The social media era has changed the way marketers formulate their strategies. The days of spending your advertising budget on expensive outdoor media campaigns that yield ineffective results are over.
Many people are already aware of the power of a well-executed social media marketing campaign. Platforms such as Facebook and Snapchat have billions of registered users all over the globe. Spending your ad budget on strategies such as targeted adverts to your key audience is an excellent way to increase reach and conversion.
While these strategies can yield good results, there are others that can expand your reach even further, without over-extending your budget. Influencer marketing is a relatively new concept to social media marketers that has the potential to skyrocket your reach and exposure to your target niche.
Here is a brief outline of what you need to do to take advantage of influencer marketing and get more eyeballs watching your product or brand.
#1 Research Your Niche
This research starts with a total audit of your current social market accounts, including your engagement activities and posted content. Who are you following, who is following you? Is your audience made of spam robots or genuine followers? Understanding where you will give you a clear indication of what you can expect for the future executing your current strategy.
The second step in your research is to look at your engagement rates and mentions on your platforms. What are people saying about your brand and product? Who do they associate the product with, and what feelings or behavior does it inspire in your customers. What are your followers talking about? What are their values and interests? These are key factors that will determine which influencers hold the most weight with your core niche.
#2 Identify Key Influencers
Once you understand your target niche, you will be in a better position to determine the key influencers. You should have a thorough understanding of what your market is talking about and what they think of when they mention your product or brand.
Take that knowledge and look at the top influencer accounts that regularly feature in your top follower’s followings. Make a brief spreadsheet of the top ten influencers that regularly pop up in your research.
#3 Get The Tools You Need
Once you have the groundwork covered, it’s time to turn to technology to fill in the gaps. A software tool like ‘Buzzsumo’ will give you a platform to manage all the influencer activities across all of your social accounts. These tools can scrape millions of user accounts and identify the top influencers using keywords that you enter into the search tool.
#4 Develop a Strategy & Incentive
Once you have used the tools to complete your research, the software will organize all of your top influencers and assist you with creating your influencer marketing strategy. The software can make your influencer campaigns a lot easier to manage and save a lot of time in campaign execution. However, they do cost a bit of money and sometimes carry a monthly management fee.
#5 Reach Out to Influencers
Reaching out to the influencers is where the rubber meets the road. You need to create an incentive tailored to your particular influencer. Most influencers will charge you a fee, or a product sponsorship in return for a spot in their social media posting viewed by millions of people every day.
In Closing
Planning and executing any social media strategy takes time, effort, and money. Before you rush into creating an influencer strategy, do an initial assessment to see if you have the time and the resources available to commit to the project. Many entrepreneurs and digital marketers underestimate the amount of work that goes into a social strategy before it gains any traction and then become frustrated when they do not achieve their goals.
If you find that you do not have the time or the resources needed to execute your strategy effectively, then consider working with a professional marketing firm like gold pr to get you the results you need. Working with competent, qualified, and experienced professionals can fast-track your learning curve, improve your results, and reduce your costs related to your influencer marketing campaigns.