Last fall, Team AG went to Digital Hollywood where Agency Guacamole founder Bilal Kaiser was invited to speak on a panel about social media influencers.
Influencer marketing is incredibly popular in the social media world and brand marketers are both curious and cautious about adding an influencer strategy/program to their marketing plans.
With the goal of increasing brand awareness, influencing influencers’ communities and ultimately generating sales, brands and agencies are constantly on the look out for social media stars—the ones with the millions of followers on a channel like Instagram or YouTube—as well micro-influencers, who are also power users albeit with a smaller following (e.g., 1,000-10,000).
Is this something you’re thinking about?
According to AdWeek, influencer marketing is predicted to get even bigger in 2017, so if you’re looking to learn more about working with social media influencer, here are our top 3 tips:
1. Social media is not free, and nor is influencer marketing.
You may already know (and accept) that social media costs $$$. And on the influencer side, many influencers are creating content for brands as a full-time job—and therefore expect to be compensated.
Whereas many social media content creators used to promote brands in exchange for products or experiences, this is becoming less common with larger influencers.
💡TIP: If you’re a smaller brand or don’t have an influencer marketing budget, find relevant content creators/influencers with smaller followings. Up-and-coming accounts may be more open to working with you as a trade and you may find that their community really responds to your message.
2. Influencer marketing is an amazing way to have an authentic relationship with your customers—but you have to know your audience and speak to them in the voice.
What this means is that you need to be sure that influencer’s and your brand’s audiences are the same, and that a collaboration between two of you makes sense for every party involved.
Kim Kardashian is a huge influencer but her followers may not be the same group as your target audience.
💡TIP: One way to lean more about your customers on social media is to track them and see what they’re up to. Who do they follow? Who is following them? What sorts of conversations do they engage in? This should give you plenty of insights on finding the right influencers.
3. It might feel like it, but you are not alone.
Struggling with understanding, finding and en-gaging influencers can be challenging. But know that social media influencer marketing is still stabilizing, and everyone is testing and trying to find out what works and what doesn’t.
💡TIP: Rather than jumping in and thinking later, start by asking yourself not “how,” but rather “why” is it important to my customer. As with any type of marketing program, keeping your customer top-of-mind and applying those needs to a concept like influencer marketing will help you get closer to the solution you need.
As always we want to hear form you. Are you working with influencers or content creators? What other useful tips would you share? Tell us in the comments!
- Mila and Bilal // Team AG
Image sources: Content Marketing Institute; Tapinfluencer; The Coding Bull.