Influencer marketing is a trend you just cannot ignore in the 20s of the 21st century. The global market grew by over 20% even though pandemic seemed to be in the way. Many businesses want to now use the power of influencers, connect them with their brand and reach chosen segments of target audience through them. Welcome to the series on influencer marketing. A series of articles which will walk you through this topic and how it works in 2020.
This series is mainly for entrepreneurs who are considering influencer marketing in their business. But it is also for all those who might not be entrepreneurs and are simply interestested in the topic! The article has multiple sections where we walk together through the whole process of influencer marketing, from choosing the right influencer to an evaluation of the collaboration.
You are going to find out how to approach influencer marketing and what mistakes to avoid. Together, we will answer these questions:
- Who is an influencer and what categories do we have?
- What does collaboration with an influencer mean?
- On what social media do I apply influencer marketing?
- How do I find the right influencer?
- How do I know if an influencer paid for their likes/followers?
And many more… Are you ready?
Who are influencers?
Influencer is anyone who has a large number of followers on their profile. They are usually people who gathered a big audience through their time on social media (from Instagram, Facebook, Youtube to Twitch or TikTok) and became online world celebrities. There is a lot of attention paid to those people. The more people read their posts and watch their photos the more influence they have, hence influencers.
The audience of the influencer has the ultimate insight into their life. This way the followers can identify with their opinions or lifestyle choices and over time they form a one way friendly relationship. They trust them and go to their account to get advice or recommendation. The influencer marketing transforms the whole recommendation marketing based on word of mouth.
What does influencer marketing look like in the Czech Republic?
- The fixed posts are more popular compared to temporary ones, but 47% of sponsored content is temporary stories.
- The interaction of Czech audience under the influencer posts is much higher than anywhere in the world.
- In the Czech Republic are preffered short-term collaborations over the long-term ones.
There is a great potential for influencer marketing in the Czech Republic. If you really take time to prepare the content thoroughly, pick up the right influencers and target the right audience, you can expect very interesting results.
Setting goals
Before you start including influencers in your marketing plan, ask yourself this question:
What do you want to achieve?
It is important to write down what you expect from influencer marketing. While setting your goals, look at your overall marketing and ask yourself what opportunities there are for you to take advantage of. Do you want to present your unique selling point to your potential customers, present your brand the best way possible, help with content creation or increase your sales? You really do need to know clearly what you expect from collaboration with influencers because the whole influencer marketing plan is based on it.
You can use the SMART method. Your goals need to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-based. For example:
“I want to raise awareness of my café.”...
…is not an ideal aim according to the SMART method. Better approach would be:
“The number of Instagram posts where my café is tagged is going to double in the next quarter.”
This is a very specific aim, which is measurable and time framed. After the time set you can evaluate its success.
Set your project appropriate KPI (key performance indicator) which you will use to determine ROI (return of investment). It is also useful to compare the impact of an influencer and paid advertisement. If you compare the prices you paid for impressions, visits or conversion for each, you will find out which one worked better for you.
It is going to be a bit more complicated if the influencer campaign was made to raise awareness of your brand. Affiliate codes and links are used in this case (will be explained further in series). You can find out through them the value of the collaboration and even compare the influencers between each other. It is true that the awareness of your brand can be determined by the reach however, you never know how it affected the audience it reached.
HOW TO FIND THE RIGHT INFLUENCER FOR COLLABORATION WITH YOU BRAND?
Firstly, you need to find out where your target audience operates. What social media platforms do they use? Is it Youtube, Instagram, Twitch, Facebook or TikTok and what interests do they have? When you have this information you will be able to determine the right social media and the right influencer fit for approaching your audience.
Follow your customers and look at who they follow. Who inspires them, and where do they go to get tips? Those influencers are most likely to be the right influencersfor you to approach. It doesn't really matter that much how many followers the influencer has. It is more important how good relationships they have with the audience and individuals within it. The better the relationship the higher the trust. If the influencer then recommends a service or a product, the impact on the followers is most likely to be stronger .
The chosen influencer has to share the values of your brand .If they also have a good relationship or experience with your brand, it is an ideal situation. When you are looking for an influencer ask yourself: How is my brand going to be seen if the influencer is involved? What qualities the influencer has in common with my brand and where do they differ? Do they share the same views?
When looking for a specific influencer:
- You can use hashtags and location on Instagram while searching
- Use keywords to search on Youtube
- on TikTok you will see the most viral posts automatically but you can use hashtags and keywords as well
It is necessary to use the language of your target audience (eg. Czech, English) while searching because the search for influencers will be easier. If you are looking for more of them, make yourself a influencer chart where you can record all the information needed such as e-mail address, followers, engagement, number of posts in collaboration with you or even audience interaction. The only disadvantage is that you have to update it regularly and all by hand. You could also opt for data scraping when doing research.
vacurova@creaticom.cz nebo mi napište zprávu na linkedin. In the next part of the series we are going to focus on how to avoid influencers with artificially increased numbers or bought followers and you will learn how to approach an influencer the right way. Did you learn anything new? Leave a comment. Would you like to know more about influencer marketing or do you need any advice? Send me an email on vacurova@creaticom.cz or message me on linkedin.
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