Do You Need Influencers to Boost your Brand?

Influencer marketing has been one of the most effective lead generation methods for some brands in the past couple of years.

What is an Influencer

An influencer has a distinct following in a certain niche on one or more social platforms. Their community is nurtured through continuous engagements and interactions. They also have a certain power to affect purchasing decisions of their followers. This is one of the reasons influencer marketing is a good strategy for promoting products or services. As a business, you should be able to choose the correct influencer for you with whom you can collaborate and build a social relationship with your brand.

Types of Influencers

By the Size of Followers

• Mega - They have over 1 million followers.
• Macros - More accessible to influencer marketers. They have 40, 000 - 1 million followers.
• Micros - Have a specific niche. They have between 1000 to 40, 000 followers.
• Nano - Have a small number of followers. They have fewer than 1000.

Qualities of a Good Influencer

• Likability - It is important to have an influencer that cares about building a positive relationship and reputation with their followers. This means that they will also do the same for your brand.
• Passion - They should be passionate about learning about your brand. This will ensure that the partnership will work because they know what your vision is and how they align their own brand to yours.
• Engagement - You should find an influencer that engages with their followers actively. This will mean that they will keep the conversation going for your brand once they are promoting it. Engaged followers are keepers and have a greater potential of converting to your own leads.
• Authenticity - An influencer should have credibility and authenticity. They should build trust so that the followers will genuinely listen to them.
• Marketing Knowledge - They should be able to integrate your brand without making it too obvious and “salesy”. They should also have a good strategy when it comes to promoting your brand. They should be able to figure out when and what to post to maximise visibility.
• Great Brand Persona Fit - Finally, you should find an influencer that fits your brand. They should be able to represent your brand’s vision and image without contradicting what your business stands for. This is the most important factor to consider when choosing the right influencer.

Where to find them - platforms + outreach, etc.

You can find influencers manually. This can be done by using hashtags and simple research. However, there are more optimised ways of looking for influencers by using tools. This is advisable if you are looking for multiple influencers to promote your brand. Influencer Marketing Tools

• Upfluence is a full-scale influencer platform that offers various features to find the right influencer through its influencer search and discovery engine.
• AspireIQ is a leading platform for influencer marketing, it helps brands build communities of ambassadors, influencers, and affiliates to share their brand stories at scale.
• Grin is an all-in-one creator management platform helping eCommerce companies build more valuable brands through the power of creator partnerships.
• CreatorIQ - is an advanced platform for influencer marketing maturity in the age of the Creator Economy with the most trusted software solution.
• Klear is a tool that includes the ” monitors” feature. It is a hybrid analytics software that tracks mentions of your business as well as your competitors and hashtags. They analyse data to find suitable content and influencers for your business.
• Tagger Media is a tool that tracks over 9 billion social conversions. They are all indexed and analysed, ready to be searched by brands and agencies.
• Creator.co focuses on creating and distributing content. It is a tool that brings together brands and creators. It is more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses that are looking for nano and micro influencers.
• #Paid has a unique service called Whitelisted Ads. This whitelists specific content and creators to use for paid Instagram and Facebook ads. It connects to Facebook Ads Manager and allows the ads to be pushed to the creator's feeds and timeline.
• Gatsby is a CRM for influencer management. It automatically pulls information from tagged posts from Instagram and TikTok and it integrates with Klaviyo and other tools for better worfklow management.
• Refersion - is a tool that is more suitable for brands that have an active affiliate marketing program and an online store. Affiliate marketing is a system that compensates third-party entities to generate traffic or sales for a company's product or services.

How to Get Influencers Onboard

1. Find the correct influencer to represent your business and brand. 2. Always be professional when reaching out. 3. Always be clear and precise about the deal you're going to make with the influencer. This includes fees, how many posts he / she has to make, and the deadlines.

Product vs. Payment

Most influencers nowadays prioritise paid campaigns over unpaid ones. However, there are still some that still accept free products as payments. If you are offerings high-value products, you may be able to find influencers that will post content in exchange for your products. Examples are mattresses, luxury fashion or free travel. Another way to get influencers to post with this is if you already have an existing relationship with them. Some influencers prefer long-term relationships with brands instead of one-time deals.

What are the Cons of Influencer Marketing?

• Working with the wrong influencers is a serious concern. You do not want to be affiliated with ones that will tarnish your brand because of their bad reputation.
• These are some mistakes you need to avoid when getting influencers to promote your brand:
  • Ignoring FTC endorsing guidelines
  • Posts that are not disclosed as ads
  • Using bots
  • Not targeting the right demographic for your brand
  • Taking your product but not creating the post or creating poor content
• It is more difficult to measure results
• Shortcomings of an influencer. If they fail to make content that will resonate with your target customer, it will be a waste of time and money.

What are the differences between an Influencer and an Ambassador?

Influencers: Brands and businesses can get multiple influencers to help launch a product or service. They can work with one influencer by doing a single deal and never work with them again. They are free to work for other brands after the post for your brand is done.

Ambassadors: Ambassadors form a long-term relationship with your brand. In essence, they will represent your company for a long period of time. This means they will embody your vision. Most importantly, they will be an endorser for your business and they will not be able to work for competing brands. Often Ambassadors are paid some kind of ongoing commission or affiliate fee for promoting your brand and they may offer their own community a special link for a discount.

Influencer Marketing is a popular marketing strategy for a reason. If you follow precautions and choose your influencers properly, it can be a good lead generation and brand awareness strategy. If you want to find out how you can get influencers to work with your brands, give us a call! We can guide you through the process of choosing and onboarding the correct influencers for you.