Is your brand getting all the attention that it deserves on social media? Increasing your brand value on social media is not a one-day job. So if you want to increase your worth on social media platforms, you should incorporate influencer marketing as a part of the strategy. However, developing a solid marketing strategy, along with finding and leveraging the influencers that best fit your brand, are not easy tasks.
To help you get over that hump and execute a successful influencer marketing campaign, we have compiled a guide for you. Keep on reading to know more.
- What is Influencer Marketing and Who are Influence Marketers?
- Steps involved in creating a successful influencer campaign
- Best Examples of Influencer Marketing
- Conclusion
What is Influencer Marketing and Who are Influence Marketers?
In a nutshell, influencer marketing involves working in close collaboration with people (who are known as influencers) your audience listens to. The best example of influencer marketing is YouTube celebrity PewDiePie, who teamed up with the makers of a horror film set in the French catacombs under Paris to create a series of videos in which he underwent challenges in the catacombs.
Also Read: Five successful digital marketing case studies that brought good results
Steps involved in creating a successful influencer campaign
Here are seven steps that can help to connect with the right influencer for your campaign.
Step 1: Assess your Goals
The first step is to set up goals, decide on the budget, identify the target audience and establish the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Start this step by identifying your target audience: who will you try to reach with your influencer campaign? Developing an audience persona can help you understand the qualities you are looking for in your influencers.
Once you have pinned-down your target audience, set a designated budget. When setting up funds, remember that the campaign cost is proportional to the influencer’s audience reach. Once that is done, form the KPI that includes impressions, view, audience reach, engagement rates, click-through rate, among other goals.
Step 2: Identify the Influencers
To ensure campaigns are successful, choose an influencer whose values and style matches your brand and analyze their metrics. Start-ups can consider relying on micro-influencers rather than celebrity endorsement as they prove to be more successful than traditional celebrities due to their authenticity. To select an influencer, you should consider 3 Rs: Relevance, Reach and Resonance.
- Relevance:
Check for influencers that are relevant to your business and industry. They should have an audience that should align with the target audience.
- Reach:
Keep on tracking the number of people you can reach through the follower base of an influencer.
- Resonance:
The potential level of engagement that the influencers can create with an audience relevant to your brand.
Step: 3: Set up a Schedule
As per a report published by Mckinsey and Company, word of mouth is the primary factor behind 20 to 50% of all purchasing decisions.
With this, one clearly can not underestimate the power of influencer marketing. Once you have decided the influencer, the next step is to create a content strategy that is relevant to potential consumers. With the help of demographic trends and KPIs, you can determine the best time to post a blog. Usually, organizations integrate influencer campaigns with the rest of the other marketing strategies to create a campaign that can expand your brand reach and boost awareness. Content publishing schedule must coordinate across all the platforms and align with coordinating marketing campaigns to achieve maximum campaign effectiveness.
Also Read: 5 Secrets of a Successful Video Marketing Campaign
Step 4: Let the influencer do their job – Be willing to give up some creative control
While brands need to ensure that the content of influencer aligns with their marketing goals, influencers should have the freedom to create natural content. Most of the time, organizations allow influencers to retain their creativity and personal style during the partnership. That is perhaps why a brand should select an influencer that should resonate with their brand, which means the content should reflect the value even before the partnership.
Step 5: Review and optimize the content of an influencer
A brand needs to give some space to the influencers to retain their originality and natural style. But they still need to ensure that their content is high-quality and bang-on. A brand should promote the posts and branded content of their influencers and even encourage them to do the same to optimize the reach of your influencer’s post.
Step 6: Consider Focusing on Organic Posts and Content
These days consumers know when a brand is trying to market or indulge in deliberate selling. So, influencers need to advertise their product in the most natural way. What makes an influencer campaign successful is its authenticity, product placement and overall content.
Step 7: Measure Results
At this last stage, a brand should capture all the KPIs, such as view, posts and content, for their campaign report. Keep on recording and taking screenshots of social engagements as it acts as a primary indication of an audience’s response. Always compare the statistics received on the existing campaign with the previous social posts. It can also help companies form future marketing strategies, budget allocation and influencer selection.
Also Read: Digital Marketing Career Path, Salary Trends – 2021
Best Examples of Influencer Marketing
1. Name of the Brand: GAP
Name of the Campaign: Styld.by
Influencers Involved: Refinery29, WhoWhatWear, FabSugar, Lookbook, Rue and MOG
GAP came up with Styld.by campaign during which they collaborated with six of the most popular fashion bloggers on the internet, including Refinery29, WhoWhatWear, FabSugar, Lookbook, Rue and MOG. The campaign showed how these influencers added apparels/accessories of GAP clothing’s spring collection into their wardrobes. ‘Shop this Look’ option was provided in the caption for viewers.
2. Name of the Brand: H&M: Fall Studio Collection
Influencers Involved: Julie Sariñana, Ela Velden
Presently, H&M is one of the top fashion brands on Instagram with the highest following, mainly because of the influencers who reflect H&M’s style all by themselves. In 2017, to promote their fall 2017 catalogue, they partnered with the fashion blogger Julie Sariñana and model Ela Velden.
3. Name of the Brand: Samsung: Note 7 Launch
Influencer Involved: CyreneQ
In 2016, Samsung launched its Note 7 and partnered with a professional Snapchat artist cum designer–CyreneQ to broadcast its launch to a mobile audience. Through Snapchat, Cyrene documented her journey to the launch event [of Samsung: Note 7] and ultimately gave the audience a sneak peek of the new device. With the help of the 10-second video format of Snapchat, Cyrene posted clips showing followers some features of the device.
Conclusion
With all these steps mentioned above, you are now ready to get started with influencer marketing. If you wish to connect directly with the influencers, make the most of the tools such as Followerwonk, Hootsuite, Right Relevance Pro and Fourstarzz Influencer Recommendation Engine.
To learn more about influencer campaigns and more such marketing techniques, apply for the PG Program in Strategic Digital Marketing. You can talk to us at 08047188426 or drop your queries at pgpsdm@greatlearning.in. Over and above that, if you think that there are some tips related to Digital Marketing that deserves mention here, then do drop in a comment below.
