Influencer marketing

A decade ago, the influencer marketing space was dominated by celebrities and a few devoted bloggers. Now, it appears that we’ve seen social media influencers increase, saturate the market, and even become involved in fraud.

Influencer marketing strategies are more difficult to navigate as a brand than ever before, but we’re here to help.

Continue reading to find out if influencer marketing is right for you.

What exactly is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is a type of social media marketing that relies on endorsements and product mentions from influencers individuals who have a large social following and are regarded as experts in their field. Influencer marketing works because social influencers have a high level of trust with their followers, and recommendations from them serve as a form of social proof to your brand’s potential customers.

The Importance of Influencer Marketing

While Instagram influencer marketing is a well-known strategy, there are many other networks for influencers that are growing in popularity. This industry will be worth $10 billion by 2020. Other networks, such as Snapchat, YouTube, and TikTok, have their own set of influencers with varying demographics.

How to Plan an Influencer Marketing Campaign

An influencer program, like any other marketing tactic, necessitates careful targeting and planning. You won’t achieve strategic success simply by giving away freebies to everyone who asks or to your existing friends and acquaintances.

1. Where to find influencers and how much to pay them

The first step, as with any strategy, is research. Choose the platform on which you want to focus first. You can always branch out to other platforms later, but if you’re just getting started, stick to one. Ideally, your brand should already be present on this network or be looking to expand its presence there.

If you’re not sure where to start, social listening can help you identify where people are talking about your industry and brand as well as the most influential voices in your industry on each platform. To learn more, read our guide to social listening.

Consider the expected ROI of your social influencer marketing campaign: how will you measure the contributions of influencer posts to your overall marketing goals? One approach could be to compare your expectations for influencers to those of other firms, for example, consider how you might budget for a video production firm’s work in creating an ad for you versus an influencer creating a video. It may appear at first that judging the value of influencers is unpredictable, but this approach will provide you with a familiar point of comparison and contrast. Research is essential, and you’ll find yourself returning to it frequently throughout the process.

2. Establish a budget and a management strategy.

Now that you have an idea of how much to pay influencers, you must create a budget. Remember to include time for planning, executing, and reviewing your influencer program. A successful influencer marketing campaign is not a one-and-done strategy. It will necessitate careful monitoring and follow-up.

In contrast to a more automated ad strategy, influencers are human and frequently juggling multiple partnerships, so some may fall behind on their commitments to post on time or make errors in your requested tags or calls to action. You’ll need to take the time to be more hands-on with these relationships in order to cultivate them, and you’ll need to learn from experience what works and what doesn’t in your niche.

Consider establishing a formal ambassador program if you have the time and resources. Fujifilm uses its ambassadors to promote new products and supplement its content. With a plethora of photographers and videographers at their disposal, the company is able to diversify its feed in order to showcase what its equipment is capable of.

Hiring an influencer marketing agency to do the research and coordination for you is a good bet for brands that need a larger pool of influencers.

3. Establish objectives and a message

The two most common reasons for using influencer marketing are to raise brand awareness and increase sales. Instead of setting these broad targets as your two goals, it will be more effective to begin your strategy by focusing on what your brand’s needs are. Perhaps you want to expand your customer base to a younger demographic. Or you want to introduce a new product to a new user group. Alternatively, you may wish to forego trends in favor of utilizing influencers to discuss your brand’s values.

Influencers have the ability to reach out to very specific audiences. Instead of relying on thousands of followers, influencers will assist you in ensuring that a very targeted audience who is likely to be interested in your product reads and engages with your content.

4. Outreach to Influencers: How to Contact Influencers

Back to the first step: research. With a strategy in place based on your network, goals and the types of influencers you want to work with, we can return to researching how to find the right influencers to work with.

Keep the following in mind as you conduct your research:

Is the influencer already posting about topics related to your service? For example, if you’re a restaurant looking to promote a new menu, look for influencers who regularly post about dining out and the food they eat.

Are they genuine? This includes scrolling through their feed and clicking on posts. A low engagement to follower ratio and spam-like comments are indicators of a fraudulent account.

You can also use Twitter analytics tools to find potential influencers for your campaigns.

Next, decide how you’ll reach out to them. You could reach out to micro-influencers directly in a private message on the same platform. Click around their profile for more established ones, and they may list contact information for business inquiries in their bio. They may also include a link to a website that indicates brand partnerships.

5. Evaluate and improve your strategy

Even if your influencer marketing campaign is ongoing, you should still have set dates for measuring its success. The following section of this guide will go over how to track your results. Not all campaigns are successful, but with each one you create, you should learn something new.

So, Influencers are here to stay, but the way the world of influencer marketing looks and operates has changed dramatically in a short period of time, and the world of influencer marketing in five years may look very different from today. This guide will assist you in developing your strategy, but as with any social strategy, you must be prepared for change.

Nonetheless, while working with influencers has some unique considerations, the process of creating a campaign is similar to that of most marketing campaigns: research, set a budget, determine goals, find your influencers, and review and revise.

Author – Hiruni Kalinga