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Influencer Marketing Fundamentals

Rizer Social on Growing Your Business' Presence Online

In one of our recent webinars, Tristan Rahman, CEO and Founder of Rizer Social spoke about Influencer Marketing and what you need to know about partnering with influencers in order to grow your online presence.

Below is an overview of what was discussed as well as the full recording of the presentation.

Consumer Behaviour is Shifting

In a world where ads are everywhere, consumers are becoming more and more ad adverse. Instead: 

92% of consumers trust word-of-mouth recommendations over traditional ads

74% rely on social networks to guide purchase decisions or subject matter expertise

38% of internet users in North America use some form of ad blocking

Companies have started using influencer marketing as a way to get around ad blocking and build bigger brands.

What is Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing is a social media marketing strategy that involves collaboration and endorsement of online content creators, publications, organizations and professionals who demonstrate influence and expertise in a particular subject matter.

The intention for you is to establish credibility, increase awareness and build community.

Influencer Tiers

There are many different influencer tiers based on the number of followers these influencers have received.

MEGA – 1M+

MACRO – 500k-1M

MID-TIER – 50K-500K

MICRO – 10K-50K

NANO – 1K-10K

The engagement for nano influencers is higher than mega influencers and the more followers an influencer has, the likelier their engagement rate is going to diminish. For this reason, there’s been a higher interest in working with micro and nano influencers.

How Do you Find Influencers?

  1. Search on social media through hashtags and topics related to your industry.
  2. Utilize influencer marketing platforms who are able to vet influencers for you. 
  3. Work with talent management and influencer agencies.
  4. Search through blogs and media publications like Medium.

When you are looking for influencers, you want to ensure you are validating their audience. Make sure that their followers are engaged and not bots and ensure they target the geographical locations you serve.

What Does it Cost to Work with Influencers?

There are four main qualitative metrics that can determine the cost it will be to work with influencers.

  1. Influencer Location: If there is a scarcity of influencers in the target geographical area, the price might be higher.
  2. Mainstream Popularity: If the influencer became popular through mainstream media, the price of social media endorsement might be higher.
  3. Content Quality: If the influencer goes above and beyond in content quality, the price might increase.
  4. Free Product Endorsement: Free products can help to negotiate the price to a brands favour.

Ineffective Influencer Marketing

Here are some of the most common criticisms and scrutiny of current day influencer marketing:

  1. Follower Fraud: Many influencers can resort to purchasing fake followers.
  2. Diminishing Authenticity: Influencer loyalty to brands can be short-lived.
  3. Entitlement and Rate: Price gouging on influencer promotional rates.

Make sure you’re working with an influencer that shares the same values as you.

Goals for Effective Collaborations

  1. Share Values: a brand and influencer should share the same values.
  2. Imagine Both Together: imagine the influencer using the product on a daily basis.
  3. Creative Freedom: allow creative freedom because influencers know their audience very well.
  4. Seamless Integration: seamlessly integrate within the content theme created by the influencer.
  5. Marry Both: make the influencer fall in love with your product.
  6. Relationships are Important: build relationships, not contracts with influencers.

Influencer Marketing Requirements

These are things you must have as a business before you decide to work with influencers. 

  • Unique Value Proposition
  • Informative Content + Quality Website
  • Active Social Media Channels
  • Target Market and Buyer Persona Understood

An influencer isn’t going to participate in or advocate for your business if you don’t have a clear understanding of who you are and what you can offer. The influencer is not going to do all of the work for you – you have to build the foundation.

Important Screening Metrics

Ensure you’re doing your due diligence before you decide to invest in a partnership with influencers.

  1. Engagement: the ratio of actions such as likes, comments and shares vs an influencers following.
  2. Post frequency: how frequently the influencer posts content per month. You want to ensure that your post doesn’t get buried and bogged down by too many posts.
  3. Reach: how many eyeballs the piece of content can potentially capture.
  4. Viral potential: assessed likelihood of content based on average views.
  5. Positive sentiment: how many positive vs negative comments.

Calculating Engagement Rate

Engagement rate (%) = [(likes + comments + shares)/total followers] x 100

Average engagement rate: 20 posts minimum

How do you measure the success of your influencer marketing program?

  1. Engagement
  2. Clicks
  3. Impressions
  4. Conversions
  5. Reach
  6. Product Sales
  7. Audience Alignment

How to Measure ROI

Note: different social media yield different results.

Objectives

  1. Awareness – Youtube, Instagram, Twitter + Facebook (views, impressions, unique users, ad recall, watch time)
  2. Consideration – Youtube, Instagram + Blogs (likes, comments, shares)
  3. Action – Youtube, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest (clickthroughs, in-store visits, sales, referrals, signups)

 

Recommendation of Tools – Attribution (Pathway to measure people who visit your website and analyze their behaviour when they are visiting your website)

  1. Google Analytics
  2. Bitly
  3. Hubspot

Provide influencers a tracking link so that you’re able to see how many people are coming to your site through that influencer.

What are the differences between B2C and B2B influencer marketing?

B2C Strategy

  • Consumer value and product focused
  • Storytelling towards brand connection
  • Target audience is significantly larger

Example: Pizza Hut

Strategy: Promote the new Pizza Hut Canada mobile app; target age 18-30 audience in Canada; find lifestyle + gaming influencers

Call to Action: Direct audiences to Pizza Hut Canada website or app store to download through tracking links

Measurement: Engagement rate → Site visits or link clicks → App downloads

 

B2B Strategy

  • Earned domain expertise and authority
  • Educational to strengthen thought leadership
  • Target audience is niche and smaller

 

Types of B2B Influencers:

  • customers
  • industry professionals and journalists
  • keynote speakers
  • organizational executives and employees

 

B2B: where is your target audience?

  1. Quora
  2. Linkedin
  3. Medium
  4. Reddit
  5. Your Website/Blog
  6. Newsletter
  7. Facebook
  8. Instagram
  9. Twitter
  10. TikTok
  11. Podcast

B2B Influencer Strategy

B2B Example – Abacus Agency

In collaboration with Hive Stack setting up a webinar on Digital OOH Marketing

  • Intent is to share knowledge on upcoming trends and create a meaningful conversation
  • Promoted on Linkedin, blogs and various social media platforms
  • Distributed to email marketing newsletters

 

B2B Example – Shopify

Shopify featuring entrepreneurs through their podcast In Conversation

  • Amplified content through paid marketing on various platforms (Linkedin, Instagram, etc)
  • Content oriented around personal stories of each entrepreneur and road to success

Nano Influencers

  • Have an audience of 10k or less
  • Nano-influencers have significantly higher engagement rates
  • Effective method of user generated content and content marketing
  • Nano-influencers are significantly more cost effective and targeted for an intended audience
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About the Author

Kierstyn Pare

Now Creative Group