The world of social media is quickly changing at a speed that could make anyone’s head spin, and as a result it is important to adapt your digital marketing strategy accordingly. While once upon a time it was easier to ensure purchased fans on portals like Facebook were authentic, it isn’t so simple for brands to work wonders anymore. At the same time, there is a growing pool of thought influences who have managed to build a loyal community of substantial followers on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Quora and the works – these people influence the thoughts and decisions of many people who are sick of traditional in-your-face ads being force fed down their throat. And, this is why we are now going to help you understand the wonderful world of influencer marketing, so you can use it to your advantage.
Why Influencer Marketing?
Rather than trying to build a fan base from scratch, and ending up drawing bots, influencer marketing allows you to target a select few people, who then reach out to your target audience in a way that is more credible and effective than how you possibly could. Influencers are experts in their domain and their audiences trust them – a tie up with a thought influencer allows your brand to establish credibility in the eyes of people in a much more meaningful way.
How Do You Go About Influencer Marketing?
There are four key steps to going about building a strategic influencer marketing campaign, and we will walk you through all these steps, one-by-one:
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1) Get Your Goals & Targets Straight
It is important you start off by having complete clarity regarding your company’s immediate and long-term goals. Once you are clear about that, you can then figure out what it is that you are hoping an influencer can actually help out with and set targets, accordingly. For example, are you simply looking to establish brand awareness? Are you trying to generate more sales – if yes, how much? Are you trying to reach out to a new audience you previously haven’t been able to – if yes, which sort of new audience? Are you looking for more audience interaction – if yes, are you thinking of an interactive contest that generates a certain amount of participation and/or subscriptions? One word of caution – while setting goals and targets, make sure you are also being realistic.
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2) Get Into Sherlock Mode
It is important you identify the right type of influencers for every medium – do a search based on various hashtags that are relevant and see who leads the pack. Spend a few hours researching influencers by portal, whether it be Instagram and Twitter or Facebook and YouTube. It is not necessary one influencer is going to be influential across all portals. Research what type of brands have your shortlisted influencers already worked with – often influencers do not take two brands that are competitors, due to conflict of interest clauses.
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3) Tap Into Your Inner Accountant
Once you have set goals, targets and identified a list of influencers that are relevant to your market, chalk out a budget that you want to allocate to various influencers based on tier one, tier two, tier three. And, make sure you also spell out what deliverables you are looking for from each influencer based on the remuneration you are providing them. For influencers are that are tier two and tier three, sometimes you can offer them your product/service for free in exchange for publicity or work out a barter tie-up where you both cross-promote each other.
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4) Analyze. Rework. Repeat!
Make sure to constantly monitor results of marketing efforts when roping in influencers – are they actually meeting their deliverables? Are there any influencers who are surpassing expectations whom you can form an even longer working relationship with? – Establishing rapport is important! Are there any newly emerging influencers who you might want to rope in during phase two of your efforts? A huge component of marketing is tweaking things based on performance in real time, since a lot of factors are very dynamic.
Did you find these tips from our Kiss Doodles team useful? Comment below and let us know!
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