Choosing the right influencer can sometimes feel like speed dating. You’re constantly trying to see if you and the other person are a match. For 3 in 4 marketers running influencer campaigns, influencer selection is still a bit of a mystery. If you’re still wondering if you’re doing the whole influencer sourcing thing right, we’ve got you covered.

What Is Influencer Selection?

Influencer Selection is a process of identifying the qualities and proficiencies an influencer needs to successfully help brands reach their marketing goals. In short, it’s the process of choosing the right influencers. Not all influencers will be a good fit for every campaign. Effective influencer partnerships take some doing.

The influencer selection process is often easier when you have an influencer sourcing tool (like our proprietary influencer marketing platform), or better still, you have access to an influencer discovery team (like we have here at The Shelf ). That’s mainly because choosing the right influencer requires you to look at quantitative data about the influencer, qualitative data about an influencer’s content, and behavioral data about the influencer’s audience to determine if a creator has real influence with the audience the brand actually needs to reach.

Yeah, it’s a lot. And it’s a pretty big deal for your campaign!!

Picture it:

Your brand is looking to run your first influencer marketing campaign that sells a competitively priced athletic shoe. For this campaign, you’re targeting shoppers over the age of 40 who are lower-middle class and more swayed by price than brand name. They’re tightening their belts this holiday season and planning to make fewer purchases, but they’re gung-ho about shopping. Choose the right micro-influencer avatar(s) that would work for this campaign:

Influencer One

Jill, a 55-year-old CFO, runner, and self-proclaimed “common sense fitness” guru. Jill is active. On IG, half of her feed is Jill in different outfits. The other half of her feed is a mix of candid pics and Stories of Jill and her partner or Jill and her friends out and about. She reserves TikTok for the kid in her – hopping on trends and creating bodyweight workout videos and reworking popular cooking videos with healthier substitutions.

Influencer Two

Erin, a 42-year-old recently divorced mom of 4 is transparent enough to walk her audience through her big life change. She’s navigating single parenthood, downsizing a bit, and even talked about recareering. She talks through her experiences as a form of self-therapy on TikTok. She’s active in that she spends lots of time outside with her kids and her dog, as evidenced in her IG feed, but exercise isn’t really her thing. She has enough on her plate.

Influencer Three

Jakob is a 60-year-old, lone wolf-type poker enthusiast and adventurer who never married but has done well in real estate. Jakob is a silver fox who does quite a bit of sailing and traveling. He loves posting his “Jake vs Jake” physical challenges on TikTok. His entire IG feed is made up of the people he meets and the places he visits on his travels and adventures. 

Erin is the most like your target audience — someone who is busy, budget-conscious, and needs a comfortable shoe that will last. 

But of the three, Erin probably wouldn’t be the best choice for your campaign. While Erin is your target audience, Jill and Jakob are a bit more aspirational and more likely to deliver a higher entertainment — and maybe even educational — value. 

The Power of Influencer Partnerships in Your Marketing Strategy

For the sake of everyone being on the same page, let’s answer the question that still gets asked by Googlers tens of thousands of times every month: what is an influencer?

Brands seek out influencers because influencers know how to connect with and relate to their audiences. They are masters of messaging, and they’re great at cutting through the noise and zeroing in on exactly what their audience wants and needs to see and hear.

Influencers are not:

• Your in-house marketing team having their third meeting with Legal this month

• Boxed in with preconceptions of the kind of marketing that really drove sales for your product in the past

• Members of your content team, trying to make sure every piece of content fits somewhere in the funnel or doubles as a marketing asset.

Influencers are:

• Independent creatives who are experts at using content not just to come up with cool messaging, but also to facilitate authentic connections and memorable experiences for their audiences 

In essence, they’re the true maestros of crafting exceptional content that can infuse your brand with a layer of depth often unattainable by your internal team. This is precisely why brands join forces with them.

But…

Navigating the complex world of influencer sourcing and influencer selection can be a daunting task. Scratch that. Choosing the right influencer can be a full-blown headache.

As brands and marketers strive to create impactful influencer campaigns, the one thing they have to do to ensure their campaign delivers is learn how to find the right influencer partners. That means overcoming a variety of different challenges – fake followers, brand safety issues, content rights, rising costs…  

So, let’s talk about it. I want to use the next two or three minutes to shed light on key insights to help you make informed decisions and create authentic influencer partnerships that resonate with your audience.

Influencer Selection Trips Up 75% of Marketers

The journey toward successful influencer selection begins with understanding the hurdles that brands often face. According to a report by Mediakix:

• 50 percent of marketers have trouble identifying which influencers have fake followers
• 38 percent of marketers are troubled by rising influencer costs
• 28 percent say maintaining brand safety and brand alignment is problematic, and
• 18 percent say they have trouble making sure sponsored content meets FTC regulations and requirements

Source: Mediakix

These statistics underscore the need for a strategic approach to influencer selection. Brands can’t rely on choosing influencers based on follower counts. And we’ve gotten beyond just looking at alignment, values, and engagement ratios.

The heck?

So how do you choose the right influencer partners? Yep. That’s the question that troubles 3 in 4 marketers as they’re crafting their influencer campaigns.

The Different Types of Influencers

What are the different levels of influencers? The influencer marketplace breaks down into five influencer tiers – mega/celebrity influencers, macro-influencers, mid-tier influencers, micro-influencers, and nano-influencers.

Each type of influencer can support your efforts on multiple fronts. We actually did a pretty thorough breakdown in a recent post on influencer tiers, but just to recap…

Mega/Celebrity-Influencers (1M+)

These are the Beyonces and Kardashians of the social media sphere that are often household names. This tier is typically the most expensive and makes up a small fraction of the global influencer network. They also come with lower engagement rates since their audiences are so large. It’s a pretty sure bet that some people are just following the influencer because so many other people are following, and not necessarily because they have anything in common with the influencer.

While celebs may seem like the cream of the crop when it comes to enhancing your brand’s exposure, the numbers tell us that it isn’t so simple. A larger following doesn’t necessarily equate to a larger profit margin next quarter. Why? Well, because choosing the right influencer depends on more than follower count alone.

There are plenty of other factors and countless variables that can complicate the influencer selection process.   But these variables also deliver opportunities for brands to hyper-target their influencer campaigns. 

Macro-Influencers (300K – 1M Followers) 

We like to classify macro-influencers as those who are experienced and often create full-time or have some form of representation. They are often well-versed with the industry standards and what’s expected of both parties. This influencer tier is especially great for those who want to maximize their brand’s reach. 

Mid-Tier Influencers (50K – 300K)

The mid-tier is an in-between influencer that may be working toward becoming full-time. They often boast higher engagement rates than their high-tiered friends. You can expect these influencers to ask for more than a product exchange and they’re fairly familiar with the industry. 

Micro-Influencers (10K – 50K) 

The micro-influencer tier is where you’ll see a more diverse range of experience among influencers. Some may be pricey and experienced while others may be less familiar, charge less, or place a higher value on getting free products to supplement their rates, which generally start around a few hundred dollars per post and can easily climb to $5K per post. Pretty wide berth, right?

One of the great things about micro-influencers is they typically have higher engagement rates, making them a good investment if your goal is to get audience members to take action. 

The industry has already caught on to the potential of influencers with smaller followings, which is why Influencer Marketing Hub found that there was a 300 percent increase in the number of micro-influencers used by large firms from 2016 to 2020. 

Nano-Influencers (1K – 10K) 

Nano-Influencers pose an interesting opportunity as many know their followers in real life and typically have larger engagement rates. While you want to be sure that there is an intent to influence, this tier can be extremely beneficial to your marketing efforts as the level of trust between the influencer and followers can often be higher. 

We actually created an encyclopedia on this stuff…

The Complete Guide to Influencer Marketing

Here’s What to Look for In an Influencer Partner

Now we know who’s who. You’re one step closer to choosing the right influencer. Awesome! But how do you whittle down a pool of 50 million influencers? And how do you separate those with large followings from creative partners who can actually get their sizable audiences to take actions on your behalf?

I’ll tell ya.

Your influencer selection process essentially dances to the rhythm of your campaign goals. What’s the scoop with your campaign? Why are you launching an influencer marketing crusade right now? If you’re aiming to rack up more app downloads, you might fancy the idea of tapping into micro-influencers who rock those engagement stats (we’re talking comments, saves, sticker taps – not just the old thumbs-up). Throwing in a big-league influencer could also be a smart move to draw more peepers to your product and give your brand’s popularity a nice boost.

Or perhaps you’re eyeing the throne of thought leadership. In that case, you’ll want influencers who groove with your niche or boast industry wisdom – it’s like picking the right ingredients for a recipe that’s uniquely yours.

Stir things up by diversifying. Maybe you’re all about opening new chapters in your brand’s story by stepping into untrodden markets. Think about introducing bachelors to some swanky dog chow or getting multitasking moms to make a vitamin swap.

Whatever floats your boat – whether it’s app downloads or mom’s secret vitamins – these dreams of yours hold the key to shaping the qualities of that “perfect influencer” for your gig.

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Streamlining Your Influencer Selection Criteria 

Whether you hire the best influencer agency (us ), use an influencer marketing platform, or create your own system, there is a need for alignment between your brand (product, voice, values, message) and the influencers you select. Remember, choosing the right influencer is not just about high follow rates. Even though the macro- and mega- influencers have massive followings, adding “celebrity” to your lead growth campaign for your software company doesn’t necessarily translate to big bucks, even though doing so could make your campaign more memorable. 

It’s not just relevance and context. It’s more like synergy. We know, it’s the buzzword you can’t escape. It’s building harmony between two parties who are working together to share a message. 

Just as you might be familiar with building out personas for your customers, it can help to take a similar approach for your influencers. How old are they? Do they have a family? How often do they post? What do they like to do for fun? Have they recently become freakishly good boxers? 

Let’s streamline the influencer selection process by identifying your influencer selection criteria. These are the data points you need to know to make influencer sourcing data-driven.

Gather Demographic Info on Influencers

Most macro-influencers and many micros will already have an influencer media kit that provides brands with information about the influencer’s reach, engagement ratios, blog traffic, and audience size. But you also need a significant amount of data on the influencer that typically falls under the heading of demographic/quantitative data. Think:

• Age
• Gender
• Marital status
• Family size
• Race/ethnicity
• Background
• HH income
• Location
• Language

Include Performance Data

In addition to identifying the type of person you want to bring in for your campaign, it’s also a good idea to make sure the person wants to be an influencer. This is important true for nano-influencers who may just be super likable and grow followers quickly, and not necessarily interested in becoming influencers. Choosing the right influencer requires the creator to see themself as an influencer.

Performance data is an important part of the influencer selection process. Aside from just talking to influencers to find out if they’re interested in your campaign, you can also find out a great deal of info ahead of time by looking at performance data. Look at metrics like:

• Follower count
• Reach (because algorithms show the content of creators who have engaged audiences)
• Engagement ratios
• Types of engagement (likes vs comments vs saves vs sticker taps vs swipe-ups)
• Platforms on which influencers are most active
• Topic, quality, and frequency of posts
• Previous partnerships
• Authority

Don’t Forget About the Quality of the Content

A lot of marketing teams would stop there and use the qualities listed above as the criteria around which they build their entire influencer campaign. But there are also qualitative markers that will be crucial to creating a sticky campaign that resonates with consumers. Pay attention to:

• Storytelling
• Entertainment value
• Quality of content
• Audience sentiment
• Level of creativity
• Values
• Relatability
• Influencer personality
• Lighting
• How they engage with followers
• Aesthetic (still comes up; not nearly as important as it was before 2020)

Choosing the right creator for an influencer partnership is not a perfect science. It includes reviewing data that’s both quantitative and qualitative. Just as you want to pay attention to engagement rates, location, age, and budget, you also want to consider their overall aesthetic, content quality, and values. You might conduct some research into their work or even look to their other partnerships to help you discover whether your brand would make sense with their overall message. 

While spreadsheets can help (and we definitely use spreadsheets when it comes time to calculate influencer rates — or what we think they may end up being), there’s a level of critical review that feels more holistic as you find the right partnerships. Below is a recommended list of factors to consider for each influencer. 

Effectiveness and Actual Influence

The influencers you select need to be able to craft targeted sponsored content that can reach the specified audience. Be mindful of the influencer’s skills and where they shine. If they specialize in makeup flat lays for Instagram, you wouldn’t want to ask them to create a video of them using the products on YouTube or TikTok. Understand their style. Can you imagine your brand messaging fitting in with their content seamlessly?

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Analyze Audience Behavior 

This is a BIG one, and too many brands skip audience analysis at the expense of their campaign ROI. The reason influencer marketing continues to grow is because of how it can influence behavior. If a creator can’t influence the behavior of their audience, we don’t actually call them an influencer. And it may be that some influencers are only influential when it comes to certain topics. 

What kinds of hashtags do they use? How are they using emojis? (There is such a thing as boomer emojis.) What kinds of brands do they post about? What kinds of brands do they wear? Mention? You can often tell if an audience skews young or if it comprises a segment that would respond to different messaging or a different product altogether. 

Take note of how their audience interacts with the content for insight into the type of individuals involved. Everything from hashtags to the jokes they make can help you understand information like age or other interests.

The influencer’s followers need to be engaged and match your brand’s target audience. Otherwise, your message may fall into the online void of doom. 

Consider the Influencer’s Goals

It’s also important to remember that influencers have a checklist they’re running through on their end to determine whether the brand is a good match for them and their personal brand. While you’re choosing the right influencer, they’re choosing the right brands. Consider micro-influencers like Sophia (@svvphia). When asked what she looks for in brand partnerships Sophia said:

“It’s always great partnering with brands I feel I really align with, especially those whose philosophy revolves around reducing their carbon footprint, commitments to giving back to their community and diversity (in the workplace and the creators they collaborate with), using durable and smart packaging, and price points that reflect the above.” 

The perfect influencers for your brand and specified campaign are out there, it’s just a matter of alignment. 

Practice What You Preach 

Influencers work hard to build their brands and their audiences. It makes sense they’re super particular about the brands they choose for partnerships. For an influencer, being connected to a brand that’s fallen from grace or that says and does things that fall outside of the influencer’s value set is the fastest way to lose followers and future partnership opportunities.

Skrrrrt!! Back Up and Pause on Entertainment Value

Entertainment value often gets overlooked amidst the hustle and bustle of brand strategies. While the brand team hones in on value propositions, benefits, and features, the legal team keeps a watchful eye on communication balance. However, these elements alone won’t captivate users or push your sponsored content up the algorithm ranks. Let’s break it down:

For the younger generation, platforms like TikTok have become go-to TV. Consider this: the average 18-24-year-old in the US spends a solid 54 minutes watching traditional TV. Yet, in a world of multitasking, the TV usually isn’t their sole focus when they’re watching.

On the flip side, the same demographic spends a significant 79 minutes daily on TikTok. The difference might not seem colossal, but it’s all about the trend. Year after year, traditional TV viewership drops while engagement on short-form platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram soars.

What’s driving this change? Social media platforms are captivating audiences with engaging and entertaining content, and the results are undeniable. They have been successful at keeping users engaged for longer and longer periods of time.

Let’s get straight to the point. No matter what message you’re conveying, it needs to be packaged within content that’s educational or, more importantly, entertaining.

Consider this: Salesforce recently released data indicating that the shopping journey spans an average of nine different channels. This contrasts with the long-held notion of seven touchpoints. We’re not talking about seeing something seven times. We’re talking about nine different channels.

This shift highlights two significant factors:

1. A seamless shopping experience across various platforms, encompassing both digital and physical realms, is now a must.

2. Collaborating with content creators capable of sparking interactions across multiple platforms is pivotal.

Personal example: my 9-year-old daughter isn’t concerned about where Mr. Beast appears; she’s watching the content. Similarly, I won’t pass up a Trey Kennedy video, regardless of the platform.

In a world where entertainment rules and consumer journeys traverse multiple avenues, ensuring your content is engaging and captivating holds the key to sustained success.

Influencer Sourcing: Finding Social Media Influencers

You might be thinking “Okay, I get the gist, now how do I do this?”

Use an Influencer Platform

There are multiple approaches for both influencer sourcing and influencer selection. You might use an influencer marketing platform. This will allow you to filter potential influencer candidates by their demographics, categories, or performance metrics.

The real deal here is how that platform actually populates influencers. Are influencers curated by people and added to a database? Or do influencers join as part of a network of creators from which platform users can then source potential influencer partners?

Our platform uses AI to automatically add potential candidates to our database as soon as they achieve nano-influencer status on any single platform. Yes, that’s tens of millions of content creators. Then our influencer discovery team does the heavy lifting by using campaign requirements and client goals to shortlist potential candidates. Finally, our clients review their options and provide feedback.

Working with Agents

Agents can be a way to work with one professional that represents a variety of influencers for easy communication. We’ve worked with tons of agents to negotiate the terms of an influencer’s participation in a campaign. You’re almost always going to be working with an agent for megas and celebrities. Just keep in mind that creators who are represented by agents tend to be pricier than those who aren’t.  

Doing Your Own Influencer Outreach

You can also create your own influencer outreach strategy to contact influencers. (This link goes to a post that includes templates, too — just an FYI.) But I’ll say this:  Using a platform can save you time and energy as you can usually narrow down your search and apply filters for a quicker selection process. 

Before you reach out to influencers, you want to be clear on what you’re looking for. Be professional and relatable. And make sure that the influencer is a reasonably good match for your campaign. Influencers hate it when brands reach out blindly, without bothering to do any research ahead of time. Choosing the right influencer means doing your homework first.

If the opportunity feels too open-ended or doesn’t make sense for what the influencer does, you might find yourself in a string of rejections that never make it to that first date. 

Just as there is a funnel for consumers as they become customers, you may take a similar approach to influencer matching and relationship building. Some may feel like a long-term strategy where you’re warming them up to become brand ambassadors as opposed to hitting KPIs in the short term with a one-off campaign. 

Hire An Agency

If you have the budget, you will probably want to hire an agency to run your influencer marketing campaign. Choose one with a track record of performance. This should include influencer marketing case studies that you can see and verify and preferably an agency that specializes in creative strategy. The agency is the go-between that translates your marketing goals into creative concepts. As long as they choose the right influencers, they’ll have no problem guiding creators to make content that converts. That means more amazing content you can use across channels and at different points of your sales funnel.

We actually have an entire guide on how to choose an influencer marketing agency. You can download that one here.

Good Influencer Partnerships Require Ongoing Relationship Building

For those looking to take on the long game with their favorite influencers, be sure to focus on how you can build a meaningful relationship. Flattery will get you everywhere in life, but not if it’s lacking in heart and doesn’t feel real. Don’t just comment “cool,” on all their posts. Get specific and determine what it is about the influencer that attracts you and your team. How does this align with your brand? Be willing to share your genuine thoughts. 

If you’re just starting your outreach program, consider looking for influencers who are already obsessed with your brand. Your number one fans pave the way for the types of loyal partnerships that will help your influencer marketing strategy.

Searching for Influencers in Your Niche

Google Alerts and exploring hashtags can help you find influencers as well. Starting conversations and building relationships organically can take more time. But it can also help you be more thorough as you’re vetting influencers. Get a feel for who they are beyond vanity metrics like follower counts and Likes. Some may even set up interviews or work to create more involved partnerships depending on your brand’s values and needs. 

As an agency, there can be a lot of people working behind the scenes for a campaign. Try to ensure that each influencer you select has one point of contact. This will minimize confusion and enhance the relationship for both parties. Be mindful of the types of relationships you want to build. You may seek out both short- and long-term influencers to work with, depending on your campaign goals and your influencer selection process.

Consider casting a wide net, as not every influencer may be jumping at the opportunity to work with you. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but the truth is that these influencer partnerships should benefit both parties. 

Not everyone is going to love you. But the ones that do are going to be able to share their authentic experiences in a genuine way with their followers. That is what you want. Try to welcome the rejection. It helps you get one step closer to that perfect match. 

Refine Your Process

Your system will probably evolve as you start to complete and track your campaign efforts. You should routinely update your pool of influencers as you track campaign progress and document their performance. Be mindful of feedback as you work with your team and partnerships to help you adjust your system as needed. 

Your campaigns are going to change with the needs of the brand, which means you are constantly selecting influencers. You want to stay open to new people and opportunities that can help you routinely meet your campaign goals. Sometimes the influencers from your last campaign are not going to be the best choice. 

Be sure to document progress, concerns, and more with each influencer. This will help you determine if you want to continue working with that person or if you’d rather bring in someone new for the next campaign. 

Treat Influencers as More Than a Number

Influencers are a hot commodity for everyone’s marketing efforts. But they also don’t always like to be treated like just a number. As you build and foster these relationships, consider small adjustments. Making these at the beginning of your selection process can help the partnership feel more special and intimate. This can encourage more interest on the influencer’s part as they feel more invested as you interact with them as a representative of the brand. 

If the budget doesn’t allow for additional gifts or more pay, look to handwritten notes or kind words in your interactions to deepen their emotional connection to the brand.  

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Final Thoughts on Influencer Partnerships

In a world where entertainment rules and consumer journeys traverse multiple avenues, ensuring your content is engaging and captivating holds the key to sustained success. Influencers craft content that adds a unique layer to your brand. They navigate various platforms, captivate audiences, and embody the spirit of authenticity brands crave. So, it’s important that you’re able to choose the right influencers for your campaign. That means tightening up your influencer sourcing and influencer selection strategies.

The post Influencer Partnerships: The Agency’s Technical Guide to Choosing the Right Influencers appeared first on The Shelf Full-Service Influencer Marketing.

How Gen Z Socials

Let’s take a look at the social media habits of Generation Z and the role social media creators play in influencing their buying decisions.

How Much Time Does Gen Z Spend on Social Media?

The average Gen Zer spends about three hours a day on social media, with more than half of them spending 4 or more hours on social media every single day. While they’re not huge proponents of doom-scrolling, or even of using social as their go-to for work, Gen Zers rely on social media for leisure – using it for entertainment and connection.

Using Social Media as the Great Connector

Generation Z’s relationship with social media goes beyond entertainment and just having something to do. Social media platforms are integral to their daily lives, serving as spaces for self-expression, connection, and information sharing.

They know what’s up when it comes to the latest online trends, from viral challenges to the coolest filters. And they’re all about keeping it real with genuine connections that they initiate, foster, and nurture on social often before transferring those relationships to the physical world.

For Generation Z, social posts aren’t a highlight reel like they were for Millennials. For them, social posts are more akin to a continual stream of consciousness or their train of thought – a connection point.

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. They look for authentic and relatable content, valuing transparency and open dialogue.

This generation’s online trends revolve around inclusivity, empowerment, and social activism, as they leverage social media to amplify voices, drive conversations, and champion causes that matter to them.

Gen Z Social Media Platforms: Where They Hang Out and Why

When it comes to their favorite social media platforms, one stands tall above the rest: YouTube. Pew Research reveals that a staggering 95% of Gen Z teens between the ages of 13 – 17 use YouTube, making it the undisputed champion among teenagers. In fact, 19% of teen YouTube users admit to being constantly glued to the platform, which just further cements its significance as a go-to platform for Gen Zers.

Sidebar… YouTube is also a favorite with Gen Xers and Boomers.

But YouTube isn’t the only platform that captures the hearts of Gen Z. According to SproutSocial, 81% of Gen Zers have a fondness for Instagram and YouTube as their preferred social networks of choice. These platforms provide them with an outlet for self-expression, connection with others, and access to a vast array of content.

Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat are the Hot Spots

When it comes to other popular social media platforms, Instagram steals the spotlight, with 62% of teens claiming to use it regularly. It secures the third position for teens’ most used platform, with Snapchat closely following at 59%. For 15% of teens, Snapchat is their go-to app – they’re basically on it all day long.

Gen Z Is In the Metaverse

Beyond just your run-of-the-mill social media apps, Gen Zers and their older counterparts, Millennials, are the most likely generations to spend time in the metaverse, according to Influencer Marketing Hub. The YouTube Trends Report revealed that socializing with friends and playing games are the most popular activities for Gen Zers when they enter this virtual realm.

So to recap: YouTube reigns supreme, Instagram remains a vibrant hub of self-expression, and the allure of the metaverse beckons. While Gen Z may be skeptical of social media as a trusted news source, they still rely on it daily for updates and connections.

Gen Z Preferred Content Formats

Gen Z has its own unique preferences when it comes to consuming content on social media. That means if you’re looking to engage with this tech-savvy generation, ya gotta know how to reach them on their own terms. So, let’s discover what type of content Gen Z prefers. 

It’s All About Short-Form Video for Generation Z

If there were a single content format that we’d say Gen Z was responsible for popularizing, it would have to be short-form video. Short-form video has taken the digital world by storm, and that whole trend pretty much started with Gen Z on Musical.ly and then TikTok. 

That Time Gen Z Made TikTok the Hot New Thing Everybody Was Doing

TikTok exploded during the pandemic and went from being a short-form video app teens were using to post 15-second dance challenges to being the most downloaded app in history. Seemed like EVERYBODY was on TikTok.

The following year (2021), Instagram launched Reels, a similar short-form video platform very much like TikTok that was [probably] low-key designed to stop the mass exodus from IG to TikTok. Then, like now, TikTok had INSANE reach and engagement while Instagram’s reach and engagement had been dropping drastically for years .

Unlike IGTV which was a separate Instagram app for long-form video content, Reels was an on-platform feature very similar to TikTok that Grammers could use to create, edit and post short-form video. The only major difference was that Instagram’s algorithm worked differently (which we’ll get into in a bit).

Nevertheless, in a very short time, all the major social media platforms were prioritizing short-form video content. Pinterest had Idea Pins; YouTube had Shorts. Even LinkedIn prioritizes short-form video content on mobile.

But that’s how impactful short-form video was and is for both content creators and those of us who are avid video watchers. According to the 2022 YouTube Trends Report, nearly 6 in 10 Gen Zers (59% of them) use short-form video to discover things they later watch in longer versions. These bite-sized videos provide a quick and entertaining way to catch their attention and leave them wanting more.

Gen Z x Podcasts: Audio Is an Important Format for Gen Z, Too

In a world dominated by social media and constant connectivity, Gen Z is always on the hunt for refuge and many take comfort in podcasts. Young listeners are turning to this medium for relaxation, escapism, and staying informed about the latest topics and social issues.

According to the Gen Z Podcast Listener Report  conducted by SXM Media and Edison Research, the number of Gen Z monthly podcast listeners between the ages of 13 and 24 years old (the oldest Gen Zers turn 26 this year, just an FYI) has increased by 57% over the last five years.

Approximately 24 million Gen Zers, or 47% of this demographic, have engaged with podcasts in the past month. Of those who are monthly podcast listeners, 75% listen to a podcast at least once a week.

To put this in perspective, there are about 66 million Gen Zers in the US, give or take. Of the ones who fall between the ages of 13 and 24 years old, 24 million of them listen to podcasts at least once a month, and 18 million of them are weekly podcast listeners.

Let’s break it down further:

• 80%  of 13-17-year-old monthly listeners are also weekly podcast listeners
• 72%  of 18-24-year-old monthly listeners are also weekly podcast listeners

This surge in podcast popularity can be attributed to a couple of different factors, including the trend of celebrities and influencers expanding their audiences and reach by adding podcasts to their content library.

Intimacy + That Personal Touch

Podcasts offer an intimate and personalized experience for Gen Z listeners, unlike other forms of media. Media scholar Henry Jenkins explains that podcasts are designed to be listened to on earbuds, creating a more personal connection between the listener and the content. This intimacy, combined with the focus on the human voice, allows podcasts to serve as a storytelling technique, making listeners feel like they are having a conversation with the hosts. As a result, podcasts provide a unique escape from the overwhelming noise of corporate media dominance.

Are Podcasts a Healthier Alternative to Social Media?

One thing worth noting from the Gen Z Podcast Listener Report is that podcasts offer a welcome contrast to social media in terms of emotional well-being. Over 80% of Gen Z listeners use podcasts for relaxation, escapism, and gaining a better understanding of their own feelings. This is important because a significant number of Gen Zers believe that social media has negatively impacted their emotional well-being. That feeling, unfortunately, is backed by sound science. A report by the McKinsey Health Institute highlights that spending more than two hours a day on social media can have detrimental effects on Gen Z’s mental health.

While the average Gen Zer spends 21 hours a week on social media platforms, of those who listen to podcasts at least weekly, 39% spend five or more hours listening to podcasts per week, and 22% spend 10 or more hours a week listening.

But the tie between social media and podcasts goes a bit further. According to the Gen Z Podcast Listener Report, 44% of podcast listeners 13 to 24 years old discover podcasts on social media, either by seeing something about the podcast in their feeds or through an influencer or someone they follow on social.

That’s not insignificant and just one more reason to focus your efforts on building omnichannel marketing into your influencer marketing strategy.

Do Podcasts Influence Gen Z Spending?

Yep. Podcasts not only provide a respite from social media but also have a tangible impact on Gen Z’s consumer behavior. The Gen Z Podcast Listener Report reveals that four in ten podcast listeners ages 16 and above have made a purchase after hearing a podcast ad, while one in three has asked someone to buy a product for them after hearing it advertised in a podcast. #thatpart

So, if you’re wondering if podcast influencer marketing and podcast marketing are effective methods of reaching Gen Z…  yes.

Visual Elements Matter

Overlays, visual effects, and stylized content should be a top priority. These eye-catching elements have proven to be marketing gold for both influencers and brands alike. They add a touch of creativity and make the content more engaging, attracting the attention of Gen Z and leaving a lasting impression.

And the Quirkier the Better

Both Gen Z and millennials have a particular affinity for quirky, quick, and high-quality content. They enjoy content that stands out from the crowd, captures their imagination, and provides a unique perspective.

So, if you want to connect with Gen Z, don’t be afraid to infuse your content with a dash of quirkiness and ensure it’s easily digestible.

How Gen Z Stays Up on Current Events

This Generation values staying informed, and not just grabbing a bunch of intel, but also being able to leverage it to share or impact outcomes.  So, it makes sense that Gen Z would turn to social media for news. While social media plays a crucial role in the lives of Gen Z, their trust in it as a news source is somewhat shaky .

Interestingly, despite the prominence of online news outlets, 60% of Gen Z still place their trust in newspapers (believe it or not).  And they consider social media the least reliable news source, followed by podcasts and cable news networks.

If they don’t consider it reliable, how is social media still a primary go-to for news? The answer is simple – UGC. While the narratives published by larger media outlets tend to elicit a side eye, a lot of breaking news now comes by way of eyewitness accounts that people post to their social feeds.

A good example of this is ATLSCOOP, an Instagram account that classifies itself as a community ( important, right? Because of who the audience is), not a publisher.

And much of the content that ends up in their feed is user-generated content from IG users who are finding situations and breaking news out in the community, posting pics or videos, and tagging @atlscoop in their posts.

Gen Z Content Themes

When it comes to social media content, Gen Z has their finger on the pulse of what’s trending and what captures their attention. This influential generation embraces a wide range of themes and trends that reflect their diverse interests and desires. Let’s explore the fascinating world of Gen Z’s social media content preferences and discover what makes them tick.

The Big Chill

You would think youth would automatically be about high energy, a fast pace, and quick pivots. But the math on that just ain’t mathin’.  In fact, the opposite is true. Gen Z teens and young adults are more thoughtful and slower to act. They value comfort, peace, and chill mode.

Check this out:

• 83% of Gen Zers have sought solace in soothing content on YouTube, using it as a way to relax and cope with the pressures of life. From ASMR videos to calming nature scenes, they turn to social media to find moments of tranquility amidst the chaos.
• A staggering 90% of them have watched videos that transport them to a different place. Whether it’s virtual travel experiences, immersive storytelling, or vicarious adventures, Gen Z craves content that allows them to explore new worlds without leaving the comfort of their screens. These videos provide an escape from reality and fuel their thirst for discovery and curiosity.
• 69% of Gen Z say they return to creators or content that feels comforting to them.

Horror Content

Perhaps the other extreme is true as well in that 53% of them are drawn to online horror content, showcasing their fascination with the macabre. Whether it’s creepy stories, eerie videos, or spine-chilling experiences, they find excitement in exploring the darker side of the internet. So, if you’re looking to captivate Gen Z, don’t shy away from embracing the spooky and supernatural.

Online Community-Building Adventures: From Fandoms to Fashion Trends

Gen Z is all about embracing their passions and expressing their support for their favorite people and things. The majority of Gen Zers – a whopping 61% of them – proudly describe themselves as HUGE fans of one thing or another. Whether it’s a favorite band, an iconic TV show, or a talented creator, they wholeheartedly invest themselves in their fandoms.

Now, let’s step into the metaverse, where socializing with friends and playing games reign supreme. These two experiences have emerged as the most popular activities within virtual realms. Gen Zers gather with their friends, both old and new, to engage in lively conversations, explore virtual environments, and embark on gaming adventures together.

The metaverse has become a digital hangout where communities flourish, bonds deepen, and shared memories are created. What’s the metaverse, you ask? It’s like a digital wonderland where virtual and real worlds collide. Picture yourself exploring immersive virtual environments, attending virtual events, and interacting with avatars. Gen Zers are drawn to this cutting-edge concept, where the possibilities are endless and the adventures are boundless. 

Let’s play some games! According to YPulse, a whopping 88% of Gen Zers and 70% of Millennials regularly engage in gaming. Whether it’s console games, mobile apps, or online multiplayer adventures, gaming has become a significant part of their online lives. They immerse themselves in captivating storylines, conquer virtual challenges, and connect with friends through shared gaming experiences.

Fashion is another powerful thread that weaves Gen Z’s online communities together. A striking 60% of Gen Zers say they can replicate any fashion trend… on a budget. They’re savvy shoppers who have grown up during a time of economic uncertainty. So they know how to find affordable alternatives to popular trends and create their own unique styles.

Individuality is also an important theme, but for the content they consume and for the content they create. From thrift store finds to DIY fashion projects, they embrace their individuality and showcase their creativity through their outfits, ideas, and talents. Online platforms become their runway, where they can inspire and be inspired by fellow fashion, gaming, farming, music, (fill in your hobbies here) enthusiasts. 

Comfort Zones

Now, let’s talk about what keeps Gen Z coming back for more. A staggering 69% of them say they return to creators or content that feels comforting to them. Whether it’s heartwarming stories, relatable experiences, or familiar faces, they seek comfort and authenticity. 

And a Chance to Have Their Say

When Gen Zers land on your posts or websites, they want to do something. They want to tap, swipe, and click their way through the experience. Younger customers crave interactivity and engagement. So, make sure your content provides opportunities for them to take action and be a part of the journey. Whether it’s polls, quizzes, or interactive videos, give them the chance to participate and make their mark.

Gen Z x Social Media – a Distinctive Combination

The generation representative of young adults has pivoted away from many of the behaviors marketers have grown to recognize as pretty standard as it relates to young people and how they use social media. Gone are the days of painstakingly curated feeds and putting every purchase to a vote within your social network. Gen Z social media preferences and behaviors center around authenticity, individuality, and connection.

Instagram is the new phone number. The socially-driven algorithms that power Stories and DMs allow Gen Zers to rely on social media to build relationships that extend beyond the digital world. They are conscientious about engaging with content that promotes self-awareness, fairness, and relaxation. They’re about their grind, but only as a means of securing their financial futures, not for the bragging rights. The point is this – if you’re going to be successful reaching Generation Z on social media, you’re gonna need to know how to do it. An we can help.

Ready to -hole on all things Gen Z? Check out Gen Z catalog.

The post Gen Z Social Media: How They Use It and the Content They Want to See appeared first on The Shelf Full-Service Influencer Marketing.

What Is Influencer Marketing?

First, let’s give this post some context with a definition for Influencer marketing is a form of word-of-mouth marketing in which brands hire influencers (social media content creators) to promote the brand and/or its products to the influencer’s followers.

Unfortunately, we also need to clarify what “hire” means as well because there are a lot of fake brand ambassador programs that claim to work with influencers. In reality, a lot of those programs are run by shady internet companies trying to get kids to buy expensive leggings and then offering a 15% off coupon code for so-called ambassadors. Not that.

Hiring an influencer means a brand pays the influencer to provide a service. Sometimes that payment is in the form of free products, but most brands are paying in some form of currency.

Successful creator marketing has lots of moving parts, but the process is pretty much the same: structure your influencer campaign to achieve a specific set of goals, bring the right group of diverse influencers to create compelling branded content around those goals, and run that campaign on the social channels your target audience is using.

Download How To Set Goals for Your Influencer Marketing Campaign.

Influencer Marketing Is Growing in Popularity

Influencer marketing is a rapidly-growing industry that’s expected to surpass $21 billion by the end of 2023. To put this in perspective in 2016, the influencer marketing industry was worth $1.7 billion, according to Statista.

Influencer Marketing Hub reports that 82 percent of brands that have a standalone content marketing budget are allocating marketing spend to influencer marketing as well. Upwards of 35 percent of brands that say they’ll run influencer campaigns are planning to spend $100,000 or more in the next year. That’s pretty significant.

The Challenges Marketers Face with Their Campaigns

Influencer marketing presents a unique set of challenges for marketers. On the one hand, 90 percent of the marketers polled say influencer marketing is an effective means of reaching buyers. On the other hand, 67 percent of brands say influencer fraud is still a major concern for them, 61 percent say finding the right influencers for their campaigns is hard, and many brands still find it challenging to predict and even measure influencer marketing ROI.

With so much to gain and so much to lose, how do you ensure your influencer marketing campaign delivers results beyond sponsored posts? How do you structure campaigns to get engagement? Or use it to build your catalog of marketing assets? Or get people to click over to your online store or become new customers? (Real question: how many Likes do we have to get to increase sales??)

Lots to think about, right?

Hang on… before you set out to learn all the things about influencer marketing, I want to establish that influencer marketing is a great deal more science than art (or they’re 50/50, at the very least). Despite its reputation for being the “wild west” of digital marketing, the best ways to run an influencer campaign are data-driven, fact-backed, logical processes to achieve predictable outcomes.

So, here are some influencer marketing best practices you can leverage to ensure that everything about your campaign, from the selection process to the content creation to the campaign hashtags, helps your customers move through your sales funnels. Read on.

#1 Work with a Team That Knows How to Work with Social Media Influencers

Be a brand made up of PEOPLE, for goodness sake! Influencer marketing is almost exclusively about people. MOST of the process of actually launching and managing an influencer campaign revolves around collaboration and communication. So, you MUST have a team of people in place who are good with people.

You’ll need the folks on your team who know how to research influencers and conduct influencer outreach in a way that makes influencers feel like your company would be a good fit for an influencer partnership. You’ll need to negotiate influencer rates fairly so you don’t end up being blasted in threads, forums, and podcasts for being a brand that underpays influencers.

Or one that has unresponsive account managers. Or a company that’s been hit hard by the Great Resignation.

Or a brand that’s packed to the rafters with entitled keyboard warriors who’re always sending rush emails in all caps only to be slow to respond when it’s the brand’s turn to engage. (And yeah… ALL of that is a good enough reason for influencers to publicly tear you a new one and advise other creators against working with you).

After you dodge all of that craziness, you’ll still need someone on your team who can work shoulder-to-virtual-shoulder with influencers to create the content that will help your campaign get the best results. All that to say, you need people on your team who are good with people.

#2 Build ROI-Driven, Goals-Focused Influencer Campaigns

So, the influencer industry has matured to the point where most marketing teams are aware that they need to set goals as part of their influencer marketing strategies. What do you want your campaign to accomplish? Your campaign goals determine how you structure your influencer campaign, who your influencer partners will be, and the metrics you’ll monitor to determine the success of your campaign. So, early on, you need to clearly identify the KPIs that matter most for this campaign activation.

#3 Build Campaigns That Target Every Part of Your Funnel (life after brand awareness)

One of the ideas we like to impress upon our clients is that an influencer marketing campaign is intended to be used as part of a larger marketing push. That said, you can craft campaigns to target prospects who are in different parts of your sales funnel.

Which means…

You don’t have to limit campaigns to top-of-funnel brand awareness pushes on Instagram, or explainer videos to help those mid-funnelers on Pinterest, or YouTube unboxings and reviews to get those clicks from your affiliate marketing push. You can and should create campaigns for every part of your funnel.

#4 Select Influencers Based on Predetermined Criteria (Beware of vanity metrics)

We’ve written several posts on the importance of influencer selection. Supercritical to your campaign that you get this right. Ideally, you’ll want to partner with someone who’s already talking about your brand, or who, at the very least, has shown an interest in your industry or niche. Beyond that, here are a handful of things to consider when you’re finding the right influencers for your campaign:

• Is there an alignment between your brand and the influencer’s values?
• Does the influencer seem as if they themselves would be interested in buying your product?
• Does the influencer’s creative style compliment your brand?
• Does the influencer have a track record of professionalism and (fingers crossed) a portfolio of content they’ve successfully created for other brands?
• Is the influencer responsive when you reach out to them?
• Is the influencer active on other social media channels? When you analyze their content across other channels is it consistent? Are there brand safety worries?
• Does the influencer create content often, and do they respond to follower comments?
• Does the influencer have a strong presence and following on any channel that supports a longer life cycle for content (such as blogs, Pinterest, YouTube, podcasts)?

#5 The Right Influencer Has Followers Who Are Either Already Your Customers or Likely to Become Your Customers

Secret sauce time. Part of what makes our campaigns work so well is that we spend a great deal of time analyzing an influencer’s followers as a normal part of the influencer selection process. There should be a considerable amount of overlap between your target market and an influencer’s audience.

We like to analyze whether the data suggests there’s a significant segment of the influencer’s audience who would be prospective buyers for our brand clients. Influencers influence in specific areas ( important), right?

So, the best influencers for your campaign are those who have the credibility to be able to talk to their own audiences (i.e. your customers) about the various benefits of your product and know that there are members of their audience who would find that info valuable.

#6 Tailor Influencer Outreach to Reflect Where Your Prospects Are in the Buying Process

Another influencer marketing best practice worth mentioning in this post has to do with influencer outreach. The key to successful influencer marketing campaigns is understanding how to structure campaigns to achieve specific results, right? Well, that also means knowing where your prospects are in the sales process and customizing your campaigns to help them move to the next stage.

For instance, let’s say you’re partnering with 50 or so Instagram influencers for a year-long campaign. In the spring, you launch a campaign with a handful of macro-influencers to spread the news about a new product and to really get your brand name out there.

In the fall, you work with a group of mid-tier influencers who can vouch for your product, give some cool use cases, and do a few explainers. During that campaign, you do a bit of whitelisting to help you really zero in on the types of people who are showing an interest in your product and who will likely be interested in buying your product when the holiday season rolls around.

When October finally arrives, your goal is really to drive your customers from social media to sales pages – maybe to get coupon codes, or take advantage of VIP offers, or get on your email list so you can nurture the relationship in the weeks leading up to Black Friday. That’s when you call in the influencers who are most adept at generating engagement – micro-influencers and nano influencers.

These guys may have smaller audiences, but that smaller audience gives them room to get in there and have important conversations about their followers’ pain points, solutions that have worked, solutions that have fallen short, and of course, your product.

#7 Negotiate Content Rights In Writing Before an Influencer Marketing Campaign Begins

Hey, friend, I just gotta tell ya: you (the brand or agency) have ABSOLUTELY no rights to the content an influencer creates until and unless you negotiate content rights. Doesn’t matter how much you paid the creator for their services, you still have to ask an influencer’s permission (and likely pay a premium) to use or reuse the final product.

So, negotiate content rights on the front end, not after you see that a post is performing well and you think it would be great for a paid ad. Tsk. Tsk.

#8 Repurpose As Much Content as You Possibly Can

When you have the rights to your sponsored content (also known as influencer-generated content or user-generated content), you can put a Gary Vee-level content marketing strategy in place to repurpose and reuse the influencer-generated content that comes from your campaign.

Brands like Gymshark and Shein rely on user-generated content (UGC) to populate apparel pages on their sites. Unlike the days when our moms got those Newport News catalogs delivered with the same 5 beauties modeling every outfit, audiences want to see a little more variety in the models. And influencer-generated content can deliver tons of variety without your creative team having to spend long days in a photography studio.

Our account managers always advise influencers to take multiple pictures with different lighting, from different angles, and even in different settings to give brands a nice selection of images from which to choose campaign content. If you’ve negotiated content rights, not only will you have access to that influencer content, but you’ll be able to use it across your own branded channels, and even in ad campaigns.

#9 Use Concepts to Tie Together Content (to keep from getting a bunch of content that looks the same)

One of the hallmarks of influencer campaigns in previous years is that brands would choose influencers who were all kind of the same – same demographic profile, same psychographic profile, same overly-curated IG feed, and often with the same color schemes in those feeds.

Call us weird, but even if you grab up the best influencers in the world, if they’re all stylistically the same, you’ll end up with dozens or even hundreds of pieces of content that all look the same. You’ll severely limit your capacity to reach your target audience like this.

Three years ago, during the Great Reckoning of 2020, the lack of diversity in the influencer marketing industry, and especially among companies that partnered with Instagram influencers, sparked global debates and sent brands scrambling for cover, trying to right all their marketing wrongs.

So, how do you keep your influencer marketing campaigns from going off the rails aesthetically if you’re not bringing on multiple influencers who all sort of create the same type of thing?

Your concepts!

At The Shelf, we have creative strategists who are freakishly good at providing influencers with a framework for their creativity, not by micromanaging, but by threading unifying concepts throughout a campaign. That way, no matter if it’s a single holiday campaign or a year-long campaign with multiple activations, all the content fits together without being the same. Eclectic vs chaotic. Fine line.

#10 Expand Your Influencer Marketing Strategy to New Channels

We know – it’s almost as if Instagram invented influencer marketing (it didn’t). While 3 in 4 influencer campaigns will run on Instagram in 2022, there are tons more social networks and content channels that are great for influencer marketing.

For instance, you can reach tech-savvy influential young men on Twitch. And people who are engrossed in watching the live stream of the life of a New York bike messenger (way more captivating than you may think).

Personal care brands can grab the attention of beauty fans on Pinterest while they’re watching the weekly Manny Gutierrez live stream.

The fitness community has a pretty large presence on the platform as well – the perfect place to source influencers for health and fitness brands that want to run influencer campaigns.

Or grab college kids with YouTube placements as they’re knee-deep in synchronized midterm study sessions.

Then there are times when an Instagram feed wouldn’t be the best place for your product. Maybe your product is a bit too complex to be understood in a pretty pic.

Podcast influencers can do a good job of explaining the benefits of your weird thing. The goal is to figure out where your audience is hanging out online and come up with creative ways to reach them.

So, as you’re planning your campaign, incorporate the marketing channels that would not only reach your audience but also provide the best stage for your brand and product to shine. AND remember that most people are on more than one social network.

#11 Keep Up With Trends

It’s so important to keep up with influencer marketing trends. Something that seems as insignificant as the background music in a video can lead to an alignment or [cringe] a misalignment with your target audience.

Keeping up on new developments on social media platforms can help you leverage new features as they’re released (and before they’re saturated and super over). You can also jump on new monetization strategies as they’re rolled out. So… Even if there’s just one person on your team who’s in charge of trendspotting, make sure your team actually has that person.

#12 Analyze the Right Metrics

Occasionally, we’ll see marketing managers go off the rails about the low conversions when their deck specifically asked us to build an awareness campaign. Happens, right?

The fix for this is structuring campaigns to achieve the goals you want them to achieve then knowing which influencer marketing metrics are the most important indicators of campaign success for the campaign you build.

Over the past 18 months or so, many brands running influencer campaigns have shifted from running campaigns for brand lift to wanting clicks and website traffic from an influencer marketing campaign. It’s important for marketing teams to know that brand lift is a specific campaign with its own set of criteria and click-focused is another campaign type.

That said, success is measured by different sets of criteria. With A brand lift campaign, the important KPIs include reach, engagements, and brand mentions. A click-focused campaign requires you to look at swipe-ups, link clicks, increased traffic to your website or campaign landing pages, and even sales.

So, during the process of rolling out an influencer campaign, figure out which KPIs you’ll need to hit and structure your campaign in a way that allows you to accurately measure your success.

Influencer Best Practices Help Your Marketing Campaigns Hit KPIs

We typically don’t think of it this way, but the best practices for influencer marketing are custom-made to help brands achieve better ROI from influencer marketing and from their overall digital marketing pushes. So, don’t think of these as a set of hard-and-fast rules where the FTC’s shaking a finger (although…). Instead, think of them as success tips for really being able to experience the benefits of influencer marketing – getting the BEST ROI from your influencer activations.

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 build your brand and get your audience to do a thing.

The post 2023 Influencer Marketing Best Practices appeared first on The Shelf Full-Service Influencer Marketing.

Keep reading! We’ll cover the ins and outs of the brand ambassador vs influencer marketing debate.

So, what is the difference between an influencer and a brand ambassador? First things first. To understand the differences between brand ambassadors and influencers, we first need to understand what they are.

What is a Brand Ambassador?

A brand ambassador is someone who agrees to represent your company and promote your products or services to their social media followers. The most valuable brand ambassadors already love your product, your brand, and your whole vibe… and they’re typically pretty influential and well-connected. Think in terms of bloggers, social media personalities, or celebrities. They make fantastic brand advocates.

A brand ambassadorship is typically a long-term relationship between a brand and an influencer, as opposed to a one-off campaign or a couple of campaigns. The ambassador may be paid, receive FREE products as compensation, or both.

Now, this isn’t a situation where some random e-comm weirdo DMs a teenager and says, “If you buy three pairs of our expensive leggings, you can be a brand ambassador and get allll the rest of our expensive leggings 30% off.”  That’s a friggin’ coupon code, not an ambassadorship (we get really annoyed at fake ambassador programs).

Usually, brand ambassadors have a different payment structure than influencers. Instead of being paid for posting a single piece of content, they receive compensation each time someone uses your link or code to buy something from the company. Meaning, ambassadors get ongoing compensation for their ongoing services.

One of the key benefits brands enjoy when working with brand ambassadors is that these ambassadors will already have an established relationship with their audience. This means that when creators promote your products and services, their followers are more likely to listen and take action. Additionally, because brand ambassadors are typically industry experts or thought leaders, their endorsements can go a long way in building trust and credibility for your business.

Now, let’s just circle back to the fake ambassador program situation. The victims of these scams are being convinced that by buying and wearing a certain brand’s clothing, they will be considered for the position of official brand ambassador. The only perk to this “job” is that the teens get to keep the clothes they were “gifted”….except they bought these items.

The “employer” in this case is usually a scam artist, looking to make a quick buck by selling clothes to unsuspecting teens. The best way to protect yourself and loved ones from these types of scams is to be aware of them and do your research before getting involved with any brand ambassador program.

What Is An Influencer?

An influencer, on the other hand, is anyone with the power to influence the actions (and especially the buying decisions) of others because of their authority, knowledge, position, or relationship. Social media users seek them out for their expertise.

Unlike brand ambassadors, who have a long-term relationship with a single company, influencers typically work with multiple brands and promote products as part of their regular content strategy. For example, a popular beauty blogger may feature a new skincare product in their monthly favorites video, or a travel influencer may mention a new luggage brand in their packing tips blog post.

Types of influencers

It may seem like everyone is calling themselves an influencer these days, but the group of creators who engage on social as influencers make up only 1 percent of social media users. We typically divide influencers into five types based on the sizes of their audiences: There are several types of influencers, the most common being: mega-influencers, macro-influencers, mid-tier influencers, micro-influencers, and nano-influencers.

• Mega Influencers – are often global brands themselves who have parlayed their offline celebrity into online influence (and vice versa). They typically have tens of millions of followers.
• Macro Influencers – have between 300,000 and 1,000,000 single-platform followers. Most macro-influencers are well-known internet stars, most of whom earned their fame online first, and gained their following by creating enticing content, usually across multiple social channels.
• Mid-tier influencers – Mid-tier influencers have between 50,000 and 300,000 single-platform followers. Weirdly, they aren’t always thought of when brands are doing influencer selection, even though they have sway with tens of thousands of social media users.
• Micro-Influencers – have single-platform audiences that range from 10,000 to 50,000 followers or so. Micros are the cool, up-and-coming social media stars that everyone wants to know and be friends with. Why? ‘Cause they’re cheap dates and know all the trivia. (Haha)
• Nano-Influencers – have between 1,000 and 10,000 or so followers. Very influential, highly engaged, and typically have a tight-knit community of followers. One caveat: nano-influencers are only classified as such if they actually have intentions of being one.

And Influencer Marketing Is…

Influencer marketing is one of the most effective forms of marketing, as it allows brands to tap into the networks of influencers to hyper-target their marketing to different segments of their target audiences. It’s so effective that 93 percent of marketers are currently using influencer marketing campaigns to grow brands.

The Right Influencers

Finding the ideal influencers for your campaign can be a challenge, but it’s important to take the time to find individuals who are genuinely interested in your products or services and who have an engaged following that matches/overlaps your target audience.

There are key indicators that must be in place if you want the perfect influencer for your campaign. Finding these alone can be daunting, but we’re here to help (our influencer discovery team is of the legendary variety). Here are a few non-negotiables that you should have in place.

1. The influencer should be able to nudge your brand toward its marketing goal with each post. They should know your target audience and be inclusive of them.
2. The influencer should have an engaged audience with a high level of followership in comparison to other social media users.
3. The influencer should produce gorgeous, high-quality content that would be a good fit for your brand.
4. You should see measurable success after working with the influencer, such as clicks, downloads, and a larger following.

Additionally, you’ll want to consider the overall type and aesthetic of an influencer’s content to ensure that it aligns with your brand. This is especially important if you’re targeting a specific demographic, such as millennial women. 

Also, you want the influencer to have been vetted and researched to prevent brand safety issues. Looking at follower counts, engagement ratios and content is great, but you also want to ensure you look at their other channels, how frequently they’re posting, the types of comments/feedback they’re getting from their audience and how they’ve responded to their audience. 

When in doubt, it’s always a good idea to start by looking at influencers who have worked with businesses similar to yours. This will give you a good sense of the type of content they produce and whether or not their followers might be interested in what your brand has to offer.

The Right Brand Ambassadors

Deciding to utilize the services of a brand ambassador is a huge marketing decision. After all, these are the people who will be tasked with representing your company in a positive light and helping to increase brand awareness and sales. But before you can start reaping the rewards of having a team of brand ambassadors on your side, you first need to make sure you’re choosing the right ones.

The best brand ambassadors are those who genuinely believe in your company and its products or services. They should be passionate about what they do, and their excitement should be contagious. Additionally, they should be knowledgeable about your brand and be able to speak confidently about it to others.

It’s also important to select brand ambassadors who are outgoing and have a loyal social media following. Ambassadors who can connect with potential customers and create a rapport are more likely to be successful in their efforts. And of course, you’ll want to make sure your ambassadors are good at promoting specials, discounts, and other promotional offers from your company.

Choosing the right brand ambassadors is the secret to the success of your marketing efforts. By taking the time to select ambassadors who truly believe in your brand and are excited about promoting it, you’ll be well on your way to achieving your marketing goals.

Similarities Between Brand Ambassador and Influencer Marketing Programs

While there are some key differences between brand ambassadors and influencers, there are also some important similarities. For example, both groups typically have large online audiences and can help you reach more potential customers for your business. Additionally, both brand ambassadors and influencers can help build trust and credibility for your business by endorsing your products or services.

Another thing the two have in common is that they both require a bit of time and effort to cultivate relationships. However, the rewards can be well worth it for your business. Repurposing the content created by influencers and brand ambassadors is a great way to populate your website, marketing emails, and paid ads with highly engaging, beautiful content. Something like 79 percent of consumers say UGC greatly persuade their purchasing decisions.

Differences Between Brand Ambassador and Influencer Marketing Programs

While brand ambassador and influencer marketing programs both have their benefits, there are also some key differences between the two approaches. Again, brand ambassadors typically have a longer-term relationship with your business and may be paid or receive products as compensation. Additionally, brand ambassadors are typically industry experts or thought leaders whose endorsement can help build trust and credibility for your business.

On the other hand, influencers tend to have even more social media followers than brand ambassadors and only promote products or services that they genuinely like or believe in. Additionally, because influencers carefully curate the content they share with their followers, they tend to have a very engaged audience. And finally, influencers often use multiple platforms to reach their audience—giving you even more exposure for your business. 

Elements of a Great Brand Ambassador Campaign

Creating a brand ambassador (BA) campaign can feel daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. Here are a couple of key elements that will help make your BA campaign dope AF.

First, you need to identify your target audience. This is critical because you want to make sure you’re reaching the right people with your campaign. Once you know who your target audience is, you can begin to develop a strategy for reaching them.

Next, you need to create some goals for your campaign. What do you hope to achieve? Do you want to increase brand awareness? Drive sales? Boost engagement? Once you know your goals, messaging and content that resonates with your audience can be created and help you achieve those goals.

Finally, you need to choose the right platform for your campaign. There are a lot of options out there, so it’s important to pick the one that makes the most sense for your business. If you’re not sure where to start, consider using a social media platform like Instagram or Twitter.

Elements of A Magical Influencer Marketing Campaign

An Influencer Marketing campaign can be a very effective way to promote your brand or product. Nearly 9 in 10 marketers say influencer marketing is effective, but, as with any marketing campaign, there are tons of moving parts, but certain elements must be in place for it to be successful. Here are some steps that can help answer the most commonly asked questionsabout how we create our magical influencer marketing campaigns.

1. A Clear Goal

The first step in creating a successful Influencer Marketing campaign is to have a clear goal. What are you trying to achieve with this campaign? Are you looking to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, or generate sales? Once you know what your goal is, you can create content and strategies that are designed to achieve that specific goal.

2. The Right Influencers

Not all influencers are created equal. It’s important to select influencers who are a good fit for your brand and who have a genuine interest in your products or services. Again, these influencers should also have an engaged following that is relevant to your target audience.

3. Choose The Best Platform

There are several different social media platforms that you can use for your Influencer Marketing campaign, but it’s important to choose the one that will work best for you. If you’re trying to reach a younger audience, Tiktok or Instagram might be the best platforms.

How Can We Help?

So what have you decided? Which marketing strategy—brand ambassador or influencer marketing—is right for your business? Should you choose ambassadors or influencers? At our agency, we specialize in finding the ideal influencers for your business and developing creative campaigns that achieve your desired results.

It’s time to build your next micro-influencer marketing campaign. Book a call with The Shelf to learn how we make the process simple and effective. Our influencer marketing services can help you run campaigns shaped by data-driven insights.

The post Influencer Marketing vs Brand Ambassadors: Here’s the Difference appeared first on The Shelf Full-Service Influencer Marketing.

Even if you’re not familiar with all the bells and whistles of Instagram and TikTok, you probably know more about influencer marketing than you think. Influencers and brand advocates have been endorsing products for more than 100 years. The history of influencer marketing dates back to at least the 19th century. 

Brands started putting friendly, familiar faces on packaging in the 1800s. Even before then, the Queen of England could influence buying power by giving a product or service her royal stamp of approval. 

To put it simply, an influencer is anyone whose opinion is trusted by those who follow them. This can include celebrities, public figures, bloggers, and now, of course, social media stars. They can even be fictional characters like Tony the Tiger from Frosted Flakes or Duo the green owl that acts as Duolingo’s viral mascot.

Launching an influencer marketing campaign today usually means turning to social media channels to find your audience and the influencers they follow. In this post, we’ll dig into exactly how you can set campaign goals and harness the power of today’s influencers to boost your brand.

Why Should I Start Influencer Marketing?

Before we dive into how to run an influencer marketing campaign, let’s start with why you should be spending your time, money, and energy on influencer marketing in the first place. More than 75 percent of marketers are dedicating their budget to influencer marketing this year — for good reason. This year, it’s a $16.4B industry alone. But why?

Consumers are tired of boring old ads and have outgrown their tricks. They don’t want to hear from companies who only have money to gain from them buying their products. They want to be exposed to products in a way that feels organic and not-at-all predatory. Especially as Gen Z consumers turn more toward ethical spending. 

The good news is 92 percent of consumers trust word of mouth over traditional forms of advertising. That means they’re more likely to buy a product recommended to them by a family member, friend, or peer than something marketed to them by a brand or corporation. And this trend seems to be here to stay. 82 percent of Gen Z trust word of mouth more than any other form of advertising. That’s especially powerful coming from the most online, tech-savvy generation. 

You may be thinking to yourself, but I’m a brand, not a trusted peer. That’s okay! The power of influencer marketing today is that you can hire influencers your target audience trusts to recommend your products in a natural way. 

The very best influencers earn the trust of their audiences because they feel like a best friend, older sibling, or trusted mentor — even on a large scale where 1:1 relationships between influencers and followers aren’t possible. That means you can spend your marketing dollars and capitalize on the consumer preference of word of mouth. 

How Much Does it Cost to Run an Influencer Marketing Campaign?

Depends. We certainly realize that’s not the answer you wanted to read – you probably want a number or range of numbers. But there are several important factors that go into pricing an influencer campaign:

• What sizes are the influencers you’ll need for your campaign? Larger influencers will cost more than nanos and micro influencers.
• Which platforms will your campaign run on? A campaign that includes YouTube will probably require a larger investment than an IG campaign that loops in Pinterest/bloggers.
• Which media formats will influencers need to create? Are these produced videos or raw short-form videos?
• How long will your campaign run? Is it seasonal? A year-long, always-on activation?
• Is it during the holiday season? There’s more demand for influencers around the holidays, so you’ll probably pay a bit more to partner with one.
• Then there’s factoring in the whitelisting budget, agency fees, and wiggle room for changes and additions to your campaign…

Many agencies have minimums

A small to mid-sized agency may require a minimum campaign investment of $25,000 to $50,000, or upwards of $100K minimum, depending on that influencer agency. And often, minimums are based, not on the size of the influencer agency, but on the size of the clients they serve. So, if you’re impressed by the logos on the logo bar on their website, wowed by case studies, or compelled to click by testimonials from people at Fortune 500 companies, expect that agency to have minimums in the six-figure area.

And influencer pricing can vary wildly

To be frank, influencer pricing is all over the place. The cost of an influencer who does brand deals exclusively through a management agency can differ wildly from an influencer who is completely self-employed. We’re starting to see more pay and rate transparency in the influencer world, but pricing is based on so many factors, it’s hard to streamline influencers with X amount of followers into any one single pay band. 

Expect to pay influencers based on followers, engagement, niche, platform, and the content format. Keep in mind that higher follower counts or pricing don’t always mean higher quality or greater ROI, and vice versa. This is why influencer selection is such a critical part of the process. If you’re starting out with a meager budget as you dip your toe into the world of influencer marketing, it may make sense to partner with smaller creators who will charge as little as $50 to $100 per post.  

It is possible to run your first influencer marketing campaign with a modest budget. You may be pleased to hear that the average ROI for an influencer marketing campaign is $5.78 for every $1 spent. So if you’re willing to put your money where your mouth is, you could have some big returns in store. 

Convinced yet? Let’s dig into the initial steps of running your first influencer marketing campaign.

What is the First Step in Launching an Influencer Campaign?

As with any marketing effort, your first step will be to establish your campaign goals. Setting goals for your campaign will help determine what type of influencer campaign you will run, who your target audience for the campaign will be, and which influencers you should partner with to get the most bang for your buck. 

Including setting goals for your campaign, there are five steps to creating a kickass influencer marketing strategy. You can use our strategy template to launch each new influencer marketing campaign you plan, but let’s run through the basics before you get started. 

STEP 1: ESTABLISH GOALS

Setting goals for your campaign is easy when you know what’s possible. Here are 18 possible goals for your first influencer marketing campaign.

1. Brand Awareness
2. Sales Growth
3. Product Reviews
4. How-To Videos
5. Ambassador Programs
6. Content Creation
7. Product Launches
8. Product Placement
9. Traffic + Clicks
10. App Downloads
11. Storytelling
12. Search Rankings
13. Distribution
14. Events
15. Follower Growth
16. List Growth
17. Always-On Initiatives
18. Ad Content + Videos 

STEP 2: IDENTIFY CAMPAIGN TYPE

Now that you’ve identified your campaign goals, it’s time to decide what type of influencer campaign will best help you achieve them. There are three major types of campaigns: brand awareness, content, and traffic/clicks. Once you’ve figured out your ideal campaign type, you can determine who your audience is for the campaign and which platforms will be best to reach them. 

STEP 3: FIND THE BEST INFLUENCERS

So you’ve got your campaign type, audience, and platforms figured out. Now it’s time to determine which influencers on each platform are right for your campaign. First, you’ll probably want to consider what size influencer to target. Influencers fall into five major tiers: 

Mega Influencers: 1M+ followers

Macro Influencers: 300k – 1M followers

Mid-Tier Influencers: 50k – 300k followers 

Micro Influencers: 5k – 50k followers

Nano Influencers 1k – 5k followers

Your budget will likely determine which tier influencers you can afford. Your campaign type will also dictate which audience size is best to target. For example, brand awareness campaigns are all about reaching as many eyeballs as possible, so macro influencers with highly engaged audiences may work best.

On the other hand, if the goal of your campaign is user-generated content, it might make the most sense to partner with several micro influencers with more niche audiences. 

Aside from size, it’s also very important to consider which creators will be able to best fulfill your influencer brief. The beauty of working with influencers is that when they create content centering your brand, they do it with their own creative flair. Make sure the content creation style of the influencers you select meshes well with your vision for the campaign and the overall brand. 

STEP 4: OPTIMIZE CONTENT

You’ve got the perfect influencers, and they created some truly inspiring content. Now what? It’s time to SCALE. Good influencer marketers wait and see how their content performs. Great influencer marketers promote, test, and optimize their content to maximize its potential.

It’s a good rule of thumb to keep a close eye on your reach and analytics for the first few posts of each campaign. You can even test messaging using the 24-hour story feature on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok. Once you identify what works, you can focus on promoting that content. 

Optimizing content can look like whitelisting, boosting, or utilizing dark posts. Each offers different benefits, but whitelisting is a particularly useful tool.

STEP 5: TRACK RESULTS

You absolutely, 100% must track your campaign results. As with anything, practice makes perfect. Your influencer marketing strategy is no exception. Your influencer marketing will get better over time because you’ll have learnings unique to your brand from each of your previous campaigns. Use these 7 seven metrics to see how your campaign is performing. 

How Do You Attract Influencers?

As we discussed earlier, finding the right influencers hinges on a variety of factors. So you’ll first want to make sure you’re targeting the right ones. Once you’ve established whether you’re looking to partner with nano influencers or micro influencers or if you’re going for the mega big fish like a D’Amelio or Kardashian, you can start courting specific influencers to work with your brand. 

It’s important to do your research and approach influencers with courtesy and professionalism. If you’d like an in-depth guide on how to reach out to an influencer, you can download our outreach guide here.

How Long Should You Run an Influencer Campaign?

One month is generally the sweet spot for the lifespan of an influencer marketing campaign. Most brands and agencies plan for campaigns to last anywhere from two to six weeks. After launching a campaign, you want to have enough time to see the performance of initial posts and optimize the best-performing content, so opting for a month is generally a good strategy.  

How Can I Expand the Reach of My Campaign?

Launching your first influencer marketing campaign is only half the battle. Once you’re up and running, you’ll want to get the most out of the content your influencers create.

You can expand the reach of your campaign by optimizing your content. Promoting content will always get it in front of more eyeballs than organic posting. As mentioned above, our current fave optimization tool is whitelisting. It allows you to run ads at scale and repurpose your influencer-generated content as a paid ad from your brand account. Whitelisting allows for specific retargeting so you can ensure your target audience will see it and you gather all the analytics from the post in one place. 

Boosting and dark posts are also good promotion tactics. Dark posts show up organically as ads in the feeds of your target audience. And boosting allows you to expand the reach of a singular post, which is great if you only have one post you’d really like to promote.

Does Influencer Marketing Still Work in 2023?

Hell yes. 

The influencer marketing world is alive and well in 2023. A whopping 90 percent of consumers believe influencer marketing is effective today. It’s no surprise that influencer marketing is projected to be a $90B industry by 2028. If you’re not in the influencer marketing game yet, it’s time to hop on the bandwagon!

To Wrap Up…

Launching an influencer campaign may seem daunting at first, but remember we’ve been influenced and influencing for years. Sure, word of mouth has migrated online in recent years, but that’s great news for you and your business. 

Here at The Shelf, we have everything you need to make your next influencer marketing campaign run smoothly. Whether you’d like to partner with us, or just need to glean the latest tips and trends from the blog, we’re happy to help.

I hope this helps you run your first influencer marketing campaign with the ease of a seasoned influencer marketer. If you’d like even more tools to run a kickass first campaign, download our goals book to get real about what you want to accomplish next.

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.

The post The 2023 Guide to Running Your First Influencer Marketing Campaign appeared first on The Shelf Full-Service Influencer Marketing.

Getting specific results that focus on different types of metrics depends on the way an influencer campaign is structured. The Shelf blog has several published posts on the different types of influencer campaigns – how to build Instagram influencer campaigns for clicks vs influencer campaigns for awareness.

Another way to tweak your campaign and the outcomes you get is to switch up the model you use for your influencer collab. But how do companies know which type of influencer collaboration to choose? In this article, we’ll compare six types of influencer collaborations so you can see which would suit your brand the best.

The Do’s and Don’ts of a Successful Influencer Collaboration

The digital revolution is here. Work, entertainment, and socializing have all shifted online. Social media use is up by over 40 percent since 2019. And by 2021, the influencer market was worth a staggering $13.8 billion. During 2020, 58 percent of social media users noticed an increase in influencer content. So, it’s no surprise businesses are including influencers in their marketing strategies.

In order for an influencer collaboration to work, it needs to feel authentic. Let’s say you’re a B2B marketing firm looking to promote your new course on high-velocity sales. Partnering with a marketing influencer would feel much more authentic than a fashion influencer. So, it’s important to choose influencers who share the interests and values of your target audience.

There are several ways to find influencers for your campaign, and the influencer selection process is critical for the success of your campaign. The nuances of finding the right influencers are important, but whatever way influencers are selected, you want to be able to compare different influencers based on things like:

• The number many followers they have
• How engaged their followers are
• How active they are on the platform and across other platforms
• How their content usually performs and how their followers respond to different types of content

If you’re thinking of collaborating with an influencer, there are a few do’s and don’ts you should bear in mind.

Do…

1. Have clear goals, objectives, and KPIs

Having clearly defined goals for your influencer marketing efforts will shape your campaign. Visibility, traffic, and conversions are top, so before you approach an influencer, you need to know:

• What you want to achieve
• How you want to achieve it
• How you’ll measure success 

Most camp

2. Provide an influencer brief

A good influencer brief introduces the influencer to your brand and provides clear guidance on the kind of content you’re looking for. An influencer brief tells the creator what is expected of them. Think: campaign ideas that are similar to what the influencer is already creating, but tailored to your brand and campaign needs.

For example, if you’re running a baby and parenting campaign, and you chose a mommy influencer who is very candid and open about motherhood, it’s smart to have a creative framework developed by your own creative team in which the influencer can craft her own content.

An influence brief gives the creator context for the campaign without trampling all over their creativity.

3. Tailor your approach

When it comes to doing influencer outreach, you can tailor your approach by using the influencer’s first name and referencing their work (which means you have to know their previous work, right?). If you don’t, they’ll know it, and that will put them off working with you. This is also crucial in order to create the best brief possible.  

4. Offer fair compensation

Whether you’re offering a fee or free products or services (about a third of brands running influencer campaigns want to pay influencers in freebies), you need to make sure it’s fair and competitive. After all, popular influencers get offers from brands all the time and they decline as many offers as they accept.

Just like any other job/career, influencers have semi-predictable rates that can be compared to industry standards, and most influencers have no problem negotiating for what they’re worth. And let’s face it – at the end of the day, you’re trying to woo them and leverage their talent to help your business, not the other way around.

5. Give the influencer time to prepare

When you approach an influencer, ask them how long they think the project will take. And remember: stellar content takes time to create. So, make sure to reach out with plenty of time, otherwise, their rate will go up for a speedy delivery or they’ll simply turn the offer down due to time constraints..

Don’t…

1. Don’t limit the influencer’s creativity

It’s important to specify the kind of content you’re after, but it’s also important not to limit the influencer’s creativity. The influencer knows their audience, so let them create the kind of content they know works best.

2. Don’t pitch straight away

Before you jump into your pitch, get to know the influencer. Building a connection will make it easier to tailor your approach later. And in the long run, it will make the collaboration smoother. 

3. Don’t expect instant results

It can take time for influencer collabs to pay off. It may even take more than one campaign. This is why doing your research and choosing the right influencer is so important. If you do your due diligence,it will pay off in the end. 

Types of influencer collabs

Now you know some of the general do’s and don’ts of influencer collaborations, let’s look at some of your options. 

1. Sponsored content

Sponsored content includes sponsored social media content and sponsored blog posts. Both can be effective ways of generating interest and driving sales and conversions. In most cases, a business pays the influencer a flat fee.

The pros and cons of sponsored content are:

Image Created by Writer

Sponsored social media content

An influencer (or influencers) posting about your brand is a great way to get shoppable content and boost sales. Instagram is the leading social media channel for sponsored content. In fact, 89% of companies say that Instagram is important for influencer marketing.

It’s important to specify exactly what you want in your influencer brief. Do you want posts with images or videos? Facebook or Instagram Stories? These are all types of sponsored content. 

It’s also important to include guidelines on disclosure. On most channels, #ad, #sponsored, or #promotion is acceptable disclosure, but it’s always good to review the current FTC guidelines regarding sponsored content disclosures.

Sponsored blog posts

In this case, a business pays an influencer to advertise their brand on their blog. Blogs tend to be trusted, so they’re a good option for businesses looking to attract customers. There are two main types of blog posts used in influencer marketing:

1. A dedicated post: This is a post on the influencer’s blog dedicated solely to your brand. 
2. A roundup-style post: This is a post that mentions several businesses. For instance, if you’re promoting your new business app, the influencer could include you in a post about the 10 best business apps. 

2. Guest blog posts 

Sometimes, influencers let businesses post content on their blog in the form of a guest blog post. In this case, the business creates the content rather than the influencer. It’s a bit like influencer whitelisting, which is when a business posts content on an influencer’s social media channels.

If this sounds like something that would work for your brand, first, you’ll need to check if an influencer allows guest posts. If they do, check their guidelines, and then pitch an idea in line with what they usually write about, but try to avoid sounding too promotional. Remember: the aim of a guest post is to write something informative. And don’t forget to include some links back to your website.

3. Brand ambassador programs 

These are also popular, though, they work best when you’ve already developed a relationship with the influencer. Brand ambassadors use and post about your product or service on a long-term basis. They can post content on their own channels or on a branded website with other influencers.

Brand ambassadors may also take part in company events and host giveaways. For example, a brand ambassador promoting video call software could host a giveaway where the winners get five free video calls with the influencer.

They are already loyal customers happy to promote the brand, so it’s an easy way to get brand awareness and even some conversions.

4. Giveaways

Giving influencers free products or services is a great way to boost brand awareness, too. Why? Because influencers can show their followers the great stuff you gave them! Most influencers do this on social media, but some have also taken the next step: buying a domain name. In this case, they can show off your brand on their website too.

Giveaways can generate lots of likes, comments, and shares. But they can backfire. The influencer might not promote you, or they might give you a negative review if they don’t like the product. So if you’re planning a giveaway, it’s best to work with influencers you already know.

5. Takeovers 

Takeovers are when an influencer takes over your social media channels for a day, week, or even month to create and post content for you. A takeover may not seem like an obvious way to promote your brand, but it can be surprisingly effective. Takeovers can boost your credibility, increase trust, and excite customers about your brand. An Instagram takeover is particularly popular, but it works on other channels, too.

If you’re planning a takeover, you need to work with an influencer you trust, especially if you’re planning a full takeover. A full takeover is when an influencer has complete access to your account. You can also do a partial takeover, which is when the influencer sends you the content to post.

Image Source

6. Affiliate Marketing

with Influencer collaborations with brands actually show up in your social media feed in a couple of different ways, one of which is affiliate marketing.

If you’re wondering “what is an affiliate program and how does it work?” – it’s simple. A company partners with an affiliate (such as a blogger or influencer) and pays them a commission. In exchange, the affiliate promotes the company to their audience. The affiliate gets paid, and the company gets customers. Win-win!

Image Created by Grace Lau, illustrated by Konstantin Smirnov

The Future: AR influencer collabs

The expected growth of augmented reality shopping paves the way for a whole new type of influencer collab. Augmented reality superimposes digital content over real-world environments. AR shopping is becoming more and more popular, especially “try-on” apps that let you try outfits on virtually or see how a new sofa looks in your space.

Try-ons could be a great way for influencers to promote a brand. They could ask followers to vote for their favorite outfit or which table they should buy. The possibilities are endless. 

Find what works for you

There are many types of influencer collaborations to choose from. Some – like takeovers and giveaways – work best with influencers you already know. Others work with any influencer. The main thing is to find what works for your brand so you can foster a productive relationship that brings you customers.  

About the Author

Grace Lau is the Director of Growth Content at Dialpad

Grace Lau is the Director of Growth Content at Dialpad, an AI-powered cloud communication platform with handy features such as crisp and clear UCaaS solutions and digital voicemail for better and easier team collaboration. She has over 10 years of experience in content writing and strategy. Currently, she is responsible for leading branded and editorial content strategies, partnering with SEO and Ops teams to build and nurture content. Here is her LinkedIn.ere is her LinkedIn.

The post Which Type of Influencer Collaboration Best Suits Your Brand? appeared first on The Shelf Full-Service Influencer Marketing.

Each category of influencer has its own advantages and some things that could end up being a liability when matched with the wrong campaigns.  We already explored the world of micro-influencers in a previous post, so let’s talk about the big guys – macro influencers.

What, exactly, is a macro-influencer?

That’s a little like asking 100 different people who the terms “rich” and “wealthy” mean. If you ask 100 people, you’re liable to get 100 unique responses.

It’s a little like that with nailing down exactly the number of followers someone has to have to go macro. Let’s be clear right from the start – we are NOT talking about big name celebrities here. No Kardashians or Jenners.

Macro-influencers are what I like to refer to as the “Goldilocks influencers”. Not too small, and not too big. They typically have a following that sits anywhere between 10,000 and 1 million followers – which does overlap somewhat with the definitions of micro- and mega-influencers too. While their engagement rates aren’t as high as their micro-influencer counterparts, they still pack quite a punch, as their audiences are still pretty made up largely of people who share a common interest. 

These influencers have large enough followings to be considered trendsetters and taste makers. They can give brands a wide enough reach to make an impact, while helping them stay within their budgets.

MACRO OR MEGA?

One point of confusion for many is where to draw the line between macro- and mega-influencers. These blurry separations are not surprising. Many celebrities are social media influencers by default. Legends – living or not – can accrue large social media followings. Nearly a decade after Michael Jackson’s untimely passing, the late icon’s Instagram account has more than two million followers.

Beyond celebrity status, one of the key differentiators between macro influencers and mega or celebrity influencers is the demographics of the follower. You can bet people from all walks of life, from different places on the map follow MJ’s account. But if you analyze the followers of a band with, say, 12,000 followers, you’re far more likely to see commonalities between followers.

While the Kardashian-Jenners are claiming upward of $500,000 per post that they send out to their tens of millions of followers, macro-influencers are significantly more affordable. 

Why We Love Macro-influencers (and you should, too)

Let’s get down to the question you really want answered here: Whether or not you should use macro-influencers in your marketing campaigns. There is a host of benefits that come with teaming up with macro influencers to boost your brand. Of course, macro influencers aren’t perfect for every campaign, but they have the reach to get your name in front of tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of people. And that’s pretty awesome.

So, let’s talk about some of these big benefits.

BRAND SAFETY

One of the major benefits of working with macro-influencers is that brands are able to achieve a higher reach than with micro-influencers, while still maintaining solid levels of control over the content and campaign. That’s a huge deal. Brand safety – maintaining the integrity of the brand – is crucial.

According to “The New Face of Luxury”, three in four luxury brands say maintaining exclusivity on social media is their biggest challenge. Brands face continual challenges with online advertising ensuring their ads aren’t presented during the display or broadcast of objectionable material – the primary offenders being violent content.

A good influencer relationship allows brands to leverage the influencer’s relationship with his or her followers while providing some guidance and a framework for influencers to create compelling brand-building content. Work with a smaller influencer, and the content quality might suffer, and go too large and you lose your ability to control – just one of the reasons micro-influencers make such valuable middle ground.

AUDIENCE

Macro-influencers give brands access to a large, targeted audience, ideal for brands looking to diversify their own following. These kinds of influencers can give your brand a boost and enable you to expand your audience in pretty a unique way.

While super-specific niche marketing is great for some, there are brands that will benefit more from a less streamlined audience. Take Coca-Cola for example – who is their audience? The majority of the United States population. If your product or brand is useful and marketable to a wide range of people, then your audience should reflect that too.

TIME

When trying to organize a campaign that uses smaller micro-influencers, you will usually need to partner with multiple creators to get the results you really need. Macro-influencers on the other hand have large enough followings that you can concentrate your campaign on just a handful of macro influencers instead of a few dozen micro influencers. 

Also, thanks to their larger followings, they will likely have worked with multiple brands in the past, and so the whole process will be more streamlined and swift.

EXPERIENCE

Macro influecers dont’ just happen. The audience is grown, the relationships cultivated through engagement. In order to grow an audience consistently as they do, macro influencers must have experience creating content that resonates with their followers. And brands can (and should) use that to their advantage.

This kind of experience level helps to ensure that your campaign has the best chance of success. They won’t be a green Instagram lover who doesn’t know all the ins and outs of a campaign, or the legal implications of what could go wrong.

BUDGET

More expensive than micro-influencers? Yes. But they’re a whole lot cheaper than trying to sign a celebrity advocate, we promise.

These influencers can extend your reach, your fan base and your bottom line – without blowing every penny of your marketing budget in the process.

Prices can range anywhere between $2,000 to $50,000 for a single post – all dependant on follower count, engagement, and influencer.

CONTROL

One problem when working with big name mega-influencers is that if something does go wrong, everyone will know about it. Now, hopefully nothing will go wrong with your campaign, but nobody is immune. I’m sure you’ll remember the fallout from Kendall Jenner and Pepsi’s partnership that ended in a large amount of people taking offence at their missguided advert. And events like the Fyre Festival have shown us just how dangerous it can be to have your campaign seen by the masses.

Working with macro-influencers is a great way to expand your reach to lofty heights, without risking as much as it would if you partnered with celebrities. A lovely middle ground.

Macro vs Micro – How Much Does Size Really Matter?

We’ve talked about some of the positives of using macro-influencers over micro-influencers in your campaign, but if they were always the better choice, everyone would use them, right?

Macro-influencers are great in many ways, but so are the little guys. So, how do you know which is best for your campaign?

USE MICROS TO BUILD TRUST

While it may not be very fair, it’s certainly true that most people online trust smaller voices over larger ones. So if your brand  is trying build a high level of trust from your followers, macro-influencers may not be the best way to go.

Since many macro-influencers also tend to do more brand partnerships than micro-influencers, followers may be more sceptical about whether or not they really love the products they talk about, or if it’s all about the money.

USE MICROS IF YOU WANT TO KEEP THINGS SIMPLE

Bigger influencers are also more likely to be working with PR firms, agents, or managers. This small road bump can make the outreach process a little more complicated as you’ll have to go through other people to get to the influencer themself.

Smaller influencers won’t have these kind of obstacles to get through when opening communication, which can make getting them onto your campaign much easier.

USE MACROS TO MAKE MEASURING ROI EASIER

The big one for most marketing campaigns is being able to effectively measure the ROI of your efforts. Working with macro-influencers makes it easier to measure that ROI, than working with smaller accounts.

Giving your chosen influencers a specific offer code or site link is a great way to do just that. And with the increased traffic that macro-influencers can bring your brand, you’re bound to see the kind of results you’re looking for.

With smaller influencers, your goals need to be slightly different. Their lower follower counts means they are not usually the best vessel for bringing in high amounts of traffic or sales. They are more useful when working towards increased brand awareness in a specific niche, or building a specialised, yet trusting, audience.

USE MACROS TO PUSH AWARENESS

You’ve probably heard all about the recent changes to Facebook’s algorithm (and if you haven’t, you should read our article all about it by clicking here), and those changes are sending ripples throughout the world of digital marketing.

The change is shifting focus from business pages to meaningful conversations and real interactions – which is great for influencers. If you team up with an influencer who has a high following and a high engagement rate, more of your influencer’s followers will see your post. 

And while it may only be Facebook that is taking this path right now, it likely won’t be long before other platforms follow suit and try and push out business pages in favor of individual interactions.

Picking Your Macro Influencer

So the decision has been made, and you’re going ahead with your search for the perfect macro-influencer for your campaign. But, what do you need to consider when selecting them?

ENGAGEMENT RATES

The bigger the influencer, the lower the engagement rates. And while this is true most of the time – you still need to ensure that your chosen influencer is bringing in enough engagement to make your partnership worthwhile.

Having a higher following is great for expanding your reach, but without the engagement numbers, you’re not going to see the kind of results you really want.

HOW DIVERSE IS THEIR FOLLOWING?

Micro-influencers are often championed for their super-targeted followings, but move into the world of macro-influencers and that following can become more and more diluted. Depending on your brand, and campaign goals – this isn’t always as bad as it sounds.

For example, if your brand comfortably straddles two verticals, then a more diverse following can be a great way to expand your customer base. Fashion and travel brands should team up with influential travel bloggers with a great sense of style; organic coffee brands should team up with lifestyle bloggers who focus on healthy eating. And this is why macro-influencers can be perfect – they have often built their following on more than one specific niche.

PLATFORM

Influencers operate across multiple platforms, so it’s worth figuring out which ones are best for your campaign. Each platform has a different audience, content style and potential, depending on your goals. So spending some time looking into where your target audience is hanging out online before reaching out to influencers is highly recommended.

It’s also worth looking into whether your chosen influencers are active on more than one platform. Being able to utilise multiple platforms, audiences, and content types can be a huge advantage. And teaming up some “in the moment” posts with evergreen content means your campaign will have some serious social impact.

When NOT to use Macro-influencers

We already said how much we love macro-influencers (and we really do) but they aren’t for everyone. There are certain campaigns and certain brands that would benefit more from micro- or mega-influencers over these guys. So let’s discover if that’s the case for you.

LIMITED BUDGET

If you’re a smaller company, or just looking to dip your toe into influencer marketing in terms of your budget, working with bigger influencers may not be the best path for you. As we mentioned before, these influencers can cost anywhere up to $50,000 – not exactly spare change.

Running a micro-influencer campaign can really help to keep costs more under control, even if they typically have a smaller reach, and a harder to define ROI.

SPECIFIC TARGETING

As we mentioned before, the bigger the following, the more diluted it can become. If you’re looking to build a super specific following, then you might need to look elsewhere for your campaign. Deciding exactly what your goals are is essential to knowing what level of influencer you’re going to want to work with.

DANGERS

The world of social media and influencer marketing is constantly growing, and there is a lot of money in it for those who know how to succeed. Because of this, there has been a growing number of “influencers” who, it turns out, aren’t that influential at all.

Growing numbers of macro-influencers are buying fake followers and fake engagement to trick brands into partnering with them, and parting with their money. You’re more likely to see this kind of activity at this level than with smaller influencers who have worked to grow more niche followings.

Even though the problem may be much more widespread than many originally thought, there are easy ways to avoid these tricksters and only team up with genuine influencers. Spotting fake influence is not always as difficult as you might think.

Structuring your campaign

So, you’ve put the time in and searched around for the perfect macro-influencers for your campaign – awesome. But, now we need to get down to the inner workings of a successful campaign and work through the structure.

GOAL SETTING

Something that we are always advocating here at The Shelf is smart goal setting. If you don’t know your specific goals before launching into an influencer marketing campaign then you’re never going to see the kind of success you really want. Just make sure that the goals you set are detailed and specific – simply wishing to “get more followers” is not going to help here.

With macro-influencers, you should be expecting some pretty good results in terms of reach, engagement, and web traffic – especially compared with a micro-influencer campaign. This calibre of influencer is great for helping your brand boost their bottom line, so your goals should reflect this.

COORDINATING THE CAMPAIGN

Communication is key to any marketing campaign, and working with macro-influencers is no different. Because of their size, many influencers at this level will work with managers, PR agents, or similar staff which does mean your methods of communication will differ from those you would use with smaller influencers.

Despite this, the basic points of communications still stand. With any campaign you need to clearly discuss the following:

• Your goals
• Any brand guidelines and rules you have
• The compensation the influencer will receive
• Any legal compliance issues you need to be abreast of
• The tracking methods you will utilise throughout the campaign
• How much creative freedom the influencer has over the content used in the campaign

Because you will most likely need to go through some kind of “middle man” to organise your campaign, these communications can take a little longer than usual – so be sure to bear this in mind when creating the timeline for your campaign.

To Macro, or Not to Macro?

Now you’ve got the downlow on what a macro-influencer is, their advantages, their drawbacks, and how they can best benefit your campaign. But, just in case you’re still unsure whether you should be investing in these guys, we have a simple way for you to find out!

QUIZ TIME!

Take a look at the following questions and answer honestly for your campaign. Based on your answers, you’ll be able to get a good indication of whether macro-influencers are right for you! Just add up the points next to each of your chosen answers and compare your score to the results at the end.

1. What is most important to your campaign in terms of success?

• Website clicks (1)
• Sales (3)
• New social media followers (2)
• Brand awareness (4)

2. Where are you most willing to compromise?

• Price (3)
• Time (1)
• Creative control (2)

3. Would you rather that new customers…

• Make a one-time larger purchase? (2)
• Make regular, smaller purchases over time? (1)

4. Where is your current marketing strategy most lacking?

• Customer trust of your brand/ product (1)
• Post engagement (2)
• Social media followers (4)
• Conversion into sales (3)

If you scored between 4- 8 points:

Micro-influencers would probably be better suited for your campaign. You favor engagement and brand loyalty over reach, and so these smaller and more focused influencers would be great to help you reach your goals.

Read more about working with micro-influencers in our Macro Guide to Micro-Influencers post, and just pop any questions you have right there in the comments.

If you scored 9 or more points:

Macro-influencers sound like a good bet for you! You need more brand awareness, and a bigger push towards sales – so you need influencers with a bit more clout. Work out your goals and budget, and take a look on our platform to let us help you find the perfect influencer for your campaign!

Conclusion

So, macro-, micro-, or mega-influencers, you need to work with a platform you can trust. Once you’ve made a decision on what size influencer you want to partner with, get in touch with our team and we can make sure you find the right people to boost your brand online.

The post How to Build Your First Macro Influencer Campaign appeared first on The Shelf Full-Service Influencer Marketing.

Influencer selection can seem like a tricky process. A few years ago, brands were scrambling to partner with fashion bloggers and lifestyle bloggers to get greater reach on their influencer campaigns, even at thee expense of targeting the right audience. We talk a lot about that – targeting the right audience. But is there ever a time when you don’t have to adhere so closely to all the alignment and Google E-A-T rules?

Yeah.

That’s what this post is about, actually.

I’m going to be very specific here. In this article, we’ll explore some of the influencer strategies you can use to target fashion bloggers even when you’re not a fashion brand.

We’ll also look at some examples of effective campaigns where the influencer targeting was perfect, even though at first glance, they don’t look like obvious influencer alignments. BUT I want to insert the disclaimer here that this post is  not encouraging you to target any old influencer who has a large following just to sell your thing. What I am saying is with the right creative strategies, you can grab the attention of an audience that may not – at first glance – seem like the most obvious choice.

Okay, So Why Would I Want Fashion Influencers?

You might be wondering why you would want to loop fashion influencers into your campaign if your brand has nothing to do with fashion. That’s the same question we answered in this post on how to get in on the Thanksgiving shopping frenzy with a product that had nothing to do with Thanksgiving. . 

Fashion influencers can provide you with a great deal of value because influencers are pretty much experts at creating content that resonates with their followers. The key is to find a link between your brand and the influencer’s creative vibe.

Let me give you an example…

Let’s say you run a travel experience company that likes to target wanderlusting millennials who are interested in taking a few months out to travel the world. You have quite a few different ways you can go with influencer selection:

Tons of fashion bloggers travel, and tons of travel bloggers have chic travel style (couldn’t resist linking that post). There are also parenting bloggers who live the #vanlife, and adventurous men and women who have time flexibility, and who are okay going it alone.

Traveling fashion bloggers, chic travel bloggers, parenting bloggers who are cashing in on the trend to live life on the road, and solo traveling men and women. There, I just identified five different types of influencers our hypothetical travel experience company could use for a single campaign.

#yw

That’s one of the secrets of great influencer campaigns – understanding that different segments of your target audience will need different types of messages from different types of influencers.

So, the long and short of the whole, big question asked in this article is yes.

Related Post

How to Vet Potential Blogger and Influencer Partners

Influencer Marketing Strategies That Work Great with Fashion Bloggers and Style Influencers

Influencer marketing isn’t something you can just dive right into. A lot of marketing teams make the mistake of pushing out campaigns without mistake. There’s actually a list of questions you’ll need to answer, such as:

• Which influencers should I target?
• How do we do influencer outreach?
• Which products or services should we promote?
• What kind of content do we need to get the best results?
• Which social media platforms would work best?

A Handful of Powerful Tactics to Promote Your Product without Making the Influencer Sound Like a Pitchman

Dominate the backdrop

It may sound counter-intuitive, but sometimes, the best way to stand out is to blend in. This is an easy strategy for working with fashion influencers. They’re taking pictures of their latest outfit on a regular basis, often every day. Unless they opt for a super close-up shot, there will likely be a way for you two to seamlessly integrate your product into the post and to make it better without seeming overdone. 

For example, an influencer could promote the brand that sells the furniture they’re sitting on, a piece of artwork on the wall, a TV or computer that’s on the table behind them. It’s easy to work these kinds of products naturally into a photo that they would be sharing anyway.

The example above is from the Instagram of Rachel Pitzel, a fashion and travel influencer who regularly posts photos of herself spending time with her son and daughter. In the post above, you see an overhead shot of Rachel cuddling with the kids, but she’s doing it on a comfy custom sofa from Joybird. And the entire sofa is in the shot.

So, your product doesn’t have to be up front and centered to have an effective sponsored post. Blending in can be a more effective placement.

Related Post

How to Launch a New Product on Instagram

Be the reason for an influencer’s haute couture-ing

This one’s all about making the most of the fact that fashion bloggers are all about looking good. And that isn’t just about the clothes, jewelry, and makeup they’re wearing, but also about how their health impacts their quality of life and their bodies affect their self-image. 

In this example, @thehautebrunette shared a sponsored post chronicling her at-home workout.  She mentions fitness company p.volve and a specific piece of fitness equipment they sell – the p.ball.

The post predominantly features Alyssa Melendez herself sporting active wear, so followers can still get a taste of what she wears in her day to day life. The p.ball is then positioned next to her with the p.volve logo facing the camera, so the brand is featured in the picture without being overly promotional or in your face.

This is a great way for health, fitness, and wellness brands to work with fashion influencers since their followers are interested in how the influencer pulls off certain looks. A fitness brand could increase brand awareness by partnering with a fashion influencer who also extols the virtues of maintaining an active lifestyle.

Innovate. Be the outrageous part of the influencer’s post

As far as we’re concerned, this pic from Sazi Hills should go down in influencer marketing history. Is that not one of the coolest pics you’ve ever seen?

There are a couple of great things about this post. The first is that Pepsi isn’t the star of this post, EVEN THOUGH it technically meets the qualifications of being a product post. But it’s such a creative, outside-the-box idea.

This could have been something as simple as a food brand having food or drink featured in the background of a post where a fashion influencer is showing off their latest outfit. Or better still, the influencer could be holding or actually consuming the food or drink in the photo (without the Pepsi can hair rollers, I mean).

Of course, fashion influencers are often more creative than this, like the above example of Sazi Hills, aka @fashion_53. In this sponsored post for Pepsi, she takes things a huge step further than the simple can of Pepsi Max in her hand. She’s taken the product and used it in an innovative way, and a way that’s relevant to fashion and style, no less.

The post is original, trendy, stylish, and sort of hilarious, really. And this post stays in line with the influencer’s brand. Her followers loved it. The post garnered more than 5,000 likes and comments in appreciation of her unique style.

Be endearing

Kids and puppies. They make post just a little better. And if you put them together… (eye roll) You can liven up an otherwise humdrum sponsored post by partnering with an influencer who has kids. What’s cuter than a tot in a 3-piece suit, sitting down to do his taxes? Or plan for retirement? “No time to waste. I’ll be 5 before I know it!”

Ha!

Well, if your brand isn’t super glamorous, a good way to win the hearts of your target audience is to throw in a few handfuls of cuteness. And when it comes to cuteness, we all sort of soften for the innocence of a child or a cute pet.

KIDS

Fashion bloggers who are also parents often post about the clothes that their kids wear and the brands that provide them, as well as their own clothes. So, what other types of brands can use the ‘aww’ effect that kids provide when they’re collaborating with influencers?

This strategy could cover a wide variety of brands because parents need a lot of supplies to look after their kids, so they can potentially promote lots of different things. So, let’s look at a couple of good examples.

This post from @walkinginmemphisinhighheels, aka Laura Lee, came at an appropriate time – that miserable time when everyone is suffering from colds and flu. She is promoting the cold medicine she used to help her daughter recover from “the sniffles,” Matys Chest Rub.

This cute picture of her and her daughter is a nice, wholesome sponsored post that warms your heart while also offering a solution for any parents who want to keep their kids from suffering through a cold. As an added bonus, this post is also a giveaway in partnership with Matys.

Kelly and her daughter Kennedy are the dynamic duo  featured in most of the posts shared on @_thevintageblonde_. She often mentions her daughter’s stylish outfits, and poses alongside her daughter in posts like this one, to promote brands she finds useful as a parent. 

In this post, Kennedy adorably poses eating Cuties Citrus easy-to-peel oranges, with a cheeky smile on her face that would make any parent want to go out and buy some for their own kids.

PETS

A cute dog in a photo can help you sell just about anything. But, a fashion influencer with cute pets, especially ones that regularly make appearances in the influencer’s posts, presents a great opportunity for brands targeting pet owners.

This could range from the less interesting necessities such as pet insurance, to more exciting things like clothing for pets.

In the example above, fashion and beauty blogger, @krystintysire is promoting Icelandic dog treats with the help of her gorgeous assistant, Bella.

This kind of post can attract attention from dog lovers because Bella is simply adorable. The dog treat brand is likely to get some more traffic, more views, and even new customers because the cross-section of Krystin’s followers who are also dog owners may be compelled to check out Icelandic dog treats on her recommendation. 

Giveaways

One easy way to get your product into a fashion influencer’s post is to offer it up as a prize. This gives you a lot of flexibility when it comes to partnering your unrelated brand with a fashion influencer. If you have products, gift cards, or other freebies that can be given away as prizes, then you can get involved with an influencer in that way, particularly if there is a holiday on the horizon (like July 4th, Father’s Day, or Halloween) that would make a non-fashion gift card or store credit seem like a pay-it-forward opportunity. 

Most influencers will partner with a brand as long as they like and believe in their products or the brand itself. Influencers are unlikely to partner with you if they don’t support or agree with the way you work or what you stand for.

In the above giveaway post,  @ashleyspassionforfashion has partnered with another blogger and Nooga Boutique to offer a huge giveaway. Some of the prizes included are fashion related, including items of clothing and a Nooga Boutique gift card. However, there is also a $25 Starbucks gift card included in the prize.

Starbucks is trendy, but it has very little do with fashion. The company still gets mentioned in Ashley’s posts by partnering with her to offer the gift card. If your company can offer a desirable prize, you can make the most of this strategy. Products such as iPhone’s and tablets are also very popular prizes in giveaways. As you would expect, these kinds of high-value freebies can attract a lot of attention and contest participation.

Be part of the experience

Looking at this picture, you probably wouldn’t notice right away that it’s a sponsored post, which is good. If a post is blatantly an ad, it can really turn people off. Followers are more likely to scroll past without engaging if the post doesn’t fit naturally with the rest of the account’s content.

The image in this post is of a group of well-dressed women, which fits in with the usual content of @fashionistamomma. The caption then makes it clear that this photo is of Megan Ballard and her cadre of other moms enjoying a day out in Temecula Wine Country, courtesy of a company called Aall In Limo & Party Bus.

Even though the brand isn’t featured in the photo, it still gets a mention in the post as a company that has made this experience possible, giving them some exposure. It’s a great example of simplicity in influencer marketing.

This kind of company could have actually made it into the photo in a logical way, as the women could have posed in the same way in front of their limo. BUT this strategy provides a “way in,” so to speak, for certain experience companies that wouldn’t naturally generate interesting photos with just product placements. 

This kind of company could have actually made it into the photo in a logical way, as the women could have posed in the same way in front of their limo. BUT this strategy provides a “way in,” so to speak, for certain experience companies that wouldn’t naturally generate interesting photos with just product placements.

 Join In with the Festivities

There are certain times of the year where almost everyone is looking for presents to buy their loved ones. Christmas and Valentine’s Day  immediately spring to mind. If your brand sells anything that would make a great gift for one of these holidays, you can use this to your advantage when targeting fashion influencers around these seasons.

Influencers all over Instagram were sharing the gifts they were buying for their friends and family over the holidays, and giving the brands they bought them from a nice big shout out. The example above shows @feralcreature backing the benefits of eBay gift cards as presents.

Other examples include lifestyle blogger, Abby Smith (@twistmepretty) promoting Stein Mart by showing off all the gifts she bought from the store (see her post here).

Beauty blogger Jamie Rocker got creative with her sponsored gift giving by customizing her shoes with acrylic paint from Reeves.   

Playing the gift-giving or pay-it-forward angle can quickly widen your net because mostpeople will, at one point or another, find a reason to give someone else a gift. So, influencers can put your product in front of people who are closely connected to members of your target audience.

So, while an influencer’s followers may primarily be interested in fashion and beauty, their parents might really enjoy golfing or be looking forward to cruise season.

Now It’s Your Turn

So, there you have it! Seven killer strategies to help you take advantage of the sway fashion influencers have over their followers. If you look and plan strategically, an opportunity present itself. 

Influencer marketing is the perfect example of brands sharing each other’s successes. Make the most of the fact that some people have a million followers on social media and use their influence to turn some of those followers into your new customers.

TheShelf.com is a platform that’s here to match you up with the best and most relevant influencers. So, take some of the challenge out of that first step of deciding who to collaborate with by letting us help you with your fashion influencer marketing strategy. We also run influencer marketing campaigns from start to finish.

Click here to find out more about The Shelf and how we can help you get started with successful influencer marketing.

The post How to Use Fashion Bloggers In Your Next Influencer Campaign appeared first on The Shelf Full-Service Influencer Marketing.

Let’s say you’re trying to get your smokey eye palette in front of millennials. You might enlist a 22 year old beauty YouTube vlogger to do a tutorial and show off the final look. Or perhaps you want photographers to check out your latest DSLR’s. You might get a few into the hands of mega Instagram influencers, so they can use your equipment and demonstrate the amazing photos it takes. No matter who your target demo is, there’s a visual influencer that can present your product in a relatable and engaging way. In fact, every social platform and niche have their own set of ‘super’ influencers with fans that trust their recommendations more than anyone else. Agencies see the value in these niche visual influencers and are repping them on very large-scale campaigns, like Tinker Street, for example.

The facts about visual content

• 70% of marketers claim they plan to increase their use of original visual assets in 2015.
• There are 500 hours of video content uploaded to YouTube every minute.
• Tweets with images receive 150% more retweets.
• There are over 40,000 influencers on Instagram covering all verticals, including fashion, beauty, health, and wellness, home decor, food, and more.
• The number of video posts per person has increased 75% globally and 94% in the US.
• Adding a photo URL to your tweet can boost retweets by 35%.

Visual creators are flocking to Instagram

As visual content is on the rise, so too is the social media influencer. Bloggers and digital tastemakers are quickly discovering that they can easily deliver a powerful message that informs action through social media. So, it shouldn’t be any surprise that many influencers are forgoing a website altogether. In the past year, we’ve noticed a lot of visual influencers emerge and they aren’t devoting their time to website development; instead, they’re focusing on social media storytelling. In their eyes, it’s a lot less maintenance, and often, for the same payout. You’ll also notice that these influencers aren’t heavily active across all their social channels. They usually specialize in one particular channel and leave the rest either partially or completely by the wayside. This chart illustrates that movement.

In fact, Instagram is where most influencers post their content before anywhere else, even their websites, giving their fans and readers a window into what’s going on right away. Most DSLR’s give you the ability to send content straight to mobile, meaning an influencer can publish anything to social media right away. Additionally, more and more readers are straying from reading traditional style blogs because they can get the same experience on Instagram, but in a bite-size and digestible format. Brands have taken note, which is why many have set aside ad budgets for standalone Instagram campaigns. It’s no secret that influencers can make a killing from their sponsored social content. Danielle Bernstein of WeWoreWhat recently revealed all to Harpers Bazaar that she can make anywhere between $5,000 to $15,000 on a single piece of sponsored content, like an Instagram shot, and now that she hit 1 million followers on Instagram, she can charge “a good amount more.” Yowzers.

Blogs are still important

The way we share content online isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. According to style blogger, Nicolette Mason, “There’s a lot of gray area, and it all boils down to why you need the blog. If readers are only looking for pretty photos or style and shopping inspiration, then yes, Instagram might be all they need. But, if they’re looking to join the bigger conversation and engage with really authentic content, they’ll still keep coming back to the site.” The same thing can be true for brands that care primarily about high-quality photography. While using a stand-alone social network as a means of distribution can work for some, others want to showcase their high-quality photos beyond the confines of an Instagram square viewed on mobile.

Below I’ll explore three visual social channels – Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat – and how you can leverage influencers on each channel to tell your brand story.
 

How to work with Instagrammers

Instagram has become one of the most engaging visual platforms, with more a billion users actively perusing their feeds. When it comes to this channel, people are looking for relatable and aspirational content but this can be extra challenging for brands and small marketing teams to achieve. Instagram influencers are a great resource because they already have experience creating content that’s catered to their fans, and your ideal target demo. They know what resonates and what doesn’t. Leave content creation in the hands of the right visual influencers and you can trust that it will drive engagement and spur action.

Birchbox partnered up with Instagram influencer, Christina Zilber, Founder of Jouer Cosmetics on an Instagram takeover and giveaway for Mother’s Day. As part of the takeover, she posted four Instagram photos detailing her life in LA. They tied in a giveaway where fans commented on the best beauty tips for moms. The activation resulted in a ton of engagement and 1,135 user-generated posts.

Pro Tip: Encourage Instagram influencers to develop a storyline or visual “day in the life” concept inspired by your products. It’s far more compelling for their fans (and your potential customers) than an endless stream of branded content. Now, that kind of marketing just doesn’t fly on Instagram.

How to work with YouTube Vloggers

With over a billion hours of viewership on YouTube per day, this channel is a force to be reckoned with. Not that vlogging is a new concept but today’s tastemakers have been capitalizing on the phenomenon more than ever in the past year. The most notable vloggers have hundreds of thousands of subscribers and receive millions of views. In turn, they can sell products out in a matter of hours, making them viable marketing channels for many brands. Can you say…digital marketer’s dream come true?!

But most YouTube vloggers don’t get started just to make money, they do it because they love to entertain. YouTuber, Alayna states, “I just love it. I love filming, I love editing, I love seeing everyone’s reactions to my content. I love being able to look back and remember different parts of my life. I love communicating with my viewers. I vlog because I love it.” In fact, this desire to entertain is present in the vast majority of vloggers. By strategically selecting and building relationships with these passionate YouTubers, marketers can tap into engaged audiences that are growing at unprecedented rates.

In a recent favorite, Contiki partnered up with ten YouTube influencers on their annual roadtrip. They created a web series on their YouTube channel to chronicle the YouTubers journey and share the experience with an audience of millions. During their July 2014 RoadTrip, they received over a million views and 30,000 subscribers in one week. Through the YouTubers content alone, they gathered more than 20 million views.

Contiki is a brand that ‘gets’ the YouTube space and how to work with its creators. “The secret to working with YouTubers and digital influencers is collaboration,” says Alexis Sitaropoulos, Group Marketing Director of Contiki. He adds, “Contiki thinks as an editor, networks as a friend and acts as a YouTuber, working with creators to provide the experiences they want for the content on their channels. It really comes down to the quality of our product. When you are confident in the delivery of the experience and trust the creator knows how to engage their audience, you can afford to be less prescriptive.” The entire travel experience was shared in an authentic way that inspired audiences to travel with them. 

Pro Tip: Encourage creators to be authentic and unscripted when marketing your brand. Whether it’s sharing their visual experience on a fabulous trip or a tutorial on how to apply matte lipstick like a pro, the content should come across as genuine, interesting, and ultimately, it should inspire action.

How to work with Snapchatters

Snapchat is the single best way to share every inch of your life, unedited. This is in stark contrast to most social channels where influencers carefully craft and curate their photos before sharing them with their fans. Snapchat is far more raw and organic, capturing moments as they happen through ten second video and photo clips that get stringed together over a 24 hour period before they disappear for good. It’s this elusive nature that has millennials flocking to the channel at the speed of lightening, leaving behind Facebook, Instagram, and other social channels that are heavily monitored by their parents. While some see it as marketing in the dark, any brand trying to capitalize on the millennial crowd knows they need to be here in full force.

Bloggers are migrating their followers over from the more traditional channels, like Instagram, over to Snapchat for a more human touch. And while brands might be trying to do the same thing, they never come off quite as human as bloggers do, which is why their accounts are a smart place to market their products. “Influencers that have tremendous Instagram followings are gravitating toward Snapchat because it’s more casual,” says Melissa Davis, ShopStyle’s vp. She adds, “They can have more fun with Snapchat and engage with their audience.”

Influencer fans are so obsessed with the Snaps that they’ve been messaging them through Twitter and Instagram to figure out where they can shop the outfit they spotted in this on-the-go footage. It’s this Snapchat craze that prompted ShopStyle, the shopping search engine and sales aggregator, to get involved. In partnership with online retailer, FarFetch, they teamed up with five style bloggers – Jacey Dprie, Natalie Suarez, Geri Hirsch, Courtney Trop, and Christine Andrew – to promote what they’re wearing in their Snapchat stories. As viewers watch the Snaps, they’re directed to shop with a link to ShopStyle’s Snapchat landing page, where every item featured in the Snap can then be found and shopped on FarFetch. The experience is still a bit clunky since the links aren’t live, but since the link is pretty easy to remember – snap.shopstyle.com – it’s pretty much guaranteed that eager fans will make their way over to the site to Add To Cart like crazy.

In a recent move, Snapchat’s CEO, Even Spiegel pitched video ads to advertisers, meaning monetization is in the pipeline. Time will tell if there will be any click-to-buy options within the Snaps. The grounds for Snapchat monetization are so new that we look forward to seeing how brands and influencers get creative with these campaigns.

Pro Tip: Remember that Snapchat is meant to feel organic and raw. As we’ve seen from the current Snapchat influencers, their followers end up messaging them for more info on where they got their garb. The influencer’s Snaps shouldn’t become a billboard for your product, so encourage them to integrate your product seamlessly into their everyday regime, and subsequently, their Snaps. As a new and emerging social channel, we’ll see many influencers marketing Snapchat through their other platforms, such as Instagram and Twitter, to drive more followers over to their Snaps.

Get Started Working With Social Media Influencers

Even if your product isn’t the most “photogenic” you can still inspire action through visual content by enlisting the help of social media influencers across Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, and other platforms. These visual influencers can either rep your brand on a grand scale through their own channels or create content specifically for your channels. These guys are ninjas at taking any product – photogenic or not – and turning it into a visual piece of art that informs, inspires, and relates to your customers. No matter what type of social media influencer you decide to work with, one thing remains true: the influencer needs to tell her own story about your product. Let it be unscripted, real, and authentic. Your product will shine in the end. Need help finding and reaching out to social media influencers? Check out our platform – we got you.

The post How to Work with Social Media Influencers appeared first on The Shelf Full-Service Influencer Marketing.

In the past several years, content marketing has blown every other digital marketing strategy out of the water. It has proven to be an effective way to attract, nurture and inspire customers of all kinds. But with so much content on the web, customers are turning to influencers they trust to filter out the noise and focus on the good stuff. In fact, brands and PR professionals are taking serious note and are getting in on the action. Social Media Today reports “74% of global marketers reported they will use ‘influence marketing’ as part of their marketing strategy in the next 12 months.” 

While content marketing and influencer marketing are often thought of separately, the two actually go hand in hand. “Creating remarkable content is the first step to an effective strategy but if nobody actually interacts with your content it’s a lost effort. Finding the key influencers that will amplify content is the next step. This is where content marketing and influencer marketing become best friends in modern marketing,” says Arthur Hilhorst. 

So how do you harness your influencer strategy to inform your content marketing? 

Listen to your audience

The influencers you want to work with are, of course, content marketers as well. By observing their content, it can inform your own content marketing strategy. 

With the proliferation of content on the web, you can certainly start to drown in it but listening through your influencers allows you to filter out that unnecessary noise. When it comes to staying ahead in the content game, you don’t need to listen to everyone. By listening through your influencers, you will be able to see what topics influencers are presenting to their readers, what content works and where you might fit into that puzzle. In fact, it might spark some ideas as to how you two can partner together or how you might approach a similar partnership. 

Influencers are influenced by others as well but they too carefully filter out the noise and follow only those they really trust. See who is influencing them to stay ahead and help drive your content strategy forward.

Take a collaborative approach to content

Marketers are moving away from traditional forms of content in favour of a more collaborative approach with influencers. They are a trusted source, have targeted audiences, and are content creation machines themselves. 

Influencers need to produce meaningful content on a regular basis. By presenting them with creative content ideas around your brand, you are, in turn, supporting their content creation efforts as well. It’s a win-win for both of you.

In order to peek the interest of an influencer though, you need to provide them with the tools or experiences to produce beautiful images or content. This helps them engage their audience AND tell a meaningful story about your brand. Authenticity is number one to influencers as their currency is based on this; their readers trust them because of it so you need to give them the space to formulate their own opinions and talk to their readers in their own unique voice. After all, no one can talk to – or reach – your customers quite like an influencer can. 

“Offers shared by trusted advocates convert at a 3x-10x higher rate than offers sent by brands.” – Zuberance

Amplify their content

Now that the influencer has created meaningful content around your brand, go ahead and give that content legs. Take advantage of the beautiful imagery they capture and repurpose it across your social channels. This is an incredibly powerful way to increase sales, and in many cases sell out items with your already-existing customer base. Case in point: many fashion brands will repurpose photos of bloggers wearing their items in ‘shop the look’ type content. We love how Style Moi does this.

Add influencers to your content initiatives in the form of features, quotes, callouts, interviews, and embedded tweets or Instagrams. It can help to validate your own good content while also promoting the influencer in your industry. Not only will this amplify their content, it will also increase your credibility with your customers and help to foster a long-term relationship with the influencer. 

Alternatively, if the influencer is creating content for your site through an ambassador program, they will likely share the content on their own blog or through their social media channels as well to cross-promote and amplify the reach.

Take Small Steps

You don’t need to establish an entire ambassador program to get started with influencer marketing. You can start small and test the waters through sponsored content. Reach out to one relevant influencer at a time with a targeted pitch and simply build from there. Not to worry, a long-term strategy will come once you’ve had time to work with a few influencers, see how they operate and what resonates most with their readers and yours alike. 

The post Influencers and Your Content Marketing Strategy appeared first on The Shelf Full-Service Influencer Marketing.