Social media influencers are an important part of marketing campaigns. They can help brands get in touch with their target audience and make a connection. For the most part, social media influencers are easy to find and work with. 

But there are some hacks that can make the process go more smoothly for everyone involved. You should know what you want from your influencer before you reach out to them. Make sure you have a budget planned out. Then start reaching out to influencers who might be a good fit for your needs or budget. Your influencer should have a large enough following to be worth it for your campaign before.

How is Influencer Marketing Faring as a Strategy

For years now, brands and businesses have been using celebrities (or otherwise highly influential individuals) to spread their message (with some success). However, influencer marketing has grown exponentially since its inception, with thousands upon thousands of new stars emerging every year. The trick lies in finding the perfect fit between your brand and your target audience.

Influencers are typically known for sharing lifestyle content, such as beauty tips, travel destinations or fashion choices. These posts often generate millions of shares and comments from audiences who identify with them. As a result, they become extremely visible in the eyes of other users across multiple platforms. This visibility can be leveraged to reach a broader audience for your brand.

Have a Goal

What do you want to be the outcome of the campaign? Brand awareness, lead generation, increase website traffic, increase sales etc. The ultimate goal for any business is always to generate revenue. Your campaign will depend on what stage your customer is in their customer journey. 

In the awareness and consideration phase, influencer marketing can be used to attract new leads. In the decision and loyalty phase, an influencer marketing campaign can help to nurture current leads and make them loyal customers. 

Understand your audiences

In order to understand your audience, you should know what they like, what they don’t like, and how they interact with the things that you are promoting. You should also know your target audience’s demographics to ensure that you are reaching them effectively.

The first step is to find influencers who match your brand and make sure that the content they post aligns with your goals. You can also use influencers to show off new products or services by giving them a product sample in exchange for posting about it on their social media channels.

Choosing your influencers

Influencer marketing is a way of marketing a product or service by enlisting the help of a person who has influence over potential customers. The influencer can be someone who is famous or someone who has a big audience on social media.

Choosing your influencers is the first step in influencer marketing. Choosing the right influencers will increase the success of your campaign, and choosing the wrong ones will lead to failure. 

There are many factors that you should consider when choosing an influencer for your campaign. How well they align with your target market, what their target demographic is, and how much they charge for their services. You should also consider their number of followers on social media. Furthermore, find out if they have any experience with marketing campaigns.

Authenticity is key

Social media influencers have a large following on social media and can help promote products to their followers. They are authentic and believable. This is why people follow them. 

The best way to get your brand or product in front of a potential customer is to talk about it in the same way that your customers do. That means using language and imagery that represents you and your brand, without being cheesy or gimmicky.

If you’re looking for a new way to reach out to your audience, consider hiring an influencer who has a strong following and who is already talking about what you want them to talk about.

Enable Customization

In order to have successful influencer partnerships and campaigns, you need to be able to allow the influencers to use their creativity. Their audience loves them for their authenticity. Don’t force them to reflect your brand, it makes the content look scripted, which their audience can detect. 

Leave some room for customization and creativity by the influencer. This is because your brand is talking to your target customer indirectly through the influencer. 

Promote your ambassadors

Working for free can be exhausting. Also, paying your influencers with exposure will not pay their bills. According to a study by Tomoson, a brand can make $6.50 for every $1 spent on influencer marketing. This shows that your brand will benefit a lot through an influencer marketing campaign.

There are some factors that influence how an influencer will be paid which include account size, engagement rate and niche. Other factors include content usage rights, exclusivity clause, agency or manager fees, campaign length, posting on multiple channels, rush fee and link in bio.

To help you predict your budget, you can use the following formula;

$100 per 10,000 followers + the number of posts + additional factors (i.e. number of channels, usage rights, exclusivity) = total rate.

Alternatively, calculate 4% of their following + number of posts + additional factors = total rate.

Types of Influencer Marketing Campaigns

Sponsored Content

This is a type of partnership between an influencer and a brand. Where you pay the influencer money or other type of gain for posting about your product or service. Once you have identified the influencers that you want to work with, you can send them your products, which they would make a video, post or blog about. 

If you are giving products/services to the influencers for free, they are not obligated to make videos or posts mentioning your product or service. On the other hand, paying an amount of money with a promise to produce the content showcasing your product, guarantees the influencer creates the video or posts for their audience. 

When your influencer promotes your product or service on their channel, that is sponsored content. For example, XYZ company sell shoes. Their marketing department partners with an influencer for a campaign to create awareness. The influencer can mention your product,“ …and thanks XYZ for sending me these shoes, I love them…”. Or they tag @XYZCompany on their posts.

Also, since influencers have an authentic relationship with their followers, their followers listen to their recommendations. When they are creating sponsored posts, allow them to be free to create without your interference. You can oversee the campaign without micromanaging the influencer. 

Contests and Giveaways

Well-designed contests can help you encourage your audience to create user-generated content (UGC). Giveaways are a great way to promote your brand. As long as you give away something valuable, people will be willing to participate. 

Your giveaway could be anything including a book, clothing item, or even a free trial. All you have to do is pick something that your followers would enjoy. To increase the chances of winning, make sure that your giveaway isn’t too big (over $100) or too small ($10). Try to aim for around the $50-$75 range. Remember that bigger items with higher prices are harder to give away, so start small and work your way up.

Affiliate and Discount Codes

Discount codes and affiliate links will help you track the performance of your influencer marketing campaign. They can also incorporate discounts for your customers. Discount codes are a combination of numbers that your influencer(s) can offer to your customers. The codes can be used at checkout.

Affiliate links are web pages from your website. Preferably, a landing page. They can also be very good for driving traffic to your website. 

Brand Ambassadorships

You can also work on building long-term relationships with influencers. Instead of working on one-off sponsored posts, consider focusing on building long-term relationships with them. It ensures that the influencer is more invested in the brand. They are even more likely to produce high-quality content. It builds trust and can create more opportunities for both parties.  

What to Look for In Social media Influencers

Average Engagement Rate

Influencers have a strong impact on the purchase decisions of their audience. When considering working with an influencer, it is important to understand their average engagement rate. The higher the engagement rate, the better.

The engagement rate is a measure of how engaged an influencer’s followers are with their posts. It is calculated by dividing the number of likes or comments on a post by the number of followers that person has. The higher this ratio, the more engaged they are with their content and audience. The lower this ratio, the less engaged they are with their content and audience.

Consistent Branding

When choosing an influencer, it is important to make sure that they are aligned with their company’s brand and values.

A good influencer will have consistent branding across social media channels, which means that their followers know what to expect from them.

You can work with someone who has a well-known name to help spread the word about your product or service. They will be able to use their influence to help people understand how great your product is and why they should buy it.

Follower Demographics

When looking for influencers, it is important to consider the follower demographics. For instance, a person with a lot of followers may not be the best influencer for your brand if the majority of their followers are not in your target demographic.

When looking for an influencer, companies should consider their follower demographics and how this will affect their marketing efforts. For example, a company that sells farming equipment might want to find an influencer who has a lot of farmers following them on social media, rather than an influencer with 100k followers with zero farmers following them.

Previous Influencer Partnerships

One of the most important factors to consider when looking for influencers is previous partnerships. If an influencer has worked with a brand in the past, it is likely that they will work with them again.

The best way to find out if an influencer has previously partnered with a company is by looking at their LinkedIn profile or their website. It should be noted that not all influencers list this information on their social media profiles because they are not required to do so.

Professionalism and Credibility

Social media influencers are a valuable asset to any brand. They can be used to promote a product or service, and they can also be used to help generate awareness for an organization.

Influencers are all about the relationships they build with their followers. The companies that want them for marketing campaigns need to make sure that they have the right personality for the job. Consumers can make a decision from their influencer’s recommendations. The influencer acts as your brand’s messenger.

When promoting your product or service, the influencer experiences the product or service before the customer. The customer will rely on the information and opinion they get from the influencer. They get to have a virtual experience of the product/service before buying.

Number of Followers

Nano-influencers and micro-influencers are becoming increasingly popular in the marketing world. They have a much smaller following than traditional social media influencers and are more affordable to work with.

• Nano-influencers usually have between 1,000 – 10,000 followers. They have the smallest audience. 
• Micro-influencers usually have between 10,000 – 100,000 followers. They are able to maintain close relationships with their audience, with a very engaged following.
• Mid-tier influencers; usually have between 50,000 – 500,000 followers. 
• Macro-influencers; have between 500,000 – 1,000,000 followers. 
• Then there are the mega-influencers with 1,000,000 + followers.

When looking for an influencer, it is important to consider their engagement rate. These smaller influencers can help you generate more focussed leads. 

Measure Influencer Marketing Success

The only way to know if your campaign is working is to measure the results. Track your metrics. It allows you to know what is working and what isn’t, allowing you to make changes where needed.

You need to know if your influencer marketing campaign is performing as expected, how their audience is responding to your campaign, and if it’s worth the investment. We are talking about key performance indicators. 

It’s important to understand what your measures of success are right from the beginning of your campaign. You probably just want to drive traffic to your website, sell a product or create brand awareness. 

The Best Key Performance Indicators

• Campaign reach; The number of people who saw a post from an influencer in the campaign channel.
• Social engagement; How many people are commenting, sharing, and liking the post on social media?
• Conversions; The percentage of website visitors that complete a conversion goal.

UTM Tags

These are short text codes. You place them in your URL to help you track the performance of your social media campaign. They track the visitors to your website through your influencers. They help you measure the value of influencer marketing campaigns and measure ROI. You will be able to get data on traffic sources and conversions. UTM tags can also allow you to A/B test your posts.

UTM tags can be created using a UTM generator such as Google UTM generator. You can then give your influencers unique links with UTM codes, which you can use to calculate the success of your campaign.