Dominate Marketing 2018: Your Complete Guide to Influencer Marketing 

Influencer marketing dominated 2017 and is expected to keep building momentum in 2018 and beyond. This article will cover the most important concepts in this form of digital marketing giving you a better understanding of how to apply influencer marketing to your business and brand. 

I have summarized the details of what is Influencer Marketing, how to utilize this marketing strategy, the legal disclosures you will need to include in your marketing, the most used platforms, how pricing is determined (& where the best deals are) along with the general process. Everything you need to get started with your own Influencer Marketing Campaign.

Influencer marketing is a form of marketing promotion where a brand partners with a trusted well known influencer. 

Basically, influencer marketing utilizes someone’s large audience of followers on a particular social media platform like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat, and uses their audience to promote a brand, product, or business, whatever you are trying to gain an audience for and sell. 

Influencer marketing places the focus on people who can influence a target audience through their popularity or social following rather than speaking directly from the brand to the target audience itself. 

The benefit: Increase engagement rate, build trust, and quickly increase growth rate.

Before online marketing meant building a targeted ad campaign. Targeted ad on social media sites like Facebook put the brand out there and then you hope it will be seen by the right people, clicked on, and engaged. By partnering with an influencer the brand is presented to a proven engaged audience who are more likely to act on their recommendations.

Influencer uses, promotes, talks about a brand to their audience. Your business and brand can now leverage these market leaders influence to grow faster and gain more trust. More so than by traditional advertising and paid media.

Influencer marketing is also known as:

• Growth Hacking
  
• Partner Marketing
  
• Modern Marketers
  

70% of YouTube subscribers say they relate to YouTube creators more than traditional celebrities. 

So here is what brand marketers need to know…

In 2018 influencer marketing is now much more regulated. FTC Guidelines have rules for product endorsements. 

If you plan on engaging an influencer to promote your product it is important to abide by these guidelines in order to avoid legal pitfalls. Don’t worry it’s really quite simple, however you do need to make sure the influencer discloses the fact they are being compensated. 

The disclosure may be done with a simple hashtag in the comments like #ad, #Sponsor or list the name of your business and “Partner”. 

It is extremely important to disclose every paid piece of content. 

• Check each paid post you do to make sure the influencer is including a disclosure
  
• Use something other than “ad” or #ad for example “Partner” with the brand name listed first. 
  

There is also an Instagram branded content option when selected “Paid Partnership” shows up under the posters name. This makes posting endorsements on Instagram straight forward, but try being creative with your disclosure. I like the #Partner personally. 

Now let’s turn to how pricing works… 

Pricing depends on two factors:

1. Engagement, how many people the influencer reaches.
   
2. Demand, how much brands are using a specific outlet. 
   

Demand might be high on Instagram and the audience reach largest for a particular influencer, so it is going to cost you more to utilize their Instagram audience. However, they may have less followers on another platform but could be a better conduit for your brand and cost a whole lot less. 

While Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat are the three most used for influencers, platforms like Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest may be less expensive and you might get better results depending on what you are promoting. 

Ask yourself where your target audience is, and what will get you the best conversion rate for your brand. You might get more for your money even if there is a smaller audience. It will be more concentrated and cost you less. 

2017 most used platform by influencers was Instagram 92% of influencers used them. Youtube came in 2nd with 12.2% of influencers. A big part of this is thought to be demand. The more people want their brand on Instagram, the more it is used. It does not necessarily mean you will get the best results with the most used platform. Consider conversion rates, who your target audience is, and how you want your brand conveyed. 

Influencer marketing is a fast growing trend with a lot of people out there who perhaps have a smaller audience, but will still help to get you results. Rather than just the top influencers consider a campaign which includes micro-influencers with less than 10,000 followers. They are cost effective, and could be a really good conduit to get real engagement and possibly an even better conversion rate than the really big ones.

The process…

First, look through the platform(s) you want to utilize and find people who have credibility with similar brands, products, genre as what you are promoting. Find influencers with a good audience and also a similar style to your brand. 

Send them a DM or reach out by email if it’s available.

Work out the details of the partnership. Outline what you are expecting but give them enough creative licensing to do their thing (they are professionals and know how to get results). Make sure you understand their cost and how they expect to receive payment. 

After you have it all worked out, payment is sent and the influencer does their thing. 

Keep in mind you are trying to create value content and not just another advertisement. You want content which is useful and engaging. Make it fun and entertaining. This is where the influencer can really pay off. They give value by conveying useful information, a review, a how-to, show people how engaging your brand is and having fun with it at the same time. 

Use the influencer’s style and personality to your advantage. You can still convey a message and at the same time get the interaction and entertainment you are paying for. This will get you the best engagement rate, more shares, more likes, and more people actually wanting to try you out!

To get the best results build a partnership with influencers. Invest in them, show them loyalty and appreciation, they will be more enthusiastic in promoting your brand. Their audience will be more likely to engage if they feel the influencer is being genuine.

Tracking the results is the tricky part. There are several ways to manage this with influencer marketing tools readily available to do the work for you.

The most popular ways of tracking your results are:

• UTM parameters
  
• Unique promo codes
  
• Branded hashtags
  

Ask yourself what success will look like for your influencer marketing campaign. Are you wanting to build brand awareness? Promote your video? Drive sales? Get more people to utilize your services? Or, build your credibility in a particular subject matter? 

In order to measure your results you need to define what your success looks like this is your performance indicator. By identifying potential improvements you will be able to set up what performance improvements you are looking for. This will give you a KPI, or Key Performance Indicator to evaluate the success of your influencer marketing campaign. 

Stay on top of what is getting the best results and modify as you go. Share feedback with your influencer network and cultivate the relationships you get the most value from. One big post share isn’t going to get the job done. 

To have a successful marketing campaign influencers need to create genuine content with entertainment, enthusiasm, and value. 

You find your own Influencer, or use a service. Here are some of the biggies:

• Pinfluencers 
  
• Tapinfluence
  
• Upfluence
  
• Sprout Social
  
• Famebit (YouTube created) 
  

Our Digital Marketing Agency creates targeted and focused campaigns, doing all the work for you. Reach out to our marketing team for assistance: support@maingoesbig.com 

You now have the know how to do create your own Influencer Marketing campaign. Everyone can engage this great marketing tactic!  

Sources: 

https://sproutsocial.com/insights/influencer-marketing/ 

https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/youtube-stars-influence/

https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/advertising-and-marketing/endorsements/