If you have been reading up about digital marketing, you should have stumbled upon influencers and how much of an impact they are having these days.
Those who are looking to introduce a little bit more benefits to their business should definitely look to get started with that immediately. This is the new big thing and it is highly unlikely that influencer marketing is going to go away any time soon.
Of course, those who have not had any prior experience will need to get some information before spending any money. That is the reason for this article – providing the most important influencer marketing tips and allowing newcomers to familiarize themselves with what some have dubbed a “Brave New World” of internet marketing.
Choose One That Fits Your Brand
Before you go for someone, you need to ensure that they are on board with your ideology, share common voice, have the audience you want to target, and so on. The influencer should be a natural and not feel like someone you have hired just for the sake of advertising your products or services.
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Make Use of Analytics
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It is a good piece of advice to ask for some analytics information from influencers before hiring them. This is proof that their account is genuine and is not filled with fake followers which is quite common nowadays. Ask for a couple of screenshots of their analytics page and it will give you a much better idea of what you are working with.
Finally, look at their engagement rate overall. If someone has thousands of followers but barely gets any likes or comments, it is not worth it to even bother with someone like that.
Find Out Follower Demographics
Now it might be tempting to work with someone who has millions of followers and a great engagement rate. But the numbers are not necessarily the best metric. Demographics matter a lot. For instance, if you are operating a business in the US, then there is very little point of hiring someone who has only a fraction of followers from that country.
International Influencers
Local business is a bit easier but if you are looking to conquer the world, sticking with this strategy will not do you any good. In fact, it is quite possible to reach local customers with someone from another country. That is if they know what they are doing. Moreover, hiring someone from abroad is usually a much cheaper option.
Check Out Their History
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Similar to researching the competition in your industry, you should spend a little bit of time looking at past collaborations and how successful or unsuccessful they were. As there are a lot of different methods to promote, it is important to figure out whether this influencer uses techniques that align with your own.
Engagement Rate Is the Key
When you have a list of candidates in front of you but still feel like that number is too big, make the cuts based on the engagement rate. Focus on things like the number of sales promotional campaigns have generated, how much has the brand grown on social media in terms of followers and engagement, how much traffic the website received, and so on.
Compare only the most important metrics and cross out anyone who is not up to par compared to others. After all, you will be spending money on this, and you only want what is best for your company, right?
Find Experts in the Industry
According to Alice Donoghue, companies should focus more on looking for an influencer who is a professional in the industry as much as he or she is a professional in social media marketing. But then again, it might be difficult locating such a person because they will likely have a lower number of followers, making them harder to find. Especially if your niche is not that popular, to begin with.
Make Them an Offer They Cannot Refuse
It is not a good approach to simply go ahead and contact the influencer and asking him or her a ton of questions. Instead, look for a creative way of introducing yourself and showing that you can provide value as well. Not everything is about money these days. They might be interested in getting featured on your website in a guest blog post format, or in a video together.
It will take time to contact a decent number of influencers, but once you do receive responses, it will be easier to see who you can work with and who is not that amenable.
Research and Make Use of Tools
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Influencer hunt can become easier if you make use of tools like Buzzsumo or Intellifluence, but sticking to more conventional methods of browsing through social media using hashtags is also an option. Finally, you can always visit Google and search directly from there.
Consider Hiring an Agency
Sometimes it is better to leave the work for others. If you feel like choosing an influencer is not something you can do on your own, then hiring an agency might be the correct option. After all, the first campaign is going to be a pain regardless, and even if you feel like you understand what your targeted audience is, it will not be the case all the time.
Affiliate Partnership Proposition
It might surprise you just how many people out there have over 100 thousand followers but are unable to sell something they create themselves. There will certainly be those who are not willing to accept an affiliate proposal, but certain influencers will be on board.
Creating a single post and letting it hang there until it gets buried by fresh content does not sound that amazing. Meanwhile, if they get paid a commission for each sale they make, it should increase the motivation of doing their job the best way possible.
Have Clear and Defined Goals
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Hardly anything turns out the way you expect, correct? Well, it is still much better to have a plan that has expectations and goals in it. Think about whether you are trying to raise brand awareness, improve your social media presence, generate more leads and sales, or perhaps build an email list?
Not having goals makes it impossible to measure your success at the end of the campaign. Also, it is worth mentioning that setting expectations too high can be pretty demoralizing. Do not do that as it will help with not losing motivation in the middle of the campaign.
Speak About These Goals
Having them written somewhere will not be enough. You need to discuss these goals with the influencer as well. There is no room for making any errors and both parties need to be on the same page.
Also, talk about how many posts you expect to see, their frequency, hashtags used, and so on. Little details like that can be left in the hands of influencers, but having a prior discussion on them will prevent potential problems.
Keep Track of Campaign
Make use of tracking tools. In fact, use as many as you can and keep track of every little bit of information that is available to you. The more you have in front of it, the easier it is to determine whether the campaign is successful or not.
Genuine Fans
The most ideal candidate to become your spokesperson would be someone who is already following your brand. Genuine fans will provide genuine content. Social media is a tricky thing as a whole but average people can still tell when someone is being disingenuous. Faking will not be good for anyone involved, so if nothing else, the least you can do is make sure that this sort of thing does not happen.
Variety Content
There are a lot of options when it comes to possible content. First, look at the platform you are working with. YouTube is great for giving longer promotions as it is in a video format and is the most popular website for watching videos on the internet.
Meanwhile, Instagram, which is the hub for influencers, is usually better with regular posts. A picture or a story and mentioning the brand’s name is what most posts consist of these days.
However, it would be worth introducing a little bit more variety and creativity. Since influencers rely on their creative side more than anything else, discuss other potential methods of promoting your brand. Perhaps it could be a contest, or maybe a series of posts revealing information and making some huge announcement at the end of it?
Blog Posts
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If there is an opportunity to get a guest blog post, do it. It is a great way to get everything that you would get from the social media content, but on top of that, a well-written blog post will improve your SEO rankings as well.
Learn and Test
Hardly anyone is capable of landing the perfect partnership on their first try. It is the good-old-fashioned trial and error. Nevertheless, learning and progressing with influencer marketing is certainly worth the effort since it is not disappearing in the near future.
To give a conclusion, this article should cover almost every single bit of information about influencer marketing and help you the next time you are looking for one. Make sure to follow as many of these tips so that you come out with the best possible influencer to help your business.