Clearly, social media influencers can play a key role in a company’s online marketing strategy. Many businesses are flocking to these social media celebrities to increase brand exposure, engagement, and sales because of their effectiveness.
An influencer marketing campaign, on the other hand, is not easy to execute.
Why?
Influencers are thought of as brand extensions. If you choose the unsuitable influencers, your brand’s reputation may suffer.
Furthermore, if you don’t understand the strategy’s ins and outs, things could go wrong.
It could be something as simple as not hearing back from influencers or not getting the intended results.
With that in mind, we’ve compiled a list of six influencer marketing campaign dos and don’ts for you.
1. Make a list of the right influencers. Partnering with the proper influencers is the first and most critical step.
So, which of your checkboxes does the influencer need to check?
Influencers should have the following skills:
A target audience that matches: It’s critical that the influencer’s audience matches yours. You’ll be selling your brand to people who may never buy from you if you don’t do that.
An engaged user: It doesn’t matter how big an influencer’s following is if they aren’t consistent with their material.As a result, look for an influencer that frequently posts content.
An engaged audience: Does the influencer’s audience interact with their postings on a regular basis? It’s critical to look at this to get a sense of how well the influencer knows their audience. You should also see if the influencer replies to their audience’s remarks on a frequent basis.
A voice tone that is appropriate for you: When looking for influencers, you should have a well-defined client persona. This will assist you in determining which influencers are appropriate for your brand.
Finding the perfect influencer among a sea of them might be difficult.
Fortunately, a variety of influencer marketing platforms and tools are available to assist you.
2.Allowing for creativity is a must.
Influencers have a good understanding of their audiences and are well-liked for being genuine.
So, when you team up with them, keep in mind why you reached out to them in the first place: you believe in them and their material.
While it’s critical to provide them with certain guidelines, don’t limit their originality.
Giving them a blank canvas to work on opens the door to a fruitful influencer collaboration. Furthermore, followers will scent something fishy if any piece of material does not match the influencer’s usual style.
Because it avoids direct advertising, influencer marketing is one of the most effective social media methods. The influencer’s inventiveness plays a significant part in this.
Why?
Unlike frontal advertising, they promote the company in a subtle way. Furthermore, because they are viewed as a third-party, their promotion appears more genuine than a business touting its own wares. The last thing today’s viewers want is to believe they’re being sold something.
3. Prioritise your objectives.
Before you ever contact an influencer, think about what you want to get out of the campaign. This might aid in your influencer hunt as well as streamline your efforts.
Among the many marketing objectives you could pursue are:
Brand recognition: In order to boost sales, you’ll need to make people aware of your brand or product. Influencers are excellent in this aspect since their followers believe their advice. This can be accomplished through brand mentions, giveaways, product reviews, and so on.
Lead generation and conversions: If increasing sales is your primary goal, personalised discount codes and offers may be useful. A fixed proportion of commission for each sale can also be offered to influencers. When you work with an influencer, their audience will notice your brand and engage with it on social media. They may respond to your posts, and some of them may decide to follow you.
At-scale mobile: Optimized content: Influencers are active on their social media networks on a daily basis. They are absolute experts when it comes to developing compelling content. Influencer-created material can be repurposed and shared on your own social channels, giving you with a constant stream of new content. It’s also feasible that your influencer marketing strategy will achieve many objectives. Whatever the case may be, be crystal clear about your objectives from the start.
Finally, have a notion of what you’ll offer in exchange, in addition to being clear about what you expect. It is, after all, a two-way street.
4. Micro-Influencers Should Not Be Ignored
While it may seem intuitive to suppose that larger numbers have greater consequences, this is not necessarily the case.
But why is that?
Because micro-influencers have better engagement rates than macro-influencers, this is the case.
Micro-influencers have an average engagement rate of 7.6% on Instagram, compared to only 5.3 percent for macro-influencers.
The following are some of the reasons for this:
Niche Audience
Micro-influencers tend to have a more focused audience than social media celebrities and macro-influencers. They are masters at nurturing close-knit tribes, which aids in increased involvement.
Micro-influencers are more open to projects from smaller brands since they have greater availability. Furthermore, because they are still establishing their existence, they are often more adaptable.
Better availability: Micro-influencers are more economical because of their tiny audience size. Freebies and goods are sometimes used to build partnerships.
Higher authenticity: Because these folks have lesser followings, they are considered “regular people.” As a result, their fans can better relate to them.
Overall, be open to many types of influencers.
While macro-influencers have a larger audience, micro-influencers have a higher level of interaction.
Don’t Forget to Cultivate Relationships: Instead of jumping from one influencer to another, focus on nurturing long-term relationships with a select few.This will encourage the influencers to create content that’s more relevant, authentic, and effective. Furthermore, it can help you strike a deal that gives more bang for the buck.
To build strong bonds with influencers, make sure you engage with their content regularly.
It’s also critical that you share industry-related content with them in order to establish a rapport. Before pitching your collaboration concept, you should aim to build a relationship with them.
This will not only help you get more out of the campaign, but it will also provide the influencer a more secure relationship.
Last Thoughts
While influencer marketing programmes can be difficult to implement, when done correctly, they can be extremely advantageous to your brand.
Plus, there’s more.
With these pointers in hand, you should be able to recruit the correct influencers and increase the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
Is there anything else you should do or avoid while executing an influencer marketing campaign? Please share your thoughts and advice in the comments section below.