Influencer Marketing Campaign

Technology companies and brands are finding themselves increasingly competing in ever-crowded spaces, wondering what might set them apart from the crowd. Not surprisingly, the key factor for success for many tech startups has been influencer marketing campaigns. Influencer marketing has become the talk of the town, with many embracing it as part of their marketing and PR strategies for both B2B and B2C marketing. Quickly, influencer marketing has replaced certain forms of traditional advertising, as marketers realize they can increase their reach by partnering with personalities that have large followings on their websites and social media platforms.

Although the popularity of influencer marketing has grown significantly, many are still unsure as to how to use the influence of social media celebrities to create effective influencer marketing campaigns. It might just be a case of using the latest technology that influencer marketing can offer. Quick guide on how to create a successful influencer marketing campaign.

Determine Your Goals

To set up a successful influencer marketing campaign, you need to do three things: identify your target audience, set your budget and establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

KPIs to consider include:

• Audience reach
• Impressions
• Views
• Engagement
• Click-throughs
• Increase in followers
• Sales

Choose The Right Social Media Channels

The platforms you use will depend on your end goals. Different platforms are used to reach different audiences and demographics, and the same goes for what product or service you’re marketing: beautiful photos of your product belong on Instagram, while eye-catching videos will perform better on Facebook. Choosing the right social media channel will allow you to target your specific group of customers.

You will also want to consider the type of engagement you want to achieve. Social media channels offer a variety of engagement possibilities and the same marketing campaign you run on Facebook may not get the same attention on Twitter, Pinterest, or any other platform.

Identify The Right Influencer

Remember, the influencer you choose will be representing your brand, so before you work with someone, you need to ask yourself, “Is this the best person to represent my company?” You need to do thorough research before approaching anyone. Before contacting a potential influencer, look at all their social media profiles, verify that they do not have a bad reputation online or in the press, check they do not discuss topics that would undermine the value of your products or services, and ensure they are polite, articulate, and that they write well-researched posts.

Also, don’t base your decision on the number of followers of your potential influencer. Be sure to include in your research micro-influencers who, instead of charging you thousands of dollars for one post, will allow you to put together a more prolonged campaign or give you the chance to use numerous influencers at one time.

Choosing An Influencer

Your chosen influencer’s voice needs to align with your brand so that it feels authentic to your audience. There are a few ways to identify these people:

• Do a hashtag search to find out who is already posting about your brand
• Do keyword research
• Use an influencer marketing tool
• Ask others for recommendations

Don’t forget to ask the influencer to show any positive past results they have for similar work. This helps you both see their success and be sure that they are able to communicate with you quickly and succinctly.

Remember that you are not building an infomercial with a celebrity telling your audience to buy your products. Instead of listing all the benefits your audience will gain from buying your service or products, make sure your influencer generates organic posts that make it obvious and relevant to your consumers.

As an aside, your company might think long-term about investing in building your CEO's profile and helping them to become a influencer. Business to Business influencers are often writers, keynote speakers or experts on Quora, and the role of many PR teams in agencies or in-house is often to ghost write content for these CEOs to make help them become influencers.

Think About your Publishing Schedule

To make sure your influencer campaign is effective, you need to coordinate all your social media platforms and align your efforts with all your other marketing endeavors, such as events, new blog posts, press releases, and more. Developing your marketing strategy around your influencer marketing campaign will help you push your audience through your sales funnel.

Review Content Before Publishing

Before any posts are published, you need to ensure your content aligns with your campaign requirements and your advertising guidelines. Although you must give your influencer creative freedom, it is important your review all posts, images, and videos before they are published.

Optimize The Content

To amplify your influencer marketing campaigns, be sure to promote posts before and after they are launched. You can also ask your influencer to promote posts throughout their social media platforms. This will allow you to put further emphasis on calls-to-action within the posts and publish more content relating to your campaigns.

Measure Your Results

As with any marketing efforts, you need to make sure that your influencer campaign is performing to the best of its ability to deliver ROI. Look back at the KPIs you defined when putting together your campaign strategy and answer these questions: Have you made progress ? What have you learned from your audience ? Which posts are performing the best? Which posts are underperforming ?