Ever purchased something because you saw it on Instagram?
It is very likely that you’ve been influenced by Instagram influencers.
Influencers are people who specialize in creating a certain type of content that their audience enjoys.
It is either regular people who have gained fame or celebrities with an already large follower base.
And if you’re a business owner or a brand looking to add authenticity, credibility, and a wider reach, your social media marketing strategy has got to include influencer marketing.
Key Strategies for Instagram Influencer Marketing
In the world of influencer marketing, it is easy to get overwhelmed and make the right decision. Follow our guidelines to pick the right content creator for the right audience at the right price.
1. Define your Business Goal
Whether it is increasing the followers or engagement rate of your page or driving people to your e-commerce website or simply creating constant buzz for your audience, it is important to pick your goal.
For new product launches or schemes on services during the festive season, influencer marketing helps you add a human touch of genuineness while promoting your business.
2. Match your Target Audience with the Influencer’s Audience
People’s choice of following influencers is often a reflection of their lifestyle or who they aspire to be. Depending on the ticket size and lifestyle enhancement value of the product, choose the right creators for your brand promotion strategy. The language and tone of talking also greatly influence their audience and consequently develop a perception of the product they promote.
3. Choose the Platform you want to Advertise on
Picking the platform best suited for your business is key to achieving success in your online marketing strategy. For example, promoting corporate gifting is ideal on LinkedIn with relevant influencers putting up posts that will be viewed by HRs.
4. Finalize the Type of Content you want the Influencer to Create
Influencer marketing is a post/skit/video where a product/service is seamlessly integrated. Humour, rap, hook steps, tips, elaborate skits, drawings, animation, illustration, stop motion, etc. The type of content the influencers can create is endless.
5. Do a Cost to Benefit Analysis
It is recommended to add content creators to your digital marketing strategy when you can measure the success of the partnership with an analytical tool.
Collaboration Tips For Successful Partnerships
1. Avoid Conflict of Interest with Exclusivity Contract
It is crucial to see what the influencer you have in mind has been up to in order to not adversely affect the promotion of your brand. It is for this reason that brands often sign exclusivity contracts with Instagram influencers to avoid the promotion of their competitor’s products. These contracts are often time-bound for a period of 1 year.
2. Take Absolute Ownership of the Content
Whether created entirely by the influencer or co-created with your brand, it is important to buy exclusive ownership rights. This helps you use the content for life and make the most out of the featured influencer’s credibility.
3. Create Multiple Types of Content
From static posts to reels to stories, getting the influencer to create different categories of content for your product/service greatly benefits your remarketing campaign and helps build stronger brand recall.
Benefits and Challenges in Instagram Influencer Marketing
Benefits:
- Reduced cost of content creation
- Faster growth on relevant platforms
- Greater brand recall
- Authentic human touch
- Creation of FOMO for the audience
- Easier to promote more products from the same brand
- Can use a new set of influencers every single time
- Easy measurement metrics
Challenges:
- Dependability on human problems | For eg: ill health and emergency
- Your brand can be lost when the same influencer is creating content for multiple brands on a busy festive day
- Can be an expensive loss if not chosen the right influencer
- Massive engagement rate and price gap in macro, micro, and nano category influencers
Conclusion
Influencer outreach and selection have been instrumental in making many small online businesses take off and established businesses stay relevant. What you must keep in mind is the purpose of influencer marketing – get more people to talk about brand OR more people to buy your product online/book your service online?
