5 Tips To Ace Influencer Marketing For Your Business
When was the last time you bought something after seeing an advertisement in the newspaper? It’s been so long. Right? From being the most popular source of influencing people to buy, print advertising now affects the purchase decisions of only 45% of people. Since it was the same for almost 50 years, things kind of turned around when the internet entered.
Today, we have the freedom to choose what to watch on social media like Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, and more. It is not shocking to know that an average person spends about 2.27 hours on social media every day, and this is mainly because of the influence creators come up with on these apps. No wonder why 71% of consumers are making their purchase decisions based on these social media referrals.
The influencer industry, the key of social media, is something that helps brand expand their reach and have more conversions. Although, why influencers? Influencers are the trusted names in a niche and have genuine followers. Undoubtedly, they possess the knowledge and experience to advertise companies’ products within their niche.
Back in 2021, companies grew by 26% via influencer marketing. Sounds pretty intimidating, but the truth is, not every company was on that list of success.
Sure, you are into influencer marketing, but it isn’t working out that well for you. We are here with some amazing insights and tips that will completely change the influencer marketing game for you.
Dive into these tips and ace up your next influencer marketing campaign.
Source: financesonline
Tip 1: Have influencer-authentic content
Relatability is what makes influencers a lot different from celebrities. When we see an ad on television, we know that the celebrity promoting it is not actually using the product in real life. However, when it comes to an influencer in a niche, they live and work their lives around products like that. This is the reason why people actually trust the authenticity of content that these influencers create.
As a brand, you have an important job, too, while planning and creating the content for influencers. The content should match the tone and style of the influencer to make it look real to the audience. Otherwise, an off-track post will put the audience-influencer bond at risk and, subsequently, affect the entire purpose of your company’s influencer marketing.
Keep the post clean and make it relatable for your brand, influencer, and audience. Besides, if the tone and style of the influencer are not up to your expectations, you can always look for a different one in your industry.
Tip 2: Maintain a relationship that goes a long way
Brands often stop contacting influencers once the campaign comes to an end. Sounds familiar? Just like yours, many brands out there think that an influencer they hired last year may not fulfill the purpose of an upcoming campaign leaving behind the desire and time to build the camaraderie. After all, influencer marketing is just a little piece of the pie and not the whole marketing dessert!
You may take it lightly, but the short-term relationship with the influencer may put your brand image on the edge. Even though two-thirds of marketers struggle to find the right influencers for their marketing campaign, those who have it would want to keep them in the long run without any doubt.
Ivonne Kinser, the director of the digital strategy and innovation for Avocados from Mexico, truly understands the importance of keeping influencers in touch with the company. She says, “We constantly engage with them to nurture the relationship, so each of their impressions is more efficient than any purchased impressions… If we put a price tag on the impressions they brought to us, that would be around $2 million, so it’s pretty cost-efficient.”
One main reason for you to build a months-long, if not years, relationship with your potential influencer is trust. If they care about your brand, they would want to talk about your products more often. This will build the growing trust of followers towards your brand via influencers. Besides, you can send a text, react to their post, or share it to let them know that you care. You got the point. Right?
Now, there are many other ways to build a stronger relationship with the influencers. The next point is about one sincere thing you can adapt.
Source: traackr
Tip 3: Involve influencers in other activities
It is always best to take the influencer-brand relationship beyond the sponsored posts and a few clicks. The best way to actually involve legit influencers in your company’s marketing team is to include them in more marketing activities.
Now, because influencers are the experts in the industry just like you, there are numerous benefits if you consider them with your other marketing activities. For instance, they can help you understand the final user’s needs and wants more deeply. Not to mention, they are the right path through which you can build trust with the audience because they will observe that the creator is actually involved in your other marketing decisions as well.
While we are considering having influencers in other marketing tactics, you must do this only to the point where it makes sense. If it is not going with the style and story of the brand you want to create, it should be a big NO. Anyway, that all depends on your marketing research and planning, so you need to be quite particular about that.
Tip 4: Be true to the audience
How often do you see your favorite YouTuber telling you that some brand sponsors the video? Do you know why it is important? It’s because being honest with the audience is a way of trust-building.
According to a Consumer Bias survey, one-third of millennials buy the product after being influenced by sponsored ads. Besides, if the product is something that is of interest to the viewers, they would be intimidated by the ad as well. Where most people would just ignore such sponsored content, 75% of consumers will engage with the ad of their interest no matter if that is sponsored or not. Therefore, irrespective of what you do, being super honest with your market should be a priority.
When you are working with an influencer or multiple influencers at once, make sure you mark the content as ‘sponsored’. There are many ways to do that, but the most effective one is using hashtags like #sponsored #presentedby or #promotedby. Moreover, it applies to every sponsored content creator’s post on social media, and it doesn’t matter if that is a per postpay or free gift type marketing contract.
Source: publicfast
Tip 5: Micro-influencers are the way to go
You must be wondering, ‘how many followers make an influencer worth a shot?‘, In the beginning, you will be surely more thrilled by Brad Pitt or the Kardashian-sister’s level influencers. However, there is one thing you must keep in mind – more followers do not mean more influence.
HelloSociety has found that ‘micro’-influencers or accounts with 30,000 or fewer followers are more beneficial for marketers to work with. They get you 60% higher engagement rates, are 6.7 times more cost-effective, and create 22 times more social buzz. This may seem too much, but here micro-influencers are actually more loyal, brand relevant, niched-down, and have more trusted and genuine followers.
Micro-influencers are unlimited, and there wouldn’t be much effort in trying to get them into your marketing campaign. However, seeing such a big number of influencers on social media may seem overwhelming, which is why you can always take help from a tool or agency. No matter what, you’ll see better results and would save a lot because these influencers are not money-hungry but want to build a network. As a result, it’s a win-win deal.
Conclusion
Despite being one of the leading marketing strategies, influencer marketing is still being neglected as an ineffective marketing technique. There can be many reasons behind this disappointment, but the major one is not being too strategic about it.
Influencer marketing will be a multi-billion dollar industry in the upcoming years. Where millions of brands are already in the race to make the best out of it, you must ace your game right away to stay in the competition. Therefore, these tips are here to make your influencer marketing experience a lot better.
We are sure these 5 tips must have triggered the marketer in you and you probably would have come up with some exciting ideas for your next campaign. Meanwhile, we’ll come back with more insights on influencer marketing and how to improve your game.
