Influencer marketing on social media channels such as Instagram has become a popular marketing strategy used by brands. This is due to the higher perceived trust that comes with influencers communicating the message rather than using a brands’ own advertising (Foux, 2006);(De Veirman et al, 2017). In addition, a recent study showed that 76% of consumers trust content posted by other consumers more than brand advertising (Olapic, 2016). Nonetheless, several factors must be acknowledged and put into practice to get the most of your campaign, discussed below are the key points to help marketers maximise performance.
What to focus on:
Firstly, picking the ‘right’ influencer should be the priority of the campaign, as emphasised by De Veirman et al (2017) selecting a credible and respective influencer can result in the positive image of the influencer being passed onto the brand. In addition, the influencer should share the same vision and values and have a genuine interest in the brand and its products, as this is often noticeable by the effort the influencer puts into the sponsored post most especially if the sponsored content is in form of a video (Hardy, 2016)
Nonetheless, Hamann (2014) helps simplify the process by listing five simple steps brands should follow to guide them to select the right influencer for their campaign, to read more on what these steps are, click here!
Secondly, content! Without content, the post itself carries no purpose to the consumer (Daugherty and Hoffman, 2014). In the world of Instagram creative and authentically pleasing content goes a long way, a recent survey found that photos are the most popular user-generated content and aids engagement (Olapic, 2016). In addition, the photo should share relevant information for the consumer to aid engagement e.g. when endorsing a jacket sharing information on the fabric and feel of the material is perceived to be important to the consumer.
Click here to read more about what Instagram content would best suit your brand
Lastly, marketers should take advantage of hashtags (#) it is advisable for a brand to have a distinct hashtag specific to their products, this makes it easier for users to view other posts associated to the brands’ hashtag, increase their awareness on the brand, as well as increases the chance of gaining new followers (Manikonda et al, 2014).
Below are examples of how Pretty Little Thing use their own hashtags to build engagement and brand awareness.
As illustrated below the hashtag #PrettyLittleThing has nearly 700,000 posts associated with it.
What the risks are and how to minimise/ avoid them
Firstly, not everyone with 1000+ followers is genuine, the growth of the ‘influencer industry’ has made it extremely prosperous for anyone, with the opportunity of being paid an estimated £180 per sponsored post ‘influencers’ are going as far as buying their followers, likes as well as comments. In turn, making it difficult for brands to distinguish the credible from the fabricated influencers (Zatat,2017).
The extent to which this is critical is emphasised by (De Veirman et al, 2017) who states that perceived image of the influencer is often reflected in the brand. Nonetheless, several tools such as followerwonk and SocialBlade have been introduced to help brands track an influencers engagement activity and enable them to see features such as when they received their followers, thus highlighting anomalies.
To read more about how followerwonk and SocialBlade can be used… click here
Secondly, the authenticity of sponsored content has been questioned by critics, a recent survey found that 30% of users found sponsored content with the hashtags #ad #spon #paid hashtag to be untrustworthy (Bockholt, 2017). Nonetheless, more recently what brands are doing to fade out the negative effect is placing the mandatory sponsored identification to the top of the photo rather than using the hashtags, this is illustrated in the images below:
Thirdly, hashtags though #’s bring engagement and benefits to the brand, it must be acknowledged that innocent hashtags such as Annie, Deb and Bri are code for anxiety, depression and bipolar on Instagram (Moreno et al, 2016). Thus in order to minimise any press backlash or offending your followers, it is critical that any potential hashtags are thoroughly examined prior.
Below are examples of brands that have been successful in their Instagram marketing, feel free to take some notes:
1) Birchbox, a beauty company teamed up with teamed up with lifestyle blogger Emily Schuman to curate their May box, the product was posted in five Instagram photos.
Likes received: over 18,000
Consumer reach: over 55,000
2) Madewell, clothing brand teamed up with five influencers to promote the anniversary of their signature tote in their #TOTEWELL campaign.
Consumer reach: over a million
Conclusion
Marketers must be aware that despite influncer marketing being very prosperous both in short and long-term, certain factors as discussed throughout must be recognised and implemented into the social media strategy to aid performance. Another key element to note is that Instagram is only an effective channel to campaign on if your target audience is young adults (typically aged 18-29).
References
Bockholt, S. (2017) ‘The Pros and Cons of Influencer Marketing’, TheCore, 3rd March 2017 [online] available at < https://www.dma-solutions.com/thecoreblog/the-pros-and-cons-of-influencer-marketing > accessed 26th March 2018
Daugherty, T. and Hoffman, E. (2014) eWOM and the importance of capturing consumer attention within social media. Journal of Marketing Communications, Vol 20, No 1-2, pg 82-102.
De Veirman, M., Cauberghe, V. and Hudders, L. (2017) Marketing through Instagram influencers: the impact of number of followers and product divergence on brand attitude. International Journal of Advertising, Vol 36, No 5, p 798-828.
Foux, G. (2006) cited in Mangold, W.G. and Faulds, D.J. (2009) Social media: The new hybrid element of the promotion mix. Business horizons, Vol 52, No 4, p 357-365.
Hamann, H. (2014) ‘5 Tips for Finding the Right Social Influencers for Your Brand’, Covince&CovertBlog, 11th December 2014 [online] available at < http://www.convinceandconvert.com/digital-marketing/5-tips-for-finding-the-right-social-influencers-for-your-brand/ > accessed 26th March 2018
Hardy, J. (2016) ‘How Consumers Really Feel About Sponsored Influencer Content’, Acorn, 8th August 2016 [online] available at < http://www.acorninfluence.com/blog/consumers-really-feel-sponsored-influencer-content/ > accessed 26th March 2018
Manikonda, L., Hu, Y. and Kambhampati, S., Analyzing User Activities (2014) Demographics, Social Network Structure and User-Generated Content on Instagram [online] available at < https://arxiv.org/pdf/1410.8099.pdf >accessed 25th March 2018
Moreno, M.A., Ton, A., Selkie, E. and Evans, Y. (2016) Secret Society 123: understanding the language of self-harm on Instagram. Journal of Adolescent Health, Vol 58, No 1, pg 78-84.
Olapic (2016) Global report 2016 [online] available at < http://visualcommerce.olapic.com/rs/358-ZXR-813/images/wp-consumer-trust-survey-global-FINAL.pdf > accessed 26th March 2018
Zatat, N. (2017) “Social media experiment has revealed how simple it is to create a fake Instagram accounts and make money from them”, The Independent, 11th August 2017 [online] available at < http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/social-media-experiment-fake-instagram-accounts-make-money-influencer-star-blogger-mediakix-a7887836.html >accessed 25th March 2018