Influencer Marketing 101 – The Shelf Full-Service Influencer Marketing https://www.theshelf.com We're a creative + strategy influencer marketing agency running 🩄 campaigns. All the verticals. All the platforms. Fri, 01 Dec 2023 00:30:34 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.8.2 https://www.theshelf.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/cropped-the-Shelf-logo-orange-32x32.png Influencer Marketing 101 – The Shelf Full-Service Influencer Marketing https://www.theshelf.com 32 32 Mastering Social Media Algorithms: The Interest Graph vs the Social Graph https://www.theshelf.com/the-blog/social-media-algorithms-interest-graph-vs-social-graph/ https://www.theshelf.com/the-blog/social-media-algorithms-interest-graph-vs-social-graph/#respond Fri, 20 Oct 2023 01:48:47 +0000 https://www.theshelf.com/?p=19098 Do you know anything about social media algorithms? Asking for a friend. 😊 You’ve probably noticed that social media habits have changed A LOT over the last few years, and the biggest shifts primarily have to do with the way in which popular social media platforms use algorithms to surface different types of content to…

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Do you know anything about social media algorithms? Asking for a friend. 😊 You’ve probably noticed that social media habits have changed A LOT over the last few years, and the biggest shifts primarily have to do with the way in which popular social media platforms use algorithms to surface different types of content to different audiences in different parts of the app.

So today, we’re looking at the one thing that probably drives more conversations, actions, and pivots for social media marketers than anything else – social media algorithms. 

Listen to a recap of this article


Why We’re Having a Conversation About Social Algorithms

In 2023, nearly every company you can think of is using social media to reach their audience. Statista published a stat that said 9 in 10 marketers in companies with 100 or more employees are leveraging social media marketing in one way or another. Social media is not only one of the most effective marketing channels (according to 77 percent of social media marketers polled by HubSpot), it’s also one of the most reliable customer acquisition channels for brands.

Pink and purple graphic of a large hand writing with a purple pencil next to small characters above the text: Social Media Algorithms: The Social Graph
  • Two-thirds of the world’s population is online
  • 59 percent of the people in the world (4.7 billion folks) are also active on at least one social media platform (Data Reportal)
  • 65 percent of U.S. consumers say the link in a post led them to discover a product they weren’t originally interested in purchasing (Retail Touchpoints)
  • 47 percent of US consumers have engaged in social commerce, meaning they’ve made a purchase through social media (Mintel)

Social media presents brands with a unique opportunity to reach audiences organically. But also to forge connections and compose a brand narrative that clearly articulates and reinforces its values and its value.

Upwards of 68 percent of companies are adding an influencer marketing strategy to their digital marketing efforts. But even without partnering with influencers (and allowlisting influencer posts to boost the reach), a brand’s ability to consistently create social media content that resonates with consumers really is its best chance at building brand loyalty. (Enter Wendy’s rogue, brass-b*lls social media strategy)

Wendys x Sopranos post social media algorithms
Source: Instagram

I recently updated one of our seminal posts, entitled “Is Influencer Marketing Dead?”. As I was raining down verbal blows upon the heads of influencer marketing haters and naysayers, something kinda stuck out in my mind as I researched stats. Here’s the thoughtful blurb that will serve to set the stage and provide context for this article on social media algorithms:

Right now, young adults (ages 16 to 30) spend an average of 1 hour more on social media per day than the average person. Half (friggin’ HALF‌ ) of Gen Zers spend 4 hours OR MORE on social media every single day. That kind of time investment leads me to believe that the way younger consumers are using social media is more encompassing than the way older consumers social. For example:

  • Search: About 47 percent of 16 to 34-year-olds use social media as a primary source of information when researching brands. Meanwhile, 44 percent rely on search engines.
  • Spying: 82 percent of adults ages 16 and over use at least one social media platform to follow or research brands.
  • Connecting: For Generation Z, social posts aren’t a highlight reel like they were for Millennials. They’re the social media equivalent of their train of thought. Their posts and stories are a window into their lives and passions. 
  • Living a lifestyle of sharing and influencing: 41 percent of Gen Z describe themselves as video content creators, signaling a shift to a culture of creativity and influence.
  • Innovation: 65 percent of Gen Z surveyed say they used a filter, feature, or effect on a video app over the past year. And 60 percent of Gen Zers surveyed say they’re open to watching content from creators who use AI to generate their content.

If younger consumers are spending more time online, it makes sense to me that they are also using social media to fulfill more of their needs in key areas such as self-expression, friendship, work, entertainment, and completing daily tasks (like shopping and figuring out what to do for the weekend).

In order to reach them, you have to make your brand a welcome addition to their feeds by creating the right content for the right platforms. And that means understanding the algorithms.


The Interest Graph vs. The Social Graph

Simply put, social media algorithms are sets of rules used to determine how and when to surface content. They use different user signals to determine what content to display. The recipe for how these signals are weighted changes from platform to platform, as well as within a single platform to power different features.

(Much respect to our Dev team – I know that this is an oversimplification. You guys are nothing short of wizards. All of yuz!)

For the purposes of this article, we’re going to look at two primary types of social media algorithms: the interest graph and the social graph. As a general rule, let’s concede that socially-driven algorithms prioritize content based on what the content is and who it’s from while interest-driven algorithms prioritize content based on how the user interacts with the content and how they’ve engaged with similar content in the past.

So, with Facebook’s socially-driven algorithm, I get to see my octogenarian great-uncle in his Sunday’s best, and it warms my heart. Love that dude. On TikTok, even though I may follow Unc, I never see his content. But I see a lot of content from the “Cocaine Bear” guy because he’s hilarious and just about the only type of content I engage with on TikTok is funny videos.

By the way, that movie’s not suitable for family movie night…. just a heads up. Learned that the hard way. Ya can’t unsee it, guys.

@scottseiss Thank you for 1 MILLION followers đŸ”„ Reuploading some of the muted vids! #retail #work #fyp #bgcdramaeffect ♬ original sound – Scott Seiss

Algorithm #1: The Social Graph (aka the friends and family plan)

Remember a few years ago when our social media feeds were made up of posts from the people we follow? You had to be super careful about who you followed, and who you engaged with. Owners of new social accounts were hellbent on getting as many followers as they could to ensure their content was visible. The larger your network, the greater your potential reach.

Well, that’s because social feeds surfaced content based on a user’s network, followers, and connections. This was social media’s Social Graph era.

What Is the Social Graph? 

The Social Graph is an algorithm that prioritizes social media feeds to display content from the people and topics/hashtags followed by the user.

There’s a great article on this topic that you can read on Remains of the Day.

Socially-driven algorithms also display content based on the interests of the accounts users are connected to on a platform. Until about three years ago, most social media platforms prioritized the socially-driven feed, with one exception – TikTok. 

Algorithm #2: The Interest Graph (aka social media as entertainment)

In 2020, TikTok went from being the reincarnation of the pre-teen music app Musical.ly to being the app that helped many of us brave the pandemic. 

When Instagram became a go-to news source for young adult social media users – especially as social activism gave way to in-person protests during the summer of 2020 – TikTok grew in popularity, in large part, because it was the opposite of that. TikTok was a chill place that kids had been using to entertain themselves with unproduced, unbeautified short-form videos. No pretense. No soapboxes. No stress.

TikTok’s personalized feed was a stark departure from the feeds delivered to users by other social media platforms. The primary difference was that TikTok’s algorithm prioritized showing content that aligned with the personal interests of each user over just showing the content posted to the platform by accounts in a user’s network. Enter the era of the Interest Graph

What Is the Interest Graph? 

The Interest Graph is an algorithm that focuses on building the feed by analyzing the various interests, preferences, and behaviors of the individual users on the platform.

Instead of prioritizing content posted by the other accounts a user follows, interest-driven algorithms recommend content based on the topics, hashtags, and accounts that users engage with


How the Interest Graph and Social Graph Work Together

While there are certainly more algorithms than just these two, my goal here is to get you to draw the proverbial line in the sand about interest-driven algorithms vs socially-driven algorithms.

Both matter. They work together.

And whether you’re building a content catalog or mapping out a plan for your holiday influencer campaigns, you’ll want to have a pretty good understanding of how these two main algorithms-slash-concepts factor into your planning process.

Yes, TikTok’s Interest Graph Changed the Way We Social

TikTok’s interest-driven algorithm fundamentally changed how people use social media AND it changed how social media works. It was freakishly addictive, becoming the favorite pastime of hundreds of millions of people during the lockdowns. TikTok’s team mastered the attention graph while no one was looking and burst into the Western market, spreading across generations faster than any social media app had ever done prior.

TikTok gave way to the advent of videos going viral, even when posted by accounts with little to no following. TikTok also created the viral sound, which popularized unknown artists and birthed and/or jumpstarted the careers of acts like Lil Nas X and Lizzo. 

Social Media Is In the Entertainment Business

One of the major shifts that happened in social media over the last few years has to do with the type of content users want to see. Take a look at this Notion doc my team and I put together on Gen Z content preferences. A lot of this stuff I pulled from YouTube’s Culture and Trends Report last year.

Horror content, armchair traveling, gaming, mental health content, rewatching favorites, watching short-form teasers of long-form content… You’ll notice that a lot of these content preferences could easily be filled by streaming services. But more likely than not, younger social media users will get their fill by scrolling through a social media feed powered by the interest graph.

Gen Z Content Preferences - Notion Doc

Today, social media is progressively taking over the role of traditional television as the main outlet for entertainment with younger consumers. According to a recent report from the Daily Mail, individuals ages 15 to 24 in Britain now dedicate more time to using TikTok than watching television. Similar trends can be observed among teenagers and young adults in the United States, as indicated by statistics published by Insider Intelligence. 

According to Data Reportal, platforms like TikTok and YouTube are outshining streaming giants like Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney Plus. More time, more users, and more entertainment are attributed to social media platforms — that’s the new norm.

But You Still Need the Social Graph for Building

While the Interest Graph focuses on interests and preferences, the Social Graph delves into the relationships between individuals on social media. It represents the connections, interactions, and networks that people form online, allowing marketers to understand the social dynamics and social influence within their target market.

So, no – the Social Graph isn’t a thing of the past. An influencer with a strong Social Graph is more likely to have a loyal and engaged following, leading to higher engagement rates and a more successful marketing campaign. Plus, there are popular apps that still power features with socially-driven algorithms, even when prioritizing interest-driven content in-feed.

Instagram’s Stories feature is a prime example of the social graph. Originally modeled after Snapchat’s socially-driven disappearing posts, Instagram Stories are short-form videos that can only be seen by a user’s followers. Compare that to Instagram Reels, which are public-facing short-form videos that are displayed in-feed based on a user’s interest. 

Cool facts, Sorilbran. Now, why should we care?

Well, different users engage on social media platforms in different ways. According to Instagram Head Adam Mosseri, teens and younger consumers spend more of their Instagram time in DMs than in Stories. And they spend more time in Stories than they spend looking at content in their feeds (which is where static posts and Reels live).

“Take out all the text,” Mosseri said in a recent interview on the 20VC Podcast. “There are more photos and videos shared in DMs than there are shared in Stories. And there are way more shared in Stories than there are in-feed.” 

If you happen to know or live with a Gen Z teen or young adult, you may have noticed that for this cohort, phone numbers are not the go-to method of keeping in touch – Instagram is. When younger social media users meet someone they want to keep in touch with, they exchange Instagram handles, not phone numbers.

Phone numbers are typically reserved for potential business opportunities, or between people who are in established friendships.

Why not exchange TikTok handles? Because TikTok’s interest-driven algorithm doesn’t prioritize personal connections. So, it’s unlikely that new acquaintances would be able to strengthen their relationship beyond that initial contact because there’s no guarantee they’d ever see one another’s posts on TikTok.

Younger consumers use Instagram Stories as a means to build their communities and get to know one another. Instagram is where potential friendships can start to blossom and where ill-fated relationships go to die (or be unfollowed, as it were).

** It’s also worth noting that this behavior can also be seen in Gen Alphas – they will often exchange Roblox display names instead of phone numbers.**


To achieve the best results in your social media marketing efforts, consider the interplay between the Interest Graph and the Social Graph.


Here’s a Simple Use Case for Social vs Interest Algorithms

Users discover brands on TikTok thru funny videos

So, how do you use this information in your campaign? Let’s look at a couple of scenarios that work in some influencer marketing ideas.

Scenario 1: Let’s say you have launched an influencer campaign to boost your brand recognition. You can work with a content creator who may not necessarily be influential in your vertical, but they have a track record of creating really great, high-value content that the algorithm loves to recommend. 

In this scenario, you may choose to partner with a larger influencer who specializes in crafting stories that offer a high entertainment value since your goals include increasing your visibility and boosting brand recall.

You want your brand to be seen and remembered, and you want to make sure the influencer’s content triggers a positive sentiment (đŸ‘ˆđŸœ important) so that when consumers see your subsequent branded content or your ads, your marketing efforts pull them deeper into your funnel and gets them closer to being open to taking an action later.

Here’s why I’m thinking this way…

  • 71 percent of consumers are more likely to purchase when referred by social media.
  • 58 percent are more likely to have positive vibes about an ad on TV, Facebook, or YouTube if they’re first exposed to the campaign via an influencer’s post.
  • Influencer promotions generated 87 percent higher memory and 277% more emotional intensity when compared to ads in television.
  • 43 percent of Gen Zers say one of the top ways they like to engage with their interests is through stories posted by brands and influencers on social media. 

Right? So, influencer content can set the mood and establish good feels for your entire campaign. And then there’s this little stack of stats:

With that in mind, let’s look at a really great example of a creator who leads with high entertainment value. Comedian Trey Kennedy is a genius when it comes to super-short skits that are hilarious and relatable. His Instagram feed is full of them. This particular post is from Trey’s paid partnership with [yellow tail]. 

Scroll through the comments. Notice how Trey’s followers know they’re seeing a sponsored post. And frankly, they don’t care because the content was so entertaining. The post generated over 27k engagement actions, and was viewed more than 732K times on Instagram alone. (And yes, this campaign was one of ours.đŸ„ł)

Scenario 2: Now, let’s say you’re looking at a more traditional type of influencer marketing activation, targeting young adult consumers with a mid-funnel campaign designed to get them to take a specific action. In this case, you may choose to work nano, micro and/or mid-tier influencers who have built their audiences on Instagram. You also want to make sure they have credibility and influence with their audience in a vertical or category that aligns with your product.  

Why? One of the benefits of working with nano, micro, and mid-tier Instagrammers is that those influencers are more likely to have established relational equity with their audiences. This relational equity (i.e. influence) enables influencers to have their recommendations looked at more closely and taken more seriously. 

Here’s a fun stat that may help tie this together: Forty percent of millennials have reported saying they feel like influencers know them better than their own friends. 

So, it remains true that in the realm of influencer marketing, the Social Graph plays an important role in determining the effectiveness of brand collaborations. By analyzing the relationships between influencers and their followers, you can get a pretty good idea of an influencer’s authority, credibility, and ability to drive engagement. 

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Creating Synergy between Social Media Algorithms

To achieve the best results in your social media marketing efforts, consider the interplay between the Interest Graph and the Social Graph. Brands have a chance to uncover new opportunities for content creation and influencer partnerships by learning how to think beyond the product, the mission, and the branded language to take a data-driven approach to marketing on social media.

By comprehending the nuances of these algorithms and their impact on your marketing efforts, you can stay ahead of the game and build marketing campaigns that consistently deliver on your most important KPIs. And isn’t that all any of us wanna do?


Sorilbran Stone Content Strategist

About the Author

Sorilbran Stone | Content Strategist

I serve as the resident content strategist and the official Head of Content Marketing at The Shelf. Marketing is my happy place. I’m as happy looking at analytics as I am actually creating a thing. I focus a lot on dreaming up and implementing the best ways to create, publish, and distribute content that will builds our brand and gets our readers to do a thing

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Is Influencer Marketing Dead? https://www.theshelf.com/the-blog/is-influencer-marketing-dead/ https://www.theshelf.com/the-blog/is-influencer-marketing-dead/#respond Thu, 12 Oct 2023 17:03:00 +0000 http://34.239.214.20/?p=2867 Influencer marketing is dead? 💀 Is it possible that the era of the social media influencer has finally come to an end? I’ll be honest — the influencer marketing industry has changed A LOT over the past decade. However, the principles that govern influencer marketing are pretty well established. People will always talk to other…

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Influencer marketing is dead? 💀 Is it possible that the era of the social media influencer has finally come to an end?

I’ll be honest — the influencer marketing industry has changed A LOT over the past decade. However, the principles that govern influencer marketing are pretty well established. People will always talk to other people about their experiences. And many of those conversations are happening online because 6 in 10 adult humans are online.

Influencer marketing isn’t dead. But just so you have a chance to understand why we’re taking that position, let’s look at the data. And you can decide for yourself if influencer marketing is over.


Is Trouble Looming for the Influencer Marketing Industry?

I saw a stat recently that said 48 percent of consumers distrust influencer marketing. This stat, along with a handful of similar stats, is making the rounds in our industry and it gets cited over and over again. I saw another stat just last week that says 90 percent of consumers are turned off by influencer marketing. Both stats were used as headlines.

These types of headlines have been floating around for years. I know that because I originally wrote and published this article as a response post in 2018. Most of the articles with these types of gloom-and-doom headlines around influencer marketing are either misquotes or clickbait. If you keep clicking through the links to find the original source of the stat, you’ll discover the stat is either misquoted from a study with similar wording, but a completely different meaning, or it’s a “shock stat” created đŸ€„ to get you to click to read the article. Happens all the time.

In Reality, Influencer Marketing Is Having a Growth Spurt

The influencer marketing industry has more than tripled in size in the last four years, ballooning to a market size of $21 billion. New influencer marketing best practices and laws help to further formalize influencer marketing as an industry, not just another growth hacking strategy.

So, if you happen to be one of the 5 to 8 percent of marketers still grappling with whether an Instagram influencer marketing campaign would be worth the effort, you’re in the right place.

Influencer Marketing Isn’t New

Influencer marketing isn’t new. The history of influencer marketing stretches as long as human history. But social media influencer marketing? Yeah, that’s newish. If you don’t count forums and chat rooms, leveraging word-of-mouth marketing in digital spaces is a relatively new tactic for boosting awareness. But using influential creatives to get the word out about something? That’s always been a thing.

Yeah, before Ronald Reagan was president, he was an actor hawking soap for daytime television. Soap operas, if you will.

At its core, influencer marketing is word-of-mouth marketing in a digital space. So… Instagram didn’t invent influence. And Instagram won’t end it.

5 Signs That Influencer Marketing Is Alive and Well

In recent years, influencer marketing has been under scrutiny, with talking heads and skeptics predicting its imminent decline. But we don’t believe that. Not because we’re plucky and optimistic, and not because we’re an influencer marketing agency living in denial. We don’t believe it because the data doesn’t back it up, and if there’s one thing we’re big on, it’s data.

So let’s look at several compelling signals that suggest influencer marketing is far from dead and is, in fact, thriving.

Signal #1: People Are Living Life on Social Media

Social media has woven itself into the very fabric of our lives. There are 8 billion people on this planet, and 68 percent of us are online. What’s even more fascinating is that 87.5 percent of those who are online are also active social media users. That’s around 4.8 billion people. Regardless of geographic location or age group, social media users spend an average of 2.5 hours a day on social media platforms.

The average Gen Zers spends 3 hours (1)

That’s 75 hours a month.

Or three full days dedicated to social media every single month.

That’s the average, but the number’s even higher for Gen Z.

Social media is how we connect:

Remember when a phone call or face-to-face meet-up was the only way to catch up with friends and family? Well, those days aren’t entirely gone, but social media has become our go-to avenue for staying in touch. These days, new acquaintances are just as likely to exchange Instagram handles as phone numbers.

Nearly 45 percent of social media users aged 16 and above follow their friends, family, and people they know on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and WeChat. It’s where we share milestones, inside jokes, nostalgic memes, and TikToks so that we can tag our siblings and ask them if they agree with Miss Tanara’s assessment that everybody’s so creative with their cooking.

Social media is a growing source of entertainment:

The days of traditional TV dominating our entertainment are quickly fading into oblivion. According to Daily Mail, young Britons between the ages of 15 and 24 are spending more time scrolling through TikTok than they are glued to their TV screens. Similar trends can be observed among teenagers and young adults in the United States, as indicated by statistics published by Insider Intelligence.

And it’s not just TikTok. According to Data Reportal, platforms like YouTube are outshining streaming giants like Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney Plus. More time, more users, and more entertainment are attributed to social media platforms — that’s the new norm.

People are on social media, and brands go where the attention is.


Signal #2: People Like (and Trust) Influencers

One of the most telling signals of the continued relevance of influencer marketing is the popularity of influencers themselves. Social media users genuinely enjoy following influencers who resonate with their interests and values. When it comes to spending time on social media, 21 percent of users are there to find communities of people who like what they like. And those groups are often moderated, hosted, or created by influential content creators.

1 in 5 social media users say following influencers is one of their main reasons for using social media, and those percentages get significantly higher with younger consumers.

Who do they follow on social networks - do people trust influencers?

Influencers first; ambassadors second

It’s worth remembering that influencers don’t become influencers because a brand hires them. Content creators become influencers long before they’re partnering with brands. And yes, there’s a difference between content creators and influencers.

One of the key metrics The Shelf influencer marketing platform measures during the influencer selection process is category influence — the specific vertical in which a content creator wields influence.

The categories show the topics around which an influencer creates content that are received well by their audience. And those categories are usually supported by the catalog of regularly used hashtags on topics that are closely aligned with their category of influence.

Screenshot of the categories of an unnamed social media account from our platform.

So…

When you see headlines that say people are tired of influencers or that they don’t trust influencers, I would bet dollars to donuts that the thing they actually don’t trust is ads — influencer-generated sponsored content that looks super ad-sy. 💾 to đŸ©!!

This isn’t an a-ha moment for anyone, is it? Unless it’s a Ryan Reynolds-styled advertainment spot, NO ONE likes ads.

They’re disruptive.

They’re superficial.

And they come off as tone-deaf and inauthentic. Sometimes it’s not even because it’s a bad ad! It may be more about the placement. Publishers promise targeted placement, but it’s getting harder and harder for them to grab the data they need to ensure it’s potential buyers who are being targeted with those ads.

Without enough first-party data (and the tech to make that data meaningful) publishers and social media platforms aren’t able to place every ad contextually. That means I end up seeing a Doja Cat video snippet in the middle of my Sunday morning digital church livestream replay. Or my kids have to sit through ads of a middle-aged guy talking up his migraine meds in the middle of their “Come play with me” YouTube binges.

Influencer marketing, when done right, is the fix for tone-deaf ads. Or, at least, it should be. Influencers offer a sense of authenticity and relatability that traditional advertising often lacks. Whether it’s a travel vlogger sharing adventure stories or a beauty guru offering makeup tutorials, influencers create content that resonates with their audiences.


Signal #3: Influencer Marketing Works

Influencer marketing works. And there are a couple of reasons why this is so. Without dropping a bunch of stats in your lap, I first want to set the stage for how people use social media. Those insights will inform the context of the stats and make ’em hit different.

WHY DOES IT WORK?

Social media plays a more significant role in our day-to-day.

Right now, young adults (ages 16 to 30) spend an average of 1 hour more on social media per day than the average person. Half (friggin’ HALF!!) of Gen Zers spend 4 hours or more on social media every single day. That kind of time investment leads me to believe that the way younger consumers are using social media is more encompassing than the way older consumers social. For example:

  • Search: About 47 percent of 16 to 34-year-olds use social media as a primary source of information when researching brands. Meanwhile, 44 percent rely on search engines.
  • Spying: 82 percent of 16 to 64-year-olds use at least one social media platform to follow or research brands.
  • Connecting: For Generation Z, social posts aren’t a highlight reel like they were for Millennials. They’re the social media equivalent of their train of thought. Their posts and stories are a window into their lives and passions. 
  • Relationship-building: During a recent interview on the 20VC podcast, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said young people are spending more time in DMs than in Stories, and more time in Stories than in Feed. That’s also where the most rich media (i.e. videos, gifs, pics, audio) are being shared on Instagram.
  • Living a lifestyle of sharing and influencing: 41 percent of Gen Z describe themselves as video content creators, signaling a shift to a culture of creativity and influence.
  • Innovation: 65 percent of Gen Z surveyed say they used a filter, feature, or effect on a video app over the past year. And 60 percent of Gen Zers surveyed say they’re open to watching content from creators who use AI to generate their content.

👀We have a hub dedicated to Gen Z: their values and characteristics, how they use social, and their spending habits.

That said…

Social media is the key to brand visibility.

Visibility on social media today carries the cachet that an ad in the Yellowpages carried a generation ago. It’s the primary way your customers are finding you. And it’s a really straightforward way to legitimize your business.

For many consumers, social media is their primary method of discovering new goods and services and researching brands. Consumers aren’t just searching by hashtags and paying attention to the recommendations of influencers; they’re also scrolling your feed and looking for reasons to patronize your business. Added bonus: social media content is visible in the SERPs.

Influencer marketing paves the way for tons of earned media value.

So, earned media value is a way of quantifying the benefit you get from your marketing efforts in a formulaic way that translates mentions into likely conversions. All by itself, earned media is just that — it’s earned. It’s not sponsored content. But often you’ll see stats that tie influencer marketing to increases in earned media value, kinda like how TV spots eventually lead to more sales.

While you’re not gonna be able to use middle school algebra to convert a Like into a sale, there is a direct correlation between influencer content, mentions, and brand lift. Not every sale generated from social media will convert with a click-thru from an influencer post, but we know that most adults have purchased something, or considered purchasing it, after seeing influencer content.

Influencer marketing is an extension of earned media. And if you have a strategy team (like ours) that nails the concepts, they can provide influencers with a framework that will help them not just leverage their influence, but also tap into their mojo as content creators. Great influencer content gets shared and talked about.

Influencer content can provide a nice boost to your other marketing efforts.

Great content also lends itself to positive brand sentiment. Great influencer content can positively impact your customer’s sales path. According to Salesforce, the path to purchase now fragments across nine different channels, and the average social media user is on different seven platforms.

Influencer-generated content makes it easier for brands to show up on different channels with nuanced messages and creative that’s native to each specific channel. That’s what distinguishes traditional ads from influencer content, and it’s a compelling reason to repurpose your influencer content for paid activations through allowlisting.

But even if you’re running full-funnel campaigns using other tactics, consumers are 58 percent more likely to have positive vibes about an ad on TV, Facebook, or YouTube if they’re first exposed to the campaign via an influencer’s post. A neurological analytics study found that influencer promotions generated 87 percent higher memory and 277 percent more emotional intensity when compared to ads on television. 

Plus, if you’re targeting younger consumers, Gen Zers are much better than the average consumer at recalling brands and messaging from ads, even if they’ve only seen them for a second or two.

WHO SAYS IT WORKS?

I tried to color outside the lines a bit on this to deliberately seek out influencer marketing stats from publishers that are not influencer marketing agencies or influencer marketing publications. I found this little gem in the Harvard Business Review in a 2022 article entitled “Does Influencer Marketing Really Pay Off?”: 75 percent of brands now have a dedicated budget for influencer marketing.  

HubSpot reports that 68 percent of marketers work with influencers, and 34 percent are investing between $50K and $500K a year on influencer marketing.

Half of marketers said they believed influencer marketing helped them to woo higher quality customers.



Signal #4: Platforms Provide Support for Influencers

Interestingly enough, influencer marketing has earned its spot as a staple of digital marketing strategies, so much so that both brands and social media platforms are building hubs to actively support influencers. These hubs provide content creators with various tools and features that allow them to enhance their profiles and increase their reach, long before they’re on track to become influencers.

On TikTok…

TikTok’s Creator Portal is the resource hub for TikTok creators, helping newbies navigate the platform and get the lay of the land. The portal also provides TikTokers with a catalog of how-to videos that help TikTokers upskill in everything from their on-screen presence to video effects and editing.

On Meta…

Instagram’s Creator Lab rolled out in 2022 as an educational hub crafted by creators for creators. Instagram brought in content creators to share their invaluable insights gained from their journey, and walks creators through three key areas of content creation on Instagram:

  1. Expressing Yourself: Discover your purpose for creating, refine your voice, and enhance your content.
  2. Building Community: Learn how to forge meaningful connections and nurture a loyal following.
  3. Growing Long-Term: Dive into strategies for the long game, monetizing your content, and establishing a sustainable career.

On Amazon…

Creator University is designed to help influencers and Amazon affiliates learn the ins and outs of selling on the platform. The platform decodes the influencer dashboard, breaks down Amazon’s Operator Agreement, and even walks you through best practices for setting up an Amazon storefront.

Plus, platforms continue to build out features that simplify the process of creating, posting, and monetizing content for creators, as well as tools to boost their visibility and simultaneously build their respective brands.

Signal #5: Governments Continue Formulating Laws to Formalize and Legitimize This Space

Lawmakers now oversee the influencer marketing industry. The rise of influencer marketing laws in places like Brazil, China, Japan, and the US are a sign that the influencer industry is growing up, not fading away.

For the last few years, countries have consistently been formalizing the rules that regulate the influencer marketing industry around the globe. It’s a clear indicator that the industry is maturing. It’s like going from the Wild West to having structured laws that keep everything in check.

In the US, the FTC’s Endorsement Guidelines set the standards for transparency in advertising. They’re basically saying, “Hey, if you’re promoting stuff and you’re getting perks or cash, just tell your followers.” It’s all about honesty and fairness.

Now, take Japan, for instance. They’ve banned sneaky online marketing and made it clear that advertisers are the ones who need to play by the rules. They want to stop misleading product info from spreading.

In the UAE, they’ve got influencer licenses! If you’re a creator taking money for ads, you’ve got to get one. It’s a way of making sure influencers are responsible and transparent.

China is also taking steps towards transparency by making Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs are influencers) reveal which networks are backing them and whether their content is pro or user-generated. It’s about keeping things crystal clear.

And Brazil? One of the issues Brazil prioritizes is one we constantly seem to be arguing over in the US, and that’s protecting minors from sketchy online content. With influencer marketing gaining traction, they’re making sure there are safeguards in place.

So, what’s the bottom line? These laws and regulations are a signal that the influencer industry is growing up and becoming more professional. It’s not going away; it’s just becoming more responsible and accountable.

Recap and Wrap-Up

So, there it is. Five signals that make it evident the influencer marketing space is evolving and maturing, but not disappearing. Influencer marketing is far from obsolete. The signals mentioned above collectively indicate that influencer marketing remains a potent tool for brands to connect with their audiences, build trust, and drive engagement. As long as influencers continue to resonate with consumers and deliver value to brands, influencer marketing will maintain its place in the ever-changing landscape of digital marketing.

So, if you’re considering becoming an influencer, remember that success lies in your ability to build a strong, ethical digital marketing business.


Sorilbran Stone Content Strategist

About the Author

Sorilbran Stone | Content Strategist

I serve as the resident content strategist and the official Head of Content Marketing at The Shelf. Marketing is my happy place. I’m as happy looking at analytics as I am actually creating a thing. I focus a lot on dreaming up and implementing the best ways to create, publish, and distribute content that will builds our brand and gets our readers to do a thing

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Influencers in the Creator Economy: Is It Too Late to Become an Influencer? https://www.theshelf.com/the-blog/is-it-too-late-to-become-an-influencer/ https://www.theshelf.com/the-blog/is-it-too-late-to-become-an-influencer/#respond Fri, 06 Oct 2023 02:39:00 +0000 https://www.theshelf.com/?p=18885 Doesn’t it seem like everybody is an influencer these days? You may be wondering if it’s even worth it to put in the work it takes to wield influence on your favorite platform. You’re smart to consider before hopping into action because becoming an influencer isn’t easy. It’s a lot of work. But it’s not…

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Doesn’t it seem like everybody is an influencer these days? You may be wondering if it’s even worth it to put in the work it takes to wield influence on your favorite platform. You’re smart to consider before hopping into action because becoming an influencer isn’t easy. It’s a lot of work. But it’s not too late to become an influencer. If that’s the path you choose, there’s room for you to share your knowledge — or your weird, geeky thing — with the masses. And there’s data that says doing so can actually make you happier.

What Is An Influencer?

Our first order of business is to understand what an influencer is, and you’ll see why in a sec. A social media influencer is a social media user who has built a reputation for being knowledgeable about something. Influencers create compelling content around the topic they’re known for in a way that gets other people to take a specific action.

Content Creators vs Influencers

The terms “content creator” and “influencer” are often used interchangeably, but they’re not exactly the same. Content creators are those who create content for online spaces and monetize that content. Influencers are those who are able to build a sizable audience on a single platform and earn money by posting social media content to that platform. The size of the audience determines the influencer tier — the type or category of influencer.

Globally, only 1 in 5 content creators even want to become influencers. By comparison, 1 in 3 content creators want to earn money through content, and 1 in 2 content creators want to own a business. So… not everybody’s looking to be an influencer.

All influencers are content creators, but not all content creators are influencers.

How Many Influencers Are There?

Is it too late to become an influencer?

There are between 40 million and 50 million social media influencers worldwide, depending on whom you ask. Sounds like a lot, but consider this. In the US alone, there are:

  • Approximately 33 million small businesses, according to the Small Business Administration
  • 200,000 mid-sized businesses, and
  • 20,000 large businesses

Large companies typically own a portfolio of different brands. For instance, Unilever owns 400 brands. NestlĂ© owns 2,000 brands. LVMH owns 75 “distinguished houses”. So, you can see how a pool 42 million influencers can seem like just a handful to discerning Marketing Directors at these bigger companies.

I read a recent stat that said 165 million new content creators have joined the creator economy since 2020. There are now around 303 million content creators around the globe, and 14 percent of them (around 42 million) are influencers.

  • 23 percent of internet users identify as content creators
  • 14 percent of content creators are also influencers
  • Influencers represent about 3 percent of the global population

What Does It Take to Become An Influencer?

More. That’s the answer. Influencers are content creators who do more than other content creators. They spend more time on content development, more time getting good at creative activities, more time building relationships and forging those connections that will help them to influence people. They do more.

But there are four main signals we want to look at for influencers: intent, time, dedication, and connection.

Signal #1: Intent

In order to become an influencer, you have to want to become an influencer. Having a sizable following isn’t enough. When we published the first version of this post in 2018, the average social media user had something like 300 followers on Instagram and 150 on Facebook. TikTok wasn’t even a thing yet.

In 2023, Mention reports that half of Instagram users now have between 1,000 and 10,000 followers. And according to Statista, half of TikTokers have between 1,000 and 5,000 followers on the app.

That means technically, most Instagrammers and TikTokers have the numbers to become nano– or micro-influencers. But most have no desire to do so. The intent to influence is a key component of being a social media influencer. It’s one of the primary signals that distinguishes a content creator from an influencer.

Average Instagram Follower Size - becoming an influencer
Source: Mention

Signal #2: Time

Becoming an influencer requires a heavy day-to-day investment of your time and attention. “Creators in the Creator Economy” reports that content creators spend an average of 9 hours per week in content development, while influencers spend an average of 15 hours a week in content development.

creative activities of content creators and influencers
Source: “Creators in the Creator Economy”

Not only that, but the average content creator is involved in 2.8 creative activities, whereas, the average influencer is involved in 4 creative activities. In fact…

Each of the major social media platforms has created an education hub designed to support content creators who want to build their audience, reach, and influence on the platform. Amazon’s Creator University is a type of education hub for Amazon influencers. Instagram has its Creator Lab, and TikTok has the Creator Portal. Each learning tool is specifically designed to help influencers grow their skill set.

So content creators go from wanting to create content to being good at developing content strategies. They go from creating solid content strategies to being good on camera. And from being good on camera to understanding lighting. And from there to video editing and filters. And then to post-production and repurposing. Whenever they are ready (or need to), content creators can add new skills that will benefit them on the platform.

Influencers are also twice as likely to post content daily compared to content creators. Content creators are 3x more likely to post monthly than influencers. Overall, 89 percent of influencers post to their social channels at least weekly, compared to 68 percent of content creators.

Signal #3: Connection

Once upon a time, creating the right content was the most important part of becoming an influencer. Today, it’s as much about being able to authentically connect to your audience as it is about creating content. Earning sway on social media is about relationships. It’s about your ability to find your tribe and connect with them.

Being a content creator lends itself nicely to facilitating connections, in part because those who create content every day tend to be happier. For content creators, there is a positive correlation between their posting frequency and their happiness. The more frequently they post, the happier they are, in general. AND there’s also a mood boost if they get paid for creating social media content specifically.

Here’s why this matters: a study conducted by the University of Washington found that an influencer’s “activity rate, level of post positivity and follower brand-fit (or the degree to which the interests of an influencer’s followers match the sponsor), all produce more engagement on influencer posts.

Posting makes content creators happier. The more positive they are, the more engagement their posts get.

Just a really quick word on this: We understand that this isn’t the case for some creators, and many influencers have found it in their best interest to step away from the grind of content development to build more balance into their daily lives and optimize their peace of mind and happiness.

creating content for mental health - is it too late to become an influencer
Source: “Creators in the Creator Economy”

According to the study, 83 percent of influencers who post daily say they have a positive mood. By comparison, 62 percent of content creators say they have a positive mood. But…

77 percent of content creators who also earn money from social media AND post every day say they have a positive mood.

creating content brings more happiness than making money - becoming an influencer and content creator
Source: “Creators in the Creator Economy”

Turns out… good vibes matter. They help content creators forge the relationships they’ll need to become influencers. Those relationships and connections are what will enable influencers to move their followers to do something, whether that’s getting them to click on your content, pay attention to a recommendation about a brand or product, or get them to follow a brand account or go to a brand’s page. Being an influencer means you can get someone to do a thing.

Do a thing? Yeah, do a thing. If you can’t move them to DO something, it’s not influence, and you won’t make much money as an influencer… if that’s your goal.

Signal #4: Dedication

How long is all of this going to take??

I’ll be honest: It takes longer than you hoped to become an influencer, but not as long as people think. The average influencer has been creating content for about three years. According to “Creators in the Creator Economy”. Forty-two percent of influencers have been creating content for less than two years, and 58 percent have been creating content for three years or more.

Growing your following is great, but it’s just a first step… sort of like deciding you want to become a doctor, but first you have to finish high school. Growing your audience doesn’t make you an influencer (looking at anyone who’s ever “bought” influence), just like finishing high school doesn’t make you a doctor. But you need the audience if you want to become an influencer, just like you need that diploma if you’re ever to become a doctor. And both tracks — whether you’re shooting to be a doctor or an influencer — take time.

Thankfully, becoming an influencer isn’t going to take you a decade to accomplish, but trust me when I say the late nights of curating your feed, building a bank of video content, styling trendy looks, sourcing inspiration where you can find it, and outwitting algorithms is a part-time job on its own.

And after you do all of that, you’re going to have to learn to do it for the brands you work with as well if you want to make money as an influencer.

So
 no. Not an easy side hustle.

Contrary to popular belief, influencers have to put in a lot of work before they ever get to the point where brands — the good ones — seek them out for partnerships. Plus, the greater your reach and influence, the harder you may have to work to maintain it.

Conclusion

As humans, we always want to be entertained. And we’re always going to be on the hunt for the next big thing — the next innovation. We’ll want to learn new skills, do new things, and join in the fun other people are having. As the world evolves and innovation drives us all forward, there will continue to be new things to discover and the opportunity to build communities around these new discoveries.

That means, there will always be room for influencers — community leaders, key opinion leaders, and ambassadors.

Becoming an influencer is doable, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult. For all the social validation you get from your online community — whether from friends, followers, or brands — becoming an influencer is hard work.


Sorilbran Stone Content Strategist

About the Author

Sorilbran Stone | Content Strategist

I serve as the resident content strategist and the official Head of Content Marketing at The Shelf. Marketing is my happy place. I’m as happy looking at analytics as I am actually creating a thing. I focus a lot on dreaming up and implementing the best ways to create, publish, and distribute content that will builds our brand and gets our readers to do a thing

The post Influencers in the Creator Economy: Is It Too Late to Become an Influencer? appeared first on The Shelf Full-Service Influencer Marketing.

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28 Influencer Marketing Ideas That’ll Boost Your Sales https://www.theshelf.com/the-blog/28-influencer-marketing-ideas-to-boost-your-holiday-sales/ https://www.theshelf.com/the-blog/28-influencer-marketing-ideas-to-boost-your-holiday-sales/#respond Wed, 27 Sep 2023 04:00:00 +0000 http://34.239.214.20/?p=1154 It’s time to sit down and map out your social media marketing campaigns for the holiday season. We thought it would be cool to publish a list of 28 influencer marketing ideas that we’re hoping will finally lay to rest the dreaded #basic product placement post. How Influencer Marketing Ideas Can Spice Up Your Holiday…

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It’s time to sit down and map out your social media marketing campaigns for the holiday season. We thought it would be cool to publish a list of 28 influencer marketing ideas that we’re hoping will finally lay to rest the dreaded #basic product placement post.


How Influencer Marketing Ideas Can Spice Up Your Holiday Campaigns

Influencer marketing is a type of word-of-mouth marketing strategy in which one company, brand, or entity pays an individual who holds a lot of clout on social media to endorse their product. Influencer campaigns are used by businesses to reach a specific segment of their target audience. But they’re also used to reach wider audiences who may fall outside their typical audience demographic. Influencer partnerships also help brands engage consumers by leveraging the trust, credibility, and reputation of popular social media creators themselves. 

Influencer marketing can take many different forms and the creativity of the concepts you can use is seemingly endless. The key is to have someone on your team who can dream up cool strategies and creator partners who are fantastic storytellers. Influencer marketing ideas can be powerful tactics for hitting important marketing goals.

Listen to an audio recap of this post.

Here’s to the End of the Basic Product Placement Post

28 influencer marketing ideas pinterest pin

Remember the early days of influencer marketing, when most campaigns were in it for brand lift? Sure, you had the unicorn campaigns like Lord & Taylor’s famously successful paisley dress campaign. But we know that most influencer campaigns for brand lift do not succeed in simultaneously introducing a new fashion line AND selling out its inventory in a few days.

In previous iterations of this post, we created one big list of influencer marketing ideas, tactics, and campaign structures. For this list, we thought it would be smart to update the strategies, yes. But also to divide tactics from concepts and concepts from optimization strategies. 

Consider this list of influencer marketing ideas your starting point for dreaming up cool campaign concepts. (And if the thought of that bums you out, we’re a click away.) 

5 Ways to Work with Influencers This Holiday Season

Whether you’re looking to establish ongoing partnerships, run a one-off campaign, or bring characters to life, influencer marketing can be a game-changer for your holiday marketing strategy. These are the standard influencer partnerships most people probably think of when they think about running an influencer marketing campaign. Here are five effective ways to structure your influencer partnerships this holiday season:

#1 One-Off Campaigns

Good for creating buzz, limited-time promotions, and product launches

How It Works

Select influencers who can authentically promote your holiday offerings. Collaborate on creative content that aligns with both your brand’s message and the influencer’s style. The goal is to generate buzz and drive sales during the holiday rush. 

Running a one-off influencer campaign can create a sense of urgency and excitement around your brand. These campaigns are perfect for short-term promotions, product launches, or special holiday deals.

Benefits

  • Creates a buzz around your holiday offerings
  • Boosts sales during the festive season
  • Perfect for limited-time promotions and product launches
  • Allows for flexibility in influencer selection

#2 Repeat Partnerships

Good for brand loyalty, content consistency, audience trust

How It Works

Ongoing partnerships with influencers are like a holiday gift that keeps on giving. These long-term collaborations allow the brand to tap into the same or similar influencers for multiple campaigns. 

An ongoing partnership often includes regular collaborations, exclusive promotions, and consistent content creation. This approach allows influencers to become true brand advocates during the holiday season and beyond.

Repeat partners can lead to sustained brand loyalty and audience trust. Choose influencers who align with your brand’s values and have a genuine affinity for your products.

Benefits

  • Fosters long-term brand loyalty
  • Ensures content consistency throughout the holiday season
  • Builds a deep level of trust with the influencer’s audience
  • Provides opportunities for ongoing holiday promotions and campaigns

#3 Ambassador Programs

Good for brand lift, sales promotions, sign-ups, downloads, user-generated content

How It Works

A brand ambassadorship is a long-term relationship between a brand and an influencer, as opposed to a one-off campaign or a couple of campaigns. Some brands develop exclusive ambassadorships, which can prevent influencers from participating in other influencer marketing campaigns or just keep them from working with the brand’s competitor for the duration of the ambassadorship (and sometimes for a set period of time after). 

The ambassadorships are often a combination of monetary payment and free products as compensation, or both. The brand’s goal is to partner with an influencer who aligns with its values and reaches the audience it’s courting. 

Benefits

  • Boosts brand lift
  • Helps facilitate positive sentiment toward brand
  • Demonstrates the value of your products
  • Lower front-end financial investment than hiring influencers outright
  • TONS of content to reuse across your branded channels.

#4 Work with Created Personalities That Real People Follow

Good for storytelling, brand engagement, creativity

How It Works

Want to talk about innovative influencer marketing ideas? In the digital age, creativity knows no bounds. Virtual influencers and created characters have taken the marketing world by storm. This holiday season, consider partnering with these captivating personas to infuse a unique twist into your marketing strategy. These virtual influencers can breathe life into animations, puppets, and characters related to your brand, creating an imaginative and engaging holiday campaign.

The Tiny Chef x Zenni Optical partnership is a good example of really creative content.

Source: Tiny Chef on YouTube

Collaborate with influencers who specialize in personifying digital characters or mascots closely associated with your brand. These influencers excel at storytelling, seamlessly integrating your brand’s message into their content. Through this innovative approach, you can craft a holiday experience that resonates with your audience on a deep and memorable level.

Benefits

  • Engages your audience with creative storytelling 
  • Encourages brand engagement and interaction
  • Makes your holiday campaign memorable and shareable

#5 Pet Influencers

Good for brand awareness, marketing assets for  online and offline ad

How It Works

Partner with popular pet accounts to create scroll-stopping, compelling content. This strategy’s cool because it’s not just limited to brands in the pet supply industry (like this đŸ‘‡đŸœ Victoria’s Secret ad).

Benefits

  • People enjoy content that includes pets
  • Facilitates positive connections to the brand
  • People are 3x more likely to buy based on pet influencer recommendations than recommendations from celebrities (not even kidding about that)

18 Creative Influencer Marketing Ideas and Concepts to Get Eyes On Your Brand

#1 Haul Videos

Good for brand lift, clicks, follows

How It Works

Partner with a creator to become one of multiple sponsors for a single video or video series. 

Verticals

Often focused on a holiday (like Mother’s Day, Back-to-School, Halloween, etc.), a specific vertical (like fall home decor, favorite winter beauty products), or even very niche audiences (like hardiest plants for outdoor planting in southern states or tips for growing ginger in a container indoors).

Benefits

  • Engaging content
  • Reaches a targeted audience (these are viewers who typically see the content as a result of specific searches)
  • A fraction of the cost of a dedicated video about your product

Multiple influencers posted Sephora haul videos for the 2020 holiday season.

#2 Livestream Shopping

Good for brand lift, conversions

How It Works

Live shopping (or Livestream shopping), in its current iteration, is the interactive process of buying and selling products or services during a live broadcast on a social or digital platform. Both Amazon Live and Pinterest TV offer live broadcast capabilities that creators use to review products, provide solutions, broadcast tutorials, offer advice, and showcase different products. 

Verticals

All

Benefits

  • Greater likelihood of reaching consumers who already have purchase intent
  • Usually features multiple products per video
Livestream examples of influencer marketing ideas from Pinterest TV and Amazon Live.

#3 How-To Videos and Tutorials

Good for brand lift, website content, cross-channel promoting, conversions

How It Works

Influencers create video tutorials that explain how your product works and/or the benefits and different uses of your product. How-to/tutorials are the number one type of content social media users want to see from the influencers they follow.

Verticals

All

Benefits

  • Shareable
  • Generate lots of engagement
  • Great for SEO

#4 Blogs

Good for clicks, traffic, opt-ins, brand awareness, SEO, customer education

How It Works

Partner with social media influencers who are also bloggers with active, engaged readers. Identify relevant bloggers. Reach out with a personalized pitch. Outline clear collaboration terms. Provide necessary resources, and track performance to ensure your campaign aligns with your brand goals.

Verticals

All

Benefits

  • In-depth content
  • Builds trust and authority
  • Content repurposing
  • Longer content life cycle with blogs vs social media
  • Great way to explain and demonstrate the value/benefit of a product

#5 Webinars

Good for brand awareness, conversions, sign-ups, building trust, brand reputation

How It Works

Webinars are a dynamic tool in your holiday marketing arsenal, and partnering with influencers can take them to the next level. By teaming up with influencers who align with your products and services, you can leverage webinars to boost brand awareness, drive conversions, and establish trust among your target audience during the holiday season. You can choose to partner with influencers who sell products or services that complement your offerings. For instance, you could:

  1. Sponsor a webinar: Identify influencers who host webinars that cater to your target audience. By sponsoring their webinar, you gain access to a highly engaged audience introduced to your brand through a trusted influencer. This method is particularly effective for reaching audiences in B2B, service-based B2C, education, and nutrition verticals.
  2. Pitch your own webinar: Take the lead by pitching a webinar to the influencer’s audience. Craft a compelling webinar topic that resonates with both your brand and the influencer’s niche. The influencer can then earn a commission on any sales generated as a result of the webinar, creating a win-win scenario.

Verticals

B2B, Service-based B2C, Education, Nutrition

Benefits

  • Establish social proof and trustworthiness
  • Boost brand awareness
  • Drive conversions and sign-ups
  • Build brand reputation

#6 Instagram Takeovers

Good for user-generated content, brand awareness, humanizing your brand, wider audience targeting

How It Works

This dynamic strategy involves influencers temporarily taking control of your brand’s Instagram account, offering their unique perspective and engaging with your audience.

Verticals

All

Benefits

  • Attention-grabbing
  • Humanizing
  • Drums up engagement
  • Enhances credibility

Need inspiration to get your own influencer marketing ideas flowing? Check out this one-day Instagram takeover of the @zoos_aquariums account by @houstonzoo to raise awareness around Attwater’s Prairie Chicken program and its conservation program.

#7 Podcasts

Good for brand awareness, explainers, promoting sales and discounts

How It Works

Become a sponsor for a podcast where the listening audience overlaps your target audience. Many content creators diversified by adding podcasts to their content catalog. A lot of brands don’t consider podcasts as part of an influencer marketing strategy, but partnering with influencers who have podcasts (and there are tons of them) is great for promoting products whose value is more easily understood when audiences can hear a quick explanation.

Verticals

All

Benefits

  • Podcasts are considered immersive content — very engaging
  • Boosts thought leadership and brand authority
  • Extended reach to diverse podcast communities
  • Long-lasting impact: Podcast episodes remain accessible over time
  • Content Repurposing: Podcast content can be repurposed for various marketing channels

#8 Product Pins/Idea Pins

Good for brand lift, influencer-generated content, conversions

How It Works

Pinterest Idea Pins allow brands and Pinners to add up to 20 pages of video and/or images + text within a single pin. Idea pins can tie content that would typically be multiple pins (maybe across multiple boards) together as one clickable pin. This makes it easier to connect ideas as part of a single theme. (So, a kick-butt candle holder pin could become an Idea Pin about a holiday tablescape, and pins can link back to blog posts/product pages.)

screenshot of Pinterest user Alee's story pin about meeting shawn mendes
Source: Alexa on Pinterest

Verticals

All

Benefits

  • Visual storytelling: Engage audiences with captivating visual content
  • Extended reach: Tap into Pinterest’s vast user base and diverse demographics
  • Enhanced discoverability: Idea Pins rank well in Pinterest searches, increasing brand visibility
  • Shareability: Pins can be easily shared, broadening content distribution
  • Interactive elements: Incorporate polls, text overlays, and product tags for deeper engagement
  • Evergreen content: Idea Pins have a long shelf life, providing lasting brand exposure
Influencer marketing ideas as Dunkin' Donuts Idea Pins advertising their pumpkin spice latte
Source: Dunkin’ Donuts on Pinterest

#9 Glow-Ups

Good for brand awareness, conversions, site traffic, coupon codes/promos

How It Works

Glow-ups were super trendy a few years ago as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts. There’s an actual Netflix show based on the concept. With glow-ups, social media users post multimedia before and after shots of themselves. The most jaw-dropping TikTok glow-ups can easily grow the creator’s follower base. Since glow-ups first became a thing, they have evolved, and many posts now zero in on self-awareness, mental health, and incrementally getting better.

In the video below, JENerationDIY created a post-quarantine glow-up of her going from her quarantine norm to being ready to face the public. You’ll notice there’s an affiliate link to a coupon code for thredUP posted in the description section beneath her video.

Verticals

Lifestyle, beauty, nutrition, weight loss, fashion, education

Benefits

  • Entertaining
  • Inspirational
  • Shareable
  • Drum up engagement
  • Informational and instructional
  • Great opportunity to demonstrate value

Check out the text this influencer used in the caption of her glow-up video: “Use my code JENDIY for an extra 30% off of your first thredUP order! Click here: https://bit.ly/thredUPmay2020_JENDIY. Offer expires 06/30/20. Not valid on Goody Boxes, Rescues, or on items over $150. Valid in the U.S. and Canada only. Other restrictions may apply. Thanks to thredUP for sponsoring this video.”

#10 Product Reviews

Good for brand awareness, explainers, site traffic, clicks, store traffic

How It Works

Partner with an influencer who regularly reviews products IN YOUR NICHE or a related niche. Your brand can be one of multiple sponsors for a particular video or the sole product being featured and reviewed.

Verticals

All

Benefits

  • Great for new products or products where there’s lots of competition in the market from very similar products (like hair care)
  • Influencers can touch on customer pain points
  • Explain the nuances of your product compared to similar products

Haircare enthusiast Lia Lavon built a YouTube channel dedicated to haircare education and ideas. Her channel reviews not only hair care products, but also synthetic hair and hairstyle ideas to beat the summer heat, plus great-looking, no-fuss vacation hair.

screengrab of Lia Lavon's YouTube reviews
Source: Lia Lavon on YouTube

#11 Q & A

Good for brand awareness, brand lift, clicks, and traffic

How It Works

Idea #1: Partner with fashion bloggers and beauty influencers or enthusiasts who’ll do a Q&A of follower/subscriber questions. These will usually be questions centered around the topic they’re enthusiastic about.

Idea #2: Partner with a lifestyle influencer who can contextually embed your product as part of s Q&A about the influencer or their life. These will be more personal questions, but the wide range of question types will likely provide multiple “ins” to introduce products.

Verticals

All

Benefits

  • Boost brand lift and visibility
  • Extol the virtues of your brand/product
  • Embed products in a way that doesn’t look like a product placement
  • Can be less expensive if multiple products are featured

Both of these surfaced for the search term “Car Q&As.” One has a lifestyle spin, the other has an enthusiast spin.

#12 Advice

Good for brand awareness, clicks, traffic, getting buy-in, branding, brand reputation

How It Works

Partner with an influencer to recommend your product as a solution for a common problem.

Verticals

All

Benefits

  • Social proof
  • Combats decision fatigue
  • Makes content actionable

#13 Influencer-Curated Gift Guides

Good for brand awareness, clicks, social proof, conversions, coupons, opt-ins, SEO

How It Works

Partner with influencers who publish holiday gift guides (either blog or vlog) to have your product featured as one of the items on the list. Make sure the influencer’s brand aligns with your own so the recommendation makes sense to their audience.

Verticals

All. The more niched-down the vertical, the better your chances of being able to convert readers. For instance, the infographic on the right is a result that surfaced for the Google search “holiday gift guide for toddlers” from MommaSociety.com.

Here’s why this matters: Mandy is a blogger with a sizable Pinterest following that drums up nearly 2 million monthly viewers. One of the things Mandy publishes on her blog MommaSociety.com (and promotes on Pinterest) is her roundup of toy ideas. We found her under the search term holiday gift guides for toddlers, which is a popular search term.

Benefits

  • Great for boosting brand lift ESPECIALLY when featured alongside more well-known products and brands
  • Less expensive than a dedicated series of posts
  • Holiday gift guides are often published on blogs and vlogs and cross-promoted with Pinterest, which gives them a years-long life cycle
  • Continues to be searchable for future holiday guides
  • Holiday guides streamline the gift-buying experience for busy shoppers who can be overwhelmed by options

#14 Curated Product Collections

Good for brand awareness, social proof, clicks, site traffic, sales, retargeting

How It Works

Shoppable platforms like Instagram and Pinterest have product curation features that highlight products recommended by influencers.

Verticals

Most often beauty, fashion, and home decor. Works in way more verticals, though.

Benefits

  • Spotlight featured products
  • Announce sales
  • On both Pinterest and Instagram, influencers are featured as curators in Shop tabs
WE ACTUALLY CREATED AN ENCYCLOPEDIA ON THIS STUFF…
The Complete Guide to Influencer Marketing đŸ€Ż

#15 Giveaways

Good for audience engagement, brand visibility, and user-generated content

How It Works

Giveaways are promotional events where your audience can participate for a chance to win prizes, often sponsored by your brand or in collaboration with influencers. Participants typically enter the giveaway by completing specific actions These can include liking, sharing, or commenting on social media posts or subscribing to newsletters. The allure of winning prizes encourages active engagement and interaction.

Giveaways are a powerful tool to supercharge your influencer marketing campaign, driving engagement, increasing brand visibility, and generating user-generated content. 

Verticals

All

Benefits

  • Audience engagement 
  • Brand visibility increases as more people engage with giveaways
  • Fosters fun 
  • Builds community

#16 Walkthrough and Demo Videos

Good for brand lift, gift inspo, website content, cross-channel promoting, conversions

How It Works

Influencers take center stage by creating video tutorials that unveil the inner workings of your product or delve into its various benefits and applications. These walkthrough and demo videos provide an in-depth, engaging look at what your product can do and how it can make a difference in your customers’ lives.

This also works for in-store events to promote your big deal days.

Verticals

All

Benefits

  • Engaging content
  • Shareability and engagement
  • SEO
  • Cross-channel promotion

#17 Private Facebook Groups

Good for fostering communities, skill-building, brand engagement, and loyalty

How It Works

Private Facebook Groups offer an excellent platform for brands to sponsor and collaborate with influential content creators. This partnership can focus on teaching specific skills or fostering a community around a particular topic.

Brand-Sponsored Groups: Brands create private Facebook groups centered around their niche or industry. These groups provide a space for enthusiasts and learners to come together.

Influencer Collaboration: Influential content creators, often experts in the field, are invited to join and contribute to the group as moderators or teachers.

Skill-Building and Knowledge Sharing: The influencers facilitate skill-building sessions, share valuable insights, or lead discussions within the group. This guidance helps members learn and engage with the brand’s products or services.

Community Building Over time, the group becomes a community, where members connect, share experiences, and support one another. This sense of belonging fosters brand engagement and loyalty.

Verticals

Private Facebook Groups can be tailored to suit virtually any industry or topic, making them highly adaptable for influencer marketing campaigns.

Benefits

  • Community fostering
  • Skill enhancement 
  • Brand engagement 
  • Long-term relationships
  • Audience growth

#18 Entertaining Videos

Good for engagement, brand visibility, and audience connection

How It Works

Entertaining videos have become a potent tool in the influencer marketing landscape, offering a unique way to engage audiences and boost brand visibility. Partnering with influencers known for their entertaining content can be a game-changer. Entertaining videos created in collaboration with influencers inject a sense of fun and excitement into your influencer marketing campaign. By leveraging influencers’ entertaining charm, you can capture the hearts and attention of your audience while effectively delivering your brand message.

Verticals

All

Benefits

  • Audience engagement
  • Brand visibility
  • Audience connection
  • Shareability
  • Diverse engagement

Repurposing Content to Stretch Your Influencer Marketing Ideas

Repurposing content is one of the most underutilized influencer marketing ideas. In order to create that echo chamber effect where your brand is showing up in every place your customers are active, there needs to be a plan for getting the most use out of your content.

Reusing content from an influencer marketing campaign is vital for maximizing its impact. It extends the lifespan of valuable assets, maintains brand consistency, and amplifies your message across multiple platforms. Repurposing influencer-generated content not only increases reach and engagement but also ensures that your brand’s message continues to resonate with your audience long after the campaign has ended.

#1 Email Marketing

Good for brand lift, conversions

How does it work?

Partner with influencers whose email subscribers are most likely interested in your product or service, and have them feature your product as part of their normal email marketing strategy.  

Verticals

All 

Benefits

  • Partnerships can include social media influencers, B2B influencers, web-only publications like Morning Brew, and sponsorship packages from larger publications that have a digital presence

#2 In-App Ads

Good for brand lift, conversions

How Does It Work?

Influencers create video content (usually videos that can be used as pre-roll, mid-roll, and in-app mobile ads).

Verticals

All

Benefits

  • Brand lift
  • Targeted to reach app users, which can include people who may not be looking specifically for your brand or your product
  • Track consumers’ online behavior
screenshot of Duolingo app
Just a regular day in the Duolingo app
Duolingo in-app ad feat. influencer Manny Guttierez (influencer marketing idea)
In-app ad for Bliss skincare line with influencer Manny Gutierrez
in-app ad clicks thru to Target product page for Bliss Skincare
Click-thru goes to buy Bliss products on Target.com

 

#3 Retargeting

Good for increasing touchpoints along the path to purchase, clicks, and site traffic

How It Works

Retargeting should be part of your conversion funnel for influencer campaigns. One way to keep your product and offering top-of-mind is to repurpose influencer content from an active influencer marketing campaign to be used in your site content as well as a smart ad across the web.

Verticals

All

Benefits

  • Scroll-stopping content
  • Keeping your brand top-of-mind
  • Cheaper than buying new marketing assets

#4 Local Search on Pinterest

Good for foot traffic, site traffic, brand awareness, clicks

How It Works

You don’t need to hire a Pinterest influencer to be seen on the platform. Pinterest can include local results for topical searches if your brand has a verified Pinterest business account and you’ve uploaded your products for inclusion in Pinterest.

Verticals

All

Benefits

  • Wider exposure for retailers with ecommerce functionality
  • Extended life cycle for Pinterest posts, as pictures can be repinned to millions of boards by pinners
  • Supports local SEO efforts as 97% of Pinterest searches are unbranded, so local companies will now surface in results for broad categories
graphic of different Pinterest Local search features as example of influencer marketing idea

#5 Direct Mail and Catalogs

Good for brand awareness, driving site traffic, expanding your audience, connecting offline and online campaigns

How It Works

Retailers, and especially digital natives, send postcards and catalogs out via US mail with coupon codes or incentives to visit the brand online or locally.

Verticals

All

Benefits

  • Introduce ecommerce brands to shoppers who traditionally have bought similar products offline
  • Incentivize new and existing customers to buy with discounts and coupon codes
  • Influencer content can provide a wider variety of themes for direct mail assets than a product shoot
  • Minimizes decision fatigue
  • Gives customers a way to rehearse decision-making offline
  • Clears the path for buyers to streamline their decision-making process
walmart toy catalog example of influencer marketing idea

Which of These Influencer Marketing Ideas Floats Your Boat?

There you have it — 28 influencer marketing ideas spotlighting a few different ways you can work with influencers this holiday season and stave off those basic-looking product placement posts. #kryptonite

If you need help with your holiday campaign or coming up with influencer marketing ideas, there’s still time. We’ve rolled out campaigns in days that converted for our clients. We don’t LIKE TO
but we have done it and delivered. So, if you need an influencer marketing agency partner that can implement these influencer campaign ideas for you, The Shelf team is into full-funnel stuff.


Sorilbran Stone Content Strategist

About the Author

Sorilbran Stone | Content Strategist

I serve as the resident content strategist and the official Head of Content Marketing at The Shelf. Marketing is my happy place. I’m as happy looking at analytics as I am actually creating a thing. I focus a lot on dreaming up and implementing the best ways to create, publish, and distribute content that will builds our brand and gets our readers to do a thing


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The 2023 Influencer Marketing Dictionary https://www.theshelf.com/the-blog/influencer-marketing-dictionary/ https://www.theshelf.com/the-blog/influencer-marketing-dictionary/#respond Tue, 19 Sep 2023 04:00:00 +0000 https://www.theshelf.com/?p=15550 Influencer marketing continues to grow and evolve rapidly. It seems like new terms and strategies are cropping up daily (like, literally, we’re getting updates fed to us via real-time news updates and podcasts because things keep changing in the influencer space). So, we decided to create an influencer marketing dictionary — a glossary of important…

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Influencer marketing continues to grow and evolve rapidly. It seems like new terms and strategies are cropping up daily (like, literally, we’re getting updates fed to us via real-time news updates and podcasts because things keep changing in the influencer space). So, we decided to create an influencer marketing dictionary — a glossary of important jargon and buzzwords you’ll want to know the next time you hop on a Zoom call about an influencer campaign.

Think of how impressed your friends and family will be when you bore dazzle them with terms like “collab feature” and “brand ambassador”.

Whether you’re blowing the minds of your non-marketer friends or not, this particular glossary of influencer marketing terms will help you stay up to date on what’s popping in the world of influencer marketing.

And…

It will arm you with an understanding of the elements of influencer marketing. Plus, it will give you the language to communicate effectively with your in-house team and the team appointed/hired to run your campaigns. Believe it or not, this post doesn’t contain any influencer marketing stats — which is kind of our jam — but it’s packed with information and insights. Without further ado, let’s dive into the influencer marketing dictionary.

Ready? C’mon, it’ll be fun.

Influencer Marketing Definitions

The First, and Most Important Influencer Marketing Definition

Influencer Marketing or Creator Marketing: Influencer Marketing is a form of word-of-mouth marketing where brands hire social media creators who have expertise and influence in specific areas to talk to their own audiences about the various benefits of the brand’s products.

Influencer marketing isn’t new — not by any stretch of the imagination.

The current iteration of this form of word-of-mouth marketing being driven largely by content posted to social media channels IS new. But influencer marketing has a long history and a critical role in the sales process because influencer marketing works.

When influencers are sourced properly, brands can be assured that their influencer collab puts them in front of people who are most willing to buy their product. Presumably, the influencer’s audience is largely made up of members of the brand’s target audience (đŸ‘ˆđŸŒ that part’s important). An analysis of the influencer’s followers will verify that their audience is a match for the brand’s target buyer. Actually, you can check out this piece for a more in-depth explanation of what is influencer marketing. And this article will answer your most commonly asked questions about influencer marketing.

Now, let’s get on with the jargon…

Types of Influencers

Influencer marketing continues to grow and evolve rapidly. New terms and strategies feel like they’re popping up as fast as your phone’s notifications. So, we decided to create a dictionary of key terms to know so that you can learn the ins and outs of the influencer marketing industry and build winning campaigns. 

Influencers: Social media users whose followers look up to them for advice and guidance on specific subjects. Answer your deep questions about what is an influencer in this article. 

Nano-Influencer: Typical nano-influencers have between 1K-10K followers. There needs to be an intent to influence. While their followings are lower, they are often much closer to their community as they likely know some of them in real life. 

Micro-Influencer: The majority of influencers are in this influencer tier. Micros’ experience, content quality, and content themes vary widely. Their higher engagement rates and personal connections with their followers set them apart, and their experience and price tag vary. 

Mid-Tier Influencer: Not quite micros, not quite macros, these influencers expect more than just free product in exchange for posts. They may not be a full-time influencer, and usually have larger engagement rates than the mega and macro influencers. 

Macro-Influencer: There is no industry standard for classifying macros, but the average range is from 300K – 1M followers. These are experienced influencers who may work full-time or have a manager. 

Mega/Celebrity Influencer: Well-known influencers and celebs who have talent managers, and their fees are exponentially higher than other tiers. They typically have higher reach, lower engagement rates, and higher price tags. 

Fake Influencer: These are accounts that appear to be influencers. In reality, the so-called followers actually consist of a disproportionate number of bots or fake accounts. It’s the equivalent of buying a fresh jelly doughnut and biting in only to realize there’s no jelly.  đŸ© đŸ© đŸ©

 

Influencer Tiers today
Types of Influencer Marketing Campaigns

These various types of influencers can help you increase your ROI. But first, you need to set some campaign goals to ensure you deploy influencer marketing best practices AND that you find the perfect campaign type for your brand. 

Brand Awareness Campaign: Branded campaigns help you get consumers talking about your brand and help you build trust. They work best when introducing a new product, rebranding, and trying to present a value prop big enough to interrupt the buyer’s regular pattern.

Content Campaign: This approach is best when your goal is to get a ton of influencer-generated content (especially evergreen content) that you can reuse across your branded channels and in online and offline ads.

Traffic/Clicks Campaign: These campaigns work best for increasing site traffic, growing your list, getting sales, and running retargeting campaigns. They’re also great for when you need prospects to see your brand a few more times to stay top-of-mind. 

Campaign Metrics and Influencer Selection

Just as you want to select the best influencer marketing strategy for your brand, you need to effectively track the campaign to analyze the success of your efforts. Different metrics also help you select the best influencers to meet your campaign objectives and hit the most important influencer marketing KPIs

Key Performance Indicators (KPI): Values for measuring your influencer marketing campaign. 

Influencer Selection Criteria: This is the predetermined system a brand or third party uses to determine the likelihood of success in choosing to work with an influencer to meet marketing goals. This could include previous partnerships, marital status, storytelling, brand affinity, and lifestyle. Here’s the Agency’s Technical Guide to Influencer Selection. 

Social Media Platform: These are digital channels that allow users to share different types of content such as video, text, photos, etc. Influencer marketing relies on these interactive, virtual spaces like YouTube or Instagram to reach the right audience by carefully selecting the right influencers on each platform. 

Vanity Metrics: Think metrics like follower count which may look great on the surface but not mean much in practice. Vanity metrics may not indicate performance or benefit to your influencer marketing campaign strategy. 

Reach: Influencers’ follower count at the time of posting.

Unique Reach: Campaign-wide metric that means the sum of all influencers’ follower counts across platforms.

Total Potential Reach: Influencers’ follower count x Total number of posts.

Impressions: Total number of times the content is viewed.

Engagements: Number of interactions on post. This includes comments, likes, link clicks, shares, replies, profile visits, sticker taps, etc. 

Total Engagements: The sum of all likes + comments across all posts.

Engagement Rate (ER): Authenticated total engagements divided by total potential reach. 

CPM (Cost per 1,000 impressions): It’s your total digital spend, divided by your total paid impressions, then multiplied by 1,000.

CPE (Cost per Engagement): Your total digital spend, divided by the number of paid engagements.

CPC (Cost Per Click): Your total digital spend, divided by your total number of clicks.

Views: A view is a predetermined number of seconds a user allows a video to play. This magic number differs from platform to platform.


Want more than an influencer marketing dictionary? Familiarize yourself further with the analytics and dive into influencer marketing ROI and the metrics you should be watching. 


influencer campaign optimization

There are many influencer marketing tactics, systems, and ways to enhance your efforts and amplify the benefits of running influencer campaigns. These terms further explain how to build a winning strategy and optimize so you get the most out of your campaign.  

Call to Action (CTA): A button or request for users to take some type of action. CTA’s are only as good as the concepts used to motivate the audience to increase connections and conversions. This could include promotions, rewards, signups, or giveaways. 

Concepts: Brand-safe creative ideas that make people want to engage with your campaign content. Quizzes, community content, and informational ideas are all concepts that can help you reach your marketing goals. 

Post Type: The combination of media formats and the platform options. Examples include an IG photo, IG story, Pinterest pin, or YouTube short. 

Verticals: Verticals are segments of your target audience identified by their commonalities. For example, adventurers or organized moms could be verticals. 


Distribution:
Distribution entails getting greater reach for the top-performing content in your campaign. This helps you optimize your efforts and increase the resources behind high-performing content to boost the ROI of an influencer campaign. For example, this could include boosting, Facebook groups, newsletters, or organic reach. 

Allowlisting: Turning an influencer’s organic posts into a paid ad and running it through their account (instead of running an ad/dark post through your brand’s account). This is available on Facebook and Instagram and allows you to reach new audiences.


Check out our Guide to Influencer Whitelisting


Dark Posts: These are social ads (made with either brand or influencer assets) that appear as sponsored content in the feeds of users you’re targeting. They don’t appear on your timeline or show up organically in your followers’ feeds.

User Generated Content (UGC): This refers to the marketing assets or sponsored content that influencers are hired to create for brands during influencer marketing campaigns. Regardless of how influencers are paid for that content.

Sponsored Posts: This type of post means that an influencer is publishing a post that’s compensated by the brand. 

Re-Share: This is when your brand’s page shares the influencer’s original post from their page to yours. This could be retweeting a tweet from an influencer or their page on your Instagram story. 

Repost: A new post published to your page that looks as though it was “reposted” from an influencer’s page. This could be uploading the influencer’s assets to your Facebook page for a new post with their caption in quotes and additional information from you. 

Repurpose: When a brand takes the influencer’s assets, optimizes them for the channel, and then posts them directly to their page(s) with an original caption. This could be sharing assets and a caption on LinkedIn and crediting the influencer for the visuals.

Brand Ambassadors: Much like an influencer relationship, brand ambassador partnerships are more long-term. The influencer typically has an authentic affinity for the brand. These partnerships are more than one-off campaigns with influencers meeting a short-term goal. 

Federal Trade Commission (FTC): The FTC has a set of guidelines for the influencer marketing industry where influencers are required to disclose their relationships with the brand in the post that promotes their product or service.  

Sourcing Influencers

Influencer Networks: A roster of an existing influencer network curated by a third party. 

Opt-Ins: Influencers who respond to your “casting call.”

Agents: Professionals who represent a group of top influencers (which isn’t the same as repping a large group of influencers). 

Outreach: Conducting cold outreach to influencers you don’t know and who probably don’t know you. But you have a master plan and a fantastic influencer outreach template that keeps you from looking like a crazy person.

The Influencer Marketing Dictionary in Conclusion

Bookmark this influencer marketing dictionary and refer to it each time you need a refresher on the basics or lingo. It’s a fast-paced industry. Social algorithms and influencer marketing trends are always changing. But that keeps us all on our toes (and is half the fun). So, whether you’re an influencer or marketer, you want to be sure that you’re staying up to date.

Understanding and implementing these terms and practices can help you scale, expand, and amplify your brand. Influencer marketing lets you increase your ROI when you have the right campaign that wins over your audience. 

Enjoy being the influencer marketing go-to specialist on your team with these key terms. 


Sorilbran Stone Content Strategist

About the Author

Sorilbran Stone | Content Strategist

I serve as the resident content strategist and the official Head of Content Marketing at The Shelf. Marketing is my happy place. I’m as happy looking at analytics as I am actually creating a thing. I focus a lot on dreaming up and implementing the best ways to create, publish, and distribute content that will builds our brand and gets our readers to do a thing


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Why Influencer Marketing Still Works (even with your most sophisticated consumer) https://www.theshelf.com/the-blog/why-influencer-marketing-still-works/ https://www.theshelf.com/the-blog/why-influencer-marketing-still-works/#respond Thu, 14 Sep 2023 19:00:00 +0000 http://34.239.214.20/?p=1055 In the 10+ years since social media influencer marketing became a thing, there have been tons of headlines questioning the future of the creator economy. Is it feasible for social media users to make hundreds, thousands, or hundreds of thousands of dollars from endorsing products online? Is the influencer market sustainable as an industry? Has…

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In the 10+ years since social media influencer marketing became a thing, there have been tons of headlines questioning the future of the creator economy. Is it feasible for social media users to make hundreds, thousands, or hundreds of thousands of dollars from endorsing products online? Is the influencer market sustainable as an industry? Has it reached a plateau, or maybe even a decline? Does influencer marketing work? And if it does work, does it work on sophisticated consumers?

Well, we have some data that may help you answer that question for your team.

Brand Perspective: Influencer Marketing Delivers

The size of the influencer marketing industry has nearly 10x’d since 2016. Year over year, the industry expands as more traditional marketing campaigns are enhanced with digital marketing efforts that rely on content creators to reach consumers and essentially strengthen their brands across social media channels.

Since 2019, the percentage of brand marketers who say they are leveraging influencer marketing as part of their digital strategy has remained high. According to Influencer Marketing Hub, 93 percent of marketers say they’re currently running or plan to run influencer campaigns. Add to that this stat: 90 percent of marketers say influencer marketing is an effective strategy for achieving real marketing goals, and you’ll get a sense of why influencer marketing remains a mainstay for many brands. From their perspective, influencer marketing works.

Consumer Perspective: Influencers Are Trustworthy.

Influencers also play a key role in the purchasing decisions of a significant percentage of social media users. First of all, people like influencers. According to Klarna, 44 percent of Gen Zers and 30 percent of Millennials follow online celebrities. Eight in ten social media users have either made a purchase or considered purchasing something after interacting with influencer content. Half of consumers say they have gone into a store to see or buy products they discovered on their social feeds in the past three months, according to Salesforce.

Half?!!? That’s not nothing!

How Influencer Marketing Affects Buyer Behavior

Influential content creators have the ability (and the relational equity) to drive their audiences to take steps toward a specific action. So… are we talking conversions here? đŸ€”

Not necessarily. What it means is that if an influencer has expressed positive sentiments about a brand or product, those positive sentiments about the product are often adopted by their followers as well. Influencers are seen as more trustworthy than brands, and influencer marketing is a tactic that allows brands to sort of ride the coattails of an influencer to [hopefully đŸ€žđŸœ] land in the good graces of the consumer.

chart: Brands vs Influencers - How consumers see them

The Challenges with Influencer Marketing

We’ve already presented a pretty hefty number of influencer marketing stats that may already be helping to shape (or reshape) your ideas around influencer marketing. But let’s not ignore some pretty compelling challenges with influencer marketing.

Influencer-Generated Posts Are Just Ads

True. And people don’t love ads. In fact, most people don’t trust them. Globally, 4 in 10 internet users employ some sort of ad block technology on their devices. In the US, a little more than 1 in 4 consumers use ad blockers. Eighty-six percent of consumers find a way to not watch ads when they show up on a screen. And of the few who do watch ads, 75 percent of them don’t trust ads.

If people hate ads so much, why do they love influencers?

Short answer? It’s the presentation. For brands, the value of the sponsored content they get from influencers is all in the delivery, the timing, and the context (we keep trying to tell you about that context, man!). Influencer marketing is a type of social proof.

Influencer Marketing Is a Trend… And It’s in Flux.

While it’s true that influencer marketing is always changing, the industry isn’t in flux. And I think at this point we can retire the notion that influencer marketing is just a trend. Do you remember what the marketing landscape was like with COVID-19 first hit? Stores shut down. Most of us went home. Brands stopped spending money on ads and consumers were extremely critical of influencers who posted sponsored content, even knowing that many influencers make money to feed their families by pushing products.

But no one was in the mood for a pretty picture and a product post when people were dying and it was next to impossible to find basic cleaning supplies and toiletries. We were all bracing for the worst because we had no idea if we were experiencing it or if the worst was yet to come.

The pervasive thought was that a hit like COVID, which changed how people spent money and how they engaged online, could level the influencer marketing industry. Brands and marketers wondered if influencer marketing would recover from what seemed like it could be the death of sponsored content.

People wondered if influencer marketing was dead. Instead of influencer marketing dying on the vine, influencers essentially pivoted the industry, and not only has the industry more than doubled in size since 2020, but it’s also matured significantly.

That period of uncertainty, and horror, will go down in influencer marketing history as a pivotal moment for the industry. It’s not going anywhere, hoss.

Size of Influencer Marketing Industry infographic -

Fake Followers and Fake Engagement Make it Tough to Trust Those Pretty Pics

An AdAge article (gated content) reported that roughly 78 percent of the accounts following an influencer hired by Ritz-Carlton for a campaign were fake. Do you remember this headline? It was one of a slew of articles that came out a few years ago that questioned the legitimacy of brand-influencer partnerships as a viable marketing strategy.

Fast forward a few years, and we’re so used to hearing stuff like this that knowing an influencer has a bunch of fake followers doesn’t even shock us anymore. It actually seems kind of old school at this point — I mean who’s still buying fake followers? The looming threat of fake followers isn’t much of a threat when you have the tools to be able to spot that sort of thing. Seriously, we did a whole big post on how we use our influencer marketing platform to weed out influencer fraud.

Brand Safety Issues: The Bigger the Brand, the Bigger the Threat

This one lingers, especially as bigger brands that have been slow to go all in on influencer marketing make their way into the space. Brand safety issues are a real concern for many brands. There are several important steps we take to prioritize brand safety.

First, we have conversations with the client to help us really understand their goals AND to set expectations. That’s a big one. Next, we get really clear on the direction and creative concepting for the campaign — that usually loops in the product team and the marketing/brand team, as well as the client’s legal team. Third, we research the heck out of potential influencer partners to minimize the chances of partnering with someone who has red flags cropping up all over social media. We also make sure the influencers have a very clear understanding of the client’s expectations. Finally, we monitor campaigns in real-time, and our clients can do the same from their client dashboards.

Brand safety is a legitimate concern, and the only way to minimize threats to brand safety is through good, old-fashioned leg work — of the digital variety.



6 Reasons Influencer Marketing Works to Help You Reach Marketing Goals 🎯

Now let’s look at the reasons influencer marketing still works.

#1 Influencer Marketing Lets You Hyper-Target YOUR Audience

Unlike the early days of influencer marketing (like, 5 years ago), it’s not about having a gazillion followers; it’s about having the right followers. For instance, nano-influencers (social media influencers who have amassed between 1k to <10k followers on a single platform) may have a smaller following compared to mega-influencers, but their followers are the die-hard, super-engaged types. That means your message reaches the people who are genuinely interested and more likely to convert.

Influencers are like the cool kids who know everyone at the party. But here’s the kicker: they hang out with a crowd that’s super into the same stuff. Whether it’s tech gadgets, vegan recipes, or DIY home decor, influencers often have a niche audience. So, when they endorse your product or service, you’re not casting a wide net; you’re going straight to the folks who are already interested.

You’re also not going in blindfolded with your fingers crossed. Influencers are pretty savvy when it comes to knowing who’s following them. They often have access to insights that show the age, gender, location, and interests of their audience. That’s like having a treasure map for your marketing — you don’t have to guess.

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Why Bloggers Charge for Sponsored Posts (and why you should be okay with it)

#2 Influencers Know How to Build Authentic Connections

For influencers, trust and authenticity are non-negotiable; they’re also two major benefits of influencer marketing that drive positive consumer sentiment. You see, unlike the slick and polished ads we’ve grown accustomed to (and have learned to ignore), influencer recommendations have a down-to-earth, relatable vibe that just hits different. Here’s why:

Relatable Influencers = Relatable Recommendations:

Influencers aren’t your typical spokespeople. They’re everyday people who just happen to be exceptionally good at what they do. Whether it’s fashion, food, fitness, or whatever floats their boat, they’re passionate about it, and that passion shines through in their content. When they talk about a product or service, it’s like getting advice from a friend.

Authentic Reviews:

Most influencers won’t lie to their followers about the advantages and disadvantages of a particular product. They’re not brutal or slanderous; influencers are tactful and strategic. They’re not afraid to say when something doesn’t live up to the hype. That kind of honesty resonates with their followers. It’s like having a buddy who tells you if a movie is a must-see or a total flop.

Long-Term Relationships:

Many influencers build long-term relationships with their followers. They’re not just in it for the quick buck. They genuinely care about the people who support them. So, when they promote a product, it’s not just a one-off thing; it’s an ongoing conversation. That consistency builds trust over time.

Real-Life Demonstrations:

Influencers often show how a product fits into their daily lives. It’s not just a fancy photoshoot; it’s a peek behind the curtain of their existence. Seeing how a product is genuinely used in their world makes it feel more real and relatable.

Peer Recommendations:

People trust their peers more than ads. When an influencer says, “Hey, I tried this and loved it,” it carries weight because it’s coming from someone who seems like your equal, not a salesperson trying to hit their quota.

Built-In Filters:

Followers choose to follow influencers who align with their interests and values. So, when an influencer promotes something, it’s already pre-filtered for relevance. That means you’re more likely to reach an audience that’s genuinely interested in your product or service.

In a nutshell, influencer marketing is like the digital version of word-of-mouth recommendations. It’s genuine, relatable, and trustworthy, making it a powerful tool to connect with your target audience on a deeper level. So, when it comes to building trust and authenticity in marketing, influencers are the real deal.

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How to Work with Bloggers and Influencers When You’re Bootstrapping It

#3 Influencers Create Diverse Content That Trumps a Semi-Annual Product Shoot

This one is perhaps one of the most valuable benefits of effective influencer marketing and simultaneously the most underutilized. Influencer-generated content is tailor-made to resonate with a particular group of people. It’s aspirational without being grandiose. Relevant without being hammy. It’s curated without being a highlight reel. Influencers walk a fine line between the current situation and that better tomorrow everyone’s always chasing after. And that’s a quality that many brands can’t capture because you kinda have to know someone’s origin story to forge that kind of connection.

Brands have the opportunity to repurpose influencer-created content (UGC) at multiple touchpoints along the path to purchase. We’ve seen clients reuse influencer content on their websites, on their product pages, in print ads, and even as murals in their physical locations. And if you build diversity into your influencer selection process, you automatically get a catalog of assets that are diverse in their artistry, messaging, in the way the idea is captured, and even in how it’s distributed. A single campaign may deliver content that includes:

  • Real-world product demonstration (a show-and-tell for the product)
  • Unboxing videos (see them open the box and use the product)
  • Review of the product and the results (after using it for several days, weeks, or months)
  • Day-in-the-life content that contextually embeds your product
  • Tips for how to use the product (makeup tutorials, styling/fashion tips, etc.)
  • Taking glam shots wearing the product (bikini on the beach, night out  on the town wearing heels, posing with a purse in front of the Trevi Fountain)
  • Short-form videos that are creative and highly entertaining

And this makes for great repurposed.

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How to Vet Potential Blogger and Influencer Partners

#4 Influencer Content Outperforms Branded Content

When measured side-by-side, influencer content consistently drums up more engagement than branded content. Using the help of multiple influencers, you can get better content out at a quicker pace than you would on your own, grab more attention, and generate more instances of engagement than you would with branded content.

That alone is priceless. Especially with users consuming 11.4 pieces of content across nine different channels before finally making that decision to purchase. 

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How to Do Blogger Outreach (Includes Templates)

#5 You Don’t Need Mega-Influencers to Win

This is good news, right? Back in the day, brands really wanted to partner with the biggest influencers they could afford without consideration for the level of actual influence content creators may have wielded in a particular vertical.

At this point, I think most brands have figured out that partnering with a bigger influencer doesn’t guarantee interest or clicks, it only promises that your product will be seen by more people, and they may not even be the right people.

Targeting is more important than impressions if your goal is to drive people into your funnel.

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Which Social Media Network Drives the Greatest ROI?

#6 You Build an Omnichannel Echo-Chamber

First, let’s clarify what omnichannel marketing is all about. It’s not just about being present on multiple channels; it’s about providing a unified, consistent brand experience across those channels, especially the social media channels most likely to drive ROI for your influencer campaign. Whether your customers interact with your brand via social media, your website, email, or in-store, they should encounter a consistent message, look, and feel.

Influencers have a unique ability to connect with audiences across different platforms. They’re masters of creating engaging and relatable content, making them a perfect fit for omnichannel marketing. Start by identifying influencers whose values align with your brand. Look for those who have a presence on the platforms relevant to your audience. Your chosen influencers should have a strong following and credibility in those spaces.

Work with influencers to develop content that can be adapted for various channels. For example, a video review on YouTube can be repurposed as a series of short clips for Instagram Stories, while the main takeaways can be turned into blog posts or email newsletters.

One thing the content marketing team here at The Shelf has really tried to do is lean into interactive content. Influencers often engage with their followers through polls, Q&A sessions, or challenges. Encourage them to create interactive content that can be seamlessly integrated into your omnichannel strategy. This not only boosts engagement but also encourages cross-channel participation.

Incorporating influencer content into your omnichannel marketing strategy can elevate your brand’s presence and effectiveness. By strategically leveraging influencers who resonate with your target audience and maintaining a consistent message across channels, you can create a seamless and memorable brand experience that keeps customers engaged and loyal. So, go ahead and tap into the power of influencer marketing to master the art of omnichannel success!

Influencer Marketing Is a Mainstay of Digital Strategies

The effectiveness of influencer marketing is undeniable. It thrives on trust, authenticity, and targeted reach, creating a powerful connection between brands and their audiences. With influencers as trusted advocates, the content they create not only engages but also converts, making influencer marketing a must-have strategy in the modern marketing playbook.

As businesses continue to harness the unique qualities of influencer marketing, they find themselves on the path to building stronger brand connections and achieving tangible results. So, whether you’re a startup or a seasoned brand, consider embracing influencer marketing — it’s a proven recipe for success in today’s digital age.

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Facebook Ads vs Influencer Marketing https://www.theshelf.com/influencer-marketing/facebook-ads-vs-influencer-marketing/ https://www.theshelf.com/influencer-marketing/facebook-ads-vs-influencer-marketing/#respond Tue, 22 Aug 2023 04:00:00 +0000 https://www.theshelf.com/?p=18082 When deciding where to spend your precious marketing budget, you may find yourself weighing Facebook ads vs influencer marketing. We’ve been there, too. That’s why we created this post to give you all the nitty gritty details on both strategies so you can decide which is best for you. Facebook ad revenue is expected to…

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When deciding where to spend your precious marketing budget, you may find yourself weighing Facebook ads vs influencer marketing. We’ve been there, too. That’s why we created this post to give you all the nitty gritty details on both strategies so you can decide which is best for you.

Facebook ad revenue is expected to hit $153.76 billion in 2023. The valuation of the entire influencer marketing industry in 2023 is  $21.1 billion. It’s no wonder choosing between these two methods of advertising isn’t easy!

If you’re stuck at a fork in the road trying to choose between the two, no worries. You’re in good company. In this post, we’ll help you decide the best path for your brand to take as we explore Facebook ads vs influencer marketing. We’ll discuss the key similarities and differences to help you navigate your way through this decision.

This post aims to create a roadmap to answer the questions: What are the differences between Facebook ads and influencer marketing? What are the pros and cons of Facebook ads vs traditional marketing? And are you ready to use all of the above to ramp up your strategy? 

Let’s start with Facebook ads.

Listen to a recap of this post.

Facebook Ads: Knowing The Basics

Facebook ads vs Influencer Marketing pinterest pin

If you’ve spent any time on Facebook, you’ve seen Facebook ads. These targeted ads pop up on your feed with such accuracy that you wonder whether Meta is listening to your conversations. It’s almost like walking into a shopping mall and every product on the shelf is tailored just for you. So spot-on that it’s creepy. But how does it all work? 

Facebook ads now offer tons of different options. Brands can promote pages, posts, websites, and even the actions users take. Ad format options are also expanding with new additions like Instant Experience. This lets people watch videos, look through tagged images, carousels, and product catalogs, and visit other web pages. 

Targeted Reach

Facebook ads allow brands to target specific demographics, interests, and behaviors. Want to reach dog dads in Omaha aged 25-34 with an affinity for baking? You can do that! Some marketers consider Facebook’s targeting capabilities to be one of its greatest strengths since they work well with any business strategy. And a lot of these capabilities are only available on Meta’s platforms.

Data-Driven Approach

Within Facebook’s sophisticated ad system, Like, click, and share actions produce specific data brands can study this data to understand what works and what doesn’t. It’s 2023, and data makes the world go ’round.  Sprout Social reports that 77 percent of marketers use it for their retargeting efforts, harnessing the power of data to reconnect with potential customers to increase the success of their Facebook ads and Instagram ads marketing strategies.

Cost-Effective

Think Facebook ads are expensive? Here’s a hack: With Facebook ads, timing is everything. An ad for glazed ham may cost significantly more during the holidays than it will over the summer. With options to set your budget and bid for ad space, it’s a cost-effective way to reach audiences as brands can specify a budget, and automatically bid on ad placement.

Measurable Results

Facebook ads always provide a detailed analysis to let your brands know how successful their campaigns are. Although Instagram has proven to be the platform with the best ROI, it is tied with Facebook on engagement and quality leads.

Creative Freedom

Videos, carousels, Instant Experience, and more. Again, Facebook ads offers a ton of creative marketing tools to showcase the value proposition of your brand. It’s a playground for creativity, and SproutSocial points out that 65 percent of consumers say they feel more connected to brands with a strong social presence. 

Facebook ads provide a versatile platform for creative expression, but there’s another marketing strategy that has the advantage of the human element. Let’s take a look at influencer marketing, where authenticity and personal connection take center stage.

Influencer Marketing Essential Elements

Influencer marketing is more than just trendy buzzwords. This is where data meets relationships, and it’s the perfect marriage. Let’s look at what makes this combination so magical.

Sparkling coin icon next to text: $21.1B the influencer marketing market size in 2023

Human Connection 

The best thing about influencer marketing is
.well, the people! This kind of marketing is all about connecting with your audience through interaction with real people (usually). AI influencers are on the rise, but that’s another post. This one, as a matter of fact. 😉

Influencers, whether they’re computer-generated, celebrities, or micro-influencers, have a following that trusts them. It’s like having a friend recommend a product to you. This is why 81 percent of consumers say social media posts drove their interest in items or services within the past year, not traditional advertising.

Authentic Engagement

I can remember when Oprah Winfrey would recommend a book and it would become an instant best-seller. Now, Khaby Lame has the same effect on his generation — just by making a face. Influencers have always had a unique way of connecting with their audience, making their recommendations feel genuine and personal, even without speaking a word. Now that’s influence!

Reaching Niche Markets

Influencers generally serve a specific niche. Whether it’s fitness, fashion, or finance, brands would be wise to tap into these niches to reach their targeted audience. Using niche marketing strategies can help to catapult growth to new levels 

During the Covid-19 lockdowns, my son saw a kidfluencer playing Roblox on YouTube. Since then, he’s convinced his dad and me to buy a game console, approximately a kuh-billion dollars in Robux, merch including backpacks, underwear, and posters, and he made us sit through the movie. 

I noticed that he’s also shown his cousins (local and out-of-state) how to log on and play with him. We’ve even had a few family sessions (which I’ve thoroughly enjoyed). All this because his favorite kidfluencer recommended it. He’s been a loyal player ever since!

Measurable Impact

Anything worth doing is worth doing well. Like Facebook ads, influencer marketing offers measurable results. Brands can track key performance indicators (KPIs) like engagement, click-through rates, conversions, and impressions to determine the success of a campaign.

Creative Collaboration

Consumers are constantly bombarded by ads, so influencer marketing can be a breath of fresh air. Influencers have an advantage over algorithms in that they bring creativity to the table. They know their audience and they understand how to create relatable content that resonates. The collaborative effort between the brand and the influencer is what leads to engaging, innovative, and effective campaigns.

Facebook Ads Vs Influencer Marketing: Which is Better? 

Let me tell you about the Tale of the Tape. It’s Tiiiime (in my Bruce Buffer voice)!

Introducing first in the blue corner: Facebook ads, the tech-savvy algorithm-driven, surprisingly accurate, semi-creepy powerhouse! And in the red corner: influencer marketing the relatable, consumer-centric, paradigm shifter. Here’s a look at the Tale of the Tape:

Reach and Targeting 

Facebook ads can reach a mind-blowing 2.08 billion users and are laser-focused on targeting. It’s estimated that there are 4.9 billion users of social media worldwide. Influencer marketing has the potential to reach every one of these users by offering a niche-heavy approach, connecting with specific audiences with the help of the personalities their audiences have come to love and trust. 

Trust & Authenticity

Here’s where influencer marketing shines. 62 percent of consumers trust influencers more than brands or celebrities. That trust translates into engagement, loyalty, and customer retention. Facebook ads, while great at targeting, may lack the personal touch that consumers have come to crave, and even expect.

Cost & ROI

Facebook is not only the most-used social network. It also offers the highest ROI. Influencer marketing can vary widely in cost, depending on the influencer’s reach and engagement rates. On average though, businesses can expect to produce $5.20 per dollar spent on influencer marketing.

Growth arrow icon with woman dancing next to text: $5.20 the average ROI for ever $1 spent on influencer marketing

Creativity & Collaboration

Both strategies offer a bit of creative freedom, but influencer marketing adds the bonus of collaboration. Think of it this way: Queen is dope. But “Under Pressure” would not have been the banger that it is without David Bowie.

Get my drift? Collabs take everything to the next level — usually resulting in a harmonious blend of brand and influencer creativity.

Measurability

Both Facebook ads and influencer marketing give brands the ability to measure success. They can see what works and capitalize on any opportunities to make improvements as they see fit.

Influencer marketing is people-driven. People by nature have to be great at adapting. It’s essential to our survival. Influencer marketing is adaptable and also in tune with current trends. Facebook ads, being data-driven, can quickly adapt as well as see upcoming trends, and quickly make adjustments to be ready for market changes before they occur.

Facebook Ads vs Traditional Ads

Let’s not forget the OG of the marketing game: traditional ads. How do they compare?

Well, they’re different — really different. Sure, they have the same purpose. They aim to let potential customers know about a product or service, make sure they remember it, and persuade them to consume it. But traditional advertising, with its print media, radio, and TV ads, is prone to missing the mark on personal relevance. It often lacks the real-time responsiveness of its digital counterpart.

Facebook ads are dynamic and do a great job determining and reaching the brand’s targeted audience. The ability to optimize messages and visuals quickly and in real-time not only makes social media advertising more effective but also more cost-efficient. 

Statistics prove that more than 60 percent of marketers expect their influencer budgets to increase while many are foregoing traditional marketing altogether. A marketer’s goal isn’t simply to reach people. It’s to connect with the right people at the right time, in a way that traditional advertising historically has been unable to do.

So, Facebook ads vs influencer marketing: Which is better?

We’ve covered the differences, similarities, and pros and cons of Facebook ads, influencer marketing, and traditional marketing. We see how each method can be accompanied by unique opportunities and challenges. So who wins this bout? It’s not exactly a one-size-fits-all answer. There are tons of variables to consider. It depends on your brand, your audience, and your goals. Facebook ads offer a wide reach and precise targeting, while influencer marketing builds trust and engagement.

The right choice for your brand depends on your specific goals and target audience. Think of it like choosing between a classic black dress and a trendy new outfit. Both have their place and purpose. The key is understanding when and how to use them.

Whether you’re looking to expand your reach with Facebook’s targeted ads, build trust through authentic influencer connections, or explore a blend of both, you can count on the geeks here at The Shelf to point you in the right direction. Ready to take the next step and find the perfect strategy for your brand? Great! Schedule a strategy call, and let’s find your brand’s voice, and get it out there.


Lira Stone content strategist

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lira Stone | Effective, Magnetic Strategist

For over a decade, my focus has been ensuring that professionals stay ahead of the curve in the most time-efficient, task-prioritized, and stress-free manner possible. My extensive experience has equipped me with the knowledge to design a concise, company-culture-relevant, methodical approach to internet sales and marketing.


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How Much Does Influencer Marketing Cost? https://www.theshelf.com/influencer-marketing/how-much-does-influencer-marketing-cost/ https://www.theshelf.com/influencer-marketing/how-much-does-influencer-marketing-cost/#respond Thu, 03 Aug 2023 04:00:00 +0000 https://www.theshelf.com/?p=17783 Ah, the digital-age-old question: how much does influencer marketing cost? I’m going to give it to you straight. It depends. I know that’s not the crystal-clear answer you hoped for, but I promise it’s not a bad thing. Brands of pretty much any size and budget can run a successful influencer marketing campaign with the…

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Ah, the digital-age-old question: how much does influencer marketing cost? I’m going to give it to you straight. It depends.

I know that’s not the crystal-clear answer you hoped for, but I promise it’s not a bad thing. Brands of pretty much any size and budget can run a successful influencer marketing campaign with the right strategy. Of course, the DIY approach will run you a much smaller bill than working with a full-service influencer marketing agency like The Shelf.

Like most things, you’ll get out of your influencer marketing campaign what you’re willing to put in. A monetary investment like hiring an agency can yield big returns, but so can scraping together a kick-butt strategy entirely with your in-house team.

Listen to this article here.

Invest in Strategy First

Two characters interact with coins as a representation of how much influencer marketing costs.

Before you spend a dime on hiring influencers or partnering up with an agency, first you need to define your goals. There are plenty of cost-effective options for each type of influencer campaign. 

If you’re hoping to increase brand awareness, maybe you can rake in some UGC with a contest or giveaway. Hoping to increase sales instead? Affiliate marketing with the help of smaller influencers can really move the needle. Get specific about your goals and you’ll find plenty of resources that will break down the cost to achieve them.

Show Me the Money

According to Statista, the influencer marketing industry is worth over $21 billion in 2023. And brands small and large are bringing home a piece of that pie. The average ROI of an influencer marketing campaign today is $5.20 for every $1 spent. So whatever you have to spend on your next campaign, it’s likely to be a worthwhile investment. 

So what can you expect to pay when working with influencers? Take these numbers with a grain of salt. Influencers often set their own rates, sometimes without the help of an agency that knows the industry standard, so prices may vary. 

According to Influencer Marketing Hub, the industry standard for influencer posts is around $100 per 10,000 followers per post. This is absolutely not always the case. And it’s important to remember, number of followers is rarely the most important factor when selecting influencers to work with.

Influencer Marketing Cost in Conclusion

Influencer marketing can be done on almost any budget. Fortunately for you, that means it doesn’t have to cost your brand an arm and a leg for good quality content. Unfortunately for us, that means we can’t give you a one-size-fits-all answer for how much a successful influencer marketing campaign costs. 

The truth is, it varies. It all depends on your budget, the scope of your campaign, and the goals you hope to achieve. This can be a lot to parse out on your own but don’t worry. That’s where we come in.

If you’d like a more in-depth look at what your next influencer marketing campaign might cost, don’t hesitate to reach out. You can book a strategy call with one of our experts and we’ll walk you through the offerings that fit your budget. 


Ariana Newhouse B2B Writer

About This Author

Ariana Newhouse | B2B Writer

I am a freelance writer and comedian based in Los Angeles, and while making people laugh is my jam, it’s not always the company brand. So, I strive to make people feel something. My writing philosophy is collaborative, empathetic, and humanistic. At the end of the day, no matter the message, there are real people on both ends of the process.


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Affiliate Marketing vs. Influencer Marketing: Which is Better? https://www.theshelf.com/influencer-marketing/affiliate-marketing-vs-influencer-marketing/ https://www.theshelf.com/influencer-marketing/affiliate-marketing-vs-influencer-marketing/#respond Mon, 17 Jul 2023 04:00:00 +0000 https://www.theshelf.com/?p=17683 If you’re looking to break out of traditional advertising models, you may want to dive into the world of affiliate vs. influencer marketing. While both approaches have some distinctions, they are generally housed in the world of social media and used to drive sales outside traditional ad models.  Both strategies allow your customers to also…

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If you’re looking to break out of traditional advertising models, you may want to dive into the world of affiliate vs. influencer marketing. While both approaches have some distinctions, they are generally housed in the world of social media and used to drive sales outside traditional ad models. 

Both strategies allow your customers to also become your advertisers. Capitalize on word-of-mouth referrals and product testimonials by determining which social media marketing strategy is right for you. Heck, maybe your brand would benefit from both! 

We’ll break down the differences between affiliate marketing and influencer marketing plus the benefits of each. And we’ll walk you through which strategy might be right for your next campaign in the paragraphs below. The world of social media marketing is your oyster. We hope this article will be your pearl.

Let’s start by defining our terms.

Listen to a recap of this post.

What is Affiliate Marketing? 

Affiliate marketing is the process by which an individual outside a company, or an affiliate, markets the company’s products and gets paid on commission for the sales they drive. Similar to influencer marketing, this practice is most common on social media. Affiliates identify a product they enjoy and share an ad or link to the product on their personal social channels or website. From there, their followers can click on the link and purchase the product. Those conversions are tracked through the affiliate’s bespoke link. The affiliate is then paid a portion of the sales they drive.

Because all parties benefit, affiliate marketing represents an attractive symbiotic relationship for both affiliates and brands. The market for affiliate advertising is growing rapidly. Affiliate marketing spend in the United States crested $8.2 billion in 2022. That’s up from $5.4 billion in 2017. 

There are three different types of affiliate marketing: unattached, related, and involved. Let’s dive into a quick explainer of each so you can determine which type might be best for your brand. 

UNATTACHED

In the unattached model, the affiliate marketer has no attachment to the product, service, or brand they are promoting. This may mean that the product is outside of their niche and that they do not have authority in the industry. The affiliate marketer may not have ever even used the product. They simply post a link and hope people click on it.

These are low-risk, low-commitment partnerships in which the affiliate simply links to a product and does little to deep dive into the advertising or use of the product. Unattached campaigns are generally run on a pay-per-click (PPC) model. While all three models can be beneficial in the right use case, the unattached strategy is the least involved.

RELATED

Related affiliate marketing is a step up from the unattached model. Affiliates may not actually use the product they are promoting, but it does align with their niche, meaning they can speak with authority on the product. This type of affiliate marketing is common among influencers. (I know. This is the affiliate marketing section, but there’s some overlap!) Expertise in a certain niche often leads to garnering a following that trusts the affiliate’s taste and input. This authority + the following = influence. 

Because the affiliate actually has some authority in the space of the product, this can lead to more targeted and successful conversion campaigns. However, there is always the risk of an affiliate recommending a less-than-stellar product since in this model they likely aren’t actually using it outside the marketing effort. While this can still result in sales for the brand, it can lead to backlash from the affiliate’s following which can damage both the affiliate and brand’s reputations. 

INVOLVED

This model of affiliate marketing is the most involved, duh. In involved affiliate campaigns, the affiliate has used the product and can vouch for it from their personal experience. Like the related model, they often have established a niche and following within the vertical of the product. This means they have authority in the space and the added oomph of using and loving the product themself. 

This model can deliver the most bang for your buck, but it does require added investment on the part of the affiliate and likely the brand. The affiliate must build credibility and trust with their audience within the niche, and know the product well enough to convey a genuine interest and appreciation for the product. There is less risk of customer backlash in this model since affiliates must be picky about which products they advertise. And it can lead to higher sales since affiliates can leverage their personal experience of the product rather than relying on PPC.

What is Influencer Marketing?

If you’re a regular here at The Shelf, you know influencer marketing is our bread and butter. If you’d like an in-depth explainer of all things influencer marketing, you can check out our deep dive here. All you need to know for this article is that influencer marketing is an alternative to traditional advertising that leverages influential creators on social media to speak to niche audiences. It’s a form of word-of-mouth advertising that relies on trust and strong relationships between influencers and their followers. 

Basically, influencers publicize their authentic, positive experiences with products and brands and provide recommendations to their followers. It’s like going to a trusted friend for advice on what lipstick to buy, except the trusted friend is a creator whose job it is to feel like every one of their followers’ bestie. It’s taking the parasocial relationships formed over social media and applying word-of-mouth advertising tactics to them. 

In summary, creators with influence (big followings) post about things they like (products, brands, services, etc.) and because they have authority within specific niches and earned trust with their audiences, these posts move the needle for the brands they partner with. 

What are the Benefits of Affiliate Marketing?

For well-established brands, affiliate marketing is super easy to implement. Once you have a mechanism for creating and tracking unique affiliate links, it’s simple to track the conversions from each sale. This ease of use and the scalability it enables are huge benefits of affiliate marketing. 

Increased conversions can also lead to increased site traffic. While beefing web traffic isn’t the primary goal of affiliate marketing, increased sales can lead to more website clicks. More eyeballs on your site are a benefit as well. 

Another noteworthy benefit of affiliate marketing is its affordability. You only pay for tangible results. That means you only pay for conversions, not clicks or impressions. This can be a cost-effective and risk-free alternative to typical influencer marketing. 

What are the Benefits of Influencer Marketing?

Working with influencers can help you build brand trust, awareness, and credibility within your niche audience. Because influencers are highly regarded authority figures within their niches, getting their vote of confidence can make a big difference for your brand. 

Additionally, you have more control over the content created when working within influencer marketing. While we always advocate giving creators the creative freedom the need to make some content magic, your brand does have a Fsay and final approval on the creative they produce. You can (and should) provide influencers with a brief identifying your key takeaways and creative vision for the ad, so they can get creative within the bounds you’ve identified for your campaign. This level of targeting and control is an appealing benefit to many. 

Plus, the average ROI for influencer marketing is $5.20 earned for every $1 spent. Talk about a worthwhile investment. It may be more expensive to use influencer marketing than a purely affiliate approach, but if you have the budget, it can be worth every penny. 

Which is Better for My Campaign?

When deciding between affiliate and influencer marketing, it’s not always a question of either or. Often the two strategies are used in combination. This is especially true in campaigns where the primary goal is to drive sales. The name of the game in affiliate marketing is conversions. You know who is great at driving conversions? Influencers. 

So, if you’re looking to get products flying off the shelves, a combination of influencer and affiliate strategies may be best. However, influencers don’t always come cheap. A worthwhile partnership with an established influencer in your niche will likely cost a healthy chunk of change. Affiliate marketing with lesser-known nano influencers or affiliates without influencing power can be a more cost-effective option. 

If you’re looking to run a different type of campaign, for example brand awareness or user-generated content, it may make sense to forgo the affiliate marketing and opt for a typical influencer campaign instead. 

How Can I Use Affiliate and Influencer Marketing Together?

Contrary to the title of this post, it’s not always affiliate vs. influencer marketing. Sometimes, they make a great team! As we discussed in the first section, related and involved affiliate marketing campaigns are often run using influencers as the affiliates. If your goal is conversions, your campaign could benefit from using influencers as affiliate marketers. Because influencers often have an established niche and curated followings, they can be great authority figures for advertising certain products. And the affiliate model ensures they are compensated for the conversions they drive. 

An affiliate and influencer marketing combo strategy will be best suited to conversion campaigns. If your goal is to increase brand awareness, industry credibility, or web traffic, you may want to go the typical influencer marketing route and leave out the affiliate strategies. Remember, affiliates only get paid for the conversions they drive, so they should be used for conversion campaigns. 

However, not all influencers may be interested in affiliate marketing. It’s important to be upfront about your partnership expectations and compensation when establishing the initial relationship with your influencers and affiliate marketers. Trust is the name of the game when it comes to social media marketing, and it’s as fundamental in your partnerships as it is in your audience. 

How Can I Measure the Success of My Affiliate or Influencer Marketing Campaign?

To measure the success of any marketing campaign, you first need to establish your goals. Once you’ve set your goalposts, it’s important to track your metrics throughout and after the campaign to determine your ROI. In most affiliate campaigns, you’ll be tracking conversions. In influencer marketing campaigns, you may be tracking engagement, brand awareness, website traffic, and more. 

When tracking the success of an affiliate marketing campaign, it’s essential to have a reliable way to generate and track your affiliate links. These links will be used to track the individual success of each affiliate and the overall success of the campaign. Reliable links are also essential to make sure your affiliates get paid. Remember, tracking is the name of the game. 

Kick-Butt Examples of Both Approaches

Check out these examples of affiliate and influencer marketing posts driving engagement out in the wild. Will you use posts like these in your next campaign?

AFFILIATE MARKETING EXAMPLE 

You won’t be surprised that we’re using an affiliate marketing example posted by an influencer. We’re The Shelf! It’s what we do! Fashion and lifestyle influencer  Frankie Bridge is the queen of the affiliate marketing post. Here she models a gorgeous orange dress with the brand Warehouse UK tagged and #affiliate in the post caption. Her followers can go to the link in her bio, buy this exact dress, and Frankie will earn a commission on the sale. 

There’s not a ton of finesse or creativity needed for the content itself. All she has to do is model the dress and her followers can decide if they’d like to purchase it. You’ll notice this was a carousel post, too. She wore several different outfits from different brands, each with an affiliate link followers can shop in her bio. There’s no need to feign brand loyalty. Frankie simply posts what she likes (or frankly, what she thinks will sell) and the rest is up to her followers. Of course, her sense of style and aspirational lifestyle probably help drive sales. 

Screenshot of an affiliate marketing Instagram post in which woman poses in orange and gold dress with flared bell sleeves.
Source: @frankibridge on Instagram

INFLUENCER MARKETING EXAMPLE

In contrast, this influencer post is just that, only an influencer post. There is no affiliate link in bio here. Fashion lover and my constant inspo Cole Habersham sports a Topicals shopping bag in this post and shouts them out with a tag in the caption as well. 

Because we know Cole wants to get his bag and keep up the trust he’s earned with his following, we can assume he was compensated in some way for this post. Because it’s not an affiliate post, he wasn’t cut into any sales the image drove. He was likely compensated with an upfront fee, free products, or a combination of the two. 

The post is a little more lived-in, a little more creative, and a little more Cole than the generic affiliate post we saw above. This is because influencers have to be more discerning with what brands they partner with for posts like these. The brands Cole posts to his grid have to align with his personal brand and offer products he actually believes in.

Screenshot of  an influencer marketing Instagram post in which a man smiles to camera showing off his Topicals shopping bag.
Source: @cashmeretote on Instagram

Get Help with All Things Affiliate and Influencer Marketing

So, which is better: affiliate marketing or influencer marketing? It depends. If your goal is conversions and you have a decent budget, it may be best to go with a combination of the two. If you’re looking to drive sales with the least amount of investment, affiliate marketing may be better. For campaigns with goals outside driving conversions, influencer marketing is likely the safer bet. The beauty of social media marketing is that there’s a lot of overlap when it comes to these tried and true strategies. 

If you’d like some help determining which marketing strategy is the best for your campaign, our experts would be happy to help. Schedule a strategy call with The Shelf today and we’ll help you build the campaign of your dreams. If you have any other questions on the difference between affiliate and influencer marketing strategies and what will work best for your brand, please let us know in the comments below. We’ll get back to you with all the deets. 


Ariana Newhouse B2B Writer

About This Author

Ariana Newhouse | B2B Writer

I am a freelance writer and comedian based in Los Angeles, and while making people laugh is my jam, it’s not always the company brand. So, I strive to make people feel something. My writing philosophy is collaborative, empathetic, and humanistic. At the end of the day, no matter the message, there are real people on both ends of the process.


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So, What Exactly ARE the Benefits of Influencer Marketing? https://www.theshelf.com/insights/benefits-of-influencer-marketing/ https://www.theshelf.com/insights/benefits-of-influencer-marketing/#respond Thu, 13 Jul 2023 04:00:00 +0000 https://www.theshelf.com/?p=16708 Everyone says exercise is good for you, but if we’re not seeing results, we won’t want Toto drag ourselves onto the treadmill. Influencer marketing is no different. If you want a strong, healthy campaign for your brand, it’s impossible to ignore the benefits of influencer marketing.  Let’s face it, old school, traditional marketing is dead.…

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Everyone says exercise is good for you, but if we’re not seeing results, we won’t want Toto drag ourselves onto the treadmill. Influencer marketing is no different. If you want a strong, healthy campaign for your brand, it’s impossible to ignore the benefits of influencer marketing. 

Let’s face it, old school, traditional marketing is dead. Consumers are too smart to be wooed by scripts. Instead of the feel-good factor, consumers crave transparency. We’re officially in the era of influencers, and they are experts in engaging with their online communities. A well-executed influencer marketing campaign will increase brand awareness, grow reach, and drive sales. It’s time to experience these influencer marketing benefits for yourself.

Listen to an audio recap of this post.

What Is Influencer Marketing 

The nfluencer marketing industry may still be a budding, but the art of influence is as old s time. The foundatios of influencer marketing are built on trust and relationship- two things that have always been vital to mankind. This dates back as far as prehistoric times, when primal humans depended on the knowledge and influence of their alpha leaders to guide them to food and safety. This still happens today, although the the conversation is happening virtually. Social media is the online party that everyone’s invited to, and 4.59 billion people are showing up on these online platforms. 

More specifically, influencer marketing is a form of word-of-mouth marketing where brands hire social media creators who have expertise and influence in specific areas to talk about the various benefits of the brand’s offerings..

If you want to learn more about the ins and outs of influencer marketing in detail check out our article, “What Is Influencer Marketing.” 

Is the Industry All That And a Bag of Chips? 

It’s easy to see celebrities or top influencers repping certain brands and question whether it impacts consumer behavior.What’s the catch? Is this industry legit? Or,does it leave more to be desired??

The influencer marketing industry is like one of those magic water growing toys where you just don’t think it can get any bigger, but then it does. It was valued at $13.8 billion at the end of 2021, a steep incline from  $4.6 billion in 2018. 

Like the classically nostalgic toy, the industry continues to grow and is predicted to exceed $24 billion by 2025. The influencer marketing benefits are irrefutable and irresistible. 

The ROI for influencer marketing is $5.78for every dollar spent. Returns like these shows us that influencer marketing benefits (and revenue) have the potential to be uncapped for both brands, and the influencers they parter with.

Influencer Marketing Hub reports that a jaw-dropping 90 percent of their respondents believe it to be effective, and 72 percent believe they receive higher quality customers with influencer marketing campaigns. 

93 percent of marketers are already use Instagram to grow their brands- and for good reason. This growth is universal asplatforms like TikTok or Twitch are gaining more attention from big brands as a place to maximize the benefits of influencer marketing. 

One of the reasons why influencer marketing is growing so quickly is because it levels the playing field. t’s not just celebrities and big brands that are capitalizing on the effectiveness of  this sector. Small businesses and micro-influencers are starting to lead the charge as the industry continues to grow into ‘all that’ and many more bags of chips. Check out these influencer marketing statistics for a deeper dive into the influencer marketing world. 

Top 3 Benefits of Influencer Marketing 

We know that there many more than 3 influencer marketing benefits, these are the ones that are making the biggest waves. 

Influencers Are Large and in Charge 

We entered the influencer era because influencers are the ones that the world is looking to. Consumers are starting to prioritize them over celebrities and beyond. 

Consumer purchase intent went up 5.2X for influencer content like a tweet, compared to that of a brand’s at 2.7X. Social media users are listening to influencers and care about what they eat, wear, say, and consume. 

Forbes wrote that “92 percent of consumers trust an influencer more than an advertisement or celebrity endorsement. It’s not about follower count, or celebrity status.-consumers care most about authenticity. 

The benefits of influencer marketing are propelled bythe influencers. They are the experts in engaging youraudience. Because of their ability to inspire action and create high-quality content, they remain the driving force for winning campaigns. 

It’s a widely accepted belief that success leaves clues.  This is true in every part of the life (including the marketing process). Check out these influencer marketing best practices that are sure to give your campaigns an edge. 

Effective Targeting That Works 

A niche influencer is someone that creates content for or about a specific area of interest. For example, vegan oatmeal recipes or iPhone photo editing hacks would be niche topics on social media. 

Just as you create customer personas for your brand, influencer accounts are rich in specific groups of people that you’re looking to appeal to. You can get a taste of the benefits of niche marketing and finally start meeting your perfect customers. 

Instead of casting a wide net with print media or other traditional formats, influencer marketing offers more precision as you can find your ideal consumers and share your message through a person they already know and trust. 

More Time and Cost Effective

Influencer marketing is fast and affordable on multiple fronts. 

Production is more budget-friendly as you outsource it to influencers that include this in their fees. While this can still be a sizable expense, it’s not as big as hiring out your own photoshoots or hiring celebrities. Many influencers will also work for free products, especially micro-influencers, making your budget negotiable. 

While a traditional commercial may seem like a wise marketing choice, they’re often expensive, take longer to go live, and are skipped by tech-savvy consumers. Over 42 percent of internet users claim to use an ad blocker. However, consumers welcome influencer content and actually seek it out, making it a must for your influencer marketing campaign. 

While a lot of influencer marketing is transactional or a one-time exchange, long-term partnerships can extend the influencer marketing benefits for both parties. It’s a sustainable approach that may involve frequent collaborations with an influencer that results in a wide range of content and general promotion all-year round. 

And, above all, this influencer marketing benefit results in higher return because interest and engagement are just higher. The people want influencer content, so meet them where they’re at. 

Top 3 Objections to Influencer Marketing 

Just as there are so many influencer marketing benefits, there are also some caveats or disadvantages of influencer marketing.

Influencer Selection Can Make or Break You

Finding influencers that align with your brand is everything. Thirty-four percent of brands struggle to find influencers. It’s hard to navigate the various platforms and find the ones that match your brand, while also avoiding the “fake” accounts. Yes, Tinder isn’t the only place you can get catfished. 

For many, hiring out a third-party to take care of this can optimize your time and energy, which is where we would come in and pair you with your influencer soulmates. 

“The Agency’s Technical Guide to Influencer Selection,” is another great resource for looking deeper into the qualitative and quantitative data that accompanies influencer selection. 

Management and Tracking Takes Work

Tracking and staying on top of influencer marketing is no easy task. Each influencer has varying levels of experience, professionalism, or styles when it comes to how they want to work with you or showcase your brand. 

Fifty percent of marketers struggle to manage everything from deadlines to contracts within an influencer campaign. Surprisingly,  33 percent don’t even bother measuring their influencer marketing ROI. 

Social media platforms and different softwares are making it easier to track and manage influencer marketing campaigns. However, many still struggle with analyzing and staying in front of the data as they measure the benefits of influencer marketing. 

Lack of Forethought and Goal-Setting Will Hurt You 

While many want to jump right to finding the influencers for their marketing campaign, it’s not that simple. There’s a lot more that goes into an influencer marketing strategy

Your marketing goals should be a guide for your selection process whether that be the influencer, platform, or type of content. You want to create a solid foundation at the start to ensure you know what your desired outcomes are so you can review and adjust your efforts along the way to receive all of the benefits of influencer marketing. 

Get your frequently asked questions about influencer marketing answered and learn more about common pitfalls or concerns when it comes to the industry. 

What Else Should You Know About Running Influencer Campaigns? 

Influencer marketing can transform a brand. This symbiotic relationship between influencer and brand has the ability to revolutionize reach, engagement, profit, and more. There are many pros and cons of influencer marketing to keep in mind as you build your strategy. 

Remember that authenticity reigns supreme. Video is what consumers want. User-generated content (UGC) is your best friend. And, influencer selection is critical to your campaign’s success. 

Staying up to date with trends or platform algorithms isn’t easy. Selection, tracking, and managing your campaigns may prove to be a challenge, but ultimately worth it in the end. Trial and error can be devastatingly expensive. Tap in with a great agency with a pool of influencers that specialize in different niches across multiple platorms. Don’t be afraid of a trial and error approach.

In this multi-billion dollar industry, the influencer marketing benefits far outweigh the potential obstacles you may face. It’s time to take to influencer marketing to give your brand the boost it needs to thrive.

Reaping that ROI

Are you positioning your brand to get the best ROI on its ad dollars? Every brand reaches the point when influencer marketing no longer becomes optional if it wants to stay relevant. Has your brand reached that point in it’s growth? Need help deciding? Schedule a strategy call!

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