Top 8 Influencer Marketing Best Practices
The buzz around the influencer marketing industry is not going anywhere anytime soon. What was thought to be a trend in the marketing space has taken a life of its own, redefining just how marketing is done. This is absolutely unprecedented, and if you’re not yet harnessing the power of brand influencers, it’s definitely time to start.
Why? This is a question we get often. And instead of serving up a long-winded answer, the statistics can speak louder:
- The worldwide influencer marketing market size has more than doubled since 2019
- Over 70% of Gen Z and Millenials surveyed follow influencers on social media.
- Over 60 percent of marketers have worked with over ten influencers for their influencer marketing campaigns.
The list of positive statistics in favor of influencers goes on and on. When it comes to making business decisions, market and industry growth are always a factor. This again speaks volumes to the effectiveness of influencer marketing.
If you have been on the fence about influencers or if you are ready to take the next step in creating a more efficient and successful influencer marketing campaign, the following may apply. We have compiled eight influencer marketing tips to ensure you get the most out of your future or current influencers. Let’s take a closer look.
What is Influencer Marketing?
First, let’s start off by talking about what influencer marketing is. Influencer marketing is working with influencers – people with a large following on social media – to promote your products or services. It’s an effective way to reach potential customers and build relationships through shared content or experiences. Unlike traditional advertising, the power of influencer marketing allows you to create organic conversations that occur naturally as part of the influencer’s content.
Benefits of Influencer Marketing
When it comes to marketing, influencers can offer some serious benefits. For starters, they have a built-in audience that trusts them and looks to them for advice and information. That means when an influencer shares something from your brand, their followers are more likely to listen than if you were pushing out the same content yourself.
Influencers also offer an opportunity to connect with different audiences that may not be reached through traditional advertising. They have the ability to help you stand out in a sea of competitors, and they often bring creativity to the table – think of them as your brand ambassadors.
Challenges of Influencer Marketing
As with any type of marketing, influencer marketing comes with its own set of challenges. For starters, while it can be quite effective, it’s not always easy to measure the ROI you get from an influencer campaign. It can also be difficult to track conversions and sales that are a result of the campaign.
Another challenge is finding the right influencers to work with. With so many people claiming to have influence online, it can be hard to know who is actually going to add value to your brand.
Know the Different Influencers Types
When planning your influencer marketing campaign, you need to know what kind of influencer will best suit your business’s needs and goals. Depending on how much reach and engagement you need for your brand, here are the different influencers types to consider partnering with:
- Nano-influencers: Nano-influencers have anywhere from 100-10,000 followers. They aren’t your typical ‘professional’ influencers, so if you’re considering partnering with one, be sure they have the engagement and quality content you’re looking for.
- Micro-influencers: Micro-influencers have a follower count between 10,000-100,000. These influencers are the most cost-effective and easy to partner with since they are “Instagram famous.” However, they do get a lot of engagement and have loyal followers.
- Macro-influencers: Macro-influencers generally have between 100,000 and a million followers. Because of their huge following, their engagement rate can be a little lower and harder to track. However, if you can afford it, macro-influencers are great for boosting your online presence.
- Mega-influencers: Mega-influencers are basically Instagram celebrities. People like Kylie Jenner are a mega-influencer. These influencers are extremely expensive to work with, sometimes charging thousands of dollars per post.
Step-by-Step Guide to Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing can be incredibly beneficial to your campaign, but it has to be done right! We’ve compiled this influencer marketing strategy checklist to help you get the best ROI for your marketing goals.
1. Ensure You Know Your Audience Very Well
This is one of the most important steps you can employ. Why? If you don’t know your audience very well, you will struggle to find suitable influencers who are driving quality leads and customers. This is what makes influencer marketing so tricky.
Let’s say you want to increase sales of a new tech product using social media platforms. Naturally, you begin searching for tech influencers with a sizable following. You hire one, and they post a video of them and your product, but to your dismay, not a whole lot of ROI. This is because not all influencer audiences are created equal. They’re actually quite specific.
To get maximum ROI, you need to match your audience with your influencer’s audience. This means you will really need to dig into your audience and build out buyer personas to discuss with your influencer. Once you get a match, driving qualified leads and more customers will be easier than ever.
2. Have Specific Outcomes in Mind for Influencer Campaigns
This is just as important as the above influencer marketing tip. Once you know you have your audience nailed down, you need to know the specific action you want them to take. This could be a number of actions, such as:
- Increase brand awareness and online visibility
- Build a greater social media following on a certain social channel
- Boost engagement with your audience for that personal touch
- Capture a ton of qualified leads for your sales funnel
- Generate more sales in one influencer campaign
Once you define the specific outcome, work with your influencer to create a plan of action. They are influencers for a reason and have most likely done all the above campaigns. Listen to them.
Here’s a great example of a sales-driving influencer post . . .
This post is all about building a stronger social following . . .
You get the idea. Have an audience in mind and have specific outcomes in place in order to have a laser-like focus for each influencer post. This is an ROI must-do whether you’re in the industry of food, fashion, luxury, or something else entirely!
3. Where Does Your Audience Live Online?
So many businesses fail to hit the mark when it comes to the right social channels. Knowing where your audience lives online is valuable because you can have the greatest influencer post ever, but if it’s on the wrong social network, not many will see it and take the action you want them to.
First, begin with basic demographics for your target market, like age, gender, and content type. You can get this data from your analytics as well as online. Let’s say you are focusing on a new product launch for men 25 to 34 years of age. This target audience also prefers video content. YouTube would be an obvious choice, and the statistics back it up.
11.9% of the male YouTubers are in your age range. You can also retrieve information about the type of content male YouTube users like the most to see if your new product is a good fit.
4. Take A Good Hard Look At Micro-Influencers For Higher Influencer Marketing Roi
Influencer marketing has gone through quite a few stages since its inception. When influencers began making their mark on social media, it was mainly celebrities and well-known people across the globe. This served many brands well, but after a short period, brands began seeing a drop in influencer marketing ROI. Why? It was a fleeting moment these celebrity influencers were creating.
Now the focus has shifted from high-profile influencers with tens of millions of followers to micro-influencers, who have 100,000 followers. Micro-influencers have a lot to offer.
- Their followers are truly loyal.
- Their recommendations have more purchase power.
- Micro-influencer followers are more likely to share your product with others.
- Their followers engage more with posts.
- They are not just influencers; they are your brand advocates.
Here’s a great example of a micro-influencer post in collaboration with La Croix . . .
Boost your influencer marketing ROI by ensuring you are focused on the right type of influencer. Engagement is far more important than any influencer’s follower count.
5. How To Determine The ROI of Your Influencers
This is another very tricky aspect of ensuring your influencer marketing strategy is successful. Your return on investment is very important to track because you are allocating marketing spend to these campaigns. Any marketing metric is important, but influencer marketing ROI is even more so. Mainly, you want to know what worked best, rinse, and then repeat.
There is no one way to track this since the aim of each campaign is different. For instance, if you want to track influencer ROI for building your Facebook following, you will track how many visitors come from an influencer’s post and how many followed you after via a dedicated URL.
How do you know if it’s good? You probably ran some Facebook ads in the past, and you can use that data. If X ad spend netted X followers, you can add up the money spent on the influencer post and divide it by how many followers they netted. It’s that simple. Working with an influencer agency is often better because you can see the influencer marketing ROI in the influencer platform.
6. Stay Clear Of Legal Trouble If Your Influencer Goes Rogue
Influencers are human, and at the end of the day, you can’t predict their emotions. A lot of brands have been burned by branded influencer marketing strategies gone wrong. PewDiePie is a great example. A meltdown caused an uproar, and brands were quick to pull their support and money to save face.
This is a strong call to action to create a relationship with your influencer, working with them closely to gauge their emotional stability. This begins with doing your due diligence upfront, going back years to read a potential influencer’s content online to make sure he or she is a good fit for your brand.
But don’t let the relationship go cold after working together for a while. Always be looking at your influencer’s posts, especially the ones about your brand and business. In most cases, rogue influencers are rare. But building a great relationship is a good way to stay clear of legal issues.
7. Set Goals and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
If you don’t have a clear goal in mind, you’ll never be able to achieve it. Or, at least, you won’t achieve it without spending a bunch of unnecessary time, effort, and money. Defining your goals and what you want to get out of an influencer strategy will help you maximize your efforts and maximize your ROI.
Here are some effective ways of setting campaign goals before you commit to influencer outreach:
- Decide on the best influencers for your brand: What specific qualities are you looking for in an influencer? Will they accurately reflect your brand and your core values?
- Choose how you’ll measure your success: What KPIs will you track to define your success? Are you looking at impressions, driving traffic to your website, or wanting to boost engagement for your brand?
- Ensure your company and the influencer are on the same page: Before committing to an influencer partnership, you want to ensure you’re working toward a common goal. This will streamline constructive feedback and communication.
- Set clear expectations for influencers: Setting clear expectations and goals for influencers will give them something to work towards and hold them accountable. Your ideal influencer will focus on creating results-oriented influencer content that achieves the desired outcome.
8. Give Influencers a Good Amount of Creative Control
Partnering with influencers and taking away their creativity will negatively impact their content. If you want their posts to appear authentic and more engaging, you want them to be able to express themselves as they normally would on their social media platform. Let them come up with their own captions and their own images. However, be sure to establish clear boundaries to protect your brand and your business.
Scalefluence Helps You Navigate The World Of Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is not going anywhere. It has carved out a substantial space in overall marketing strategies for businesses worldwide. But, to get the max out of your influencer marketing strategy, you need to have a few best practices in place.
These influencer tips are among the most important. From knowing your audience to utilizing the power of micro-influencers, make the most of your next campaign for top ROI. And for brands and businesses with enough on their plate, there’s Scalefluence.
Scalefluence is an influencer marketing platform that takes care of the ins-and-outs and can help you navigate the world of brand influencer marketing in a seamless, affordable way. We are also experts in ensuring influencers are qualified and professional, keeping brands out of legal hot water.
If your brand is ready to take the next step into the future of marketing, Scalefluence is here to help.
