacies of their audience and industry.
Conducting an influencer marketing campaign should always start with research. It can be as simple as knowing what you’re trying to sell, but, more importantly, who you’re trying to reach. Promoting to a niche market may initially seem like you’ll be missing out on reaching out to a larger audience, but it also always comes with a significant benefit – establishing your brand as an authority in its respective industry.
2. Specify Your Brand Goals
Getting clear on your goals is just as important as understanding your audience. To start, identify where your brand currently stands. Are you lacking in brand awareness? Or maybe you want to increase your online engagement to promote more sales? Defining these marketing goals will help you choose the right creators, budget, and platforms to promote your brand.
3. Utilize Influencer Marketing Platforms & Reach Out
Finding and reaching out to influencers can become overwhelming. Millions of creators are out there, and more are joining every day. It can be hard to know where to start. Luckily, many influencer marketing services are available to help you build briefs, create digital assets, contact creators and manage your KPIs to drive the best results for your brand’s campaign.
4. Measure Success using KPIs
Measuring success is essential for any marketing campaign, but it is especially vital when meeting the goals of influencer marketing campaigns. This is because sponsored content is typically posted through the influencers’ accounts rather than businesses’ accounts and therefore is harder to keep track of. This issue can be solved by setting up clear guidelines and goals before, during, and after the campaign launches.
There are plenty of ways to determine a successful influencer marketing campaign depending on your business goals. We recommend keeping track of the following key performance indicators (KPIs):
- Social Media Engagement
- Follower Growth
- Conversion Rate
- Website Visitors
- Leads
- Reach
FAQs
What is social media influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing uses key individuals, known as social media influencers, to drive a brand’s message to a new or existing audience.
Why should I use influencer marketing for my business?
Influencer marketing can help your brand reach new audiences or expand on existing ones within your business niche. They can also assist in raising brand awareness, engagement, and trust, all invaluable metrics for business success.
What is the difference between nano, micro, and macro influencers?
Nano influencers are everyday social media users with an online following of 100-10,000. Micro influencers have a relatively similar audience size, with anywhere between 1,000 to 10,000 followers, but tend to be more established content creators. Macro influencers are mostly celebrities who have amassed a large audience ranging from 100,000 to millions of followers through their offline pursuits (such as acting, performing, and more).
What is an influencer marketing agency, and why should I use it?
Influencer marketing agencies can provide you with the expertise and ease of finding the best influencers for your brand. They can help you work more efficiently and focus on the important things rather than waste a lot of time, money, and resources to research and connect with influencers. They will often assist you in building a full marketing strategy and even provide creative assets to capture your target audience’s attention.
How can I measure a successful influencer marketing campaign?
Setting and keeping track of the following key performance indicators (KPIs) can help you determine your influencer marketing campaign’s success: social media engagement rates, follower growth, post shares, and many more. Make sure to read our guide for the full list!
$150-$199/hr
51-100
Est. 2017
