What is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing is nothing new. It’s a new concept built on an old foundation. You can think of it as a digitized form of word-of-mouth recommendations. Social media revitalized this marketing method and took it on a bigger level than was ever possible.
Influencer marketing involves brands working in collaboration with relevant online influencers to get them to shout out your product/brand. The aim is to tap into their creative mind and an already engaged audience to develop brand advocacy in a natural, organic, and authentic way.
Think of it like a friend recommending you a movie or a product or a holiday destination. You use that recommendation because you trust their judgment. Influencer marketing works in essentially the same way wherein it targets a like-minded audience of people in a way that influences their buying decisions and their perceptions about a brand.
This post by SPOPLI Web Development & Services talks about who influencers are and how to best use an influencer campaign.
Who are the Influencers?
The beauty of social media and social influencers is that they belong to all kinds of niches imaginable. They connect with people all around the world as well. Classic examples of influencers include personal trainers who share their workout routines or a fashion blogger showing off their style. Other examples are interior designers displaying their portfolio and travel bloggers sharing their adventures through posts. Even chefs sharing their recipes fall under the same category.
Most of these influencers have millions of followers. Some of them have even way more followers than traditional celebs. The beauty is that these influencers are viewed by the followers a little differently. The connection they share is more informal, personal, and relatable as the former share their everyday life in a carefree routine.
When an influencer collaborates with a brand, their opinion/recommendation will be taken much more seriously. An influencer’s recommendation also sounds much more genuine than that of a typical celeb.
Influencer Marketing in 5 Steps
1. Do Your Legwork
Start by looking at how your competitors are doing it. Look into other brands as well who don’t necessarily belong to the same niche but have a similar demographic.
2. Set a Clear Brief
An influencer marketing campaign is more likely to be successful if you give the person the creative freedom with which to produce content. They have a better knowledge of what kind of content audiences will love.
Although it’s important for you to have a template or a mock-up of details to share, letting the influencer work with creative freedom is the heart of influencer marketing. Influencers are mostly able to create a more authentic and engaging campaign so don’t be rigid in terms of which exact caption, image, or the very last hashtag to use. At the same time, be sure of how exactly you want the audiences influenced.
3. Pick the Right Influencers
Once you know what the goal of influencer marketing is, you next need to pick from the relevant influencers. Be sure to do your research because the wrong decision could cost you a lot.
No matter which niche you belong to (fashion, travel, make-up, lifestyle, fitness, etc.) you will generally have several options. One way to find influencers is to look at other brands’ accounts in your niche. See which of the posts credit someone as the creator. You can also use Instagram Hashtag Search to look for high engagement posts.
4. Have an Agreeable Collaborative Structure
After you have shortlisted the right influencers, next you will need to reach out to them. That’s where you need a collaborative structure to stick with. These are the 6 main aspects where negotiating will be important.
Time frame - Talk about the deadline and the publishing schedule.
Output - You need to be clear about exactly what kind of content you want them to produce. It’s standard for influencers to produce a 2-piece content one of which is published on their own account while the other goes on the brand’s account published at the brand’s discretion.
Content Usage - This ] is about the content usage rights. While most influencers will retain the ownership as original creators, you can always tweak things.
Payment - Some influencers may offer the service free in exchange for a product or as part of their experience. But, you should (almost always) expect to make some payment.
Campaign goals - Do you want to increase your followers or the number of clicks through their IG bio? Do you want to increase sales or simply brand awareness? It’s important to work these things out from the get-go in order to have everything work in alignment with your campaign efforts.
How to Maximize Content Value?
You can repurpose your sponsored IG content to gain the maximum value out of it. You can do so by sharing them across other channels.
- Publish The Content on Product Page
You can use the same piece of content and put it on your website or product page section. This is an excellent way to add social proof which increases your trustworthiness factor. Many brands witness improvement in their conversion when they repurpose the content on their product page.
- Use it as a Facebook Ad
One of the easiest ways to refresh your ad units is to use the influencer’s content as the ad itself. You may see a drastic improvement in the conversion rate with this one simple trick.
- Publish on Social Media
It’s a good practice to repurpose the same piece of content across other social media channels that you may have accounts on.
In Conclusion
When used properly - influencer marketing is one of the finest, most cost-effective ways to engage an audience, source quality content, and develop brand trustworthiness.