- Defining the Strategy
Before committing to anything, start by defining your goals and what you intend to achieve.
What is your goal? Are you looking to increase the number of visitors to your website per month? Do you want to increase your revenue by a given percentage? You need to have a plan of action just like any strategy, and this will include what you are after.
A good way to set up your goals is to define both the short and long-term objectives. This is how most marketing campaigns are designed.
The process of defining a strategy is almost the same as that for a pay-per-click ads campaign.
You are going to use the same principles when you are deciding on issues to do with influencer marketing.
If you have an ad on a PPC platform but it’s not giving you a return on your investment, then you would most likely pull out. This is the same case with this.
When you know what you want to accomplish, then it is going to help you determine the type of influencer you want to become and the social site you are going to use. When you return on investment, you will see if a given individual is good for your business.
If you find yourself spending a lot while not meeting the goals, then it might be a good idea to find another influencer.
It is that simple
- Social Sites to Use
There are many social media platforms out there, with each of them having its own strength. There are those who like Facebook while some love video content on YouTube. One that is going to play a big role in determining the best platform for your business is the product or service you are offering.
Instagram focuses on images a lot compared to other social media platforms. If the product can be displayed in a photo, then it might be a better option for your marketing efforts.
If the services you are offering don’t have any tangible assets for you to take a picture of, it might be better to choose a social media platform that focuses on text or even video content.
Many companies offering web-based services tend to prefer influencers on YouTube. It isn’t that complicated either. It takes a short blurb about the service and a screenshot of their sit. The message is going to be received loud and clear by thousands of viewers.
Budget can also play a part in the right social media presence. You might realize that influencers on YouTube are more expensive when compared to ones from Twitter. You have to think about the traffic one video is going to receive compared to the number of views on a tweet.
Keep in mind that is good to cover your bases and find the best influencers on all the platforms.
- Understanding Follower Count Is Not Everything
One of the most important aspects of influencer marketing is knowing how fans and followers actually work.
You shouldn’t feel enamored when it comes to an influencer with a million fans. Those numbers might not mean that much.
Followers and Fans
There are some who pay for fans and buy Instagram followers so they can look more popular.
Dissipation Over Time
A person who has been making videos on YouTube for the last decade might have more than 5 million followers. However, that doesn’t paint the entire picture because most of those might not be active as they were before.
The followers and fans of a channel might still be recorded even though they no longer watch the videos posted.
This is why it is common to find someone with five million followers on YouTube only getting 150k views per video.
It is a good idea to look at the daily and weekly growth of an influencer. This is a good way to know whether they add value to your marketing campaign. If you want to determine the effectiveness of an influencer, use tools such as SocialBlade.
- Verifying the influencer is the right fit
Word of mouth is very effective. Celebrities and social media experts can easily engage a lot of people in a short time.
Word-of-mouth ads have a 37% higher retention rate when compared to others. This means they can help your business maintain a customer base.
You need to remember that not all influencers are the right fit. Each individual is going to add his/her own personality to the content. This is important because the last thing you want to do is promote a family-friendly product with someone who is “R” rated.
You also have to consider the niche of the influencer marketing campaign.
Let’s say you have a clothing line you want to market. It doesn’t make sense to hire a gaming video producer unless the clothes are related to gaming. Relevancy between the influencer and the product is very important, just like creating ads for a landing page.
You need to understand the target audience of the influencer the same way you do your audience. Who is watching and responding to the influencers? How are they interacting with the celebrity? Knowing more information about their target audience is going to help you determine whether they are the right fit or not.
- Contacting the Influencers Directly
Many influencers like it when they are contacted directly. This is good for them because it doesn’t involve a middle man and it is going to increase income for them. It allows avoiding having to follow specific guidelines and restrictions that are common when working with third-party outreach programs.
You should stay away from third-party services because of the issues mentioned above.
Most of these services don’t explore followers and determine whether the accounts that follow the influencer are real.
When you contact an influencer directly, you have the chance of meeting them in person. Interpersonal communication is good because it gives you the chance to learn more about the influencer. Professionalism, attitude, and more are part of this process.
This person is going to represent the company online. This is the same as hiring a public relations professional. Thousands and thousands of consumers are going to see that.
A personal interview is important because it allows you to learn more about the influencer and determine whether he/she will do your company justice.