Bloggers, Tiktokers, YouTubers, micro-influencers, content creators, communities… continuously becoming a BIG THING. Why? Because influence pays.
Social media networks are spilling billions of dollars to serve influencers and creators to compete for the views and audience their content attracts. Every company is trying to connect to influencers to enhance their image on the Internet and social networks.
Now, any business must take into account an infinite number of audiences who interact with each other, make and break business reputations with a single click or tweet. Neglecting an association that has only a few members can become critical for a business. Missing out on a crusade by a micro-influencer who has decided to challenge a particular brand or such a leader can be fatal to them.
The first duty of a company is therefore to know its ecosystem of stakeholders and to prioritize it. We can understand the audiences of a company according to their degree of proximity to it. Some audiences have close and direct links; others are more distant. But all are important and none can be overlooked, including the seemingly most anonymous individual.
In addition to a large number of stakeholders, the company must also know how to decipher the behavior of influencers of a new type, who can become relays of their influence strategies, but also slayers of their reputation. These influencers are numerous. We will focus here on five categories: bloggers, YouTubers, micro-influencers, communities, and “anonymous individuals”
What is Influencer Marketing?
So, how to do influencer marketing? Influencer marketing is a collection of strategies that rely on the power of influencers’ suggestions or prescriptions. So in a way, it’s the capacity to turn your customers into brand ambassadors or influencers, but there’s still a distinction between the two depending on the perspective. In its early days, influencer marketing primarily targeted active members of a community or from forums.
In this era where influence is present on each platform, web marketing and communication in the broad sense are now relying on this lever. Even the community manager works on influencer marketing campaigns among his many assignments. At the center is the influencer, the new brand prescriber who has become essential in communication strategies. Thanks to it, companies can dramatically increase their sales in a very short time.
With the emergence of a very active generation of influencers on social networks and blogs, influencer marketing has become essential for communication strategies. It is used in digital marketing or community management for social media operations through social media.
Why influencer marketing works
Several studies have shown that influencer marketing has more impact than traditional marketing (emailing and SMS, banner ads, etc.). According to MediaKix, 80% of marketers consider it to be really effective! According to the Digital Marketing Institute, 70% of teens trust influencers more than celebrities, especially because they post authentic content. However, trust is the basis of the customer relationship!
Influencer marketing is not only effective, but it also delivers quick results to your digital marketing strategy. It is very easy to measure the ROI of a campaign, just as it is very easy to measure the engagement it will have generated.
Finally, influencer marketing is less expensive than a traditional marketing campaign, such as launching an advertising campaign.
For a company, it is about selling, improving its visibility, brand image, and e-reputation, or working on its content marketing by relying on influencers. There are multiple targets, as are the themes through which influencers express themselves.
Marketers get it right, they work simultaneously on influencer marketing and SEO. They thus gain more visibility on social networks and search engines. To do this, they integrate influencer bloggers who have a proven digital influence and who work on the SEO axis. This is not only addressed to specific and isolated areas but for many industries where influencer marketing helps in the search for visibility.
How to Work with Influencers?
If you want to know how to promote your business with influencers but don’t know where to start? Here are the different steps to follow to make your marketing campaign a success.
1. Set a goal
As in any marketing campaign, you will need to start by defining one (or more) objective (s). This objective can be:
- Increase its visibility
- Make yourself known to a new audience
- Promote a new product
- Increase your traffic
- Improve your e-reputation
- Increase sales
- Your goals must be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely.
2. Define the target of your campaign
Determine the audience you want to reach with your marketing campaign. The advantage of influencer marketing is that it allows you to reach a very specific target, by collaborating with niche influencers. It is also an effective technique for reaching a new audience!
3. Determine the message of your campaign
Once the target and the objectives are defined, you can begin to determine the message of your campaign. For example, it can aim to promote a new product or a specificity of one of your products. It can also highlight an event you are organizing, or just highlight one of your key brand values.
4. Choose the distribution channel for your campaign
To distribute your marketing campaign, you have the choice between many platforms: Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, a blog … It all depends on the target audience, your message, your industry or thematic, and the influencer you want to collaborate with if you have a specific idea in mind.
5. Create a budget for your campaign
The marketing method in question involves paying an influencer in exchange for their services. Offering them a product to test will not be enough! You will therefore need to establish a precise budget, preferably before finding your influencer to know which category of influencer you can contact (yes, the more popular the influencer, the more the collaboration will cost you!). Your budget will also allow you to know if you want to work with one or more influencers.
Note that the platform will also decide the budget for your campaign. If you want to communicate on YouTube, it will take about $20 per 1,000 subscribers, while on Instagram, it will be more like $10 per 1,000 subscribers.
6. Find your influencer
There are several types of influencers, depending on the size of their community. The higher the community, the more effective your marketing campaign is. But that’s not the only factor that matters: the engagement rate, for example, is also very important.
Here are the different types of influencers:
- Nano-influencers: These are niche influencers, who have less than 1,000 subscribers but a very high engagement rate.
- Micro-influencers: These are influencers with between 1,000 and 10,000 subscribers, with an engaged community.
- Macro-influencers: These are influencers who have hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of followers. So these are the most famous influencers (if we exclude celebrities).
Be aware that if you want to contact very popular influencers, you will often need to go through an intermediary, such as an agent.
7. Analyze your results
Once you’ve contacted the influencer, you can finally set up your marketing campaign. Do not forget to monitor the performance of your campaign (to correct it if necessary), via the statistics available on social networks, or via a platform like SEMrush and its Brand Monitoring tool. You can also use UTM link generators to track your influencer marketing campaigns and optimize them accordingly.
How to create an influencer marketing strategy?
Influencer marketing is based on several processes:
- Content sponsorship, which consists of paying an influencer to devote content (article, post, video, etc.) to your product or your brand. This technique allows you in particular to boost your visibility.
- Product placement, mostly used on YouTube, involves asking a video influencer to place your product in their video, more or less subtly.
- The buzz kit involves sending an influencer a package containing a sample of your products so that they can test them and talk to their community. The influencer can also use the unboxing technique, which involves unboxing the package live in front of their camera to share their reactions with their community.
- The takeover is to ask an influencer to take control of your social networks for a certain period (often a day). This increases your visibility with the influencer community.
- Inviting an influencer to an event for your brand, which they will share live with their community.
- Organizing contests in partnership with an influencer.
It’s up to you to choose the brand marketing strategy that will best suit the goal of your campaign. You can very well combine several techniques in one and the same campaign (for example: making an unboxing video on YouTube with a contest at the end of the video). If you’re in the business of doing things yourself in terms of image editing, you can use certain tools like visual content creators for influencers. This will make things super easy!
Do you think you’re ready to work with influencers now? Start promoting your business now!
Influencers are born quickly and sometimes it is enough for some to be already recognized in their field for them to then excel on social networks. We also discover that they are more and more young and creative. Creativity will also have an important part in the marketing of tomorrow.
To stand out in this rapidly changing world, the influencers of tomorrow will be those who will undoubtedly offer original, relevant or exceptional content to their audience. We, therefore, underline the creative aspect with also more profiles who will be able to engage their community. While today the focus was on the densest communities, tomorrow it will certainly be necessary to show commitment to the actions relayed.
In the years to come influencers will cover absolutely all areas. They will thus respond to a set of brands and companies for their communication while retaining this power of prescription with their audience. The explosion of influencers is indicative of the need for brands to use influencer marketing to gain visibility and notoriety. So it’s not about to stop, so what are you waiting for?
Reach out to an influencer near you to promote your business!
