5 Influencer Marketing Secrets Every Entrepreneur Needs to Know

Rohan Mathew

 Influencers are reaping the benefits of their ability to enthral large audiences and thus influence the decision-making behaviour of their followers. It’s obvious why marketers keep throwing goods and money at these social media stars — influencing marketing works. These days influencer marketing is booming. Earlier it would help if you took the pain of searching an influencer, striking a deal, contacting them and so on. Thanks to the Influencer marketing agencies in the UK who have made the job sound like a cakewalk.

Worldwide  3.028 billion people, or 40 percent of the world’s population, actively use social media. Let me take you through some interesting facts:

74% of social users trust social media for their buying decision. 67% of brands work with influencers to promote their brand.

About 49% of people trust influencers. Their audience trusts them and follows them blindly.

About 40% of Twitter users made a purchase based on a tweet.

It’s never late to start afresh. You can still be on-board with influencer marketing and start with your first influencer marketing campaign. But once you go on-board, don’t forget to consider these five secrets:

1. Collaborating with the influencers

Influencers are an exact representation of your brand.  Work with them to create content. You should work as a collaboration and produce content together. Don’t order them what to share, learn about their followers, and how your brand blends into their follower’s everyday lives.

2. Rocketship analogy

When you start your campaign, start from the very beginning. The first thing, to begin with, is the hashtags. The key message is as critical as your goal. Ensure that anything you do should drive activity to your key message. As per the rocket ship analogy, remember.

Message= Flight Plan

Marketing plan= Rocketship

Social media= Rocket fuel

Much as you’re not going to reach space without a rocket ship, you’re not expected to participate in influencer marketing without a plan. With your rocket ship in place, you need a flight plan to get to space, and that’s what your message should be.  Plan your strategy   What are you going to ask the influencers to do?  Whatever it is, there needs to be a straightforward, coherent message from your influencer marketing flight plan. Choose an action call, so you don’t confuse your influencers or your target audience. You designed your rocket ship, and your flight plan is vital. It’s time to get off! The social media platforms where your influencer marketing strategy is going live are the rocket fuel you need to take your approach to outer space. By monitoring where your influencer conversations are already going on, and by manipulating those platforms, you can give your influencer marketing strategy, the fuel it needs to take off.

3. Leverage IGTV as the giant social platform

By 2021, according to Instagram, mobile video will account for 78% of all mobile data traffic.  Instagram launched IGTV to compete with YouTube. Instagram has boosted the functionality and exposure of IGTV content and put a lot more resources into getting brands to make use of it. As a brand, keeping an eye on these changes is vital to monitor how your influencers are reacting. Are they early adopters of all the new platforms? Or are they a little more cautious, and stick to what they know? You must know about the increasing or decreasing popularity of different social media platforms as well.

4. Don’t invest blindly

Don’t invest blindly in influencer marketing or throw your entire marketing budget to YouTube stars. Sure, throwing $1 million at a celebrity to post about your product may give you satisfaction or reach millions of people. But that will last within a few days. Instead, start small to understand which influencer will impact your target audience. Always invest your marketing budget slowly. It is very critical to evaluate, learn and then scale. The process recapitulates on itself, and marketers must stay limber to amalgamate the feedback, whenever it comes. It is best to give the product or some discount as a payment, in the beginning. Can be an efficient way to buy-in influencers, mainly if they are influencers who already use your brand. But don’t forget,  If you are providing discounts or free products for influencer’s followers, be sure to build a different discount code or landing page for each influencer. An additional discount code or landing page for each influencer will help you monitor the success of your campaign.

5. Gen z

Remember, GEN Z has become the largest group of consumers who already account for $29 billion to $143 billion in direct spending. They relate to this strategy of influencer marketing the most. Gen Z is a growing segment of the influencer economy across all channels, making it essential for brands to understand their potential customer base. For instance, kid influencers are a big go-to for brands. A lot of people look for product recommendations from them. In other words, it’s building brand awareness and empathy through generations.

Ready to scale up your influencer marketing campaigns? Realize that success lies in the ability of your marketing team to cultivate relationships that create trust between your brand and your target audience. Make sure you review the influencers carefully and build a concrete deliverable so that everybody is on the same page.