Influencer marketing isn’t just high-quality content on pastel-colored backgrounds. There’s a lot of strategy behind getting a post into a crafted, influencer-filled niche. Before companies get to the final stages of an influencer marketing campaign, they have to create an initial plan of action — starting with finding the right influencer. In order to find the right person to promote their product or organization, brands and advertisers have to answer these questions first:
What characteristics or ideals best represent your brand?
To find the right influencer for your brand, you must identify the message your brand is trying to get across. Do you promote a holistic, environmentally friendly image? The best influencers for your mission will share the same values as your brand. An influencer is an extension of your brand, and by partnering with people around the world to promote your message or products, you allow them to become faces of your company.
When influencers are talking about your company, you want to make sure they are an accurate representation of everything your company stands for. The influencers you partner with become living parts of your brand, and acting off-brand can have a huge impact on the success of your campaign. Finding influencers who not only agree with your message, but live by the same standards creates security in your campaign, and creates authenticity between the brand and influencer.
What is the target demographic of the audience you’re trying to reach?
To successfully reach an influencer’s audience and build a larger community of people, brands must dig into the core emotion they are trying to get across with their campaign so they can find the right influencer to be the face of their mission. For example, are you trying to appeal to multichildren households with an emotional campaign? If so, you might want to avoid influencers who curse in their posts.
By focusing on the audience of your campaign, you can narrow the search for the right influencer. You need some information about the demographics of the people who follow potential partners to really vet if they’re the influencers for you. Often, this requires a third-party application to collect and organize all of the data to help you make these decisions. Once you identify the audience your influencer reaches and their affinity for your brand or market, you can be more assured the influencer is a good fit for your campaign goals.
What is the purpose of your campaign? What are you trying to achieve?
In order to have a successful strategy, brands must establish the goal they are trying to achieve through their campaign. These goals can range from driving brand awareness, increasing sales and growing email lists to opening new store locations or best utilizing a different niche.
The purpose of your campaign directly relates to the purpose of your influencer partnership, and together they reflect on the overall impression of your brand. In this case, different strategies and different influencers will work better than others, depending on the goal your brand wants to achieve.
The more authentic and transparent you are with the purpose of your campaign, the more success you will have with getting that message across and resonating with target demographics. The intent of your message and your target demographic work hand in hand, and although they have different intents, your brand’s strategy needs to include both of these topics.
What networks are most effective for your message?
As social media platforms change, so do the ways people use them. Brands and advertisers must focus on the types of content that perform well on each network, and the types of people who use them. Sometimes this is determined by the type of audience you are reaching.
For example, gaming audiences tend to focus on Twitch, YouTube and Twitter, whereas beauty and fashion lives and breathes on Instagram. If you’re featuring a new or complex product, you probably want to go with an image- or video-based platform.
It’s also important to note that some platforms with younger audiences, like Snapchat and TikTok, have their own feel — if you want your content to feel authentic and perform well, you should embrace that feeling even if it isn’t your normal branding. You might make a sarcastic or funny video, or create your own play on a trending meme. If you know the networks and strategy you are planning to use, don’t be afraid to listen to the influencers there about what works with their audiences.
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What is the most effective way to connect with your target demographic?
Influencer marketing can be a very effective way to connect with your ideal demographic and help create new fans, followers and customers. Partner with influencers who share your brand values and whose audiences match your ideal customer. This is where authenticity really comes from. Influencer marketing is all about connecting with people on a deeper, more intimate level.
As a company, your brand has to be honest about itself and its purpose to find influencers who will be authentic partners. When a brand presents itself honestly and accurately to the world, it creates trust with its customers and can truly build a passionate and loyal community.
Although influencer marketing has been around for years, social media rapidly evolves, and your strategy must evolve, too. The world is becoming a more connected place, and word-of-mouth marketing only continues to grow more important. If your company is facing difficulties with influencer marketing, you might want to take a step back and ask yourself: What are our brand values? What are our goals? How do we build real community and relationships with the influencers in our market? If you take some time for introspection, the payoff can be immense.
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