As a marketer, it’s important to stay updated with the changes in the marketing landscape in order to quickly be able to adapt to new trends and stay on top of the latest changes.
In this article, we will go through 5 things you need to know about influencer marketing so you can succeed with your marketing campaigns and avoid making the most common mistakes.
Let’s dig into these 5 things you need to know about influencer marketing.
1. Micro-influencers are the new influencers
When influencer marketing first started to gain traction, brands were focusing on using celebrities and people with huge followings on social media to market their products. This ties back to the early versions of influencer marketing, where companies worked together with major celebrities like Elvis Presley or Madonna simply because the brands understood that the words of famous individuals are far more trustworthy than the words of the brands themselves.
Furthermore, people look up to and listen to the words of celebrities, and therefore, their brand recommendations are far more impactful.
But unlike then, the influencer market is changing as brands are more and more transitioning from celebrities to micro-influencers.
There are many reasons that this transition is happening, but the main reason is that micro-influencers are cheaper and can generate a more targeted influencer marketing campaign.
Because the micro-influencers usually have an audience that is genuinely interested in what the influencer has to say, the micro-influencers can provide an incredible ROI which large influencers and celebrities have a hard time competing with.
This means that although you are spending less per micro-influencer, as they are cheaper than celebrities, you can (with the same budget) work together with several micro-influencers to reach an audience of the same size but in the end get a better ROI.
The bottom line, micro-influencers are individuals who have a smaller yet more targeted audience on social media. The fact that they have a smaller audience allows them to build closer and stronger relationships with their audience. Almost like peer relationships. This means that ultimately, the followers of the micro-influencer will trust the recommendations the influencer gives almost like the recommendation of a friend. And the result is that the campaigns come off as much more impactful.
2. Brands are increasing their influencer marketing budgets
63% of marketers said they increased their marketing budgets for 2017. Now this isn’t the freshest and most recent data but it still shows in which direction influencer marketing has gone towards. And it is especially interesting because this trend is now slowing down today either.
In 2016, most marketers spent between $25,000 – $50,000 per influencer marketing program, which survey respondents report will double to $50,000 – $100,000 per program in 2017.
This means that the competition among brands for good influencers is getting bigger.
This is where you as a brand can gain leverage over your competitors by using the VeloceNetwork. VeloceNetwork can help you find the best influencers within your niche so you can be sure to get the best ROI possible. But enough of the self-promotion.
The basic principle is that the more brands that start implementing influencer marketing in their marketing strategy, the tougher the competition for the influencers. Obviously, influencers can only work with so many brands simultaneously before it starts damaging their reputation and trustworthiness. Furthermore, as more brands turn to influencer marketing, the demand will become greater, and naturally, the cost of influencer partnerships will increase. A simple principle of supply and demand.
If you don’t have the possibility of increasing your influencer marketing budget, you can gain leverage over your competitors by targeting your niche’s best influencers. If you can do both – you can be sure to gain huge traction and results from your influencer marketing campaign.
Successful influencer marketing is not only about having huge budgets. In fact, it is so much more than that. For example, micro-influencers, as mentioned earlier, charge significantly less for promotion than what the major industry leaders do, yet at the same time, micro-influencers tend to have a more engaged and loyal audience of people. This means that you can generate a much higher ROI by partnering with micro-influencers compared to if you are only working with influencers. The difference is that you need to partner with several micro-influencers in order to reach the same amount of people.
3. Brands must trust the influencers
This is a big issue that many marketers don’t know how to deal with.
When starting an influencer marketing campaign, the influencers usually creates the content and write the captions to the posts that they’re going to make. But of course, an influencer marketing campaign can look very different depending on objectives, goals, and more.
But the big problem is that, no matter what strategy, brands are trying to be in charge of everything, from caption to content.
The golden rule that all marketers should live by is the following:
Let your influencer do what they do best but always review the content.
It is understandable that you as a brand want to have control over the influencer marketing campaign in order to ensure that you get the most out of your campaign and that you have full control of what is happening. But something that you need to understand is that the influencer knows better than you. The influencer has built their audience from scratch, and if there is someone who knows their audience, it’s the influencer. They know their audience the best, and this is the reason why you must, even if it doesn’t feel 100% comfortable for you.
You need to trust the influencer and their expertise, because they know their audience best and what they resonate with. They know what their followers like to see and what ultimately will give your brand the best results.
I repeat, Let your influencer do what they do best but always review the content.
The first part means trusting your influencer’s expertise, and the second part is just a way for you to confirm that the post they are about to post is aligned with your brand and what you are all about.
4. Influencers can charge brands up to $550,00 per post on social media
According to D’Marie Analytics, Selena Gomez is currently worth $550,000 per post on social media.
Selena Gomez, who is the second most followed person on Instagram with 116 Million followers is reported to charge brands $550,00 to make a marketing post.
Now, when it comes down to it, this doesn’t really matter for you, but it still matters because it shows how impactful and huge influencer marketing as an industry really is. The craziest part is that this is only the beginning of influencer marketing, and as the demand for influencers increases among brands, the influencers will only continue to increase their prices.
5. Not all influencers are charging cash
The cost of partnering with a social media influencer differs a lot.
The celebrity influencers on social media are the individuals who tend to charge the most for brand partnerships. We are talking about people like Kim Kardashian, Selena Gomez, Justin Bieber, and so on. It makes sense that these individuals are the most expensive to have promote your brand, because not only do they have a huge audience but with their recommendations also comes the prestige of getting recommendation and trust from a celebrity.
Then you have the social media influencers that have established themselves on social media, but they are not celebrity famous. These often have a big audience, but they are not “celebrities”.
Lastly, you have the micro-influencers that we have gone through. What you will find is that influencers who normally satisfy with other things than cold hard cash are micro-influencers because they don’t have a following as large as the big influencers out there. Also, most micro-influencers are doing social media on their free-time and as a hobby, and if they like your brand, then it makes sense that they will accept getting samples from your brand in exchange for some posts on their social media profiles.
Micro-influencers that are already in love with your brand are influencers who are most likely to satisfy with things other than just cash from you for a post. It can be gift cards, coupons or product samples.
If you have a restricted marketing budget, finding influencers who can market your brand in return of only your products can be an excellent way for you to still get your brand out there and reach a new audience.
