The Do’s and Dont’s of Influencer Marketing

It takes strategy to start an influencer marketing initiative that is successful. Learn the essential rules of thumb to successfully negotiate this changing terrain and secure significant alliances that will strengthen your company’s image and connect with your target audience.

DO’s Of Influencer Marketing:

Finding the right influencer:
Selena Gomez, Kylie Jenner, taylor swift we all have heard of these celebrities while growing up. However, an influencer is someone who has gained an audience due to his or her expertise or social influence in a domain. We always do our homework before getting into something new whether it be going to a new college or university or finding the right people for a business. In the same manner, selecting the most fitting and appropriate influencer is also very crucial when it comes to influencer marketing.The first and foremost step of beginning an influencer campaign is to conduct proper research on who is the most fitting for your business.
As discussed earlier, instead of creating content on a range of topics influencers mainly focus on a specific niche or area of interest. This assists the brand in selecting the right influencer by looking at their profile. However, for influencers who do not have a specific niche proper research should be conducted by brands to see who they have worked with and how effective the results have been with their past work. Be realistic! Engaging Cristiano Ronaldo to promote your business won’t do you any good and additionally will not be as effective as you thought.

The three main categories of influencers along with the differences among them are as follows:

Mega influencer: A mega influencer has a very large number of followers. They have millions in their following and additionally will ask you to pay a hefty amount to promote your brand via posts. However, even if they have a large following or if they are celebrities they may not always be specific to your niche.

Macro influencers: 100,000 to 1 million followers are usually supported by these types of influencers. These influencers have a high following due to their expertise in certain niche examples could be food, finance, fashion, or even education at times.

Micro influencers: Among the two above-discussed influencers these influencers have the least followers yet generate the most effective results. They typically have a following ranging from 10,000 to 100,000. Due to their increased engagement with their audience, these influencers can hold a considerable level of influence.

Being clear and having a plan:
When you think of achieving A’s in your exams or cooking food for guests coming over the first thing that comes to your mind is to create a well-defined plan and act according to it. Whenever we try to achieve a goal the first thing we create is a plan. The same approach goes for your relationship with an influencer and your business. It is important to start with a plan or else your campaign and money both will be going in vain. When briefing the influencer about your requirements make sure to outline the following areas so that you both are on the same wavelength.

The audience you would like to target:
To measure the success of your campaign the metrics you will be considering

Hiring one person for communication:
Our ultimate goal when working with an influencer is to be clear and avoid misunderstandings since our connection with the influencer is digital. Bombarding and overflowing the inbox of an influencer is not a good idea therefore we recommend you to hire one person who serves as a point of contact between the business and the influencer. By doing this there’s less chance of confusion and misunderstandings being created. The person hired for this task can answer queries related to the work, provide insights and clarity, and be a helpful source.

Approach negotiations with a practical perspective:
When it comes to charges, influencers expect to be paid a fixed amount for the content they create and the effort they put into advertising. During your research make sure to lay extra emphasis on the ongoing rates of the influencers plus your budget and ensure that both parties are satisfied with the negotiations. Bear in mind that these are decided once and are not changed throughout the process of establishing a campaign.

Don’ts of influencer marketing:

Avoid last-minute changes:
There is a lot of planning that is involved in planning a campaign before the actual execution of it. You should keep in mind that there should absolutely be no room for any changes to occur once the plan has been finalized because doing this would disrupt the flow, delay the work, and additionally aggravate the parties involved.

Treat the influencers correctly:
You should know that influencers deserve respect and money both because of the services they’re providing for your business to grow and expand. Unlike brand ambassadors who review your product and keep it to themselves, influencers make a living out of their content creation and hence require an amount that should be decided prior to working.

Be aware of scams:
We live in an era where everything is possible just to earn money. There are alot of influencers in the market that buy fake followers just to show that they have a large following which additionally helps them get more clients. When you’re conducting research make sure to check the influencer’s following alongside the work they have previously undertaken with other businesses. In the end, no one likes to be scammed.

Don’t ignore micro-influencers and macro-influencers:
We often tend to run behind people with a large following, namely macro influencers thinking that they may serve as a valuable asset for our business but that is not always true. Even though micro-influencers and nano-influencers have a small following, what they have is a “connection with the audience, high response rates, relevancy, and authenticity” that macro influencers lack. Therefore, you should never ignore micro and nano influencers.