Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing

This article will focus on:

• What influencer marketing means
• If you choose social media as your influencer marketing tool, which criteria should you choose?                                        

What is influencer marketing ?

Unlike traditional marketing influencer marketing uses a personal way of marketing products and services. As a company or brand, you employ social media to interact with your target audience. This means your advertising efforts don’t just go anywhere but go straight to your target group.

There is a definite advantage:
Your target audience receives only relevant information about your service or product. Ideally, your message is created in a way that people want to know more about what your brand has to offer. Preferably, the recipient of your message will be encouraged to act. That could be in the form of signing up for a newsletter, ask for a sample or even buy your product.

To be successful with influencer marketing, you need to choose the right social media, which supports your product and is used by the target group. Companies commonly choose market influencer from platforms such as

• Instagram
• YouTube
• Facebook
• Twitch
• Snapchat

In this context, it is important to mention, that it is not necessarily the number of followers or subscribers (YouTube) that determines whether an influencer is effective or not. How well does your influencer relate to the interaction between the influencer and the particular outcome regarding your product?

It is also crucial to choose an influencer who represents the niche in which the company seeks its branding. Further down I will give you some examples in this regard.

Depending on your brand it might be essential to choose a local influencer. This may be a local disco, museum or shop. If you decide of any of those options, again, the focus is not of the location of the influencer, but what results you receive from the influencer. This knowledge can be obtained if the influencer, for example, has a company profile on Instagram.

Why use influencer marketing ?

Influencer marketing on social media has grown rapidly over the past few years. 

There are some reasons why:

• Young people and, millennials in particular, use all kind of social media, including YouTube
• Influencer marketing creates an incredible stimulus. Readers and viewers (followers or subscribers) feel they have found an online friend or friends they can trust. Therefore, they will not only return to your brand but also let others know about you.
• Retail stores, brands, companies as well as public organisations have found that influencer marketing is cheaper than any other marketing strategy. At the same time, it is more effective compared with traditional and outdated marketing options.
• Influencers use apps and filters to personalise your advertising. In most cases that is done by adding images, audio or videos.

These days, most people own a smartphone which they use almost all the time. Surfing the internet is the new normal. People do that while watching TV, visiting friends, go shopping, etc.

What can you expect, when choosing the right influencer marketing:

• Hype for your brand
• More sign-ups for an event
• More sales
• Better return on investment (ROI)
• Valuable feedback from your target group (comments to the influencer’s posts)
• Get ideas from your costumers – maybe a new use of your product you have not thought of.
• Beat your competitors who do not use influencer marketing
• Getting influencers to show how your product works. Influencer videos are easily accessible 24 hours a day.

With influencer marketing, you can only win!

In early summer 2018, a national broadcasting company drove a campaign on all platforms radio, TV and internet; the same theme and for an entire week.

In July, an online streaming service came with their own TV series about influencers. It was a report of four  mega influencers’ everyday lives.

The outcome was a massive peak in the middle of 2018. As you can see from the graph below, interest in influencer marketing is now at an all-time and is still increasing.

Brand ambassadors

You might get a little anxious letting other people market your product or service. However, relax. Influencers are very skilled professionals, who will set the framework on how your target group receives your service or product. Furthermore, the influencer can create an environment and credibility which you cannot do on your own. In this regard, it does not matter how big your marketing budget is.

A new way of marketing

Influencer marketing rests on the premise that you give the influencer permission to tell others about your brand. Influencers speak to your followers at eye level. On the other hand, it is crucial now that you check influencers content history. (Or get Loggershut do it for you). This way you will find influencers and excellent ambassadors for your brand. There is a common value base between your brand and what the influencer stands for.

Whether you use a micro influencer or one of those mega influencers, over time, the influencer will appear as the ambassador for your brand. This happens, when the influencer’s post triggers an action in your followers. That could be in the form of a post or looking for an event in your company. Regarding upcoming posts, your influencer will market those events separately on the social media platform. After six months of launching your new product, your brand ambassadors will come into play once again. This allows you to create a positive domino effect. Using #your-brand together with other social media platforms might be another good idea.

Engagement rate is really important

When you choose influencers, it is paramount to always keep the engagement rate in mind.

The number of followers on an entry profile tell just one side. The number of followers does not always say that much. That might be due to:

• Do people in Vietnam, China or India buy followers.  In that case, there are hundreds of employees working on fake Facebook profiles and other online accounts. Those are false followers. They are only registered without ever interacting with your influencer
• Burnouts on the social media platform. For example, when something else, e.g. studying takes up more time. An inactive SoMe account will quickly fade out, and the followers will find other and more exciting influencers
• Make a new Instagram account because the old Instagram account was not niche oriented or commercial

The engagement rate

Why is this percentage so significant?

The engagement rate is crucial because it shows:

• Likes
• Comments
• Shareability

This is measured concerning the number of views on a post. The engagement rate shows the level of interaction an influencer receives to their content on social media accounts.

In other words, if an influencer buys a large number of inactive followers, there won’t be many comments, likes or sharings, on this particular inactive post. If there is an insignificant number or not many views, the influencer will get a bad engagement rate.

In general, you can use the following example to gauge the engagement rate. In this case, Instagram was used as an example:

• <1,000 followers = 8 %
• <5,000 followers = 5-6 %
• <10,000 followers = 4 %
• <100,000 followers = 2-2.5 %

This clearly shows that the engagement rate falls, the more followers an influencer has. This can be because you feel more connected to an influencer if you are one of the first followers of a so-called micro-influencer. On the other hand, if you are number 100.002 following a mega influencer, you will not have the same friend/friends connection with the mega influencer. Therefore, it is imperative to use micro-influencers, which we will examine in the next section:

Micro- vs. mega influencers

There may be pros and cons of using micro or mega influencers. If you have a relatively large campaign budget, it would be interesting to consider whether to make a right combination of using both micro and mega influencers.

In the following I have listed the pro and cons of micro- and mega influencers:

Starting with the cons:

The benefits are:

As you can see, it comes down to your strategy and marketing budget that will determine whether you choose to use either / or both / and when to select a micro or a mega influencer. 

If you choose the micro influencers, you can do it yourself or get help regarding to the above disadvantages. In both cases you can use Loggershut.

English language influencers

Influencers speaking English are in high demand when we talk about social media. Influencers are not necessarily expensive, because you can choose micro-influencers rather than mega influencers. However, it is important, that to understand that influencers are very sought-after for businesses. It is the younger generation who become influencers.

Finding the right framework for the influencer is crucial. This could be a private influencers accounts or, for example, one of the favourite locations in England, which are particularly suitable for Instagram.

When an influencer from England opened an Instagram business account, you can gain insight from where the followers of the influencer are coming. This may be of importance to you if you want to make a local branding or use the whole of England as your marketing area.

In the following cases, there may be pitfalls if you do not know about the effects of the influencers:

• The UK-resident influencer has an international profile that only a few UK residents will be interested in, for example, African elephants
• There are excellent examples that beauty products in different colours are best depicted by people with a beautiful glow in the skin

Influencer marketing examples

As already mentioned at the beginning, in the section explaining what influencer marketing is, in the following are some examples, of how to choose the right social media platform.

Makeup

Instagram photos and stories, as well as YouTube videos, are both excellent when promoting beauty products. 

Gaming equipment

For games, you can use short and long videos. Both works well. In this case, YouTube is your social media platform of choice. Many gamers create videos, where the show their followers how to get through some difficult passages or how to score high.

Food

As an influencer it’s good to have many skills. Regarding food you could make a video about cooking. On the other hand, Instagram is a suitable media for restaurants and hotels, when the influencer would like to display a certain mood, which is relevant to the target group.

At the bottom of this page are some concrete ways in which influencers use their personal style to display the products:

 

Influencer marketing platform

If you are using an influencer marketing platform, like a do-it-yourself platform, you should be aware if this is a vast database or so-called influencer network. If so there will be a focus on quantity rather than on quality. However, it does work the other way around just as well. If you focus on fewer influencers, you get the quality but lack the quantity.

Many influencer marketing platforms have a significant disadvantage: It is not easy to see how the influencers can be contacted. This can concern the first contact right to where you would like to send a product. Initially, it might look like there is an easy access, but on a closer look you find out, there is a large number of influencers so you end up working much harder for your effort.

On the other hand, you can choose an influencer marketing platform such as: Loggershut.com, where you know that a real person works on your campaign. Only such an influencer has the potential to be a good influencer. Robots can do many things. However, just people can see the bigger picture. Robots fail in this department.

Influencer marketing agency

Loggershut.com is an excellent do-it-yourself influencer marketing platform. Extended service, including:

• Finding influencers that suits you
• Check if influencers comply with the marketing act
• Possibly pay the fee to the influencers
• Has close contact with the SoMe influencers so that the schedule is respected
• Analysing the effect of your marketing campaign

Contact Loggershut and ask for an Enterprise package.

Below you can choose the model that suits you best if you decide on influencer marketing.

 

Influencer marketing at Instagram

Influencer showing a service

Influencer marketing showing food

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