If you are active on any social media platform, then chances are that you must be following a few influencers. They provide one of the fastest and most reliable ways to reach out to a wider audience in less time. Here’s what makes influencer marketing so crucial.

  • Around 92% of customers consider the recommendations of other users, rather than a brand’s original content.
  • Over 65% of the global brands already taking the advantage of influencer marketing to market their products.

This helps a brand to reach out to a wide range of customers without much effort while being more genuine and authentic. Read on and learn how to perform influencer marketing like a pro in no time.

Why should I perform influencer marketing?

To start with, it is important to know the need for performing influencer marketing. Here are some proven stats and reasons that will make you dive into this new-age of marketing right away.

  • Sharing your content via influencers can boost its reach by 3 to 10 times.
  • More than 70% customers consider online reviews as the second most-trusted source.
  • Most of the online customers look for an expert opinion before buying a product.
  • It redefines the age-old methodology of marketing.
  • Not just lead generation, it also helps in customer retention.
  • The ROI of influencer marketing is way more than the traditional PPC marketing model.
  • It creates brand awareness and harnesses an active online community.
  • If your product is difficult to be used, then influencers can teach others how to use it with their personalized tutorials.
  • Influencer marketing can be used to perform damage control and avoid a crisis.
  • It can give a huge boost to your SEO authority and increase your website visits.
  • It is a fast and effective way to increase your brand’s social following.

How can I identify an influencer?

Now that you understand the value of influencer marketing, you can begin by finding top experts and influencers to promote your products. Typically, this is someone who can sway a significant number of people about a product. Often, famous celebrities fit this description. Brands frequently choose athletes, actors, musicians, and others to endorse their products on social media. For example, Puma partnered with Indian cricketer Virat Kohli to boost brand awareness.

There are several ways to find influencers. You can easily check popular social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram to search for them manually. In addition, there are various third-party tools available to help identify influencers. For example, Klout can provide a “score” showing how influential a person is on social media. Other tools like Linkedex, Traackr, Klear, PeerIndex, followerwonk, and socialert can also assist you in finding influencers more quickly.

Challenges associated with influencer marketing

If you are new to influencer marketing, then chances are that you might face a few setbacks. Therefore, you should come up with a way to overcome these challenges beforehand.

  • Lack of transparency in the commission fees of third-party influencer marketing vendors
  • No standard metric to quantify your ROI
  • Lack of transparency in the pricing policy of influencers
  • No guarantee to get the desired results
  • Too many influencers to choose from often creates a confusion
  • Publishing of duplicate content by different influencers that backfires
  • It is tough to manage influencer marketing campaigns than the traditional model

After knowing the do’s and don’ts of influencer marketing, you can simply work on a new campaign without much trouble. It is always recommended to treat every social media platform individually. For instance, the kind of audience you are targeting on Facebook would be quite different from Twitter or YouTube.

To make things easier for you, I have considered three popular social media platforms – Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Let’s consider them one step at a time.

Influencer Marketing on Facebook

According to experts, Facebook offers the best ROI when it comes to influencer marketing. Therefore, most of the marketers also recommend Facebook to start an influencer marketing campaign. Let’s learn how to find influencers on Facebook and run a marketing campaign while associating them with your brand.

Find influencers on Facebook

There are different ways to discover influencers on Facebook. To start with, you can take the assistance of marketing agencies or third-party tools as well. Alternatively, you can also join Facebook groups that are dedicated to influencers and marketers.

Simply post your requirements and get in touch with various experts on your own. This will let you handpick some of the best influencers to meet your requirements. Here’s a simple example of how one can find an influencer by posting their requirements on a leading Facebook group.

Ideas to perform influencer marketing on Facebook

From live streaming to conducting contests – there are lots of ways one can use Facebook to run an influencer marketing campaign. Here are a handful of these ideas.

Sharing experience by going live on Facebook

Facebook Live is a remarkable feature that allows us to start live streaming in no time. From asking influencers to un-box a product to simply sharing their experience while using it – the sky is the limit here. A while back, The Best Fiends video game associated with Laura Clrey for a Facebook Live event. The video got an overwhelming response with more than 450 thousand views.

Promoting a contest

Almost every single day, plenty of brands run dedicated contests on Facebook. Though, not every contest can generate the same kind of expected reach. By taking the assistance of an influencer you can certainly give a boost to your contest.

There are plenty of ways to do this. You can either ask influencers to share your content or simply run a dedicated contest by involving them. Here’s an example on how Dove ran a dedicated contest on Facebook and gained plenty of traction.

Let them share a story with visual content

We all know the power of visual content. When combined with influencer marketing, it can boost your brand’s presence substantially. Let your influencers be a storyteller and come up with original visual content for their audience. One can learn from the video made by Your Everyday Canadian, demonstrating the use of Crayola’s air marker sprayer in a hilarious way. It was a success and generated over a million impressions.

Influencer Marketing on Instagram

Instagram is one of the fastest growing social media networks of the present time. If you want to reach out to young and influential audience in less time, then you should definitely collaborate with influencers on Instagram.

Connect with influencers

To start with, get in touch with the right kind of influencers to work on your brand’s presence. You can either take the assistance of the above-mentioned tools or try NinjaOutreach as well to discover leading influencers on Instagram. Afterward, try to maintain a long-term relationship with them. Have a productive conversation and show some love for their content.

Partner with influencers for product launch

Instagram can easily be used to boost your sales and generate more leads. If your brand is coming up with a new product, then get in touch with various influencers to create awareness about it.

When Lord & Taylor came up with a new line of dresses, they collaborated with more than 50 influencers in fashion and lifestyle. Their dresses were all over Instagram and in less than a week, it was sold out. It simply concretes how powerful influencer marketing can be.

Host product reviews

This one would be pretty easy. After getting in touch with an influencer you can simply ask for a product review. It would be a win-win situation for everyone. As a brand, you would get an in-depth review of your product.

The influencer would be able to educate their audience about the product in a personalized way. Nevertheless, this should be done tactfully and can’t look like a plain sponsored post. Here’s how ExpressRunway collaborated with leading influencers who posted a review of their products on their page.

Run dedicated campaigns with influencers

Just like Facebook, you can also run dedicated campaigns on Instagram as well while including an expert. You can also collaborate with plenty of influencers at the same time in order to take the campaign to a whole new level.

One can always learn a thing or two from Boxed Water’s Instagram campaign. The brand collaborated with The ReTree Project, which encouraged users to post pictures with #ReTree. It was declared that on every post, Boxed Water would plant two trees.

Influencer Marketing on Twitter

Twitter is one of the fastest ways to reach out to your audience. If done wisely, Twitter Marketing can increase your sales while creating brand awareness on social media. While doing so, keep the following things in mind:

  • Identify leading influencers related to your domain and maintain a long-term relationship with them.
  • You can also share their content or have a conversation with them
  • Ask them for a guest post on your blog to strengthen your relationship.
  • Define your audience and come up with an ideal campaign that can benefit your brand.

Think of the long run while generating immediate results. Here are some foolproof ways to perform influencer marketing on Twitter.

Boosting the overall reach of your content

Just like any other medium, influencers can also help in increasing the overall reach of your content on Twitter as well. By collaborating with influencers, you can also increase your social following while reaching out to more people in less time.

Reliant Energy did the same thing while collaborating with House of Houston. It offered free James Harden jerseys to its users by hosting a giveaway. It increased their follower count while elevating the reach of their content as well (with retweets).

Encouraging app downloads

If you have come up with a new app or would like to work on downloads of an existing app, then you can easily get in touch with leading influencers. Though, you should try to play it smart and run dedicated contests as a marketing strategy.

A while back, Smule did the same while hosting a sing-along contest with Nick Jonas. It also collaborated with LG and had new smartphones (besides a chance to meet Nick Jonas) as prizes.

Generating leads and website traffic

Get in touch with leading influencers if you are finding it hard to generate new leads for your business or can’t get the expected traffic on your website. It will help you reach out to a whole new audience in an effortless way.

Boomerang (a cartoon streaming service for kids) did the same while collaborating with different bloggers and parents. It lets various influencers to come up with original content to promote the brand. Even without using the brand’s name, it resulted in exceptional results. Not only it got more website clicks, it helped Boomerang gain more leads as well.

Run hashtag campaigns

Most of the brands run hashtag campaigns on Twitter to create awareness. While running a hashtag campaign, you can simply get in touch with an influencer to work on its reach. Furthermore, an entire campaign can also be conducted around a celebrated individual as well.

We all love Oreo’s marketing strategy and their new #OreoDunkSweepstakes campaign was no such exception. The brand collaborated with various celebrities and influencers (like James Maslow) which got them trending on Twitter.

Tips to perform influencer marketing

If you wish to overcome the above-mentioned challenges and make the most out of your influencer marketing campaign, then implement these quick tips and tricks.

  • Always do extensive research before reaching out to any influencer. You should know about their background, expertise, social following, and more.
  • Go with influencers who are relevant or are already associated with your industry.
  • Set realistic expectations while getting in touch with new influencers.
  • Try to develop a long-term relationship with influencers. It will take some time and effort.
  • Be creative and don’t apply the same run of the mill ideas.
  • Appreciate the feedback from influencers and let them develop content according to their audience.
  • Set your own metrics to measure the success of your influencer marketing campaign.

Now when you know how to run an influencer marketing campaign on popular mediums like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook – you are sure to make the most of it. Go ahead and pick your preferred option and come up with an engaging influencer marketing idea for your brand. If you have any question about it, feel free to drop a comment below.