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GET TRENDING: Influencers are changing the face of marketing
GET TRENDING
INFLUENCERS ARE CHANGING THE FACE OF MARKETING
It’s rare to find consumers who still trust only traditional media and advertising formats. With the democratisation of knowledge in the age of social media, understanding how to use these platforms to engage with audiences is of vital importance.
As consumers use the internet and social media to research almost everything marketed to them, companies are realising the importance of social media in communicating to their audiences – both existing and emerging – more effectively.
The shift from traditional marketing models to those that use influencers has profoundly impacted brands and companies. The reality is, however, that most marketers still don’t understand how to incorporate influencer marketing into their overarching brand strategy.
While the concept still eludes many brands, it can provide a nearly 800% return on investment, making it one of the most important tools in a marketer’s box.
WHAT IS INFLUENCER MARKETING?
Influencer marketing focuses on creating awareness on an individual level by word-of mouth marketing. Influencers have credibility and influence over a large network of people.
These individuals have a significant impact on vertical markets and/or social media platforms. Brands and agencies partner with influencers in order to create authentic engagement and awareness around products and services.
In its ‘Trust in Advertising’ report, Nielsenstated that 92% of consumers trustrecommendations above all other forms ofadvertising, and of those, 83% take actionas a result of recommendations. As aresult, marketers who are using influencercontent see a massive difference betweenthe performance of brand content andinfluencer content.
CHOOSING THE RIGHT INFLUENCER
Ask yourself the following questions to establish whether a particular influencer would be the right fit for your brand or business:
• Which platform would be the most effective for my needs? Is the influencer active on this platform?
• What does this influencer usually promote?
• Do their ideals align with thoseof my brand or business?
• Are their followers real or are there many bots?
• What is this influencer’s reach?
• How much engagement do theyusually generate with a post?
The paradigm has shifted from massmarketing to understanding the marketand pinpointing the influencer whospeaks directly to your audience. Wheninfluencers speak with passion aboutyour product or service, it can createvirality and cause your brand messageto be spread to a large audience ofpotential customers. While it is temptingto only look at the reach – how manypeople see your content – that aninfluencer can enable, what is moreimportant to consider is engagement.
Engagement is essentially an interaction that the target audience has with your content, whether it’s favouriting a tweet, commenting on a post or visiting your website. This metric is more relevant to measure the effectiveness of your communications as it indicates how many people are actually interested in the content or product you’re selling.
Reach, on the other hand, is only a reflection of how many times a post appears on a consumer’s feed – regardless of whether they see it or scroll straight past it.
The percentage of an influencer’s followers who interact with a post is the most reliable indication of how well your post is received.
• Under 1%: Disappointing
• Between 1 and 2%: Good
• Between 2 and 3%: Very good
• Between 3 and 6%: Excellent
• Above 6%: Exceptional
INFLUENCER VS TRADITIONAL MARKETING
The biggest difference between conventional marketing and influencer marketing is the method of delivery. While conventional marketing offers a generic campaign message to a static audience, influencer marketing involves personalised content directed at a specific audience. These content creators deliver a unique message that will be relevant to their followers.
Audiences are constantly fed advertising messaging. Academic Director of Market Research and Consumer Behaviour at the IE School of Human Sciences and Technology, Jaime Veiga Mateos, confirms that the growing number of distractions is definitely posing a problem for today’s marketer. “As consumers, our attention is divided across different screens and multitasking so the fight for our attention is tougher than ever,” he says.
Influencer marketing is based on people talking to people. The personalised messaging is tailored to the influencer’s audience, which means different audiences in the same target market might see completely unique content and messaging for the same campaign depending on the influencers they’re following.
Conventional marketing as a stand-alone strategy just doesn’t work as well as it used to. “The preference consumers have towards traditional advertising has more to do with digital. The reason consumers don’t see the value is that it’s not personalised or relevant. That relevancy creates an affinity,” says Adobe Managing Director: Australia and New Zealand, Paul Robson.
That doesn’t mean that brands or companies can’t communicate their authenticity via internal management of influencer marketing. However, you do need to have the right skillsets at your disposal. If the right tools aren’t available, it can lead to your influencer marketing looking scripted and inauthentic, which reduces the impact and lessens the value of the marketing campaign.
To run effective campaigns internally, you need to:
• Define the influencer marketing strategy
• Select the correct influencers for a specific message or brand based on a deep understanding of your target audience
• Translate your influencer marketing strategy to influencers clearly and concisely, ensuring that your agency or brand integrity and reputation is increased
• Manage your campaigns and influencer content from inception to completion.
When the strategy isn’t conveyed correctly, it can cause your influencers to appear as though they lack authenticity and put a dent in your brand’s credibility with your audience. As an example, Microsoft was convinced it had the ultimate influencer marketing campaign when it contracted Oprah Winfrey. The irony? Oprah’s tweet extolling the virtues of the new Microsoft Surface were sent from Twitter for iPad.
INFLUENCER MARKETING FOR B2B COMPANIES
In the B2C environment, it’s easy to engage audiences using influencers. YouTubers and Instagrammers creating video footage around the usage and application of cosmetics, for example, are typically an easy sell compared to the B2B audience.
B2B marketers know that engaging with potential buyers during the prospection process and anticipating their requirements are imperative to building a trust relationship, and through that, to becoming a preferred vendor.
Influencers can speak to a B2B market in three primary ways: through content, as brand ambassadors and as industry experts. All three of these methods require that the influencer and their audience are perfectly matched with a brand. The influencer will create articles, post images or take over the social media platforms of the brand, leveraging their own reach to increase the reach of the company.
THE PRIMARY TYPES OF INFLUENCERS WHO SPEAK TO THE B2B MARKET
1. Content creators 2. Brand ambassadors 3. Industry experts
Select influencers creating original content can make your brand stand out from the crowd in a parity market. As a result, these campaigns have the potential to make a huge impact by generating impact and engagement, and ultimately creating lead and revenue opportunities.
The digital space is dynamic and provides many ways in which to communicate your brand messaging. You can incorporate influencer marketing into your B2B enterprise through blog posts, e-books and live question-and-answer sessions. Employees can also be great conduits for brand advocacy; after all, who knows your company better than the people who work there?
There is no one-size-fits-all approach; the most important factor to focus on is that your brand messaging, identity and personality are aligned with those of your influencers. An influencer marketing strategy that ensures your target audience is the focus of your promotions is the key to a successful campaign.
10 INFLUENCER MARKETING TRENDS
1 BUILDING LONG-TERM BRAND AMBASSADORS
Influencers will no longer have short interactions with brands, but will rather establish relationships with non-competition clauses and perpetual rights for content and remarketing.
2AUTHENTICITY IN ENGAGEMENT
Influencers will endorse products because they believe in them, not just as a result of being compensated.
3PRESENTING TO TARGETED DEMOGRAPHICS PER SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNEL
The opportunity to speak to your direct audience and the ability to measure real return on investment (ROI) will continue to reduce the effectiveness of traditional media channels.
4 INFLUENCERS WILL BEGIN TO UNDERSTAND THEIR ROLE IN THE MARKETING CYCLE
Influencers, like Nadia Jaftha ofBirdline Blog and Aisha Baker of Baked Online, reflect how honest opinions can create monetising 5possibilities.
5 INFLUENCER CONTENT CREATION
Brands will see a drop in brand created content and a growth in sharing and remarketing of influencer-created content, especially using original photos and videos.
6 ENGAGEMENT VALUED MORE THAN REACH
An increase in demand for quality most cost-effective and fastest-growing online acquisition channel. It’s a vital metric will reveal the real return on the tool for brands to integrate into their marketing strategies. investment of influencer marketing campaigns. In-depth metrics and insights will indicate how effective campaigns are against the key performance indicators.
7 CROSS-CHANNEL MARKETING
The audience will define the selection of platforms utilised for cross-channel marketing; this will require deep analytical insight of each influencer during the influencer selection process.
8 INSTAGRAM STORIES AND TV
Instagram is experiencing phenomenal growth in user numbers, with Stories and the newly launched Instagram TV on a meteoric rise. According to HubSpot, there was a 197% increase in influencer marketing on Instagram in 2017.
9 GUIDELINES REGARDING DISCLOSURE OF REIMBURSEMENT
The appearance of #ad or#sponsored tags in social media posts reveals reimbursement. All influencers should disclose that they’ve been reimbursed for their content. This creates authentic messaging and builds trust with the influencer audience.
LARGER POOLS OF INFLUENCERS
We see a move away from restricted pools of influencers on platforms and a search for the most appropriate influencer per campaign, regardless of whether they’re listed on a specific platform or not.
VIDEO is the most powerful tool to increase sales
Bloglovin’ research showed that 67% OF MARKETERS surveyed think influencer marketing campaign helped them reach a more targeted audience
INSTAGRAM is the most popular influencer marketing platform
Knock-on effects of influencercontent creation include:
• Lower costs of brand contentproduction
• More authentic content
• Higher engagement rates
According to Launchmetrics, 78% of marketerswho launched influencer marketing campaigns in2016 worked with influencers for at least 1 year
92% of consumers TRUST RECOMMENDATIONS and 83% TAKE ACTION as a result of recommendations
$7.65 ROI FOR EVERY $1 of influencer marketing paid media
• 92% OF INFLUENCERS prefer Instagram
• 95-MILLION PHOTOS AND VIDEOS uploaded daily
• 4.2-BILLION LIKES per day
UTM and URL TRACKERS,PROMO CODES and branded
HASHTAGS are important toensure campaigns are effectiveand deliver on key performanceindicatiors (KPIs).
