Influencer marketing is a marketing strategy where businesses can collaborate with bloggers, vloggers, celebrities, and other popular social media personalities. This can allow brands to reach a wider audience and showcase their products in a positive light. The audiences will buy via influencers who organically enjoy the product.
Influencers are people with a large follower base who are engaged and in constant interaction with their followers. Celebrity endorsements and influencer marketing work with the current generation of audiences because influencers are viewed as fellow consumers and have authenticity to their content.
Before starting the campaign, the first stage is to set up the objectives. The objectives must be decided well and presented to aid in the planning and execution of the campaign.
The objectives should be,
● Measurable
● Achievable
● Time-bound
● Relevant
● Defined
Now let’s talk about why brands choose influencer marketing over other traditional and more conventional methods. Here are some factors that should be considered as reasons to use influencer marketing for your business.
● Lets your brand reach a larger and engaged audience.
● Increases internet traffic for your portals and product searches.
● Improves trust and authenticity of the product and your business as a whole.
● Generates more leads to impacting sales positively.
● Provides a better return on investment (ROI).
● Increases your digital social media followers with more potential consumers.
So, what are the best ways to upscale your business using digital, social media influencer marketing? Apparently, there are many ways to do this. Let’s discuss six of the most productive and effective ways to go about this.
1. Find the best-suited influencers for your brand to partner with.
There are primarily four types of influencers based on the number of followers and engagement rates. There are celebrity influencers with millions of followers who have a very wide reach. There are also macro-influencers, who have a large reach and a higher engagement rate, but they are not necessarily considered “celebrities.”
There are also micro-influencers with thousands of followers and a high engagement rate, and their recommendations are regarded as most authentic by their followers. Nano influencers have hundreds of followers and a high engagement rate, even though they do not have many followers.
Once you set the objectives of the campaign the search for the influencer will become easier than expected. Here you might think, but how do you reach an influencer? The best way is through an influencer marketing agency however, if you want to try it out for yourself this is what you should do.
● Do your research before reaching out to them.
● Appreciate their work before you send out your campaign pitch.
● Tell them what you are looking for and what you can give back to them in return.
● Keep your message short and to-the-point.
2. Get your brand story promoted
This is an important way for businesses that are young or just starting and want to get exposure through influencer marketing. Ask the influencer to promote your brand organically, which will help a great deal in customer acquisition. Influencers can tell your brand’s story in an authentic and convincing manner.
Meet with the influencer and discuss in detail your brand and company. Ask for their opinion on how they intend to post. Beyond these discussions, start working towards creating the agreed content.
Consider these factors when promoting your brand’s story.
● Give a personality to your brand.
● Tell the story through social media.
● Ask the customers for honest reviews and testimonials.
● Ask the influencer for advice on how to tell the story and let them narrate it for you.
● Use unique and creative methods of storytelling
● Be relatable
3. Giveaways and contests
This is one of the most effective ways, by utilizing people’s competitive nature. This will earn your brand some much-needed recognition and attention. The influencer will have to clearly state the rules and regulations or make them easily available as they post the giveaway or the contest on their social accounts. Offer something vital for the customers as a prize to increase participation.
You can also take help from the influencer for assistance in drafting the rules or brainstorm with them so they get a sense of the giveaway and are able to provide their inputs on the same.
4. Decide the budget and define your strategy
Working on a determined and well-calculated budget will help you find the right influencer. It must be beneficial for you and your influencer. Though this is mostly a fixed sum it can be flexibly adjusted to suit the campaign with the influencer agreeing to it. Whichever it is discussed it is appropriate with the influencer. Here are some ideas for the payment terms
● Cost per click: This means you will pay the influencer as per the number of clicks they direct to your page.
● Free products or services: Some influencers will accept free products and services from your brand instead of monetary compensation.
● Cost per engagement: Though very similar to cost per click this allows you to pay the influencer based on the number of engagements they direct to your page.
● Pay per post: This is the one where you pay some amount of money per post that the influencers do for your brand.
While planning a management schedule and strategy make sure to include the execution. Many influencers may be working with several businesses at the same time and could end up not meeting the actions with their commitments. Agree and create a calendar with both of you on the same page.
5. Leave creative control to the influencers
The influencers have the required creativity which is why they have followers in the first place and you do not. Take their help in deciding what to put and how to put it or even better let them decide how they want to promote your product. Their content should not be robotic but warm and genuine for people to accept.
Though the content type determines the platform and thereafter the influencer mostly the three types of content that can be used effectively are,
● Videos
● Images
● Blogs
6. Use Hashtags
Promote the use of specific hashtags that the influencer will be using every time they post about something. You can also ask the influencers to encourage people to post with your hashtags making appearance easier when searched for.
Keep these in mind as you create a hashtag.
● Keep it short.
● Incorporate your brand name.
● Avoid being too generic.
● Include a call-to-action (CTA)
● Create specific and unique ones.
Influencer marketing is dynamic in nature. You will need to be dynamic enough to keep up with the changes, adapt to them, and apply them to have an effective and successful campaign from all angles.