Want to know the best ways the ensure you’re next influencer campaign is successful? It’s not hot news that Influencer Marketing works, and according to Linqia 39% of marketers planned to increase influencer marketing budget this year, however many are still finding it challenging to prove the ROI of this new generation of marketing, as reported by The Influencer Marketing Hub. Here are a few indicators that we’ve learnt can make a difference to an influence campaign.
Target Audience
The best collaborations come from brands that have considered their target audience in relation to the influencer. You may think by looking at a profile that the influencer is the right fit - but have you done your research into their following? If you’re working with an influencer directly it’s often as simple as asking for a screen shot of their insights/demographics – most of the time they are happy to share this.
AtTBP Management we ensure information such as where the influencers followers are based, and their age ranges are included in their media kit! It’s so important to know this to ensure you get the best return out of a collaboration.
Know Your Goals
What are you aiming to achieve from influencer marketing? It may seem obvious for brands that are experienced in working with influencers – however for the novice’s consider the below when starting your campaign. Are you aiming to:
- Increase sales
- Grow your social following
- Develop brand awareness
- Launching a new product
Depending on what your aim is, it’s great to then create a brieffor the influencer so that they can help you achieve your goals taking in to consideration and key product information, hashtags and handles, a campaign overview and background info, deadlines, and what not to do. The clearer the communication the better!
Genuine Influencers
When scouting out influencers to work with, being fussy will only benefit you in the long run!At TBP Management we have a specific vetting process that we follow to ensure all the influencers we work with have genuine followers that are interested and engaged in their content!
- Check the correlation between the amount of comments and likes posts are getting in comparison to their following. If likes and comments are low in comparison, it should be flagged.
- Check the quality of the comments – if they’re just full of emojis or random buzz words question how engaged in the content the followers actually are.
- Run their handle through platforms like social blade – this will give an indication of whether or not they are using bots as you can see how many people they are following and unfollowing everyday!
- Calculate their engagement rate - you can do this by using an engagement calculator like Phlanx!
Serial Usage of Spon
It’s also a good idea to monitor how many brands the influencer is collaborating with on a paid basis. If you see them using #Spon or #AD in the majority of their posts it indicates that they are collaborating with a lot of brands. Not always a bad thing, but it’s worth checking whether there is a conflict of interest with the other brands they are working with, and monitoring whether the amount of sponsored posts they are doing is effecting engagement.
Follower Count
It’s well known that the new algorithm rewards posts on Instagram that have high engagement. This makes working with micro influencers just as important as big-time influencers, as it’s often the case that micro influencers have the best engagement rate. Following the above steps to monitor the credibility of a micro influencer is essential and you will likely find that their engagement rate is high because their followers are:
- more genuinely interested in their content.
- more likely to see the content they are posting.
Integrate Into Social Calendar
It’s all very well using your budget for Instagram posts and gaining awareness/ generating sales and converting new customers through the influencers reach, but how is this being used in your other marketing channels? As a first point of contact it’s great to utilise the influencers platform for the reach and awareness, but how else can you ensure that the content you’ve spent budget on is converting to sales? Some great ways to make the content is used on several platforms follow:
- Email marketing – Use the images created to show existing customers how to wear/use your products in a new way. Reaching out to your current data base with the content influencers have created is a great way to recycle and generate sales.
- Use the content on paid social – using influencer images to show the versatility of products on ads and reach new/existing customers through styling that isn’t brand specific.
- If your brand has a blog – reuse the content to create inspiration for those who read your blog and showcase the product in a new format.
- Regram influencer content on your brands Instagram page and on Facebook posts – reinstating the message to your customers and making full use of social media as a platform for conversion.
If you would are interesting in influencer marketing and would like a team of experts to do the hard work for you, then get in touch with The Blogger Programme for a complimentary proposal.
