Influencer Marketing is a tool for promoting products and services through opinion leaders: bloggers, actors, singers and other media personalities. In other words, influence marketing. How exactly to use the method to benefit your business – we will analyze in this material.
What is influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing works like this: a company negotiates with a suitable opinion leader for placement for a certain fee or by barter. He talks about the product on his platform. Most often, the information is presented as a recommendation, thanks to which the audience is loyal to the advertisement.
The effectiveness of the tool is partly explained by the principle of authority, which American psychologist Robert Cialdini described in his book “The Psychology of Influence”: people tend to sympathise with the choice of figures important to them. Today, brands collaborate with celebrities on social networks – YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook – or on other platforms.
The key principle of influencer marketing is to attract to the campaign not just a famous person, but a person who has a loyal audience ready to follow his recommendations. So, a great example of cooperation with an influencer is the collaboration of video blogger PewDiePie with the creators of a horror film about the French catacombs. This was one of the first examples of influencer marketing, in which the blogger created a series of videos about passing the tests in the catacombs. As a result, the film became popular, and PewDiePie received a huge number of views – everyone won.
Statistics: Is Influencer Marketing Relevant in 2024?
Is influencer marketing popular today? Yes, and according to statistics, this tool will be used more and more often. A few figures from the recent study The State of Influencer Marketing 2023 by Influencer Marketing Hub:
In 2022, the influencer marketing market size grew to $16.4 billion;
On average, companies earn $5.20 for every dollar spent on influencer marketing;
On Google alone, searches for the phrase “Influencer Marketing” have increased by 465% since 2016;
90% of respondents consider this tool to be an effective form of marketing;
In the last 5 years alone, 1,360 platforms and agencies focused on influencer marketing have entered the market.
The popularity of influencer marketing in 2024 is explained quite simply: the audience is tired of “head-on” advertising, so most standard campaigns do not show the desired effectiveness.
Is this tool right for you?
The main goal of influencer marketing is to increase sales. But, in addition to this, the tool is useful for other purposes:
- introduce the audience to the product;
- work through objections and pain points;
- create demand;
- increase brand awareness and strengthen brand loyalty;
- improve the company’s image, and so on.
Influencer marketing works almost always, if you take into account the main nuances – we will talk about them below. There are several niches in which the tool shows the best results. These are consumer goods (cosmetics, automotive topics, goods for children, clothing) and services with the possibility of instant purchase (courses, mobile applications, master classes).
4 Reasons to Use Influencer Marketing
This method of promotion differs from classic marketing tools, so before you start working, it is worth knowing about the key advantages of influencer marketing:
You will get truly native advertising . The format implies the most harmonious weaving of the recommendation into the content of the media personality. Often, influencers do not even advertise the product, but simply appear with it in the frame – and this is enough to arouse the audience’s keen interest.
You can specifically reach a narrow target audience . If you choose an influencer wisely, you can hit the very core of your target audience. Other promotion methods, such as targeted advertising, do not always allow you to achieve such precision as influencer marketing.
Get ready for live traffic . Leads from a blogger’s account can be transferred to any platform. A brand account on social networks, a company website, a product page on a marketplace — there are practically no restrictions.
Get feedback . Influencer marketing is extremely effective for getting honest feedback. After publishing an ad on a media personality’s page, you can clearly assess the audience’s reaction by likes, comments, and reviews. This is very valuable material for analytics.
With the help of influencer marketing, you can build an entire brand community — form a group of loyal users who will stand up for your product. This is a modern way of promotion that allows a company to achieve something more than just sales.
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How to Create an Influencer Marketing Strategy: 5 Key Steps
Advertising products and services with the help of opinion leaders works only in the case of a well-designed strategy. The promotion plan for each brand is unique, because it must take into account the product features, the company’s positioning and the state of the market.
There are countless influencer marketing strategy scenarios. We’ve outlined five key steps that most companies go through when planning their influencer marketing.
Step 1: Understand the format’s specifics
The preparatory work before building a strategy includes several stages:
- defining your goals and budget;
- development of a portrait of a target client, following whose example you will later select an opinion leader;
- understanding the principles of operation of social networks, blogs or other selected platforms;
- familiarization with trends and selection of management strategy;
- legal aspects: nuances of drawing up an agreement with a blogger, sponsor content tags, etc.
To make a campaign effective, you can interact not only with the media person, but also with the platform itself. Sometimes brands use classic advertising tools to create a hybrid of influencer marketing and a standard approach. All this needs to be thought out at the beginning of working on the strategy.
Step 2: Decide on a platform
According to consumer surveys, the best social networks for advertising are Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Facebook. Each has its own characteristics:
Instagram . Instagram allows for a wide range of content types to be sponsored, so there are plenty of ways for a brand to run a successful marketing campaign, especially if they focus on multiple influencers of varying sizes. The social network has some of the lowest CPVs (cost per visitor), making it a great place to build brand awareness on a budget.
YouTube . If you’re looking for conversions, consider YouTube. Long-form influencer videos keep users on the platform for longer, giving more space for organic, integrated advertising.
Unlike other social platforms, 78% of YouTube users watch content on their computers rather than mobile devices (according to Hootsuite), making it easy to convert to your platform. YouTube is the most expensive platform today, but it is also one of the most reliable places to get quick conversions.
TikTok . The platform has shown unprecedented growth and is in no hurry to stop. But TikTok’s generosity comes with big risks: any video can get a small number of views and not be included in general recommendations.
If your brand can properly engage with the platform’s huge creative potential, choosing the right format and influencer, a low cost per visitor and increased brand awareness are virtually guaranteed. Depending on the average age of your target audience, you can also expect good conversions.
Facebook : This is the best platform for brands that want to reach a more mature audience. Compared to Instagram or TikTok, Facebook allows you to publish long posts that can go into more detail about complex products or services. You can also insert clickable links into your posts to instantly drive traffic. The platform can be used for brand awareness campaigns and sales.
Step 3: Choose an influencer
Influential people in the media are classified by the number of subscribers (real, not fake) and the degree of audience engagement. Most often, media personalities are divided into five categories:
- Mega-influencers with 1,000,000+ followers are usually celebrities;
- Macro influencers with 500,000-1,000,000 followers;
- Mid-level influencers with 50,000-500,000 followers;
- Micro-influencers with 10,000-50,000 followers;
- Nano-influencers with 1,000-10,000 followers.
Collaboration with an influencer can be fruitful if the strategy is built correctly. Nano- and microbloggers are usually trusted more than celebrities – they build a chamber community, getting closer to their audience. But, at the same time, they have less coverage.
It is difficult to single out the most successful category of opinion leaders – brands are better off trying different approaches and determining in practice which presentation and for what number of subscribers will bring the most benefit.
Step 4. Decide on the advertising format
When launching an advertising campaign, you need to choose its format wisely. When it comes to social networks, there are several of the most common approaches in recent years.
Ambassadorship
Ambassadorship is one of the most established formats of interaction between a brand and a celebrity. This technique involves the native introduction of a product into the influencer’s life: a media personality becomes the company’s target audience and systematically promotes it. This is a long-term and loyal relationship with the advertiser, which develops into sincere sympathy. A microblogger is unlikely to fit into this format, but the approach is quite suitable for working with large influencers.
A brand ambassador needs to convey the company’s values and attract its audience to the product. Thus, in 2019, the Vremya i Steklo band became the Coca-Cola ambassador. Having signed a contract with the global brand, the band members launched a joint dance challenge, used product placement in the Vislovo video, and covered the cult hit Svyato nablizhayetsya in their own style.
Collaborations
Another popular format of substantial cooperation with a media person is collaborations. Many opinion leaders team up with famous brands to create a joint product. The campaign is beneficial to everyone:
- the influencer receives a percentage of sales, increases their media reach, and can bring their idea to life without losing a lot of their own resources;
- The brand increases sales due to the opinion leader’s audience, covers larger markets, and attracts target customers.
An example of such cooperation is the collaboration between the Ukrainian brand OTOG Studio and the artist MONATIK. Together they created the RitmoLOVE jewelry collection, which is based on the idea of combining unusual materials with modern technologies. The collection is associated with the bold, rhythmic image of Monatik, and at the same time conveys the values of OTOG Studio.
Live broadcasts
If a brand is not ready to start a long-term relationship with an influencer and wants to limit itself to a one-time long-term collaboration, you can choose the stream format. This method of promoting a product is popular on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.
The opinion leader and the company representative conduct a joint live broadcast, during which one of the scenarios is implemented:
- the influencer interacts with the product (creates an image using items from the new collection, visits a restaurant, tries on accessories, tries a cosmetic procedure, etc.)
- the influencer participates in a conversation with a brand representative (shares experiences, gives interviews, communicates informally)
- the influencer takes part in the company’s thematic activities (goes through an obstacle course, participates in a quiz, plays a game)
The goal of a live broadcast is to attract an audience not so much with a product as with content. Having become engrossed in the stream, the viewer gets to know the company and its products, subsequently becoming consciously interested in them.
For example, in 2021, the cosmetics brand NYX used livestreams with microbloggers and major influencers to communicate values that were close to its audience. In this way, it evoked a pleasant nostalgic response from the target customer, which also increased their loyalty to the brand.
The company realized that its audience — Gen-Z and millennials — loves the culture of the 1990s and 2000s. The brand hosted an event on the short-form video platform Triller featuring early 2000s pop stars Lance Bass, Brandy, and JoJo. At the event, the three celebrities attempted to recreate their own iconic looks using pieces from NYX’s fall collection.
Posts and Stories
Now let’s move on to simpler and more traditional formats of influencer marketing, available not only to large and medium-sized businesses, but also to small businesses. Most often, for this method of promotion, brands choose to use media personalities in posts and stories.
Stories are suitable for promoting almost any product: from clothing and accessories to webinars and educational courses. Today, this is one of the most native formats of influencer marketing. The level of trust in stories is higher than in posts, but you will not be able to return to such advertising after some time, because its lifespan is only 24 hours.
However, many brands choose this approach, signing a contract with an influencer for several months of regular stories. And here are their main advantages:
- now stories are watched much more often than the feed;
- they are suitable for any brand;
- This format fits organically into the pace of change in our information field.
At the same time, posts are well suited for both native advertising and reviews. In the second case, the influencer honestly and in detail talks about their experience of interacting with the brand and its product, using discount promo codes. To see an example of such cooperation, just go to the account of almost any microblogger – in their feed, you will definitely find partner posts.
It is important for marketers to combine different delivery formats – photos, videos, text, all together. If a good product is advertised, relying on one channel is equal to reducing the effectiveness of the entire campaign.
Step 5: Prepare your creative
High-quality creativity is one of the pillars of a successful marketing campaign. Today, many brands use a universal strategy that allows them to reduce risks:
Conduct A/B testing. Prepare several creative options and test them using targeted advertising. You can involve a microblogger as a media person.
Based on the results of the indicators, determine the best creative. Based on it, draw up a technical task for larger influencers with whom you plan to work.
Give the influencer some room to improvise so they can find the best delivery option for their audience. In parallel with their campaign, promote the approved material at your own budget to a wide target audience using targeted advertising.
This scheme will allow you to identify the most effective creative and get traffic from two sources at once: integration with a media person and regular advertising.
Analysis of campaign effectiveness
After the campaign is completed, it is important to analyze its results. The metrics for analysis are different in each case. They depend on the integration goals, the advertised product, and the format of cooperation with the influencer. For example, if the brand’s product is intended for mass use, the main KPIs will be increasing recognition and pumping up audience loyalty. If the product is niche, the goals should be considered leads and target actions on your site.
Here are some examples of universal metrics for evaluating the effectiveness of an influencer campaign:
Engagement rate. The number of reactions (likes, comments, reposts) is divided by the number of subscribers and multiplied by 100%. The engagement rate shows how actively the audience perceived the campaign.
Traffic . Understanding how many people performed a target action (for example, went to a website) allows you to directly evaluate the effectiveness of advertising.
Brands often use Google Analytics for this – for this, you need to put UTM tags in advertising links in advance. If you sent traffic to pages on a social network, analyze the number of subscribers and mentions a few days after integration.
Sales . The most obvious and expected indicator. To make it easier to track the arrival of buyers, offer the opinion leader to tell the audience about his personal discount promo code.
Brand awareness . Google Analytics can visually assess the indicator using three metrics: top-of-mind, spontaneous and induced awareness.
Brand reputation or Brand sentiment. Viewed in special services like Google Alerts, which track mentions of your brand on the Internet. Your reputation among the target audience can be positive, negative or neutral.
To ensure successful campaign performance analysis, collect enough data, look at the results dynamically, and look for correlations between indicators. A thorough integration assessment will allow you to take into account errors and optimize future campaigns.
Avoid These Influencer Marketing Mistakes
We hear a lot about effective influencer marketing campaigns. Brands often resort to this type of promotion, dreaming of fantastic metrics. But sometimes one of the process chains collapses and everything does not go according to plan. The result is a wasted budget, wasted time, and a disappointed team.
Why does this happen? These three common mistakes may be the reason for your failed campaigns. Learn them to avoid falling into the same trap.
Small budget
In influencer marketing, the delivery of advertising from the media person is extremely important. It is influenced by the blogger’s personal interest in the product, his motivation and glowing eyes. Often, brands cut the budget for an advertising campaign, and if in the classic approach this can result in only a part of the lost profit, then in working with opinion leaders the worst outcome is a complete failure.
Breaking up with an influencer after a campaign
The golden rule of influencer marketing is to treat influencers like your employees or clients. Influencer marketing is all about building long-term, trusting relationships not only with your audience, but also with the influencers you work with. Transform your interactions into warm, human conversations rather than a pragmatic business approach.
Careless choice of opinion leader
Spend enough time analyzing the influencer, even if it is a microblogger. Study their past integrations for cooperation with your competitors, look through the accounts of the active audience, use special services for page analytics. Do not get hung up on the number of subscribers – it is better to pay attention to the engagement rate and the quality of the opinion leader’s relationship with their audience. Also, choose an influencer whose values match the values of the company.
Conclusion
In conclusion, influencer marketing is a powerful tool for achieving your KPIs and elevating your brand’s visibility. By partnering with well-known personalities who resonate with your target audience, you can drive engagement, build trust, and boost conversions. However, to maximise the effectiveness of your influencer campaigns, it’s essential to work with a top influencer marketing agency. Such an agency can help you craft compelling content, strategically select influencers, and measure the success of your campaigns, ensuring you achieve both short-term gains and long-term growth.
