Influencer Marketing

It was May 2014 and I was sitting in my University library frantically researching the rise of Social Media for fashion brands. A totally new concept, my dissertation was based on Burberry’s use of Social Media as a means of bridging the gap between consumer and brand. Fashion week - traditionally an exclusive event - seen only by editors in chief, designers, journalists and people in the know was becoming more accessible than ever before thanks to the rise in Social Media. 2014 saw the emergence of what was known as the ‘blogger’ - a term we are all extremely familiar with nowadays.

I wrote back in 2014 that with Burberry inviting bloggers (who we now largely know as Influencers) to their shows, they were creating a brand that was more accessible to the masses, rather than just the elite few. It gave us ‘normal’ beings an insight into a world that was historically shut off, secretive and unattainable. Looking back, this was just the beginning. 

Nowadays Social Media Marketing is huge. The use of Influencer marketing to sell products, lifestyles and ideas is extremely common, albeit controversial. As noted by Social Media Today, a study by Bazaar Voice showed that “47% of customers are tired of Influencer content that appears inauthentic and 62% of customers believe that Influencer endorsements take advantage of impressionable audiences.” It’s super important to get your brands marketing and tone right on social media, audiences are smart, and they can spot in-authenticity a mile off.

Take Scott Disick for example. When marketing for ‘BooTea’ Scott accidentally copied and pasted the whole text instead of just the part he was told to promote. His caption read: “Here you go, at 4pm est, write the below Caption: Keeping up with the summer workout routine with my morning @booteauk protein shake!” This post totally backfired and on what was already a controversial topic (slimming teas… but that’s a whole other conversation for another day!) We doubt anyone would be rushing to buy into this brand when the Influencer so clearly does not use the product.

This doesn’t mean that all Influencer marketing is bad though. Some Influencers have a huge number of devoted followers. Take Alexandra Cane for example. She’s been killing the game recently with her Instagram Live workouts. Every day hundreds of comments appear asking where she got her necklace, what brand of gym wear she’s wearing and even what fake tan she uses. So it can work! It’s just super important to always approach Influencers who have a genuine connection to their community. If your product or service matches with their values it’s much more authentic and it’s likely that their followers hold the same values too. 

Don’t always go for follower count. It’s been noted in a report by Mobile Marketing that the more followers an Influencer has does not necessarily mean their posts get the highest engagement. It was found that “The engagement rate for Instagram Influencers with at least 10,000 followers is steady at about 3.6% worldwide. Influencers with 5,000 to 10,000 followers have an engagement rate of 6.3% and those with a following of 1,000 to 5,000 have the highest rate at 8.8%, per InfluencerDB.” Follower count does not equal engagement rate, so again, it’s all about the quality of the Influencer and the authenticity of them using your product or service, so keep it real! 

So what should you do if you want to use Influencer Marketing as part of your Social Media strategy? 

First up ensure that you do your research on who you’re going to ask to promote your brand. Make sure their values align with your businesses core values and this should in turn result in your values aligning with the Influencers audience. 

Step 2 - Make sure they actually TRY your product/service and genuinely believe in it. Again, authenticity is key and you will only portray that if the Influencer genuinely believes in what they are promoting. 

Step 3 - Keep the right tone. Let the Influencer create the content. Make sure they keep the tone in line with their usual tone of voice and encourage conversation in the comments. The more ‘real’ people commenting and discussing the product, the more engagement and reach your brand will get. 

Step 4 - Make sure the Influencer adheres to the rules. When promoting a product on Instagram Influencers must adhere to the rules in order to not get in trouble with the Advertising Standards Authority. It’s really important to get that right as brands/Influencers have been caught out with this in the past. Check out full information on the rules here.

Step 5 - Evaluate. There is no point in marketing if you don’t evaluate the success rate. Use the social media platforms analytics tool to crunch the numbers and find out if it worked. If it didn’t - don’t worry! Social Media Marketing is all about adapting and learning about your audience and what works. Simply take the information and adapt it to your next campaign.

Social Media Marketing is about connecting with audiences. It’s vital to remember that Social Media was created to connect people with their friends and family. The fact that companies now use it to communicate with their audience is great, but it’s not how it was originally intended! There’s no denying that Social Media gives you a platform to get in front of the right audience, but you’ve got to use it properly. It’s vital to make sure that when promoting your product or service via an Influencer, you are keeping it as authentic and real as possible. Audiences on Social Media don’t want to see overly produced marketing messages, and they can spot in-authenticity a mile off.

As long as you pick the right Influencer, keep it real, evaluate the results and adapt going forward you’re going to find success with your Influencer Marketing.