Chapter 13 - Influencer Marketing with Social Media PDF

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Social Media Marketing

Chapter 13: Influencer Marketing with Social Media

LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, you should be able to 

Identify and define the types influencers

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Understand what a social media influencer is, and the power of influencer marketing

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Describe what makes a good influencer

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Understand the benefits of influencer marketing with social media

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Create a social media influencer marketing strategy

INFLUENCER MARKETING Before we dive into influencer marketing, let’s talk about influencers. An influencer by definition is someone who carries influence over others. Think about the influencers in your life: they could be your parents, siblings, professors, or friends. These influencers have the ability to persuade your purchase decisions or how you feel about a product or service. Influencers come in many shapes and sizes, each having different levels of benefits and influence over their audiences. Below is a list of common influencer persona types.

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Influencer marketing is a type of marketing that focuses on using influencers to promote a brand message, product, or service to their larger market. Influencer marketing is not new; it has been around for a long time. In fact, celebrity and athlete endorsements were the first forms of influencer marketing, dating back centuries. In 1933 the Detroit-based automotive company Dodge created an ad for

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the new Salon “6” Brougham featuring Babe Didrikson, a female American athlete and Olympian who achieved a great deal of success in golf and track and field. Didrikson promoting the Dodge vehicle was an early form of influencer marketing. Today, influencer marketing has evolved into the realm of social media.

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SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCERS A social media influencer is someone who exerts his or her influence through social media. In today’s digital world, you do not need to be a celebrity or athlete to be an influencer. Regular people now have the ability to become online celebrities with strongly engaged social media followers. Social media has leveled the playing field, giving anyone from around the world an opportunity to have a voice, and brands are taking notice. Big and small brands are starting to allocate

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budgets toward influencer marketing, which is now a billion-dollar industry, and influencers are taking full advantage, changing the way that companies market their products completely.

https://youtu.be/WyXzz6PQh-c If you are not yet convinced, here are a few statistics on the power of influencer marketing: 1.

“Influencer marketing content delivers 11x higher ROI than traditional forms of digital marketing” (Nielsen Catalina Solutions).

2.

Brands make $6.50 for every $1 spent on influencer marketing (Foster).

3.

The majority of marketers (51%) state that influencer marketing attracts higher-quality customers (Foster).

4.

“54% percent of female consumers purchased a product after seeing it recommended by an influencer, and 45% have followed a brand directly from an influencer’s post” (eMarketer).

5.

The majority of Teenage YouTube subscribers (70%) trust influencers opinions over traditional celebrities (O’Neil-Hart & Blumenstein).

6.

“71% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase based on a social media reference” (Duran).

7.

“86% of the most-viewed beauty videos on YouTube were made by influencers, compared to 14% by beauty brands” (Pixability Inc).

8.

Today influencer marketing is the fastest growing method to attract new customers (Foster).

WHAT MAKES A GOOD INFLUENCER

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Reach Reach is the quantity of people to whom an influencer is able to deliver a message. A common misconception about social media influencers is that they need to have millions of followers in order to be an influencer. Reach alone is not a requirement of being an influencer. In fact, there are many micro influencers who have fewer followers but who have tapped into a highly credible niche audience.

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Credibility Credibility is the level of trust given by followers based on the perceived knowledge or expertise of the influencer. Credibility is considered more important than reach. Influencers must have the ability to explain things in a clear and convincing way to an audience so that the influencer is perceived as a trustworthy.

Authenticity Good influencers genuinely believe in the brand that they are promoting, and what it stands for. If influencers are not sincere, they risk alienating their audiences.

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Former NFL quarterback Peyton Manning received backlash on social media when he plugged one of his sponsors, Budweiser, in one of his post-game speeches, leaving those who questioned his authenticity.

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Scott Disick, an American television personality best known for being the boyfriend of Kourtney Kardashian, made a mistake that went viral when he posted a photo of himself with a Bootea shake on his Instagram page. He included not only the caption the company told him to paste but also the instructions telling him to paste it. The post caused backlash with his followers as none of them believed that he was being authentic, or had ever even used the product.

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Activity Influencers must be active on social media, publishing content daily or weekly to their platforms. The best social media influencers are publishing content often so that they stay fresh in their followers’ minds.

Engaging Social media is not a one-way street. Influencers must engage with their followers. When followers mention the influencer or ask questions, it’s important to acknowledge followers by liking, or commenting back. No one illustrates the concept of a great social media influencer more than the king of Snapchat, DJ Khaled.

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Khaled is a record producer, radio personality, DJ, record label executive and author. He has more than 8.8 million followers on Instagram, 3.9 million on Twitter, 3.4 million on Facebook, and he receives between 3 to 4 million views on each of his Snaps. It all started when in December of 2015 Khaled got lost on his jet ski and took to Snapchat to document his journey back to safety, sending the footage viral. Today, he has turned social media into a powerful marketing force with his authentic, motivational and positive posts. Hear from Khaled in the below video as he explains how he has used the power of social media to turn himself into a major mogul.

https://youtu.be/YHSEV__r_QE (Source: ABC News YouTube) When Las Vegas wanted to celebrate the launch of its official Snapchat channel @VisitLasVegas, Khaled was presented with a key to the Strip and hired for an account takeover that brought in more than 350,000 views in its first two days alone. Khaled took followers on a journey through Las Vegas through gondola rides, massages, a tour of his luxurious suite, and to the “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign.

13.6 (Source: Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority)

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BENEFITS OF INFLUENCER MARKETING WITH SOCIAL MEDIA There are many benefits to partnering with influencers and in using influencer marketing as part of an overall marketing strategy. Such benefits include:

Increased Exposure When companies or brands partner with influencers, they are increasing the exposure of their brands to the influencers’ larger audiences.

Brand Awareness Increased exposure and reach ultimately boosts visibility, which ultimately leads to increased brand awareness. Social media followers will start to recognize and know more about brands, and the products and solutions that they offer.

Improved Search Ranking Google ranks high-quality organic links higher in search rankings. Incorporating company page URLs into Influencer blog and social media posts will help drive traffic and improve search engine ranking.

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More Credibility Great influencers have earned the trust of their follower base. Partnering with an influencer to favorably promote a product or brand will provide the brand with instant credibility with the influencer’s audience.

Effectively Reach a Target Market Social media analytics allow for an influencer to provide detailed information to brands about follower demographics and interests. With the right influencer, a brand’s content is placed in front of the desirable target market already interested in the brand’s niche.

New Leads If a brand’s products are directly related to an influencer’s target market, brands can generate more relevant, high-quality business leads.

Conversions Social influencer marketing also drives conversions. In order to do so, businesses must include a call to action in an influencer’s post. Providing a discount code or giveaway is a good way to increase conversations. As presented earlier in the

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chapter, businesses generate on average $6.50 for every $1 invested in influencer marketing (Foster, 2015).

Creating a Social Media Influencer Marketing Strategy

Step 1 Before engaging with influencers, it is essential to establish goals for your influencer marketing strategy. These goals should be tied to the objectives set for your social media marketing strategies and should always tie to the goals for the business. Examples of goals can include brand awareness, reach, brand reputation/perception in the market, increased post engagement, increased website traffic, lead generation, lead conversion, increased sales, and more. It is important to establish specific key performance indicators (KPIs) for each goal so that you are able to measure the success of the influencer marketing strategy. For example, a specific KPI for website traffic could be to increase website traffic by 20%.

Step 2 Once goals and specific KPIs are established, the next step is to determine who you are trying to influence and the social media channels they interact with. The target market could include a company’s customers or prospects who work in a specific job function or industry. Conduct research to determine social media use by the

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target market. The guide below should serve as a reference when trying to identify the social media channels to use for influencer marketing:

13 .7 (Source: Onalytica)

Instagram and YouTube are among the most popular channels for influencer marketing. LinkedIn is a good platform for B2B influencers, while Twitter is an effective channel to influence the news media. High volume community engagement easily allows for immersing yourself in conversations in real time.

Step 3 After determining the right target market and social media channels to use, the next step is to try to identify and find influencers that this target market will trust. The target audience must trust and respect the opinion of the influencer in order for the strategy to be successful. It’s important to keep in mind that different

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demographics may prefer different types of influencers over others. For example, YouTube stars demonstrate more influence over teenagers when compared to mainstream household celebrities like Taylor Swift. (O’Neil-Hart & Blumenstein, 2016). Data from Twitter show that people aged 45 and up prefer celebrities as influencers.

Business budgets and goals will also play a big role in determining the type of influencer to work with. If the business goals are for a brand message to reach the largest audience possible, a big name celebrity influencer like DJ Khaled may be the right fit, but these influencers can be very costly. Brands that would like a most targeted approach may choose to work with micro influencers who can be more cost-effective and achieve similar results. A large quantity of followers can be meaningless if those followers are not engaged. In fact, a study from Markerly analyzing over 800,000 Instagram users found that as an influencer’s follower total rises, the rate of engagement with follower’s decreases. Users with less than 1,000 followers generally received likes on their posts 8% of the time, while users with 10 million+ followers only received likes 1.6% of the time. The study found that influencers in the 10k-100k follower range offer the best combination of engagement and broad reach, exceeding influencers with higher followers (Markerly, n.d.).

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Step 4 Before reaching out to a potential influencer, set up monitoring and listening streams so that you can track what he or she is saying, and decide how to best engage with him or her. You will want to start engaging and interacting with a

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targeted influencer on social media to develop a relationship before reaching out to him or her directly. Share, like or reply to an article or blog he or she has written. Provide feedback or praise on a blog or social media post with a comment. Recommend an article or social media post he or she may like by your company.

Step 5 After listening and engaging with a potential influencer, it is now time to reach out to discuss a potential partnership. Influencers derive value from partnering with brands. Companies will need to define specific benefits for working with influencers. Benefits could include: 

Financial compensation

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Free products or services

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Free products or services to give away to his or her audience

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A sponsorship

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Exposure to your brand’s audience

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Increased exposure to a broader community

Step 6 Once a partnership has been established, it’s time to harness the power of the influencer by incorporating influencer marketing into your social media strategy. You can utilize influencers to interact with your brand by:

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Using influencers to promote a brand’s content by posting on their own social media channels

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Use influencers to share content from company social media channels

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Inviting influencers to be guest bloggers

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Inviting influencers to speak at events, streaming the speech on social media to both the influencers’ and the company’s followers

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Giving influencers free products to try in exchange for a review or a mention on social media

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A social media account takeover, like the below North Face example, is also an effective way to leverage an influencer’s following to build up a company’s own follower base

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Step 7 One of the benefits of social media is that you can easily view detailed analytics on performance. Social media influencers should be able to provide the companies they are working with detailed results for engagements, impressions, followers, and more from their social media accounts. It’s important to take a look at the specific KPIs and goals set at the onset of the influencer program and to measure successes and/or failures. In order to measure the success of the influencer program, it’s important to measure both quantitative and qualitative results such as the following: 

Was the target audience reached? If so what was the total audience reach?

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Was there an increase in post engagement?

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Was there an increase in website visits, inquiries or sales?

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How did the brand share of voice change compared to competitors’?

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How many positive brand references and mentions were there on social media during the program?

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How many influencers posted about the brand?

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How many influencers are talking positively about the brand compared to before the program was in place?

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How has brand perception changed? There are many tools that companies can use to identify influencers with engaged networks within a defined target market. Tools like Onalytica, Followerwonk, Buzzsumo, Traackr, Klout, and Hootsuite can help companies discover and map the influencers that are most influential, listen to what influencers are saying,

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interact with and develop relationships with influencer targets and provide detailed reporting and ROI.

Watch how Onalytica helps a beer brand use influencers to promote a non-GMO product, delivering information directly to the people who care.

https://youtu.be/CxOs8Lq01wk

Influencer Marketing Best Practice: Contiki Contiki is a travel company for the “young, wild and free” that has perfected the art of travel for 18-35-year-olds, providing 300 trips spanning six continents. Contiki has been using social media not only to promote the company’s travel destinations but by integrating it into the travel experience altogether with the use of live video and storytelling to create unique and authentic connections with their audiences. Contiki was one of the early adopters of influencer marketing. The company started with travel bloggers and then moved to social media influencers with the rise of YouTube and Instagram. In 2012, Contiki launched its #RoadTrip series, hosting groups of YouTube content creators on a once-in-a-lifetime trip around the world. The RoadTrip allowed fans to follow the YouTube stars online as they posted unscripted content of their trips, encouraging followers to take part in fun challenges along the way. The result? After its 2015 RoadTrip to Southeast Asia, Contiki saw a 175% increase in YouTube audience, with over 14 million views for all its content, and received a 25% increase in traffic to its Asian trip packages online (Fatah, 2016). In 2017, Contiki launched The Travel Project, “a celebration of the reasons why it is so important to travel.” The project features the works of millennial

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influencer “content creators across multiple storytelling platforms, ... [seeking] to show how travel has the ability to create better humans.” Due to its influencer social media strategy, today Contiki is a well-recognized brand among its target market of 18-35-year-olds, with millions of followers across its social media channels. Influencer marketing is one of the most popular social media trends today, but companies must ensure that their influencer marketing efforts align to their overall marketing strategies and that results are tracked to ensure that influencer marketing is profitable.

GLOSSARY Credibility: the level of trust given by followers based on the perceived knowledge or expertise of the influencer

Influencer: someone who carries influence over others Influencer marketing: a type of marketing that focuses on using influencers to promote a brand message, product, or service to their larger markets Social media influencer: someone who exerts their influence through social media Reach: the quantity of people to whom an influencer is able to deliver a message

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