Leveraging social media and influencers in digital campaigns is a strategy that has taken the marketing world by storm.
Influencer marketing involves partnering with social media influencers who in return promote the brand to their followers through curated social media posts and videos. Influencer marketing offers a host of benefits such as enhanced brand visibility, targeted audience reach, and authentic engagement – but it’s not without its risks.
An increasing number of marketers now partner with social media personalities to endorse products and connect with broader audiences. When it comes to promoting products, people listen to people, and this is why a potential customer is more likely to make a purchase when it’s recommended by someone they trust rather than when it’s only presented to them through ads.
The success of influencer collaborations depends on selecting the right partners, ensuring consistent and accurate messaging, and maintaining a balance in promotional content. Brands must carry out thorough research and provide clear guidelines to influencers to mitigate potential pitfalls.
Analytics and Big Data have allowed marketers to use predictive analytics to understand their target audience better.
Knowing which platforms they spend most of their time on and what content they engage with can help marketers build a killer social media strategy.
Benefits of influencer marketing
Starting off with the positives, it is obvious that influencers are hugely valuable in the social media industry because of their large number of loyal followers.
Those followers build up a community of people with similar interests and values, making it easy for a brand to reach a specific target audience they have in mind. It all comes down to finding the right influencer who will then lead you to a large group of people who could all be your potential customers.
By collaborating with content creators whose followers align with your key audiences, you can ensure your marketing efforts are more targeted and effective. Their followers are already interested in similar products or topics, so they’re more likely to make a purchase.
Because influencer content is often more natural and relatable, using this marketing strategy can achieve higher engagement rates compared to traditional advertising. Their content resonates with their audience’s lifestyles and they have the ability to weave product promotions seamlessly into their daily social media posts. Influencer content is also more engaging because followers can actively interact with influencers through comments, direct messages, polls, Q&A sessions and stories.
You often don’t need to have a huge budget when you want to include influencers in your campaign – instead of celebrities, you can also opt for micro or nano influencers who are in some cases believed to be even more effective.
Their following is made up of people who are genuinely invested and engage actively with their posts. They also have more credibility because they have a closer bond with their fan base. You can also save some time by working with influencers, as they create most of the content themselves.
Although the aims of the campaign, values of the company and general nature of the posts should be agreed upon, it’s good to give the influencers some freedom because they can come up with fantastic and creative ideas, or even create trends that have the potential to go viral.
If you’re using a selection of different influencers, you will be collating a wide variety of content that you wouldn’t have come up with by yourself.
Risks of using influencers
Although using influencers may have many positive effects, there are a few risks that you may come across and that you should keep an eye on if you are planning to include influencers in your next social media campaign. Choosing the right influencer to represent your brand is crucial if you want the partnership to be successful. If they don’t have much knowledge about your company’s line of business or products, then your brand’s reputation can be severely damaged and negative backlash can be difficult to recover from.
Also if the influencer has promoted a competing brand which your target audience still remembers, the credibility will be challenged. Inconsistent messaging is another issue. If an influencer fails to deliver your brand’s message accurately throughout the brand communication campaign, it can create confusion among consumers.
It’s important for brands to give a thorough brief to the people they are partnering with and carry out a lot of research to find influencers who genuinely resonate with the brand and its values, otherwise the endorsements can come across as insincere.
Overexposure
It is in fact possible to have too much of a good thing, so when followers see the same endorsements too frequently, they may become desensitised or annoyed.
Make sure that the product promotion posts are spaced out and consider partnering with a mix of influencers to avoid relying on one single content creator. Always remember – if you partner up with an influencer, this person can always be associated with your brand, even after you stop working with them.
So if influencers get involved in any kind of public scandal, then this can also have a direct impact on the sales and reputation of your brand and put you into a crisis situation.
While influencer scandals can be difficult to prevent entirely, there are ways brands can mitigate risks. It’s important to carry out thorough research before partnering with an influencer – check their previous content for potentially controversial content, look if there’s any negative press about them and make sure to monitor their online activity to detect potential issues early.
If you partner up with an influencer then this person can always be associated with your brand, even after you stop working with them.
If influencers get involved in any public scandals, then this can also have a direct impact on the sales and reputation of your brand.
