How To Make The Most Of Influencer Marketing

What is influencer marketing? Influencer marketing is a way of endorsement and promotion from social media users who have a large following. 

These influencers likely will have gained their following from reality TV, being a blogger, or being a celebrity. They use their platform to share personal information about their lives, but also ‘influence’ a certain way of life. 

And, as a result, will have somewhat of a brand or a niche. 

This could be anything from fashion, home design, technology, or any other area of expertise that makes people to follow them in the first place. 

As a brand, you can use this to your advantage. One of the largest components of influencer marketing is using paid promotion and advertising for products and services. 

What’s more, given that 49% of social media users say that they depend on recommendations from influencers, it’s great to market your products. 

Particularly, influencer marketing is valuable for brands who are looking to market their products to a younger generation.  

With 60% of teens following advice from the influencers they see online, it’s a great marketing technique to successfully attract the younger demographic. 

Influencer marketing is a rather simple and straightforward marketing technique. 

It works by having a social media influencer to promote your product or brand in return for compensation, either monetary or in the form of gifts. 

For example, a company requests that an influencer makes 3 posts about their clothing brand. In return, the brand will gift the influencer some products to show off in their posts, as well as a lump sum for the content they create. 

Naturally, the popularity of influencer marketing has increased as social media marketing itself has increased.  

In fact, 67% of marketers engage in influencer marketing, with a further 71% of marketers saying that influencer marketing is good for their business. 

Meaning, that influencer marketing is being embraced by all industries, not just the ones that are trying to appeal to a younger demographic.  

So just how good is influencer marketing? 

For some marketers within the industry, influencer marketing has surpassed many other marketing techniques like Pay Per Click Advertising and Search Engine Optimisation. 

In fact, according to Media Kix, 89% of marketers saying that the Return on Investment from influencer marketing is comparable, or even better, than other marketing methods. 

As well as this, 71% of marketers say that not only is the ROI from influencer marketing the same or better than other methods, but that the quality of customers and traffic is also the same or better than other methods. 

Meaning, that influencer marketing is also able to rival other marketing methods in terms of the volume of customers engaged, as well as the quality of customers too. 

Because of this, does this now mean that influencer marketing is the only method forward now that social media has become so popular? 

Or, does influencer marketing actually have some areas of problems? 

From the general public, the criticisms surrounding social media influencers have undoubtedly risen, especially during the 2020 Coronavirus lockdown which saw many influencers flee to foreign countries.  

Their reason for doing so was because they claimed their work was “essential”, something that drew a lot of criticism. Following this, accountability for social media influencers rose and many members of the public went as far as to unfollow them. 

Criticisms around social media influencers have long existed, due to some of them promoting products that were deemed ‘harmful’ or ‘toxic’. And with this greater spotlight being shone on them, some people are unsure whether influencers are the way forward. Because of this, you need to be careful of which type of influencer you’re using.

But, if your brand or business does decide to use influencer marketing, how do you begin? 

Firstly, if you’re looking to market your business using influencer marketing, you need to look into what platform you’re going to do this on. 

Facebook has long held the coveted spot as the most influencer social media networking, with a whopping 19% of all purchases being influenced by what’s been seen on Facebook.  

As a result, it makes sense why influencer marketing would be so rife on Facebook given the popularity of the platform. 

But, you’d be surprised to know that influencer marketing is also extremely prominent on Twitter too.  

Despite this being a less visual platform in comparison to apps like Instagram and Facebook, a study conducted by Digital Marketing Institute found that influencer marketing created a 5.2x increase in purchase intent. 

Secondly, you also need to decide who your target demographic is and which sort of influencer will be best for targeting them. 

Are you looking for a micro influencer, someone with less than 2,000 followers to promote your business? Naturally, this will be a more affordable option, but would also potentially restrict your reach. 

Or, do you want a larger influencer, someone with hundreds of thousands of followers, or potentially millions? You’d need a much larger budget for this, but this could potentially pay off when your adverts are being seen by hundreds of thousands of potential consumers. 

It’s certainly something to consider during the research process. 

Speaking of the cost of influencer marketing, the second thing you need to do is figure out your budget. 

Individual influencers will have individual rates. What one person may charge for an Instagram post, another person may charge that for three posts. 

Determining what your budget is will determine what influencers you’ll be able to use. Your budget may dictate that you can have a micro influencer make a series of posts advertising your product, or one macro influencer who can only make one post. 

Research will also be an important task to undertake here as you need to know what the average social media post is worth before you go into negotiations.  

According to Tribe, the amount you pay an influencer isn’t just dependent on their follower count (although that is the largest indicator), but also on their engagement rate, the quality of their content, and how fast they can deliver. 

But, they do give an estimate on how much the average influencer will be charging for each post. 

For an influencer with up to 10k followers, you can expect them to charge between £50-100 per post. For influencers with 25k-50k followers, their average rates will be £180-250. And, for influencers with over 100k followers, they can charge as much as over £350 for one post. 

So, before you go reaching out to influencers, you need to determine how much you’re willing to spend. 

For the large majority of social media influencers, they will work with an agency or have some form of representation. This information can be usually found in their social media profile bios, otherwise, it can also be found researching online. 

Whilst social media influencers will usually have control over the projects they undertake, it’s likely that their agent or manager will vet potential projects beforehand. 

Because of this, it’s important to not only pitch your campaign to the right person but to also make sure it’s appealing enough to warrant their attention. 

But what do you do when you don’t know which influencer to use? 

Firstly, you can try searching for them the same way a potential consumer would. 

Search through hashtags which are similar to your brand or product to see what influencers have used them in the past.  

Not only does this show you influencers who have advertised a service similar to yours before, but it also allows you to check their engagement. 

As well as this, you can also set up a Google alert for when a product name or something similar to your business is mentioned online. 

This allows you to be able to check to see what influential people are talking about services to you, and therefore potential influencers to work with. 

Now that you’ve done your research and found your influencer, what is your creative vision? 

How much room will you be allowing your influencer, or do you have a certain vision that you want to be executed specifically? 

Most of the time, influencers will have some room for interpretation that will allow them to create content to fit their feed and aesthetic.  

This will then be run by the brand, who will approve the content produced. 

But, sometimes, a brand will have a very specific message they want to be promoted and so won’t allow for this. 

Because of this, you need to think exactly about what you want your influencer marketing content to look like. 

Will you be utilising a team of influencers, who will use a specific slogan or hashtag throughout the campaign? Will your influencer marketing have a certain theme?  

Consider these things before you pitch your ideas. You want to make them cohesive and engaging for both the influencers and audience alike. 

When it comes to measuring the success of your influencer marketing campaign, it’s not as hard as you think. 

Firstly, you can track the success of your campaign by seeing how many people are using your allotted hashtag. 

If you’re using a call to action to inspire your consumers to engage with your brand, you’ll be able to see how successful this is by monitoring who and when people using your hashtag. 

As well as this, you can also measure the success of your campaign if you’re running an eCommerce store. 

If, like a large majority of influencer marketing campaigns, you have used a promotional code to market a product, you can track how many people have used this on your website. 

Evaluating how many people have used the promotional code when making a purchase will allow you to see who has bought a product as a result of your campaign, and therefore how successful it is. 

Thirdly, you can simply ask your partnered influencer to share their post insights with you. 

This means that you can see how many people have interacted with the posts, and how this usually compares to both their and your usual content. 

It’s clear that influencer marketing is on the rise and that the potential for its success is increasing. 

But, given the amount of criticism surrounding influencers and the message they promote, you have to be careful that you’re using the right one. 

So, now that you’ve heard about influencer marketing and know how to run a campaign, will you be using it for your business? 

Let us know in the comments below!