Companies are increasingly using influencers as a source of promotion online – 75% of marketers say they use influencers with 47% thinking they are very effective (eClincher, 2016). The Washington Post found that influencers constitute only 10% of the population but shape attitudes and behavior of the other 90% (cited in Charlesworth, 2015). They are particularly useful as they are one person that has a significant following – the largest influencers are currently celebrities with those such as Taylor Swift having 75.2 million twitter followers and Selena Gomez having 74.7 million Instagram followers that are at their fingers and can promote a message instantaneously with a reach that most meticulously planned out multi-million £ ad campaigns do not have. The chart below demonstrates the situations whereby marketers typically enlist influencers:
With this rise in influencers, and being a vital part of any social media campaign (Booth & Matic, 2011) companies knowing how best to gain and utilise influencers within your marketing campaign to get the most ‘bang for your buck’, is crucial.
What Makes a Good Influencer?
Although dependent on what needs to be promoted, influencers typically have at least one characteristic out of the following: a lot of followers or quality followers –including your strategic customer; Celebrity, an aspiration that people want to relate to and purchase products to be like their idol; Expertise, therefore knowledge that others do no possess so believe this influencer to know best and essentially good quality taste (Elderkin, 2015). Furthermore, a good influencer maybe up & coming in their field, identifying them has the upside of building a relationship in their early stages which will make them more loyal.
In the case of blogging in particular, McQuarrie et al (2013) state that successful bloggers gain an audience by blogging in a particular way so as to gain an ever-increasing audience. The Academy of Marketing (2016) found that good bloggers have four key characteristics, trustworthiness, expertise, authenticity and personal relevance. Furthermore, bloggers are so successful because they influence people to purchase a product or service in a non-obtrusive, personal manner (Halvorsen et al, 2013).
Identifying Your Influencer
Ultimately you need to find the right influencer (eClincher, 2016).
(Traackr, 2016 – click the picture to enlarge the image)
Practitioners must develop an influencer marketing strategy and align it with communications objectives: the goal is to stimulate an engaging conversation that allows us to change perception if needed, diagnose expectations and bring clarity to the dialogue (Booth & Matic, 2011). To do so, marketers need to clearly define your target customer, the narrower you can define your customer the more personalised your content can become and the more sure that the influencer you pick will be a successful match (eClincher, 2016).
Once you have identified your target customer, understand what they want. Perhaps by identifying your largest customer group and see what characterises this group’s purchasing behavior – what people do with your product as soon as they get it. It is also important to see who your audience are listening to and influenced by, then follow them, and look at content they have created, also see if they have contributed to content, see how much they talk about topics relevant to your brand (Fields, 2016a). In taking time to listen to your customer and see what they and their influencers say, the identification of an appropriate blogger is made easier (Newquist, 2016).
When establishing new influencers of customers who you want to reach through an influencer, their reach must be assessed. Typically the greater the reach the less: impact they have on an individual; relevance to your goals and customer; and resonance – your product has to be important to them, this can be seen by viewing if your potential influencer has talked about topics similar to your products (eClincher, 2016). Bearing this in mind, it may be beneficial to collaborate with smaller influencers who have more impact on their smaller following. Optimal influence strategies will target individuals with low or high connections, depending on the content and level of interaction (Galeotti & Goyal, 2009).
Various Influencer Followings (Booth & Matic, 2011)
- Tier A blogs have a large readership and their writing tends to be more news oriented. They are often less social than Tiers B and C blogs and do not provide the advantages of a specifically targeted reach. Frequently, Tier A blogs have a team of contributors, accept advertisements, treat their topics in a broad context and provide the opportunity for expanded content. Many online news outlets fit this description.
- Tier B blogs draw fewer readers than Tier A blogs, but tend to be more focused on a particular topic, providing insight and information occasionally found nowhere else. These writers are considered passionate authorities by their readers. Tier B blogs are often on the verge of massive recognition, often searching for ways to monetise their popularity.
- Tier C blogs often draw the smallest amount of traffic, but can be the most influential outlets due to their extremely targeted subject matter. Authors of Tier C blogs are the grassroots enthusiasts searching for the story, topic, link or scoop to propel them out of obscurity into the public eye, and because of that desire, they write as passionate experts – not as objective, or trained journalists. Frequently, Tier C outlets provide frank, candid, detailed product reviews, and serve as springboards for op-eds and forums for thoughtful discussion.
To find influencers to assess their suitability use online tools such as Buzzsumo (free) to find large influencers who talk about topics relevant to your brand or other tools such as Little Bird (paid) to identify niche audiences if necessary (eClincher, 2016). A Customizable Social Media Valuation Algorithm may also be used to discover an influencer. A valuation algorithm or influencer index seeks to measure these connections to determine blogger influence. The influencer index identifies key influencers; helps brand managers understand how they influence other, more traditional, target audiences; and aids in establishing new strategies to reach these key influencers. Using the following measures, the algorithm determines the numeric rank of bloggers influence & identifies conversation points that guide engagement with each individual blogger (Booth & Matic, 2011):
- Viewers per month
- Linkages (popularity of blog post links inbound & outbound)
- Post frequency
- Media citation score (how much media cites blogger)
- Industry score (Number of industry guru points based on industry events such as key notes, bylines and panel participation)
- Social aggregator rate (level of participator in social web – twitter, other blogs, Facebook, Linkedin etc)
- Engagement index (reader response, number of comments)
- Subject/topic related posts
- Qualitative subject/topic-related posts (Review of related posts)
- Index score (identification & rank of influencer according to above variables).
It is important to remember that each influencer must be relevant to YOUR particular brand as, for example, even within the sports world a variety of influencers are needed, it is seeing who your brand best aligns with. For a sports brand such as Nike who want people to purchase their clothing to improve performance a sports person at the peak of fitness and their sport, such as Cristiano Ronaldo, would be the best person to be an influencer, however for Charlotte Crosby who has fitness DVDs encouraging people to lose weight with a primarily young following, Zoella – a young YouTube sensation – would be more appropriate and for Kanye West’s fashion sneakers enlisting celebrities is the best way to reach this audience as it is an aspirational product so has enlisted the likes of the Beckhams, Taylor Swift as well as his Kardashian family as influencers of his lines.
How To Create The Best Influencer Relationship
Once a marketer has decided the influencer they want to use, for a successful influencer campaign a relationship must be built.
To build this relationship marketers should ensure the influencer knows who you are, comment, share, and like their posts whilst tagging their name in your posts. This way your influencer can engage with you (Fields, 2016a).
Then ensure the relationship is mutually beneficial and you are a perfect fit for each other, highlighting the benefits for them, with the aim of a long term relationship being formed. Perhaps suggest ideas about what they could post and what you could post about them to prove that they could fit your product into their content – see what their most successful and popular posts are about, and ensure that your content can be made into one of their more popular posts to do so (eClincher, 2016).
Give incentives to your influencer, give them free samples to talk about, or pay them to talk about your content – although your reader must be aware of this – for instance Holly Hagan always uses #ad to signify a promotion. Additionally get them to feature on your social channels which has the mutual bonus of them reaching your audience which they may not otherwise and you reach their audience (Fields, 2016a). Whilst doing so, marketers must bear in mind that influencers have set expectations of brands:
And remember, even with those you haven’t specifically targeted, keep in contact with influencers who have spoken about you, perhaps send them an outfit even if you haven’t got a new collection out, send them one from your current season which they may then share with their fan base (Keast, 2015).
Once an Influencer is Engaged with Your Brand, how can they Best Engage their Audience with Your Brand?
Once you’ve built a relationship with an influencer get them to share your product. Influencer marketing is currently in a period of transition, successful campaigns are subtle, embrace creative freedom, pay attention to social trends, and are agile in changing with the world of digital marketing (Elderkin, 2015).
Ideally send an influencer your products first and get them to share it with their audiences (Fields, 2016a). Allow them to have creative freedom with their postings about your product – often they know who their followers will engage with (Elderkin, 2015).
However, it may be best practice to discuss a hashtag to be used when publicising your product for the audience to engage with. Furthermore give influencers audience discounts and offers (Armoo, 2015). For instance Scott Disick regularly publicises a taxi firm because his followers get a discount using his specific follower code.
It may also be useful to create buzz around an event, get influencers to talk about your new collection being released, or if you have a cool advert or for a sports brand, when there is an event such as the Olympics encourage them to get into the spirit by wearing your brand of athleisurewear (Keast, 2015). If you want to create a buzz it is crucial the timing is right, avoid times where there is a lot of competition such as sporting and music events (Armoo, 2015) – although this may be apt for some sporting brands – again it is always about YOUR audience.
Advantages
In enlisting an influencer you grow your community of brand advocates, who not only talk positively about your product online but also offline (Keast, 2015).
Young & Hinesly (2012) found that understanding the key influencers of a generation means that businesses can anticipate cohorts’ consumer preferences before the cohort “ages into” a market segment. Identification of early childhood influencers can be used by businesses for their current marketing strategies with Millennials and other generational cohorts or for product development/updates in anticipation of cohorts “aging into” target markets.
Influencers are particularly important if a brands reputation needs to be restored as their positive word encourages others to re-think their opinions (Booth & Matic, 2011).
Increasing your reach of customer, particularly when a long-lasting relationship with this influencer can be built (Fields, 2016a). This will also ultimately help build your SEO, and who knows your key influencer may have a link to another key influencer who will also share your product or their following about your product for even more views and greater SEO (Fields, 2016b). Although Fields is writing for Onalytica who does have a bias in that they produce an influencer identification tool, therefore want to point out the benefits, because of this they will have done a lot of research into what makes for an effective influencer, and how to engage with influencers, making this information very beneficial.
Are Influencers Really So Influential?
Influencers have the ability to make a brand, or break a brand (Owen & Humphrey, 2009), this is because eWOM can reach so many people, which has enabled them to garner information which was previously only accessible to those within the industry (Kent, 2008). Charlesworth states that although many say influencers are hugely beneficial, people have argued that their success is not down to the influencer themselves, but how susceptible society is to be persuaded on such a topic, because if an influencer was so persuasive, how come they don’t persuade as many people every time they attempt to influence people (Fields, 2016a). For instance, the Kardashians had a Kardashian Kollection clothing line with Dorothy Perkins however this flopped, despite having major success with other deals such as the Kim Kardashian Hollywood life app – perhaps this is because they identified a wrong audience with Dorothy Perkins or that people who liked the Kardashians would want to recreate their life virtually but not be like them in reality.
Additionally Charlesworth highlighted topics influencers had the most beneficial effect on, with influencers having the biggest effect on conversation about mobile phones.
Perhaps this is why firms such as Samsung engaged with the England rugby team as a source of influence for their latest campaigns.
Whereas there are a lot less celebrities being used to endorse fast foods (although this may also be because there is a rising trend in health and fitness). Therefore it is important to ensure the product you are enlisting an influencer for will influence your intended audience.
A brand must identify the correct influencer as engaging the wrong one can be hugely costly – as can be seen from the chart above outlining what influencers expect and through the ability to damage a brand’s reputation.
Measures of Success
To ensure your influencer relationship is value for money you must establish a way to measure it. To do so, identify your goals and key performance indicators such as brand awareness which you may measure against traffic to your site or your website appearing higher in the search rankings (eClincher, 2016). Additionally you may want to improve sentiment about your brand which you may measure by whether what is said about your brand on social media becomes more positive through algorithms which can measure positive word associations with your brand.
Booth & Matic suggest the following strategy to measure the success of an influencer campaign (2011):
- 1) Set objectives & Strategies
Establish measurable goals that relate clearly to the initiative; Pinpoint target audience leveraging the influencer index results: professional bloggers, emerging bloggers, general interest bloggers, academics, developers, consultants, media and analysts; define parameters of the activity; determine strategic approach including reviews, contests, giveaways, causal, informational, sneak peak, invitations to key events. - 2) Search & analyse
Keyword searched – brand, product, services, competitors, industry experts; search engines; existing blog list (blog rolls & network affiliation) - 3) Engage & Socialise
Engagement – clearly identify intent; introduce topic before client; explain relevance; ask, do not tell; say thank you
Socialise – comment on relevant postings; follow on twitter & social aggregators; connect on social networking sites - 4) Report & Refine
Agree on format &/or service; link to objectives; refine strategies
References
- Armoo (2015) Five must dos for successful influencer marketing campaigns [Online] < http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2015/sep/24/successful-influencer-marketing-campaigns> [Accessed 21st February 2016]
- Booth, N., & Matic, J. A. (2011). Mapping and leveraging influencers in social media to shape corporate brand perceptions. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 16(3), 184-191.
- Charlesworth, A (2015) An Introduction to Social Media Marketing, Routledge.
- eClincher (2016) Influencer Marketing: How To Find The Perfect Influencers For Your Brand [Online] < https://eclincher.com/blog/influencer-marketing-how-to-find-the-perfect-influencers-for-your-brand/> [Accessed 21st February 2016]
- Elderkin (2015) How to Incorporate into your Marketing Strategy [Online] < http://blog.hootsuite.com/how-to-incorporate-influencers-into-your-marketing-strategy/> [Accessed 21st February 2016]
- Fields (2016a) How Engaging With Influencers Can Boost Your Content Marketing [Online] < http://www.onalytica.com/blog/posts/how-engaging-with-influencers-can-boost-your-content-marketing/> [Accessed 21st February 2016]
- Fields (2016b) How Influencer Marketing Can Improve Your SEO [Online] < http://www.onalytica.com/blog/posts/how-influencer-marketing-can-improve-your-seo/ > [Accessed 21st February 2016]
- Galeotti, A., & Goyal, S. (2009). Influencing the influencers: a theory of strategic diffusion. The RAND Journal of Economics, 40(3), 509-532
- Halvorsen, K., Hoffmann, J., Coste-Manire, I., & Stankeviciute, R. (2013) Can fashion blogs function as a marketing tool to influence consumer behavior? Evidence from Norway, Journal of Global Fashion Marketing, 4(3), 211-224
- Kent, M. L. (2008) Critical analysis of blogging in public relations. Public Relations Review, 34, 32-40.
- McQuarrie, E.F., Miller, J. & Phillips, B.J. (2013), “The Megaphone Effect: Taste and Audience in Fashion Blogging”, Journal of Consumer Research, vol. 40, no. 1, pp. 136-158.
- Newquist, E (2016) Three lessons marketers can learn from fandoms Econsultancy, 21st Januray 2016 [Online] <https://econsultancy.com/blog/67429-three-lessons-marketers-can-learn-from-fandoms/?utm_source=Econsultancy&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=6690497_2111-daily-pulse-uk-2016-01-22&dm_i=LQI,3ZEF5,LRRZKK,EDPPW,1> [Accessed 21st February 2016]
- Owen, R. & Humphery, P. (2009). The structure of online marketing communication channels. Journal of Management and Marketing Research, 3, 54-62.
- Talbot, K (2015) 5 Brands on Instagram That Succeed With Influencer Marketing [Online] < http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/5-brands-on-instagram-that-succeed-with-influencer-marketing/> [Accessed 21st February 2016]
- Traackr (2016) The Many Faces of Influence [Online] <http://traackr.com/faces-of-influence/> [Accessed 21st February 2016]
- Young, A. M., & Hinesly, M. D. (2012). Identifying Millennials’ key influencers from early childhood: insights into current consumer preferences. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 29(2), 146-155.