They can generate millions of impressions for your brand overnight, and that’s just the beginning when working with influencers. While pay-per-click advertising, search engine optimization, and other channels may take some time to produce tangible results, a well-executed influencer strategy can generate a great deal of buzz in a short period of time.
Indeed, it’s no surprise that influencer marketing’s predicted value will soar from 2016’s $1.7 billion to 2021’s nearly $14 billion. Smart companies will leverage influencers and micro-influencers (i.e., 50k followers) to boost their marketing efforts in the coming years as social media usage continues to rise.
Just who is this mysterious “influencer”? The Meaning of “Influencer”
One who or that which influences another; that which has such an effect; an influencer. In the context of advertising, a “influencer” is a person who commands a sizable online following and uses that audience to sway others, typically in the service of promoting a particular product or service.
Anyone with a sizable online following, whether through social media or a blog, can be considered an influencer. The modern day influencer can be:
- Creators of digital media such as blogs, videos, and podcasts
- Online personalities with significant but not overwhelming fan bases are called “micro-influencers.”
- Innovators in their field
- Celebrities such as professional athletes, musicians, and actors
One influential person’s support can do wonders for a company’s credibility and quickly spread the word about a brand from virtually nonexistent to viral.
The Importance of Influencer Marketing
To help you make the most of your new or existing influencer marketing strategy, we’ve compiled a short list of some of the most effective approaches.
Distinguish Real from Fake
Some low-engagement influencers are obviously pretenders and should be avoided at all costs. If an Instagram influencer with 100,000 followers only receives 1,000 likes per post on average, it’s clear that the vast majority of their audience isn’t interested in what they have to say.
If an influencer has a low rate of engagement, it could be because their content is boring or uninteresting to people. On the other hand, it’s possible that they’ve bought off their supporters. These swayers should be avoided in both scenarios, but the second one is more dire. The money you put into the influencer partnership could be wasted if Instagram or the other social media platform banned you for buying followers.
The more engaged an influencer’s audience is, the more effective they will be. You could fall for fake influencers followed mainly by bots if you only look at follower counts.
Shift the Scale of Your Impact.
Marketing firms that specialise in influencers should have access to a wide range of influencers. Small-scale (100,000) and micro-influencers (50,000) often command lower rates but still have a significant impact than their larger-scale (>1 million) counterparts.
Make sure you’re not relying too heavily on any single strategy. Instead of spending all of your money on just one or two extremely influential people, spread it around among a wide range of smaller influencers as well. Each type of influencer offers its own set of benefits, and often, micro-influencers can provide a better return on investment than their larger counterparts.
Make Your Influencer Contracts Official
Spending time negotiating with influencers over details that should have been included in the contract is a waste of everyone’s time. Include the following information in every contract you sign with an influencer:
- Rates of Sponsorship
- Payment information and invoice directions.
- Messages and hash tags are mandatory.
- Numbered positions needed
- Required Channel Counts
- Period of the campaign
Inevitably, some minor issues or clarifications will arise, but you can avoid wasting time on them if you make your contract as thorough and easy to understand as possible for a non-legal professional.
Pay-For-Performance
You shouldn’t put too much stock in an influencer’s number of followers and engagement rate if they don’t bring in any revenue. For that reason, I think it’s sometimes a good idea to offer compensation based entirely on a commission basis. This is especially helpful when trying out a new influencer who may not produce a large number of conversions.
Give your performance-based influencer perks like a discount code for free merchandise. They might start out with a 5% commission on the first 50 sales they make, then increase to 8% on the next 100 sales, and so on.