Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing has evolved from a marketing fad into one of the most effective marketing tools available today. With influencer available in all niches and subcultures you can think of, you can connect with hard-to-reach audiences with ease. Working with a global influencer marketing agency can ensure your influencer marketing strategy is optimised with authentic creative content, relevant influencers, and accurate and informative campaign analysis.
Influencer marketing is a highly accessible marketing tool. From gifting, to sponsored content, to influencer ambassadors, there is a route available to every brand. Because of its accessibility, it can often be used too freely and not in the most efficient way.
Here are some tips you can use to improve your influencer marketing strategy:
Work with an influencer marketing agency
Influencer marketing agencies are experts on all-things influencers. From creative strategy, to influencer discovery and vetting, contracts and briefing, activation, to campaign reporting. With an innate understanding of the social landscape, influencer marketing agencies strive to ensure your investment is blown out of the park.
Working with an agency means you will have more time to focus on other business priorities and opportunities. They also provide complete reporting and analysis of all activations, offering a concise breakdown of who/what worked well, and where improvements can be made next time.
Work with relevant influencers
While this may seem like an obvious improvement, many brands struggle to discover and vet the influencers that genuinely speak to their target audience. You need to look beyond an influencer’s vanity metrics, and see how they engage their audience.
In addition to this, detailed demographic data is available for all influencers. This means you can select profiles based on the relevancy of an influencer’s audience and their ability to reach your target audience.
Engagement > Reach
It’s all good and well working with an influencer who has a great reach. But what good is reach if no one is taking action? When selecting influencers, you need to ensure their engagement rates are good. Working with an influencer with an engaged audience means the partnered content will be considered more seriously, and action is likely to be taken.
Give influencers creative freedom
While you should always have creative guidelines and strategies in place, you need to give your chosen influencers creative freedom when making content. This is because their audience has grown to trust and enjoy their content. If they create a piece of sponsored content that is out of line with their traditional content, their audience will not resonate with it, likely reducing impact and engagement.
Consider long-term commitments
One-off sponsored posts will always have a place within influencer marketing, but due to consumer demands for authenticity, you should consider working with influencers over a long period of time. Not only will this mean their audience is very familiar with your brand or products, but will reinforce that this partnership is genuine, and not just a money grab.
In addition, forming an honest relationship with an influencer will make them more likely to want to continue working with you on other projects in the future.
Measure a variety of success metrics
As we said before, reach isn’t everything. Before you begin any influencer activation, you need to set KPIs for metrics such as engagement rate, sentiment, interactions and impressions, as well as any trackable links. Influencer marketing campaigns are multifaceted, so by defining these at the beginning, it is easier to justify budgets.
Think multi-platform
Your target audience isn’t just on one platform. When working with influencers, consider creating content for multiple platforms. This will increase your reach and help the partnership seem more genuine.
