Since the emergence of YouTube, blogs, Instagram and other social networks, any user has been able to generate and share content with millions of people. The notoriety paradigm has changed radically with this new reality, which has given rise to a new kind of notable people, digital influencers. Followed by millions of people, they are able to convert product promotion into followers and sales, thus becoming the best partners and brand advisors.
The vast majority were born on YouTube. Millions of hours of video are wathced every day and the platform continues to grow. In Portugal, according to the Internet giant, the availability of national content has increased exponentially in recent years. Social media is no longer a fashion, but an integral part of our lives. But, in addition to being a place where content is shared, they are a very desirable marketing and communication vehicle for brands, and the influencer has become the central character of this new phase in the history of Marketing.
This whole phenomenon is called Influencer Marketing, which is now more effective than ever. The rise of Influencer Marketing has shown digital creators and brands how online content production is a powerful communication, advertising and revenue source strategy.
Working with influencers (bloggers, youtubers, vloggers, owners of interesting profiles on Facebook and Instagram) will undoubtedly increase your visibility, improve your brand confidence and recognition, help generate leads and, in turn, increase revenue .
But, why did influencers become so relevant?
Because people trust them more than brands! See 7 very interesting pieces of data:
1 – 35% of followers of digital influencers claim to have been involved in some kind of cause by recommendations from these people on their social networks, according to data from the Influence Impact Report 2017 of Allison + Partners;
2 – 70% of teenagers who access YouTube connect more with influencers than celebrities, according to information from Google Insights;
3 – Content Marketing with influencers offers an ROI 11 times greater than traditional forms of digital marketing. Source: TapInfluence study with Nielsen Catalina Solutions, 2016;
4 – 40% of people say they bought an item online after seeing an influencer use it on Instagram, Twitter or YouTube. Source: Twitter and Annalect, 2016;
5 – 49% of people say they depend on influencers’ recommendations to make their purchasing decisions. Source: Twitter and Annalect, 2016;
6 – 73% of Millennials see it as their responsibility to guide friends, peers and family towards smart purchasing decisions. Source: Fleishman-Hillard PR & Hearst magazine;
7 – Among teenagers, YouTube stars are seen to be 17 times more engaging and 11 times more extraordinary than traditional stars. Source: Variety, 2015.
Como podemos utilizar os influenciadores?
Start with a solid strategy
Since Influencer Marketing is its own discipline, you’ll need some unique components to build an effective influencer campaign. Here are some tips to help you develop campaigns:
1 – Plan your influence marketing strategy;
2 – Identify and select the influencer;
3 – Do a briefing with him to understand what kind of content he can create for your brand;
4 – Monitor with feasible key metrics;
5 – Optimize distribution of content;
However, before you start looking for influencers or creating a strategy, you need to know your target audience; define clear goals and define how the evaluation indicators of your marketing actions.
Know your target
One of the most common mistakes that brands and agencies make is deciding the type of influencers they would like to work with first. We recommend going back and looking at your target audience. Who do you want to reach? Who is the target audience for your message? What is the persona? What are your consumption habits?
Set clear goals
Each type of influencer serves a specific brand communication objective and will ask for a different look and strategy for the campaign. Many of the common goals for influential marketing campaigns are: Brand awareness; getting people to buy a product; increase followers on social networks; etc.
Define how you will measure success
The last key ingredient is how you will measure your campaign. It is necessary to define metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs). For that, it is advisable to know the customer’s journey very well and set up metrics to monitor their journey: from awareness to purchase.
Where to look for digital influencers?
Depending on your campaign’s budgets and goals, there are 3 ways to identify influencers.
1 – Google. This is the main source by which brands and agencies find influencers. This method requires individual search, then identifying the contact information.
2 – Networks or Platforms. This method of connecting with influencers is in the middle of a database and a market. There are agencies that manage the career of influencers. Ex: Blog Agency, Millennial, Cheese Me, KEEP it REAL, SmartInfluence, WeCanFly, among others.
3 – Marketplaces. It is a market that has the best databases, as it monitors information in real time. In Portugal it is possible to acquire segmented databases of digital influencers through Cision.
Different types of influencers:
It is also important to recognize that not all influencers are created equally, and that is why it is important to recognize their differences in order to understand which are more suited to what goals. These are 5 of the types of influencers that exist:
Public figures / Celebrities. These are the famous people who have quite an audience. Actors, high competition athletes, very famous presenters who are on different platforms, in addition to the digital universe have great influence power, but generally less involvement.
Micro-Influencers. These influencers generally have between 10,000 and 100,000 followers and have a very high engagement per post. They are real people, producers of digital content for social networks with a proportionally greater involvement than public figures. In most cases, they address niche issues.
Industry experts. They are well-known and authoritative figures, with many followers of a specific market niche.
Brand ambassadors. These may have a smaller audience, but are fans of the brand and actively recommend, having influence.
Collaborators. They love their jobs. They may be some of the best influencers, as they like to share the values of the company / brand with whom they interact.
What to take into account when choosing influencers?
You should not choose the influencers you will be working with at random. As with all Marketing actions, you must have a strategy based on data, which is then reflected in the choice of influencers that have proven to be suitable for it. Some of the factors to keep in mind are:
The Niche: You should choose an influencer who creates content for people who are in your niche. There is no point in getting an influencer to talk about your financial product if his niche is fitness.
Engagement: Engagement dictates how likely the audience is to be influenced by the content creator. How many comments and likes do you get on average for each publication? Is it a good percentage of the total number of followers? And what is the community’s response to most of the creator’s content? Positive or negative? It is important to take everything into account.
Personality: Personality is a very important attribute. The goal is for the influencer to be aligned with your brand’s mission and be able to create content according to your philosophy and positioning.
The Reach: This factor depends a lot on your goals. For example, if you want high involvement, a micro-influencer may be a better choice than a celebrity influencer.
Campaign content and workflow collaboration
The key to any influential marketing campaign lies in creating relevant content. What content is attractive to your target audience, and authentic to the influencer’s voice?
Additionally, as attention is now a scarce resource, you need a good story of a clear and concise brand that directly addresses and touches the needs of its audience.
Make sure influencers have a good experience and immerse themselves in your brand. Give them something that excites them and keeps them talking. The experiences enable inspiration, creativity and also help to align the discourse with the brand, creating a good story. Give the influencer creative freedom. However, you should create a briefing of images and content so that you understand your ideas and your company.
Measurement and Evaluation of actions
In any Marketing action, there are three things can never be missing: measurement, measurement, measurement. Working with influencers is no different.
There are different metrics and evaluation methods that can be used to define the success of your campaign, as it unfolds. Some of them could be:
Reach of the post;
Clicks;
Shares;
Conversions per publication;
Referal;
KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) must be quantifiable, in order to followable during the entire campaign. Define very specific KPIs, such as: Increase Instagram followers by 5%, with 80% of those followers of a certain age group.
An important note …
It is extremely important to be integral in the way we work with influencers. This means always making it clear when making a paid promotion. Both your audience and the influencer’s audience will feel betrayed if they talk about one of your products, and later it turns out that they had been paid for it.
Although there is data to prove that brand publications have less engagement, there are studies that show that consumers appreciate transparency and honesty on the part of marketers and influencers.
And in Portugal … How is the situation?
The vast majority of influencers are young and speak to a young or younger audience. The main challenge here is profitability, since the Portuguese market has a small size, which means that the revenues from the platforms are not sufficient. It is also noted that there are no fixed contracts with the brands, but specific partnerships.
When it comes to youtubers, there are several names that stand out, such as Windoh and Wuant, who started in the area of video games, and moved to content more related to lifestyle and music production, respectively.
However, much of the product feedback is still controlled by fashion and lifestyle blogs, travel, technology and other more specific areas. There space is for growth in the coming years, with a growing number of specific agencies that work in this area.
In Conclusion
As you can see, there are many ways to use influencers to complement your digital marketing strategy and, if implemented correctly, this strategy can bring you extraordinary results.
Always keep in mind that it is very important to choose influencers that produce content in the niche you want to reach, keep in mind what results you want to achieve and have metrics that allow you to check if those results are being achieved!
We wish you the best of luck when using this technique, and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to talk to us! We are here to help 🙂
