Automated Influencer Marketing

Most of us are aware of the phenomenal growth of influencer marketing in the industry. With the massive growth in its count of daily users, Instagram has also seen a massive increase in the number of Instagram influencers. The start of the decade saw the rise of celebrity influencers peaking higher. However, micro-influencers have cornered much of the limelight. These influencers help brands to directly reach targeted sets of audience members. They have a better ROI compared to celebrities like Kim Kardashian and others who can charge up to half a million dollars for a single post. But influencer marketing comes with its own set of challenges too. Designing a whole influencer marketing campaign and implementing it is a hefty task when attempted manually. This is why most marketers are looking for automated influencer marketing systems.

Can Influencer Marketing be Automated?

It is essential to know about influencer marketing before we answer this question. Any marketing campaign takes planning and effort. The same is the case for influencer marketing. To begin with, a marketer would have to incorporate a variety of influencer-marketing related activities in his/her daily schedule. They would also need to be educated on topics like who the industry leaders are, monitor similar campaigns online, attempt content analysis, reaching out et cetera. That is not all. Once the research is done, a list of activities ensue. They will have to get the influencer on board, communicate their goals, curate content, and evaluate the campaign’s performance in an ongoing manner. It would be foolish to try and attempt this manually. Which brings us back to the question of automated influencer marketing.

Can tools help automate certain processes in the marketing campaign? Yes!
Can they help to automate the whole process? No!
Would it be possible to reduce the overall load? Definitely!

How do Automated Tools help?

If you think about it, all these little steps and processes require time and manpower. It could take weeks or months (depending on the size of your team) to implement a successful influencer marketing campaign. Automaton tools like social media listening turn the entire campaign into a seamless flow, from sourcing the right influence for you to tracking relevant content. The tool brings you competitor analysis data, measures the success of your campaign, and more. And that is a major chunk of the work taken care of. This saves you a lot of time and you can focus and give your 100 percent to the challenge of formulating the strategy.

Finding the Right Influencer

Automated tools track the conversation around any keyword you put in. To start your influencer marketing campaign, put in the keywords for your industry. Tools like Auris pull up every mention and show you all the people who are talking about it. Every commentator is assigned an influencer score based on a multitude of factors like their follower count, engagement rate et cetera. You can easily filter out macro or micro-influencers from the list. This saves you time on having to go and manually hunt for influencers online. Once you have filtered out the list, the dashboard brings up all the details of these people. The frequency at which they post, their activities, number of followers et cetera. You can study and compare these and reach out to the right influencers for your brand.

Brainstorming Content

This is the creative part. And you would be surprised at how social listening tools can help you to a significant extent, with this too. When the tool is listening to the chatter online, it analyzes the data collected. The tool then presents a word cloud of the most trending topics online. This will give you and the influencer a fair idea of the kind of content you can work on. Additionally, the dashboard also presents an analysis of the overall sentiment around these topics. You can steer clear of the topics with a negative sentiment attached to it.

Measuring and Improvising

When you have launched your campaign, you can relax a little. And thanks to automated influencer marketing, you might get a chance to do a little more of that. Because had you gone for a full-manual process, you would be on your toes trying to measure the performance. Automated tools help you measure the results with visual data representation. This makes the process easy and you have ready data so you can implement changes on the go.

In conclusion, an automated influencer marketing tool like social listening is a wise investment. Social listening helps you find advocates and influencers for your product/service at ease. Additionally, it also does a lot of heavy lifting for your other marketing processes like market research, content marketing, competitor analysis et cetera. When you have social media intelligence tools taking care of the peripheral activities, you can really take control of the creative part which takes a lot of thought and planning.

Influencer Marketing During the Pandemic

The Coronavirus Pandemic has had its effect on everything, even influencer marketing. Some of these changes are short-lived while others are here to stay. Creators and influencers have also felt the wind of change during the pandemic. Most marketers are hesitant to collaborate with influence marketers during the pandemic. Indeed, in the current situation, marketing messages can get risky. Especially if you start marketing luxury goods to a person who maybe struggling for or even lacking basic necessities.

Capture Audience Attention with Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing, if done properly can really reap benefits during the lockdown. People are practically addicted to their social media accounts. Hence they will be consuming the content posted by influencers the most right now. People are also mostly staying at home. Marketers can employ the power of influencer marketing to connect with their home-bound fan base using genuine and authentic campaigns.

Remember the shifts in influencer marketing trends we were talking about, the winds of change? Influencer marketing still works provided the brands adjust and adapt according to the shifts. The pandemic has led people to change their purchase behavior. Brands and influencers need to figure out a way to show how the product fits into the new daily routine. Here we explored some ways influencers marketing could benefit your brand during the pandemic.

How can Influencers Help?

Let’s look at two positive influences on influencer marketing which could make it boom during this period. First, the way the audience now receives communication has altered. So all the traditional outdoor marketing is out. Social media and online advertising are in. Second, the pandemic has brought people together and garnered a sense of togetherness. Influencers can take advantage of this emotional bonding and make the most of it. An influencer marketing campaign can work wonders to help your brand gain the right footage if done correctly.

1.Social Listening and Opinion Mining

When you have plans to collaborate with an influencer, using tools like social listening and sentiment analysis will come in handy at various stages. Social listening can help you find the right influencer. It will also help you read the mood of your audience. This analysis is key to a successful campaign. If you go wrong with the analysis, the campaign could backfire. It’s important to study your target audience. And since your influencer and you are in the same industry, chances are your target audience members already follow them. Hence educate your influencer about your strategy and expectations and your estimates of the current mood of the public. If the influencer goes off-script and makes unsubstantiated claims it will cause more harm than good.

2. Goodwill

Conventional influencer marketing campaigns are designed to promote products/brands/services. But consumers may actually get turned off by marketing messages and advertising spoofs. They will not expect businesses to stop advertising, but they want them to be more sensitive to the situation. Consumers also want to know about the positive steps brands are taking during these times.

This is a good time to build a positive brand image by involving influencers and promoting charitable events. You could also build a campaign around the recent social causes and show your brand’s support for something like #MeToo or the #BlackLivesMatter movement. This would help you to build brand awareness and consumer goodwill among your target audiences.

3. Extend Support

As we mentioned earlier, it is imperative that you listen to your customer base in real-time and keep tracking the conversations which mention you. You would find many of your audience members asking questions about the industry and your brand. Collaborating with influencers and connecting on these virtual platforms also brings in traffic and visibility to your brand. Let’s say you are a coffee manufacturing company. You know your audience members are stuck home probably getting bored. Collaborate with a food blogger for a live recipe session, like a coffee cake recipe! You are extending help, building a positive image, and subtly promoting your coffee.

4. Structure Campaigns Appropriately

It must be apparent by now that influencer marketing can work wonders if you know how to structure the campaigns. One way to structure your campaign is to take inspiration from your competitors. Set up your social listening tool for competitive analysis and take a look at what the industry leaders are doing for their campaigns. You can also track industry news and plan your campaign content around the trending topics.

5. Use Humour the Right Way

Last but not the least, this is a sensitive time. While planning an influencer marketing campaign, you have to strike a balance between the right amount of humor and empathy. While humor is a great marketing tool, inappropriate jokes could backfire now. So be very sure to track the public sentiment before planning and rolling out your campaign.

Going by the trend, influencer marketing is here to stay. The coronavirus pandemic has caused a setback for every industry. But even in that, the influencer marketing industry is now getting more eyeballs daily. Make this campaign work for you by working with the right creator and the right insights.

From Influencers to Micro-Influencers – Why it Makes Sense?

All of us have come across celebrity influencers at some point in our lives. But how often has a celebrity influencer ever influenced you to make a purchase? For many, the answer to that question is – “sometimes” or “often”. If you have, you already know how powerful the concept of influencer marketing is. And micro-influencers have recently joined the scene. And they are already the favorites of both – consumers and brands. So what made brands make this shift from celebrity influencers to micro-influencers?

Who is a Micro-Influencer?

Micro-influencers are regular individuals also called social-influencers with a following ranging between 1000-10000 audience members. Although smaller, their followers are more loyal and active. This can be attributed to the influencer’s stronghold and knowledge of their niche. Also, these influencers generally have a high rate of engagement. So naturally, any individual seeking knowledge about a niche subject would follow an expert in their niche. These members are more like thought-leaders in their own niche. So an audience member following a horologist is most likely interested in watches and watch-making. You’d rarely find a post on their profile talking about other interests. This is the very feature that makes micro-influencers such a popular choice among brands nowadays. We would discuss this in detail in the upcoming sections.

The Benefits of Planning a Campaign with a Micro-Influencer

The growing popularity of micro-influencers can be credited to three major attributes:

Niche: they talk about their area of expertise, there is no space for half-hearted promotional gimmicks.
Dedicated audience: It is known that micro-influencer campaigns have more engagement. Adweek says these influencers have 60% better engagement rates and there’s a 22.2% greater chance of a conversion.
Budget-Friendly: These accounts are handled by everyday people with a great passion for their hobby or interest. This makes them genuine enthusiasts. They did not essentially become an influencer to make money. So a collab with these influencers isn’t too heavy on the pocket. Adweek also reports they are 6.7x more cost-effective.

How Does it Work?

Let’s look at an example of how a collaboration with a micro-influencer pans out. Consider a micro-influencer page like @follow_my_wrist, who is a horology enthusiast with over 3k followers. This influencer has over 250 posts and each one has a high engagement rate in the form of reach, impressions, likes, and comments. The commentators have asked genuine questions and recommendations and they seem to trust this person. If you’re a watch brand, it would make more sense to collaborate with this influencer. Why?

This influencer’s followers are your target audience. So you have a ready set stage to showcase your product.

His/her audience trusts him/her. So if they like your product, they may choose to talk about it on their channel. His/her audience is more likely to believe in the value of your product. The chances of conversion are higher.

This person perhaps won’t charge you a lot for a promotional post. You could offer to give them a sampler, or a small amount as a token of appreciation. In return, his/her 3k audience knows about your product, talks about it, and perhaps will buy it too. And, recommend it to their circles, lending it the authority of their forum.

Build a Long-Term Relationship

You could turn this into a long-term marketing relationship. Say you create a giveaway campaign with this influencer, where you promise to give away 2 units for free or at a heavy discount. The influencer markets this on their profile as a contest. They ask their followers to share a pic of your product on their feed with your brand’s hashtag. This sets off a chain reaction. Even if 1000 followers enter this contest and post, their followers subsequently come to know about your product.

It is easier to convince this influencer. In a giveaway contest where you are sponsoring the prize, they do not have to invest. Plus they get more followers since people always are interested in free goodies, so giveaway contests are a great way for influencers to grow their own reach.

This becomes a win-win situation for both parties here. But if you are collaborating with a celebrity influencer, followers may suspect/instantly decide that the content/promotional post isn’t genuine. Recently we noticed, for a promotional post made by Kendall Jenner, the purchase intent shown by her followers was lower than that on a post made by Summer Mckeen. Also, the cost of collaborating with such high-end celebrity endorsers will overshoot your budget.

How to Find Micro-Influencers?

As we mentioned, these influencers aren’t celebrities so obviously it’s a little difficult to come by them but not impossible. If you know the right keywords to look for, social media listening can fetch you a list of top micro-influencers suited for your cause.

All you need to know is the keywords you want to track. Say you are a brand selling watches, start by looking for ‘#Watch’, ‘#Horology’, ‘#WatchLover.’ With a social listening tool like Auris, you just have to set it up to listen for these keywords and leave the job up to the tool. The tool gathers all mentions from across the World Wide Web and brings you the top influencers. These are calculated on the basis of the influence score assigned to an individual. The algorithm which calculates the influencer score takes into consideration metrics like engagement rate, frequency of posts, expertise level et cetera. The higher the influence score is, the better they are.

Auris, also provides a filter so you can filter out individuals based on their influence score. So if you are looking for influencers with a mid-range influence score, set the filter to “influence score of 60-40” and auris brings you the list. It will also bring up the analysis around the posts made by these individuals. This makes the selection process much easier because the decision here is driven by real-time data.

Micro-influencers are regular people who can be highly effective as a promotional tool. If you are tracking the right keywords, you should find the right partner. Once, your campaign is ready to be rolled out, ensure you measure the outcomes. This will help you improve your future campaigns.

Influencer Marketing for Start-Ups

Almost every brand wants a slice of influencer marketing, even startups. You might think that influencer marketing for start-ups is a no-go given their budget constraints. And obviously, they would want the maximum possible return on their investment. Well, the good news is, they don’t even need a lot of capital to get started with their first influencer marketing campaign. What’s more, influencer marketing for startups gets them an edge over bigger brands. So here’s how even startups can implement an effective influencer marketing campaign.

What is Influencer Marketing?

Any individual with the power to convince others and influence their purchasing decisions can be called an influencer. With the advent of social media platforms like Instagram, the influencer marketing industry has seen a boom. The global spend on Instagram influencer marketing is expected to be around $8080 billion in 2020.

The most surprising element here is that not all influencers have thousands of followers. In fact, influencers with a lesser count of followers (2k-30k) have more engagement on their posts. And this is the trick we use for influencer marketing for startups.

Steps for Influencer Marketing for Start-ups

This isn’t a tough strategy to formulate. You might feel a little intimidated thinking big brands invest in influencer marketing, but it really doesn’t depend on your company’s size. There can be a different pathway for you to take. Let’s discuss it step-by-step.

Your Ideal Influencer

There are various types of influencers like mega, macro, and micro-influencers. So when you decide to opt-in for an influencer marketing campaign you have to make a decision. It is advisable for start-ups to opt for micro-influencers. These influencers have an active follower base and negotiating your offering with them will prove a little easier. Also, you have to judge other factors like whether the person exudes an innate sense of business. Do they have enough credibility? Have they, at any time in the past, worked with your competitors? Answering these questions might help you narrow down your list of potential influencers to work with.

Your Goals

Defining your own goals is key. It is important because you will need to communicate them to the influencer too. Also, when you are sure about your goals, you can decide which KPIs to keep monitoring in order to track your progress and ROI. For startups, the primary goal is to increase awareness. For this, working with multiple micro-influencers works best. For instance, say you sign up 10 micro-influencers and organize a giveaway contest. They will ask their followers to share a post or story mentioning your brand and their handle in order to enter the contest. Imagine the ripple effect here. If you can get even 10 influencers with say 2k followers each, you will have each of these followers mentioning your brand on their feed!

Social Listening to Find the Right Match

It is important for you to be clear about your dream influencer. Profiling the right influencer begins when you start tracking them by what you are looking for. Social listening tools can help you here. Tracking influencers becomes easy when you have access to the influence scores of every person who engages with your industry chatter. Since you are tracking industry keywords, you will automatically find people who speak to your niche audience. Now all you need to do is decide whether you want a macro or micro-influencer. Sort the influence scores accordingly and you will have found your ideal match.

Communicating Your Goals

If you have gone through all the above steps, you already know your goals and have an influencer in mind. As a startup, you will have to decide how much creative decision you want to hold. Be clear about the message you want to convey, your primary goals, and how much control you want over the content/language.

Once your campaign is running, you are left with only one job, giving it as much visibility as possible so keep re-sharing the content on all your online channels. Monitor and measure the metrics. Take note of any discrepancy that might crop up, discuss it with your collaborator. Hopefully, you will gain some long-term collaborations and improved brand sentiment and awareness.

How to Work with an Influencer?

Over the past year, we have spoken a lot about influencer marketing. The reason is that working with influencers is a trend that has been gaining ground. Hence it is important to highlight the way it really works and to talk about the platform which has seen the highest jump in this trend. Yes, we are talking about Instagram. The simplicity of the app allows influencers to share thematic content and direct it to their niche audience. Many brands have been working with them and you would be right if you are wondering how to work with an influencer!

Influencer marketing campaigns can prove to be really beneficial, but only if you manage to choose the right person. There’s a real challenge in finding the right influencer on a given platform. And in deciding on how to proceed, after finding one.

Here are a few pointers which would help you choose and plan the flow of your campaign.

Work with an Influencer following these Steps

Working with an influencer can complement your overall marketing strategy. However, the implementation of an influencer marketing campaign needs a strategy for itself.

What are you looking for?

You would obviously have a marketing strategy in place. If you have been monitoring your campaigns you already know the aspects where your brand is falling short. Maybe you can plug these gaps with an influencer marketing campaign. Or you may even have unique goals. Whichever it is, make sure you are clear about them. Maybe you want to:

Increase your brand awareness and reach. For brands who have just shown up on Instagram, this is the perfect way to get the needed attention. An influencer already has a following. When they promote your brand, you get a fixed set of eyes. You don’t have to hunt for an audience.
Launch a new product or promote an existing one. Influencers have a dedicated following so when they promote your product conversion rates promise to be higher.
Build a follower base for an upcoming event. If you are hosting an event in collaboration with an influencer, their followers would want to sign up. This gives your event an increased number of audience members.

Setting your goals would help you to decide which type of influencer you want to engage with.

Choose a Type of Influencer

We had spoken about the types of influencers in one of our previous blogs – “How to find Instagram influencers?”. If you don’t remember, we will help you blow the dust off the old memory file.

In the digital world, the market for influencers has boomed. Now there are influencers of all kinds. You can choose to work with a celebrity influencer, a macro-influencer, or a micro-influencer. The decision depends on your needs and goals.

Micro-influencers have the smallest following of the three. Their follower count is generally between 2,000 to around 50,000 on a single social media account. These creators generally have a focused topic of interest and they have a niche audience. And this is why these accounts generally have a higher engagement rate.

Macro-influencers have around 50,000 to 1,000,000 followers. These accounts perhaps started out as micro-influencers themselves and have grown to their current stature organically. These profiles are considered leaders or experts in their niche. They also have a huge fan base and a loyal one.

Celebrity influencers are also called mega influencers. These accounts have more than 1,000,000 followers. These are mostly accounts of real-life celebrities and they make up a group of most expensive influencers.

Ask yourself these Questions before you Work with an Influencer

Now, you are clear about the goals and you have a partial idea about the type of influencers you can choose from. Next, you need to come to a final decision and asking yourself some of these questions might help you with that.

Your Budget

Influencer marketing is versatile when it comes to pricing. Each influencer type has its own price bracket associated with a campaign. Micro-influencers won’t demand nearly as much as a macro influencer. Most brands choose to partner with multiple micro-influencers and send them free samples to review. However, if you are looking for the wow factor and have a lenient budget, you could opt for a mega influencer.

Who Follows them?

Finding a perfect influencer would need you to know their own personal brand. Hence make sure their audience is close to or similar to your target audience. This is absolutely essential because otherwise, you will invest in a campaign where the conversion rate wouldn’t be high. If your influencer’s audience isn’t interested in your niche, they will not buy your product.

Engagement Rate

Being popular on social media is easy because people sometimes buy fake likes and followers. So as a brand trying to find the right influencer, make sure you pay attention to more than just the vanity metrics. Check the engagement. See how active the influencer is and how often do they engage with their followers. High engagement rates show that the influencer has an actual following. The more the dedicated following is, the better chances of conversion for your product/service/event.

Has the Influencer Worked with your Competitor?

Another important consideration is to be sure to check whether the influencer has worked with your direct or indirect competitors. You would also need to decide whether it affects your campaign. The situation presents a conflict of interest and might appear unauthentic to the public if your influencer has also worked with your direct competitor. If they have worked with your indirect competitors, you need to decide whether it is best suited to your goals.

Their Content and Past Experience

Like I mentioned earlier, past work experiences may matter. Similarly, their content type also affects your brand. For instance, if they have worked with your competitors, your campaign may seem inauthentic in the eyes of the public. Also, if this influencer has done a lot of sponsored posts in the past, they might again seem inauthentic. It is crucial to gauge their content. The content for your campaign should not be in contrast to the influencer’s previous posts.

Planning a Campaign Together

Planning an influencer marketing campaign starts with you. You have to find an ideal campaign partner. We’ve discussed all the strategic steps up to this point. Furthermore, I even suggest that you use Instagram’s hashtag facility, a social listening platform, and do some research. The tool automates a lot of hard work.

So, now you have an influencer, there is still a campaign to plan and implement. You need to work with this person/brand. If you are teaming up with a person who is already a fan of your brand, they probably know your product well. This partnership will be smoother. If the influencer isn’t familiar with your brand, don’t worry. Educate them and convey to them the specifics and goals you have in mind.

In conclusion, influencer marketing works well for any brand that is looking to improve strategic marketing goals. This could involve increased awareness, engagement, or some effort at building connections. Influencer marketing is the form of non-traditional marketing that has become quite popular in the digital age of Instagram. I hope this guide can help you to work with an influencer in the future.

Top 15 Most Followed Instagram Accounts

Everyone has either come across an Instagram influencer, heard about one, or tried to be one, perhaps. The platform’s popularity has skyrocketed in recent times. So, it’s no wonder that the trend on Instagram influencers is booming too. Instagram’s usage has grown 10 times over the past 5 years. According to Pew Research Center, 35% of Internet users are on Instagram. Influencer marketing on Instagram is now almost a $2 billion industry and growing. With the rising number of influencers and people who make a living on there, you may begin to wonder which are the most followed Instagram accounts?

We used our platform to work this out for you. Ranking these profiles in a fixed order is difficult since the number of followers and influence scores keep fluctuating. However, these are definitely the greatest influencer profiles on Instagram and can safely be called the top profiles 😍.

Most Followed Instagram Accounts

Cristiano Ronaldo (@cristiano)

This champion footballer is the forward for Juventus and the captain of Portugal’s national football team. As one of the greatest players in the world, his influential status doesn’t surprise anyone. He has 218m followers and holds the record for reaching 200 m followers first.

Ariana Grande (@arianagrande)

She is an American singer, songwriter, and actor. She rose to fame with her role in Victorious on Nickelodeon. This star has won a Grammy Award, a BRIT Award, 3 American Music Awards, and many more. With 185m followers, Ariana has also been dubbed the Billboard Woman of the Year in 2018.

Instagram (@instagram)

Instagram’s own official profile on the platform is very popular. And they use their feed wisely. They showcase the features that get added and create content for IGTV and promote it. Although this page may not be an influencer in the true sense, it is definitely one of the most followed pages with 348m followers.

Dwayne Johnson (@therock)

The wrestling world knows him as The Rock. Though Dwayne Johnson is now known as an actor, he gained popularity when he won his first World Wrestling Federation championship in 1998. His Instagram profile flaunts the support of 183m followers.

Selena Gomez (@selenagomez)

This American singer and actress shot to fame with her appearance in Barney & Friends and Disney’s Wizards of Waverly Place. Billboard reported that she sold over 7 million albums and 22 million singles across the world. Her fans do not fail to shower support even on social media where she has a following of 176m.

Kylie Jenner (@kyliejenner)

Kylie Jenner belongs to the famous Jenner-Kardashian family. Fans know her from her appearance in “Keeping Up With The Kardashians”. She also is the founder/owner of Kylie Cosmetics – a beauty product company. In 2014 and 2015 she was named the most influential teen in the world. Her Instagram profile has 175m followers.

Kim Kardashian West (@kimkardashian)

Kim Kardashian West is an American media personality, model, and businesswoman. She gained fame as the stylist of Paris Hilton and then from the famous show “Keeping Up With The Kardashians”. She stays pretty active on social media platforms including Instagram and Twitter. Her Instagram profile boasts the support of 170m followers.

Lionel Messi (@leomessi)

Yet another footballer in the list, this time it’s Lionel Messi who is a professional football player from Argentina. He is also considered one of the greatest football players ever. In his professional career with Barcelona, he has won a record of 32 trophies. His Instagram handle has 151m followers.

Beyonce (@beyonce)

Queen Bey has over 146m followers on Instagram. She is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, actress, and performer. She shot to fame as the lead singer of the R&B girl group “Destiny’s Child”. In 2006, the band broke apart and Beyonce built a successful solo career. She has sold over 100 million records worldwide.

Beyonce

Neymar Jr. (@neymarjr)

His Instagram bio says “I Love Football”, and his 138m followers love him. This Brazilian footballer plays as a forward for French club Paris Saint-Germain and the Brazil national football team.

Justin Bieber (@justinbeiber)

Justin Drew Bieber is a Canadian singer-songwriter. He shot to fame at the age of 13 when he was discovered by talent manager Scooter Braun after watching Bieber’s youtube videos of song covers. Today his Instagram account has over 135m followers.

Taylor Swift (@taylorswift)

Taylor Swift too is an American singer and songwriter. She is, in fact, one of the best-selling music artists of all time. She has sold over 50 million albums and 150 million single downloads. Her Instagram fanbase has 132m followers.

Kendall Jenner (@kendalljenner)

Kendall is again a member of the Jenner – Kardashian clan and appeared on the “Keeping Up with The Kardashians” show. She has been a successful model and Instagram influencer with 129m followers. She is also the brand ambassador for Estée Lauder.

Jennifer Lopez (@jlo)

Jennifer Lopez aka J Lo is an American singer, actress, dancer, and producer. She became the first Latina actress to earn over USD 1 million for a film. When she entered the music industry, her album and film, both hit number one in the same week. She has over 120m followers on Instagram.

J Lo

Miley Cyrus (@mileycyrus)

She is the daughter of the famous Billy Ray Cyrus. Like father, like daughter, she too is a singer, songwriter, and actress. She appeared on television playing the role of Hannah Montana in a show of the same name. Her Instagram handle flaunts the support of 108m followers.

Talk about high-end influencers! These celebrity influencers which are also the most followed Instagram accounts can charge millions of dollars for a sponsored post. However, in the digital age, with social media being a powerful tool, gaining virtual popularity isn’t always difficult. Take, for example, the egg that beat Kylie Jenner!

Is Influencer Marketing better than Facebook Advertising?

For years now brands have used Facebook’s native advertising to promote themselves. And it has helped them. Facebook has over 2 billion monthly active users. It provides the largest set of audiences for your content. As of late, other platforms have taken over. Brands are now experimenting with newer concepts like influencer marketing. This trend of marketing has gained popularity in no time. Is the popularity justified? Does influencer marketing score over Facebook’s native advertising?

Native Facebook Advertising vs. Influencer Marketing

Native advertisements on Facebook are ads or paid promotions exclusive to the platform. There’s an option to integrate other contents like photos, images or text directly into the user’s news feed. Such promotional material is also tagged as “sponsored” or “promotional” to help users distinguish them from regular content.

For influencer marketing, influencers create sponsored content and promote it via their personal accounts. Their content is mainly targeted towards family, friends and other followers. And unlike Facebook’s native ads, influencer marketing content is not tagged as “sponsored”.

Both these options may seem similar and viable, yet they have their own set of advantages and disadvantages. We tried listing them out to help brands identify a suitable option for their needs.

Influencer Marketing

Content marketing, social media analytics, social listening for better customer care, and influencer marketing are some of the top marketing trends right now. But that does not mean you will have to try out each category. Just pick a strategy which is most suited to your business model.

Advantages

Authenticity: Users follow influencers willingly. They want to know about the products influencers use. So a product-placement or brand shout-out on their feed is readily believed. Especially as influencers mix this information up with authentic posts about their daily activities, family, friends et cetera.
Lesser Restrictions: Compared to advertising on Facebook, influencer marketing has lesser restrictions. Facebook is also strict in terms of what you can publish in an ad. It restricts the word limit, use of certain pictures, format et cetera.
Content Creation becomes Easier: As a marketer, you already have a lot on your hands. With influencer marketing, you can relax a little. The task of content creation becomes the influencer’s responsibility. Sure, you will have to cast around and find the right influencer for your brand but social listening and databases can help you with that. The more tough tasks of ideation, creation, and implementation are taken care of by the influencer.
Niche Audience: Reaching niche audiences becomes easier with influencer marketing. Approaching micro-influencers instead of celebrity influencers is the way to go for this. Most micro-influencers produce industry-specific content. They are popular with the audience that follows that niche. @thecurvyrebel, for instance, is quite popular for promoting fashion and body positivity tips. If you are a brand in the plus-sized clothing industry, collaborating with her helps you reach the audience you have also been targeting.

Disadvantages

Influencer Management: Most brands worry about the task of finding the right influencer for their product. It is quite a tough task. Brands that do want to work with influencers will have to find the right talent, develop an understanding with them, define goals and expectations et cetera. This can take quite some research and effort on their part.
Accounts with Fake Followers: Social media users look for authentic content, but social media is also a place where it is easy to fake things. Also, the aspiration to become an influencer has grown among the younger generation. Some of these users even employ unethical ways to grow their network. It is crucial for brands to avoid such accounts. They need to thoroughly research the influencers they want to work with.
Measuring ROI: You would want to know if your investment reaped the expected returns. Here’s where there’s a slight glitch. There’s no definitive way to measure the results of influencer marketing. It can be assessed in many different ways – the KPIs you should look for include engagement and conversion rates.

Facebook’s Native Advertising

Having looked at the pros and cons of influencer marketing, it is time to move on to Facebook’s advertising options.

Advantages

Format: The best part of Facebook’s advertising is that it offers a wide variety of formats for you to display your content. You can choose from a variety of styles of displaying text or photos, videos, and carousels et cetera.
Measure Performance: When you use Facebook’s native advertising options, you also get help to measure the success rate. You get data on how your post is performing. They even let you A/B test different ads and features.
Budget Flexibility: Facebook allows marketers to adjust their spending when they are on a tight budget. Marketers can thus test things out. They can move their dollars around and scale up if only when they find something which works.

Disadvantages

Overt: As I mentioned earlier, Facebook advertisements would be marked “advertised” or “sponsored”. People tend to be wary of such ad banners and would avoid them. This is called “banner blindness”.
Lacks Engagement: People would rarely opt-in voluntarily to view ads. They also tend to skip ads. This only results in lesser engagement rates. People are less likely to like, share and comment on a Facebook ad.
Inorganic Audience: Native advertising runs on the algorithm created by Facebook. So, the audience may be too broad or too narrow or miss the niche you are trying to reach. Capturing the attention of the exact audience is a gamble with native advertising.

How can Facebook Advertising and Influencer Marketing Work Together?

By now it must be clear that both these formats clearly have their own sets of benefits. And they are not mutually exclusive forms. If you really want to scale up your business, you can have the best of both worlds. Marketers can choose to use the facilities in loop and in a complementary manner.

Brand scan collaborates with influencers. The content created reaches the followers of a particular influencer. This content can then be repurposed to reach other audience members via Facebook native advertising. This way the ad also acts as a testimonial from a well-known influencer.

Whichever method you choose to employ, market research and social media monitoring should be a part of your strategy. Use these insights and strategies to inform your campaign and enjoy better results.

How to Find Facebook Influencers?

It is true that the term Facebook influencers isn’t used too often. Other platforms like Instagram and YouTube are more popular for Influencer marketing. But Facebook sure is the world’s biggest social media with over 2.38 billion monthly active users.

With influencer marketing campaigns, you need a good understanding of your target market and a knowledge of where they hang out online. To understand which platform works best for your business, you could take the help of social listening tools. Social listening helps you manage and track mentions from different platforms at one go. Now, let’s say Facebook is where your audience interacts with you the most. Here’s where you need to implement your influencer campaigns. So then, how do you find and convert Facebook influencers to help your cause?

Who are Facebook Influencers?

Even though Facebook is not really known for influencer marketing, it is an immensely popular platform. It is a good platform to launch your early plans. If managed properly, Facebook can function as a PR agent for you. Facebook allows you to convey your message to audiences from around the world and build awareness for future campaigns.

Wondering if there’s really any difference between an Instagram and a Facebook Influencer? Well, there is and there isn’t. The top influencers for both these platforms are mostly celebrities and some lucky brands.

Now obviously you are looking for micro-influencers with a dedicated community of followers. Each of the social media platforms has its own effect on the kind of posts people share and talk about. Facebook is more content-oriented. So, you’ll find more influential pages that are focused on content rather than a person. Also, Facebook’s format encourages the sharing of content. This is how pages with sensational content, videos, and memes have a lot of influence. Their content is shared and becomes viral, gaining popularity.

Drawing from these insights, we can say that a typical Facebook influencer:

Shares highly engaging content that has the potential to go viral.
Has gained the trust of followers on the basis of their expertise in a certain field.
Has a community-driven page (where people share, comment and exchange opinions regarding the content).

If you think such influencers could help you, let’s talk about how to find the right Facebook influencer for your brand.

How to Find Facebook Influencers?

Hunting for Facebook influencers can get a little difficult because of the platform’s native search options. The options are limited and complex. On other platforms, people use hashtags to tag their content but rarely on Facebook. This makes hashtag search useless on Facebook.

You can use two solutions for this – refer to an influencer database or use a social listening tool.

Facebook Influencer Databases

Searching influencer databases is a simpler option. You just need to search for your niche and you’ll have the names. However, there are some downsides to influencer databases as compared to using social listening tools.

Firstly, these databases are limited. As in, you will only find influencers who applied or who were discovered by the people who created the database.

Secondly, the search filters may be too broad for your requirements. You may want to know about “functional training” and end up scrolling in the fitness section for hours.

Honestly, buying influencer databases for search isn’t really wise for your marketing budget unless you are a social media agency. You’ll probably not even need to use it enough so as to justify all the money spent on it.

Social Listening Tools

Using social listening tools eliminates all the problems that come along with databases. With a little effort, you will be able to gain more from a social listening tool. Some social listening tools are useful for a diverse range of marketing activities. So, first of all, try and find a good social listening tool that suits your brand’s requirements. You can use a social listening tool for anything from product development to online reputation management, and even for SEO purposes.

With the help of social listening tools, you can set up searches for specific keywords. For instance, you can start searching for any post that uses “Fitness” and “functional movements” in them. The tool collates all these comments and posts from across all platforms. Set up the filter such that you view only Facebook mentions. Remember, your job has not finished yet. On Facebook finding influencers isn’t easy because most of these posts are made by regular users. Thanks to the AI features available with most social listening tools, they will help you study the influence scores of the people. All the people who have spoken about fitness and functional movement are assigned a score based on the reach, engagement, and visibility of their content. The higher the score, the better their influence.

What’s more, you can even collate a list of these influencers and track their activities and the sentiment around their posts. Social media analytics has made this process much easier. If you are still unsure, you may opt for a free trial on a tool while you figure things out.

Are Micro-Influencers a Part of your Social Media Strategy?

Influencer marketing has been gaining popularity as a tool for social media promotions. Over a few years, brands have collaborated with influencers. As a result, the industry is now worth at least $5-10 billion. Currently, the emerging concept of micro-influencers is all the rage.

Who are these Micro-Influencers?

Influencer marketing with micro-influencers is the same concept on a smaller scale. Brands interact and collaborate with individuals who have a follower base of 1000 to 10000 people. These individuals are well informed and reputed in their areas of interest. They will also have a high rate of engagement on their posts. When brands are looking to reach niche audiences, they typically seek micro-influencers.

A fashion influencer may boast millions of followers and many boutiques et cetera. A micro-influencer, on the other hand, has a smaller audience but a dedicated one. A micro-influencer might only post daily boho outfit designs or videos about DIY outfits.

Are Micro-Influencers Important?

Markerly, in one of their studies, found that with the increase in the number of followers, the engagement rate of influencers went down. But, micro-influencers with less than 1000 followers received likes 8% of the time. In comparison, influencers only received 1.6% likes. ExpertVoice also found in a study that micro-influencers have 22.2 times more conversations than regular users. It is, therefore, logical to assume that businesses would achieve a higher engagement rate with micro-influencers.

Micro-influencers have a defined Target Market

Most celebrity influencers have millions of followers. If a fashion clothing brand collabs with them, the content will reach a lot of people. However, most of these followers aren’t interested in clothing. The brand could, instead, collaborate with 100 micro-fashion-bloggers each with about 1000 followers. The chances of gaining leads from these 100,000 followers, who actively seek fashion advice from these micro-influencers are higher.

Affordability

As a business owner, you would want to invest smartly. Micro-influencers help you achieve a better ROI. Let me explain this further to see how. Captiv8 reports that an influencer with 3 to 7 million followers can charge $75000 on an average for a post on Instagram. In contrast, a micro-influencer charges less than $500 for a post. So even if you employ 10 or even 100 micro-influencers, you spend less and actually reach more people.

Micro-influencers are usually honest with their audience. They have a small following and they don’t want to lose their trust by giving fake reviews. So most of the time, companies may simply send them free goodies for a review instead of paying hard cash. For instance, La Croix Sparkling Water sent free product vouchers to micro-influencers.

Authenticity

Millennials look for authenticity. It is the current trend almost because they know it is easier to fake something on social media. Micro-influencers with their smaller audience do engage with any comment on their posts. They are more likely to behave authentically in the fear of losing their following in case of a fake review. It is also true that Instagram’s algorithm now has adjusted to weed out fake influencers, comments, and followers. So brands now are looking for someone who would be genuine. And micro-influencers are the best bet.

La Croix for example targets micro-influencers by searching branded hashtags like “LiveLaCroix”. They then reach out to people posting these with a lower follower base. The company even reaches out to individuals who have tagged the brand in their posts. They specifically target these individuals with lesser followers to maintain the feel of authenticity or “realness”.

There are a number of other brands that have collaborated with micro-influencers. You can check out our blog post to know more about their success stories. Before you make up your mind to invest in this, make sure you consider your strategy well. Instagram influencer marketing might work well for visual products like sparkling water or a fashionable sweatshirt collection. If you want to promote software, you might have to get creative, move out of Instagram and look for influencers on YouTube perhaps.

Top 6 Influencer Marketing Campaigns of 2018-19

18.5 million posts! That’s the number of posts Instagram turns up if you simply search the keyword “#influencer”! This goes to show how influencer marketing has become more plentiful and successful over time. Over 79% of brands prefer Instagram for influencer marketing campaigns. After all, some influencer marketing campaigns have proved wildly successful. According to Business Insider Intelligence, they plan to spend up to US$15 billion on influencer marketing campaigns by 2022.

We talked about the effectiveness of influencer marketing. Here we will see how some brands effectively implemented their influencer marketing campaigns.

The Best Influencer Marketing Campaigns

67.6% of marketers consider finding the right influencer to be the most difficult job. Agreed. However, when you actually do, results could often be amazing. These brand stories are proof enough.

1. Skittles-Taste the Rainbow

Skittles came up with an innovative idea to advertise via social media. They decided to turn a typical California teen into an ultimate influencer online. Marcos Menendez, a real-life massive skittles fan, was the icon for their “Exclusive the rainbow, Taste the rainbow” campaign. DDB Chicago came up with this idea of making a super bowl commercial which is not about the super bowl.

Skittles announced that they would make a Superbowl ad for only one viewer. This ad would be seen by only one skittles superfan – Marcos Menendez. On February 4th, the Superbowl Sunday, the exclusive ads were shown to Marcos and his reaction to the ads was broadcasted to the world via Facebook Live. The campaign has received over 1.5 billion media impressions, coverage in ABC’s segment and won gold at Cannes 2018 under social and influencer lions.

2. Lyft

Lyft has achieved over 5.9 million engagements per year. How did they do it? One of the ways they guaranteed this success is via influencer marketing campaigns. Their strategy involved different types of influencers. They got a balanced mix of celebrity endorsers and macro-influencers for their campaigns. As a result, Lyft set its position as the most mentioned brand in 2018. This was about sponsored posts, highlighted by the inclusion of hashtags like #paid, #ad, #sponsored. Lyft engaged with over 1.1 thousand influencers over the course of the year. Their list of influencers includes names like Zayn Malik, Snoop Dogg. They also roped in macro-influencers like Peyton Mabry.

3. Fiji Water

Fiji Water collaborated with Instagram influencer Danielle Bernstein for their campaign. Danielle Bernstein runs the fashion blog and brand WeWoreWhat. She boasts a strong follower base of 2.2 million people. Fiji Water joined hands with her for their influencer marketing campaign BodyWoreWhat. This campaign had Danielle Bernstein putting forth 8-minute workout videos. This campaign conveyed Fiji Water’s commitment to hydrate anyone who wishes to be as fit as Danielle Bernstein.

4. Sperry’s Boat Shoes

We all know that social media users often interact with brands online. It could be through comments on brand posts, inquiries via messages or posts that tag them. Most often it is the last. The current generation uses Instagram to post pics of their proud possessions. Sperry has been using this to their advantage. Since the end of 2016, the brand has been working with micro-influencers on Instagram to boost its own following and engagement rates. And the results have been amazing, at no cost at all. Sperry re-posted a photo shared by Slava Daniliuk and it became their most engaged photo in 2016. This process has proved super-successful as it is a win-win for both parties, at no extra cost.

They have been engaging with influencers when reposting photos shared by people, with their permission. Apart from giving a shoutout to the influencer, the brand is also conveying to others in the age group how hip and trendy Sperry Boat shoes are.

5. Daniel Wellington

Daniel Wellington has almost perfected the art of influencer marketing campaigns. They have never focused too much on traditional ways of promotion. Their influencer marketing strategy was to monitor influencers with a high engagement rate. It does not matter what niche they are in. As long as they have an active follower base, Daniel Wellington is willing to work with them. They have collaborated with people with the reputation of celebrities to animals like horses.

6. Nike

Innovative as always, Nike took a creative turn for their influencer marketing campaign. The ‘What’s Inside” Youtube channel has a massive follower base. The current count of their subscriber base is 6.76 million. The channel carries videos of things being cut in half to show us what is inside them. Nike collaborated with them to promote Nike Air VaporMax before it was released in the market. Their video “What’s inside Nike Air VaporMax?” received 6535014 views. It really helped Nike build a buzz around their product.

Give Influencer Marketing a Try

These are just a few examples of how brands have effectively used influencer marketing campaigns to spread their reach and visibility. If you are thinking it would be difficult for you to do the same, you are mistaken. Influencer marketing isn’t rocket science and we are here to guide you step-by-step. Marketers often feel that finding the right influencer is a difficult task which is where AI can help you. Also, social listening tools can help you find the right influencer. Connect with them and get started.