Want to Get More with Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing has already become an extremely popular form of marketing among brands. In fact, as of 2018, there were over 740 platforms focused on influencer marketing, which marked a major increase of over 320 platforms in just one year.
One of the major reasons for this is the high engagement rate that influencers get on their content. In fact, the average engagement rate of influencers on Instagram is about 1.87%. This increases to nearly 10.7% for those with less than 2,000 followers.
While influencer marketing can yield high engagement and ROI, you can optimize your campaigns to get even better results.
Influencer Marketing Ideas
Here are some techniques that can help you get the most out of your influencer marketing campaigns.
1. Discount Codes
Discount codes can instantly increase the popularity of your influencer marketing campaign. When people see that they can get their favorite products for lower prices, they’ll be more inclined to purchase them. This type of campaign can help you increase your sales and revenue instantly.
You can create unique discount codes for each of your influencers. When the influencers post these codes, you’ll be able to track how many purchases were made using each code. This can help you track the performance of each of your influencers too.
Additionally, you can use an affiliate program to pay your influencers. You can pay them a commission for each purchase that they drive. This way, they’ll be more motivated to promote your products too.
For instance, Daniel Wellington gave out free watches to their influencers and gave them each a unique discount code to track results.
2. Whitelisting
While the targeted reach of influencer marketing is excellent, to unleash its real power, you need to pair it up with paid promotions. Through whitelisting, brands can get access to the influencer’s account for advertising. This can help increase the reach of their content. It also allows you to be in control of which posts you want to promote.
Whitelisting allows you to turn your influencer posts into ads. They will look and feel like the original post except that they will be tagged as “sponsored” and you can add a caption and CTA to it. Just like other paid promotions, you’ll be able to see in-depth analytics of the post.
The benefit of amplification is that you can increase your reach, engagement, and sales. You can pick the objective and have full control over the ad spend supporting the amplification. However, the process of convincing the influencers to grant access to their accounts can be difficult. At the same time, you can’t access or even target the influencer’s audiences.
To solve this issue, you can use SocialCert, a tool by Lumanu. It allows influencers to share their data and permissions securely with brands and vice-versa. This way, it enables you to get the most out of your influencer marketing campaigns.
3. Brand Ambassadors
You may choose to collaborate with an influencer for a one-off campaign. However, the best way to do influencer marketing is by fostering strong relationships with your influencers. When you work with influencers for a longer duration, they’ll have a better understanding of your brand and your values.
Additionally, it’ll be easier to deal with them as they have worked with you longer. You may even want to consider making some of your influencers your brand ambassadors. They will be able to showcase multiple facets of your brand through their content as compared to a one-off collaboration.
You can use tools such as Twitonomy to keep track of your influencers’ posts to determine if you want to make them your brand ambassadors. It gives you detailed, visual analytics of their tweets, mentions, comments, and more.
4. Live Videos
The live video revolution on social media is here, and if you’re into influencer marketing, you shouldn’t miss out on it. When your influencers go live, their followers get a chance to interact with them directly in real-time. This can generate a lot of engagement and views.
When the influencers mention your brand or talk about it in a live video, you’ll be able to increase your brand awareness. The live videos could be Q&As, how-tos, product launches, and more.
For example, Starbucks wanted to encourage people to vote in the 2016 election. To do so, they partnered with Common, and the video was able to generate over 176k views and got over 200 shares.
5. Social Media Takeover
A social media takeover is when an influencer takes control of a brand’s social media account for a pre-decided duration. During this period, they come up with innovative content to promote the brand.
Not only can this generate a lot of engagement but it can even increase your reach. How? The influencer’s audience may also start following your social media handle.
However, you must ensure that you create a contract with agreed upon terms before the influencer takeover. This contract should detail the deliverables and scope of work This will help to avoid any future issues.
The contract should clearly state the duration of the takeover and the extent to which the influencer can access your account. Once this is signed, you can go ahead with the collaboration.
For instance, Harper’s Bazaar partnered with Jamie King to promote their brand. She went live on Instagram while she was preparing for the Dior Cruise show, and this generated a lot of engagement for Harper’s Bazaar.
6. Testimonials
To get the most out of your influencer marketing campaigns, you should consider featuring influencers in your testimonials section. When people notice that an influencer has vouched for your brand, it’ll increase their trust in your brand.
All you need to do is give influencers your products or services to try for themselves. Then, you can ask them to review your products/services. You can feature their reviews in the testimonials section on your website or create social media posts about the same.
Alternatively, once you’ve collaborated with the influencers, you can use their posts as testimonials. This way, you’ll be able to make optimal use of your influencer-generated content too.
Final Thoughts
Influencer marketing campaigns can give you extremely high returns, including up to 18X in earned media value. However, you need to come up with unique ideas and strategies to increase your ROI.
Through live videos, social media takeovers, and testimonials, you can amplify your influencer marketing efforts.
Discount codes can help you boost the performance of your campaigns and even track how well your influencers are performing. Lastly, forming strong relationships with influencers and making them brand ambassadors can also improve the performance of your influencer marketing campaigns.
What other ways can brands get the most out of influencer marketing? Please share your insights in the comments.
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