Influencer marketing is such a big deal right now that we cannot avoid talking about it as far as digital marketing is concerned. It is a strategy that has become the focus for brands, companies, and businesses seeking to optimize their social platforms for their growth.
Influencer marketing is not about getting social media coverage. It is about marketing to your potential consumers with very reputable people vouching for your brand. In other words, it is about solidifying connections with influential people to enhance and broaden your perceptions for your brands, products, and services with the right people getting your message out loud and intensively.
A recent report indicates that YouTube fans find YouTube influencers to be 17 times more engaging than mainstream celebrities.
There are tremendous and infinitely many benefits of influential marketing if it is done right. So, what are these common mistakes that you need to avoid in your influencer marketing strategy? Let us explore!
Targeting The Wrong Social Media Audience
Looking for an ideal social media influencer is not dependent only on the number of followers they have on their platform. It is about whether they have the right audience for your brand. To create an effective long-term influencer marketing strategy, you must genuinely learn your target social media audience by developing a clear and comprehensive marketing persona.
Once you have identified your target audience, it is easier to immerse your brand with the right influencers. To determine the right influencers to work with, conduct interviews, do a thorough background influencer search, screen for their online reputation, and ultimately survey their market penetration.
Choosing The Wrong Influencers
Choosing the right influencers for your marketing campaign is vital. You need to ensure that their social media following is part of your market. That’s how your message will get to your target audience.
Also, note bigger doesn’t always mean better. Targeting big-name social celebrities is nice but doesn’t always have the best results, especially when their content does not align with your brand. When looking to get the lowest CPI, engagement is much more important than follower count.
“You really need to be critical when selecting influencers, understanding that they instantly become an extension of your brand. Large followings and high engagement rates aside, if they are posting questionable content on their account, it can have a negative impact on your company,” says Patrick McKamey, Founder of the Law Office of Patrick R. McKamey, P.A.
Neglecting Use of Authentic Communication
Since it’s easy to destroy a reputation online, influencers should be keen on being authentic. Else the brand can be distrusted and neglected. To effectively communicate with your audience, keep it short and straightforward. Avoid toxic statements and ill-intended language.
One way for influencers to keep conversations authentic and genuine is through personalized content on their social platforms. Brands should enable and allow influencers to share about their brand in a manner they have constantly communicated.
Here are some hacks for effective communication
- Adding emotions to your message by using emojis.
- Personalize your message and content.
- Explore different ways to boost vibes for your followers.
Influencers Using the Wrong Channels
The effectiveness of Influencer marketing varies across social media channels because of disparities of audiences in these platforms. The efficacy of each social media channel varies depending on your brand’s focus and your target audience’s interests.
For example, suppose your marketing strategy is aimed to target generation z. In that case, it will be more effective on Instagram and less effective when executed on Facebook because a vast majority of this generation prefers using Instagram. An influencer targeting generation x and professionals will be more effective on LinkedIn than Facebook.
This article will help you in choosing the best social media channel for your brand.
Lack Of a Comprehensive Marketing Strategy
It is unwise to jump into an influencer campaign without proper planning and strategy, bringing confusion and ultimately failing to achieve the end goals. It is promising to write down all the details of a social media campaign, establish a google calendar and specify the end goal.
Ensure all the metrics of your strategy are reviewed and gauged before conducting a social media campaign. Markdown elaborate tactics for creating a worthwhile digital campaign, be definitive, set logical goals, schedule, and set timelines. Take your time to learn and pick best practices that will propel you to succeed faster.
Top 3 things you need to create a comprehensive marketing strategy plan:
- Document your goals and key performance indicators
- Understand the influencer landscape.
- Connect with influencers
Using Unclear Call to Action in Your Influencer Marketing
Before launching a social media campaign, it is vital to define your call to action. If your goal is attracting and redirecting your audiences to your website, make sure that the landing webpage easily allows new visitors to take action, such as buying a product or subscribing to a newsletter.
According to Google, 40 percent of digital marketers are more likely to turn to and even consider your competitors if the original company website is poorly designed and not fully optimized for use. In this same report, 57% of the shoppers are more likely not to recommend a company that does not have a mobile-optimized site.
Take time to think carefully about your digital campaign call to action, then ensure it is ideal for your target audience.
Having A List of Mismatched Influencers
Gone are the days when brands selected influencers based on their social media numbers. The reason being over time, the game has changed, and the influencers have evolved. It’s no longer about following. In choosing an influencer, the brand considers its brand values and whether its products or services are compatible with the influencer’s image.
For example, a sports influencer will not be ideal for endorsing a living room decor. Regardless of their following, it is likely that only a fraction of their audience would be interested in making purchases.
Find influencers who have the same vibe as your brand, keep your content and communication authentic and genuine.
Miscommunicating Expectations with Influencers
While working with influencers, it’s vital to be open and crystal clear on expectations. Companies should give influencers necessary information on the end goals of a campaign and metrics to measure performance.
Ensure you share with the influencer any analytics information that your brand has gathered and the marketing persona information.
Expecting Results Overnight
Remember, an effective influencer should be able to help increase your brand awareness. Once prospects are aware of your brand, they can now move down the marketing funnel to the consideration and decision-making stage before they can finally decide to make purchases.
Some digital marketing campaigns can take time before they produce results, especially in the e-commerce space. The objective should be to be consistent and authentic until you earn your target audience’s trust.
Focusing On a Single Social Media Platform
Do not underestimate the power of diversifying your social media presence. Though you may have a wide following on one, consider opening other accounts that are compatible with your brand. A tactic that will help in expanding your brand visibility and boost a following on your additional social media handles.
If you possess a robust existence on a specific social media platform, strive to select an influencer from a different platform that will help you diversify and boost traffic and followers on your other digital platforms.
Brands Relying on The Wrong Metrics
The only valid and effective measure of an influencer marketing campaign is using analytics platforms to measure results. While seeing that an influencer has thousands of followers is great, make sure they are suitable for your brand metric-wise. You do not want to deal with an influencer who has bots for followers.
Explore and learn various metric tools that will help you make informed decisions for your digital marketing. For example, this Instagram analytics tool will help you understand if influencers generate the reach and engagements that you intend for your brand.
Using the right analytical tools and metrics will help you gain insights on:
- Gauging Individual Campaign Performance
- Find ways to rewarding Your Loyal Followers
- Encouraging Experimentation
- Keeping Your Strategy Fresh
Ignoring The Power of Competitive Analysis
While it would be ideal to consider an influencer with a wide following, it is also essential to make sure they generate good-quality content for their audience. If an influencer has not yet worked with any brand, you might consider this an excellent opportunity to create a unique brand voice.
Get into the habit of analyzing competitors, especially on their influencer marketing strategy. Comparing influencer marketing performance across multiple brands in a particular niche will help you get the complete picture of the market. As you compare several brands, identify market leaders and spot rising and most influential influencers that match your brand. Keep in mind that you need to opt for unique, authentic, and compatible influencers with your brand.
Neglecting Influencers in The Creative Process of The Campaign
To effectively implement a social media campaign, companies or brands should be in sync with the influencers by involving them in the creative process of the movement. Ensuring that influencers co-operate and share their ideas and suggestions, yielding transparency.
Ignoring Legal Regulations
As digital marketing evolves and becomes more popular, influencer marketing is subject to legal regulations. Ignoring laws might lead to severe consequences and ultimately damage the brand’s image. Posting photos, videos, content, or any post on social media without specifying it as paid or sponsored is wholly faded. Influencers now have to stipulate approvals and sponsored content.
Endorsements and partnerships should reflect endorsers’ and partner’s honest opinions, beliefs, and experiences.
Ignoring The Power of Building Relationships
As you figure out which kind of influencers to work with, always have in mind and consider investing for long term relationships. Successful influencers have a lot of connections that can help boost your social media campaign tremendously, the influencer can also help you introduce additional influencers in their niche.
Avoiding Influencer Marketing Because Of One Failed Attempt
Digital marketers never consider abandoning influencer marketing campaigns because of one failed attempt. Instead, they use the correct data to improve their marketing strategies. They explore and figure out why the campaign failed and use these insights to amend changes. Learning from failure is key to marketing success. Failing to try again is not learning from failure. It is succumbing to it.
Failing To Seek Feedback from The Brands That Have Used Potential Influencers in The Past
Always reach out to those brands that have worked with influencers to get feedback on their experiences. The following questions will help you get the rights kind of information you are looking for
- Was the influencer easy to work with?
- Was the communication smooth?
- Was the response and engagement on par with their expectations?
This can also help you go into the negotiation process knowing what they have charged in the past. The more information you can round up, the better prepared you will be.
Top 10 Benefits of Working with Micro-Influencers for Improved Digital Marketing
Businesses across the globe have realised that marketing their products to a smaller but target audience can result in a better return on investment. It is estimated that influencer marketing will be worth $15billion by the end of 2022. Further statistics indicate that 46% of brand mentions, including the hashtag #ad, were published by Instagram accounts with 1k-20k followers in 2020.
According to MediaKix, micro-influencer accounts have between 10k-50k followers. So why are brands increasingly considering micro-influencers in their digital marketing strategies?
Here are the top 10 benefits of working with micro-influencers.
Builds Credibility and Trust
Social media users follow influencers because they trust their recommendations and opinions and are inspired by them. When an influencer shares content about a specific brand, they automatically create a sense of credibility for that brand.
Influencers with a loyal following have successfully established themselves as experts in their niche. Hence, making their insights more trustworthy to their audience.
Suppose a brand or a business gets a person with industry authority to promote their brand. In that case, it strengthens the perception that its products or services are authentic and trustworthy, which is one of the critical benefits of influencer marketing in today’s business landscape.
Highly Targeted and Relevant
Work with a micro-influencer influencer whose area of interest aligns with your brand helps you target the right audience with relevant content.
For example, if your brand sells sports wears, partnering with a fitness blogger increases the chances of reaching your target audience, primarily sports and fitness enthusiasts. Therefore, making your messaging highly relevant and targeted, raising your brand’s engagement and conversion rates.
Provides Value to Your Target Audience
Influencer marketing helps brands deliver valuable content to their target audience. YouTubers have become increasingly popular for sharing products videos, making them highly insightful and a useful content source for their audience.
If you intend to purchase a smartphone, a review from a tech influencer who gives a comprehensive review about smartphone features and their usefulness will be valuable for reviews and a reliable source of information for consumers.
Increases Brand Awareness And ROI
Micro-influencers provide good channels to reach newer audiences for your products and services, which highly trust the influencer. Partnership with several micro-influencers increases the width of reach and the depth gaining more visibility and boosting brand awareness.
Influencer marketing strategy offers low-cost marketing solutions with a high return on investment (ROI) because their followers highly trust them.
Suitable For Any Business
Influencer marketing is ideal for any business regardless of its size. You can always leverage individuals who are influential in their areas of expertise.
Utilize platforms such as Grin to plan, identify, and connect with influencers that are most suitable for your brand based on reach, engagements levels, category, etc.
The success of influencer marketing campaigns depends on the choice of influencers. Choosing the right influencer will give you huge returns. Building long terms relationships that are mutually beneficial is crucial for your business.
Assists In Quick Customer Acquisition
Influencer marketing conversion rates are higher since the content is highly targeted to the correct audience interested in that niche, which builds customer loyalty.
According to an influencer marketing hub survey, influencer marketing is the quickest strategy for acquiring online customers, and 28% of digital marketers support this. Hence, a key benefit of influencer marketing.
Boosts SEO
According to Moz, Domain Authority (DA) greatly influences your ranking on the search engine results page (SERP). The ranking score is highly dependent on how helpful, informative, and relevant your content is. If other sites with higher DA link to your site, it indicates that you have great content.
Partnering with an influencer with a high DA to link back to your site increases your chances of ranking higher on searches, boosting your SEO efforts.
Enhances Your Content Strategy
Micro-influencers provide techniques to identify and reach the target audience with customized messaging and content that addresses their needs, creating fresh and engaging content that leads to a highly engaged and responsive audience.
Co-creating content with an influencer can be beneficial because they create aesthetically pleasing and quality content, aiding your content strategy.
Influencers Set Trends
Influencers can place your brand in the spotlight by having them review your newly launched products or services. Whether in the technology, beauty, fashion, or fitness industry, influencers are the go-to information resource about new developments in their industry.
Since micro-influencers have loyal yet mighty tribes behind them, they are likely to set the trend. Use the level of engagement as a determining factor in selecting an influencer instead of the number of followers.
Boost Thought Leadership Profile
Influencers are thought leaders in your industry. Partnering with them can be incredibly beneficial for your brand. Whether conducting an interview with an influencer or co-hosting an event with them, a micro-influencer can raise your company’s thought-leadership profile by positioning it as highly connected and in touch with the market trends.
