Influencer marketing, when used strategically, can give your business a substantial advantage over your competitors in an oversaturated social media market. Here are 7 steps to creating a successful influencer strategy.
How do you design a good influencer strategy on social media?
Social platforms are the way to go if you want to build relationships with your target audience, but the problem is that almost every business out there is using the same channel to win over customers. This forces brands to go beyond traditional strategies and rely on alternative solutions such as influencer marketing.
It is one of the most productive brand promotion mechanisms as a typical business makes USD 5.20 for every dollar spent on influencer marketing, but the real question is: How do you design a good influencer strategy on social media?
If you don’t know the answer, keep reading to learn seven effortless ways to do it successfully.
The Basic Facts about Influencer Marketing
If you want to craft a good influencer strategy on social media, you need to know how the whole industry works these days. Let’s start by presenting the basic types of social media influencers:
• Celebrities: These are mostly athletes and show business celebrities with millions of social followers.
• Macro-influencers: These typically accumulate more than one hundred thousand followers, but rarely reach celebrity figures.
• Micro-influencers: This group consists of individuals with relatively small follower counts (up to fifty thousand), but their audiences are highly engaged.
According to reports, nearly 90 percent of businesses claim that ROI from influencer marketing is comparable to or better than other marketing channels. This is mainly because half of all consumers depend on influencer recommendations for purchasing decisions.
Simple Hacks to Build a Powerful Influencer Marketing Plan
You know enough about social media influencing already, so it’s time to concentrate on the actual strategy. Here are seven simple hacks to build a powerful influencer marketing plan for social media.
1. Set the goals of your campaign
What do you want to achieve with the next influencer campaign on social media? The way you answer this question will make a substantial impact on your strategy in general. There are several options to think about here:
• Raising brand awareness
• Growing the number of social media followers
• Generating website traffic
• Sales and lead generation
• Strengthening the online reputation of the brand
• Promoting a new product or service
Each of these goals demands a different approach, so you need to figure out your goals before you start looking for an influencer.
2. Define a perfect influencer persona
Who is your ideal social media influencer? This is the second question you ought to ask because it needs to be an individual who perfectly suits your business goals and target audience.
Jake Gardner, one of the best essay writers in charge of digital marketing, believes that the goal of your campaign should tell you whether to look for celebrity endorsements, macro, or micro-influencers: “At the same time, you must also figure out the right type of content or define the best mix of different content formats.”
When you define a perfect influencer persona, it will be much easier for you to find the most suitable individual for this position.
3. Use digital tools to research candidates
You can always brainstorm ideas together with your colleagues, but it might take you too much time to complete the process manually. This is exactly why marketers use digital tools to research candidates online. We will point out some of our favourite influencer research platforms:
• Heepsy is a digital library with over seven million influencers, so you can find the perfect match within seconds.
• Hype Auditor is an all-around tool for influencer discovery, tracking, and analytics.
• BuzzStream is the way to go if you want to improve your influencer outreach efforts.
4. Analyse your list of promising candidates
As soon as you create your initial list of candidates, you should analyse each option and try to identify the best influencer for your campaign. To do it properly, you should look back to the traits of your ideal influencer persona and compare those parameters with your candidates.
The person who fulfils the majority of your requirements is the right solution, but don’t hesitate to conduct another search if you are not satisfied with the existing options.
5. Build relationships with your influencer
Now that you’ve found the right social media influencer, you should take some time to build relationships before negotiating the deal. This means following a given influencer’s work, posting comments, and engaging with his/her content to try and establish more than just a business relationship.
6. Send a message and discuss the details of your campaign
The next step is to send a message to the targeted social media influencer and explain your business objectives. This is where you ought to discuss the details of the campaign and present your thoughts and ideas to the influencer. There are several things you need to agree upon:
• The most suitable content formats
• Campaign planning and scheduling
• Social network selection
• Budget and compensation
7. Track results and make changes on the go
Finally, the only thing left for you to do is to track the results of the campaign and make adjustments in real-time whenever needed. The easiest solution is to determine key performance indicators and measure achievements accordingly. If you are not happy with the results, you can react almost instantly and find fresh ways to improve the content of your influencer marketing campaign.
The Bottom Line
Social influencers are powerful business promoters who can improve your reputation and help you grow brand visibility both short and long-term. However, the real challenge is to make a sustainable influencer marketing strategy that guarantees to deliver the expected results.
In this post, we analysed the basic features of influencer marketing and explained seven effortless ways to create a proper strategy for social media. Do you know how to design your influencer marketing plan now?
Related Articles
How Does Influencer Marketing Work in 2020? WeChat Expert Shares Key Insights
How to Succeed at Influencer Marketing
Performance Marketing in 2020: An Ultimate Guide to How It Works
