Member Article

11 mistakes brands are making with influencer marketing

Working with influencers is fast becoming one of the most popular and effective marketing strategies out there. Its popularity is causing brands and agencies up and down the country to jump on the bandwagon without much thought, and as a result, they often get their campaigns wrong. But it doesn’t have to be that way! Expert digital marketing agency, Soap Media, give their two cents on how you can correct your mistakes and produce some truly extraordinary campaigns.

Focusing on followers, not engagement

The age old question; does size matter? In influencer marketing, we’re here to tell you that bigger isn’t always better. Vanity metrics like number of followers won’t necessarily spell a strong influencer marketing campaign. In fact, focusing solely on these kinds of numbers has been the downfall of many. Follower counts can easily be influenced from the outside e.g. buying followers on Instagram - more on this next - which leads to unrealistic perceptions of popularity.

Follower fraud

Yes, this really is a thing. And unfortunately follower fraud is a growing problem in the influencer world. But don’t worry. If you know what to look for then it’s easy to avoid. Just as we’ve mentioned above, the trick is to look at the difference between the number of followers a person has - for example, on Instagram - and then look at the amount of interaction their posts receive. If their follower count is in the tens of thousands, but their likes are barely scraping a couple of hundred, this should be a red flag.

Speaking to the many

When it comes to success from influencer marketing, it’s incredibly easy to be blinded by ones and zeros - as we’ve mentioned above. So, in order to hit those numbers, it’s tempting to draft a mass email that ticks the boxes and reads well, but fails to really connect with an individual. How can it? It’s generic! That may have worked in the past but unfortunately, that won’t get you very far anymore.

A tailored email to a handful of your dream influencers is far more likely to be successful than a spammy and impersonal email sent out to thousands.

Not only does this help you stand out from the rest - trust us, bloggers and influencers receive dozens of emails a day - but it also gives you a certain amount of kudos in the blogosphere. These days, bloggers aren’t shy about sharing any correspondences on Twitter and calling brands out. The last thing you want is to be email-shamed for your poor attempts at reaching out.

Not doing research

The blogosphere is expanding every single day, which means there are so many influencers for brands to choose from, but that doesn’t mean all of them are going to be a perfect fit for your campaign. There are a few things to look out for when choosing influencers to partner with…

Firstly, a common niche. Is your product, service or offering something they would be likely to use in their everyday life regardless of whether you approached them? Fitting snugly in their niche will have your campaign off to a flying start.

Secondly, research their channel and who the influencer is as a person; do they appear to share the same values as you? Once a collaboration kicks off, that chosen person becomes an ambassador of sorts for your business. And you always want to be presented in a good light.

Restricting creative freedom

Nobody likes to be micromanaged, and it’s the same with influencers and bloggers. That person has spent a great deal of time and effort to build an audience that identifies with their tone of voice and way of looking at the world. Their readers will immediately notice if something doesn’t sound like it has genuinely come from them. What your collaboration must always have is authenticity.

Don’t misunderstand us; this doesn’t mean that you don’t have any say in what is written about in your sponsored content. But it’s important that you make your aims crystal clear in a brief before content production begins. Be upfront and specific about what you want from the campaign, but also allow complete creative freedom.

Lack of patience

Influencer marketing can be incredibly rewarding, but it’s not going to give you results overnight. If that’s what you want, then PPC is your best bet. But influencer marketing requires time and patience, and it’s all about building genuine and strong relationships with bloggers and their followers. Trust-building can be a long and rocky road, but the end results are well worth it.

They say a happy worker is a productive worker, and it’s the same wherever you work. Don’t rush them for their work (unless you want an unhappy influencer and poor quality content) and your collaboration will benefit greatly.

Trying to dodge the rules

Go back in time a couple of years, and influencer was not only relatively unknown, it was completely unregulated. As the industry has grown, more and more people are cottoning on to just how influential these people can be. This has lead to bigger authorities clamping down on what they can and can’t post, particularly when it comes to disclosing that the blogger has been paid to mention a product.

To stay in the good books of the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA), bloggers and influencers must now include a #sponsored or #ad disclaimer on every collaborative piece of content. That includes written blog posts, YouTube videos, Instagram posts and tweets.

Trying to sway your influencers to not include these disclaimers could not only land them in hot water, but it makes your brand look a little dodgy which may put them off working with you in the future.

Don’t get frustrated if an influencer doesn’t put your product or service front and centre of their post or video. Subtle is always better when it comes to this form of marketing as in-your-face advertising is an instant turn-off for followers.

Wrong KPIs

How are you going to know whether or not your campaign has worked? This is often a common downfall of companies turning to influencer marketing, as often they expect an instant uplift in sales. Before you even start your outreach, make sure your KPIs are clearly defined and that you have implemented the correct tracking methods to measure the results. Depending on the platforms you are targeting this could be Google Analytics, Twitter Analytics or Instagram Insights. This may not be considered “the fun stuff”, but it’s important to have them in place before you begin.

Not measuring results

One of the primary reasons for working with influencers is to increase brand awareness for your company. Unfortunately, this can be incredibly difficult to measure - how do you know that more people have heard of you? Before you despair and give up on influencer marketing altogether, there are tangible benefits to reap too.

Focus on higher engagement, increased click-through rates and boosted traffic. These are the key metrics to determine whether the campaign was a success. And don’t forget to monitor everything on an individual level, and then as a whole to see its overall success.

Neglecting mobile

If there’s a group of people who exist on their phones, it’s influencers. Whether their platform is Twitter, Instagram or Facebook, the majority of them are using a mobile or a tablet to go through their feed. And their followers are exactly the same.

If most of your traffic is going to be entering your site through mobile, it needs to be fully optimised and running at full speed. If not, people will just bounce straight off.

Giving up

As influencer marketing is still an emerging area, companies are understandably reluctant to put all their eggs in its basket. But just like every form of marketing, you win some and you lose some. Would you abandon all your email marketing efforts just because one email flopped? No. But some companies turn away from influencers completely because their first campaign wasn’t a success.

Instead of throwing in the towel, use data and analytics to examine why the campaign didn’t do as well as you thought, and use those learnings to improve the next one.

Because the whole world seems to be doing it, it’s tempting to dive in headfirst without thinking about how influencer marketing could impact your overall strategy. But it’s important to take the time to understand your audience and build a strong base first. With time, patience, energy, and true effort, your influencer marketing campaigns are sure to bear rewarding fruit in no time.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Soap Media .