How do you avoid common pitfalls and risks of influencer marketing campaigns?

Two more influencer vetting tips: - Check the location of an influencer’s followers. Are the followers in your target market? Let's say you are trying to build your brand in the United States. If an influencer has 30,000 followers but only 8,000 are in the U.S., 8,000 is the number of followers that you should consider as you are comparing influencers. - Watch for engagement pod activity. Engagement pods artificially inflate an influencer's engagement. Don’t mistake this for real engagement. It's forced engagement, and the likes and comments do not represent a genuine interest in the content.

In terms of strategy, also consider which influencer type would be best for the campaign. The smaller the influencer (nano's), the more authenticity and trust with the messaging, which could make a big difference on conversion type campaigns.

Once a brand has decided on IM as a channel, it essentially adds a human voice to a brand communication message. As such, the benchmarks should be the brand performance for any campaign and if the IM channel outperforms, the brand can decide to what extend a human voice becomes part of their messaging.

The FTC owns and enforces the laws for influencer marketing. Look for their guides on the topic. Two tips: 1. Unpaid influencers who receive product gifts only can disclose a brand relationship by simply stating, "Thank you for the product gift [brand name]." In this ad-averse world, this is more authentic than #ad or #sponsored. 2. According to the FTC, if an influencer is paid to talk about a product and thinks it is terrible, they can’t say it’s terrific. Here's a workaround. Do not require influencers to post if they don't love the product. Sounds counterintuitive. But, if an influencer does not love your product, why would you require a post? Ask for feedback and learn from it.

Influencers can impact all stages of the buyer's journey. Pick one stage as the focus. Something that is not well understood: Influencers produce two outputs: promotions and UGC. Don't ignore the value of UGC! It's powerful as social proof. Add it to your marketing mix to boost conversions. Start by adding to product pages. For best results: - identify campaign goals upfront - craft a strategy to reach the goals - tell influencers your goal and provide any info that may help them tell a compelling story - identify metrics ahead of time because you may need a baseline If the goal is awareness, how will you measure it? You'll have to use proxy measures (reach+engagement) OR measure pre- vs. post-campaign awareness.

Relevance and subscriber loyalty are more important than the number of subscribers. Audiences can sense when a product or brand doesn't align with an influencer's values or lifestyle. That's why it's so important to choose influencers who will be true advocates for your brand. Rather than devoting significant resources to securing celebrity influencers, it's critical to identify and engage creators who can deliver authentic content.

Always consider the deployment of performance media to scale the reach, it does not make sense to only rely on organic reach of influencer content. Rather work with smaller influencers and compliment their organic reach with performance, than over investing in bigger influencers without budget to deploy performance media.

Leverage the Power of the Audience The true value in influencer marketing is to communicate your product or service to an audience of potentially new customers. The opportunity to have your message received without any barriers depends on how much the sponsored content reflects the influencer’s typical content. Where is the value in watching versus swiping? It’s the creative. Be creative. Featuring videos and green screen highlights has its places, but deep, penetrating marketing influence demands more layers of creativity and delivery. Brainstorming with a team from first thoughts to completion is key to pushing creativity to a successful campaign within desired boundaries.

Consider utilising a specialist agency to manage your campaign. Choose one that has a track record, depth to their influencer inventory, and a developed tech back-end that can handle the coordination and heavy lifting needed to allow for smooth campaign execution and reporting.