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According to a recent study comprised of marketers from a variety of industries, 94% said influencer marketing was an effective campaign strategy. That's great news for marketers -- right? Not so fast. Even though a majority of marketers believe influencer marketing is a viable tactic, it's still incredibly challenging to report accurately on influencer campaign ROI. In fact, 78% of marketers said that determining the success of influencer marketing campaigns would be a top challenge this year....
Influencer marketing is growing, and 84% of marketers say it's effective. Check out these key facts and stats about both this marketing tactic and popular influencer social network Instagram.
I think it goes without saying that just about everyone in the digital marketing space is looking to become an influencer in one way or another. Whether you want to improve your authority amongst potential clients, find yourself speaking at a conference, or even publish your own book, you first need to build your overall authority and influence. Over a decade ago, I started off on a journey in digital marketing that was based almost completely on building my influence as an SEO and Social Media Marketer, so I wanted to share some of the things that have worked for me over the years. “Influence will lead marketing efforts by 2020,” according to Ted Coine. “It’s the most effective form of ‘advertising’ there is…”...
Businesses know that today’s consumers are knowledgeable and not easily swayed by traditional marketing. Consumers also look to peers to help them make purchase decisions. Influencer marketing can increase brand awareness, build an audience and help boost sales. Most importantly, it often costs significantly less than conventional advertising. If you’re looking ideas on how to work with influencers for your digital marketing campaign, you should learn from the best. So here is a list of some of the best innovative examples of companies that nailed their influencer marketing campaigns and what you can learn from them....
Whitelists have become of interest for brands looking to make sure their ads only appear in pre-approved places. Instead of blacklists, which can end up being a game of whack-a-mole, whitelists, while less scaleable and more expensive, can actually provide a better guarantee of not having an ad next to porn content — or worse. Now, a growing number of companies are testing influencer whitelists: Creating pre-approved lists of influencers that brands can work with, and in some cases, get unfettered, open access to their handles. Against the backdrop of brand safety, the issue becomes more prevalent. One marketing executive, who spoke to Digiday under condition of anonymity, said that he’s been “burned” by influencers who have taken his product, then posted content in “unsavory” ways that he said were “disgusting.” There have been flubs in the space. Perhaps the biggest one was when YouTube star PewDiePie posted videos with anti-Semitic jokes, costing him the business of brands including Disney and YouTube. Shortly after, in February, influencer and CoverGirl ambassador James Charles tweeted a joke about going to Africa and catching Ebola alongside a CoverGirl-sponsored tweet. And for influencers, it’s not just about so-called “brand safety” issues. Companies are also looking for influencers who haven’t worked with similar brands, or sometimes, haven’t worked with brands at all....
Over the past year, several companies and thousands of freelancers have signed on to a project aimed at helping both groups broaden their horizons, with marketers getting access to global talent while creatives get to travel the world. Wanderbrief is a creative network startup that lets writers, designers, videographers and photographers submit their portfolios to its website to apply for project gigs at agencies or brands. Instead of accepting money, they work in exchange for airfare, room and board. Last year, copywriter Mark van der Heijden and former Havas Boondoggle strategy director Valentijn van Santvoort started Wanderbriefto give other creatives the same shot at adventure that van der Heijden enjoyed as The Backpacker Intern, a two-year journey where he traded work for free lodging around the globe....
Thanks in part to a “60 Minutes” segment in October, influencer marketing has crossed over. It’s no longer just a topic of interest to advertisers. It’s a subject of public interest.
As the segment illustrated, influencer marketing is a big business. Teens with millions of followers can pull in hundreds of thousands of dollars for a shout-out on YouTube or Instagram.
It’s easy to imagine viewers all over the country yelling at their screens about the unfairness of it all, but from a marketer’s point of view, there’s another big problem: This type of “influencer marketing” isn’t actually marketing. It’s really “influencer advertising” and should be viewed as a less effective, pricier variation that has a corrosive effect on influencer marketing.
Influencer marketing transfers the implicit trust that consumers have in people they follow online and transfers it to a brand. Influencer advertising betrays that trust both for the influencer and for the brand....
Animal influencers are undeniably on the rise. These pampered pets (and their owners/handlers/entourages) enjoy a level of social media fame usually reserved for well, human celebrities, and bring in real revenue through their high-profile partnerships with brands like Zappos, Mercedes-Benz, Purina, and even Google.
In other words, these adorable fluff balls make more money on a single Instagram post than you, a human, will probably ever make on a single Instagram post. Let that sink in for a minute.
According to Create&Cultivate, social media influencers (animal or otherwise) can expect to earn around $3,000 per sponsorship deal when they hit between 150,000 and 250,000 followers. Many of the pets on this list have over one million followers....
Finding the right influencers and building relationships is hugely important for your brand. It will help you reach a wider audience, target ideal customers, and create more trust between you and your social following. According to a McKinsey Study, marketing-inspired word-of-mouth generates more than twice the sales of paid advertising and customers have a 37 percent higher retention rate. For every dollar spent on influencer marketing, marketers see a $6.50 return.You can understand why 84 percent of marketers expect to launch at least one campaign involving an influencer in the next 12 months. However, finding the right influencer marketing tools can be a major challenge. That’s why we’ve provided a list of tools to help you develop your influencer marketing strategy. Bookmark th...
Influencers use different social media platforms to help promote and get the word out about the brands they are working with. Nearly a third of US influencers who currently work with brands cite Facebook as being the best platform for influencer marketing, followed closely by Instagram, per July 2016 research from SheSpeaks, a female-focused engagement network, which polled 347 US influencers who have an active blog, and are active on social media.
It’s not surprising that Facebook and Instagram were considered to be among the best social media platforms for influencer marketing, especially given that most influencers use photo and video content when marketing on behalf of brands. What is surprising is that only 10% of influencers cited Pinterest, a content sharing service that’s all about images and videos. In fact, more respondents considered Twitter to be the best social media platform, and they can only use up to 140 characters within that platform to promote a brand. What’s more, Pinterest even has more users than Twitter in the US as of this year....
Influencer marketing is rapidly gaining popularity among brand marketers, and according to April 2016 research, nearly three-quarters of US marketers cite ongoing ambassadorships as one of the most effective uses of influencers.
TapInfluence, an influencer marketing automation platform, and technology research company Altimeter Group surveyed 1,753 influencers and 102 marketers about how they work together. Influencers were selected from TapInfluence’s marketplace, on which each holds at least 10,000 followers.
Marketers use influencers in a variety of ways, from leaving a review for their product to mentioning their brand in some way on social networks. For many (70.6%), ongoing ambassadorships are the most effective influencer marketing tactic. Product reviews are a close second—more than two-thirds of respondents mentioned them as being the most effective use of influencers....
Influencer marketing is all the rage, but there’s not a clear understanding of what constitutes influence. A few years ago, I participated in an influencer event for a consumer brand. It was an expensive affair put on by the brand’s agency. There were a few dozen “influencers” there, which, it turned out, meant a collection of people with blogs and social media followings. A photographer captured it all as a glitzy brand experience. Some people blogged or shared about the event, some didn’t, and it left me wondering about the return on that investment. From the photos that were posted, it looked like a beautiful bit of marketing. From the actual impact, not so much. Influencer is a designation with an almost magical glow to it. But not all influencers are created equal. Not everyone with a social media following is an influencer and not every influencer is a good fit for every brand. Brands should also be wary of those who refer to themselves as influencers. There’s a lot of snake oil in influencer marketing....
So, where can you find these influencers and how can you get them to share your piece of content? I can understand if you’re skeptical of your own ability. You might doubt whether you can truly create an epic piece of content. Alternatively, you might not be able to understand why influencers will be interested in you and your content at all.I want to tell you a sneaky little secret… It’s possible to get industry celebrities to not just share your post, but even link to it....
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Influencer marketing is now more common than ever. Businesses, both large and small, are tapping into this marketing strategy to help increase their online and offline presence by enhancing their brand awareness. However, you need to understand that influencer marketing is only effective when done in the right way. Difference between influencer marketing from other media platforms Influencer marketing is basically founded in the involvement of a renowned person with tangible opinions together with a personal brand. In this case, therefore, it is important to be careful in creating a balance between branding a product and capturing the audience’s trust. There are various elements of influencer marketing to be aware of and many brands seem to get some of the elements wrong....
With new regulations on Instagram influencers, how are paid posts faring? We take a look at the top influencers of July and their impact on brands.
Got milk? Who doesn’t remember the celebrity dairy ads of the 90s, or the changing athlete faces on cereal boxes? Today, these influencer marketing campaigns have become much more prevalent, niche, and accessible, due to social media.
On Instagram, this is especially true. In a recent survey, 91 percent of influencers cited Instagram as their platform of choice, due to its community and opportunities to connect with brands.
But Instagram influencer posts aren’t always easy to distinguish. There’s a variety of hashtags involved and only recent plans for standardization. At the end of June, Instagram announced a new native ad feature to indicate paid promotions.
Despite the new feature, posts with sponsored hashtags have driven more than 58.5 million likes and comments in July as of the 25th.
One of the big issues for everyone in this space is measurement and Traackr allowed me to confront this issue head-on. It’s HARD establishing the value in a B2B setting since the sales cycle can be long, the decisions owned by different people on a purchasing team and other complications. And yet, progress is being made in this area. Do we aim for ROI? Yes. But that measurement may not always be accessible, especially in the short-term. The report looks at six different measurement alternatives.Maybe it’s not “marketing” The best companies are managing influencer relations in the same style as they would analysts or members of the press. Some of the experts I interviewed said we should not event call the practice influencer marketing any more, recognizing that the passionate experts in a field cannot be a marketing mouthpiece for a brand. The field is evolving to a more sophisticated level of engagement. The report contains some fascinating examples of the cultural transition needed to effectively make this change....
When I started experimenting with influencer marketing strategies for the HubSpot Sales Blog seven months ago, I was operating under a few key assumptions:If one influencer is good, 23 is better. A huge name on a standard quality blog post is better than an unknown name on a great quality post. Partnering with influencers is an efficient and scalable way to grow traffic. Turns out, those assumptions were mostly -- even completely -- false....
During Wednesday’s Snap earnings call, chief strategy officer Imran Khan name-dropped L’Oreal as a brand that was reaping the benefits of his company’s vertical video ads and sponsored lenses. His company, which owns Snapchat, has long espoused that the app is not really an influencer-focused platform because it doesn’t want to differentiate celebrity from regular users. L’Oreal’s Paris U.K. division wouldn’t necessarily disagree, though it’s evidently found an ad-free, influencer-heavy formula on Snapchat to complement its paid campaigns. Working with BzzAgent, a network of so-called everyday influencers owned by shopper data company dunnhumby, the cosmetics giant deployed 2,000 U.K.-based women who were 20 to 55 years old for an endeavor that ran across Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter and YouTube. “They are regular people who are socially savvy,” said Brian Covali, global head of marketing at BzzAgent. “[Their] campaign activities emphasized Snapchat, which is where most of the activity occurred.” ...
The new guidance is focused around affiliate deals – where bloggers, vloggers and Instagram stars are rewarded financially for clicks placed within or underneath their content. CAP has warned that followers should be made aware that what they are about to watch or click on is an ad, and as such said brands and talent should be in the know about the different "technical quirks" associated with different social media plaforms. The key points include advice to signpost wholly affliated content. So for example, branded videos or sponsored blog posts should include an 'ad' warning in the title to ensure users are aware of their commercial nature before pressing play or scrolling down to read. Where only some of the links in a post, picture or video are for affliated products the whole post doesn't have to be identified as an ad, but each of the links listed should be badged as such....
Welcome to the next post in our series on monetising your influence type. Last time we looked at Platform-Specific Superstars – a small percentage of all influencers. This time we’re going to take a look at the other end of the spectrum. Most of us fit into the category of “micro-influencer”, and it can be an exciting place to be!Who are Micro-influencers? Call them what you will – micro-influencers, long-tail influencers, the “Power Middle” – who are they and why are they getting so much attention? There is no one defining characteristic or measurement that defines you as a micro-influencer. Generally it’s those of us with an online audience of less than 100,000 followers, be that a social or blog following. Some define it more specifically as having 500-5,000 followers, the power middle crowd have been defined as having 100,000-250,000 followers. You won’t get a straight answer from anyone, so let’s look at something other than just audience size to help figure out if you’re a micro-influencer (my term of choice, so I’ll use that from here on in). Generally, as audience size goes up, engagement comes down. As marketers get smarter and realise the power of engagement over reach, their gaze has drifted to micro-influencers. Here’s why, neatly summed up in a graph from research done by influencer marketing platform Takumi on half a million instagram accounts....
Want to promote your small business on a budget? Have you considered partnering with less famous influencers? Highly targeted micro-influencers can help your small business gain visibility, engage an audience, and promote your products. In this article, you’ll discover how to find and connect with micro-influencers who can promote your small business....
Ever since the line between celebrity and social media celebrity was erased, bloggers have become legitimate influencers across almost all industries, affecting consumer decisions beyond purchasing by acting as both tastemaker and trusted friend. And a large fan base is no longer a requirement for influencers. More recently, brands have been turning to micro-influencers, bloggers with less than 100,000 followers, to better target consumers. Bloglovin', a media platform that connects these microbloggers with brands through proprietary marketing platform Activate, looked at its users' followers and influence across social platforms to see how they use these channels to drive engagement.
"In a rapidly growing world of micro-influencers and proliferation of social channels, brands and advertisers are looking for best practices to engage the right micro-influencers to reach their target audience," said Activate president Rohit Vashisht. "This research shows that brands can and should look at adjacent verticals to tap into multiple channels for wider audience reach."...
Are you seen as an expert in your industry?
Want to develop relationships with the media to become a go-to expert?
To explore what marketers need to know to connect with traditional media influencers, I interview Josh Elledge.
The power of word-of-mouth is amplified through social networks. These days, when you’re considering any purchase, you have an entire focus group to call upon via your smartphone any time, and that focus group isn't some random sample. These are people you care about, people you listen to and trust. These people are influencers, and through social connection, those influential voices can be virtually anyone. And now brands are looking to tap into that potential.To get a better handle on the opportunities of influencer marketing, Tapinfluence recently commissioned Altimeter to conduct a study of more than 1,700 influencers and 100 marketers to get their insights into thecurrent state of influence and how brands can, and are, using it to advantage. The full report contains some great insights into the growth of influencer marketing, particularly from the perspective of the influencers themselves, and they’ve incorporated the key findings into this new infographic....
Have you tried to market your brand through influencers? Maybe you’ve failed to see positive results from your influencer marketing campaign. Or maybe you’re just new to this marketing method and you want to know how to make it work for you. There are several types of influencer marketing campaigns and the important thing is to find one that’ll be perfect for your brand and audience. Let’s first take a look at how exactly brands useinfluencer marketing based on an Augure study. The study shows that 93 percent of marketers report increased visibility from influencer marketing. Seventy-five percent use the channel to generate new leads, while 76 percent consider it an effective way to earn customer loyalty....
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"Influencer marketing" is a popular, but often misunderstood term. So, what does it look like? Let these 10 examples from HubSpot explain and inspire.