- As soon as social media sites like Facebook, Twitter,
and YouTube made it possible
for the average person to become a content creator,
someone who could create their own brand,
their own following, their own influence,
you guys, the game officially changed.
Brands are allocating and shifting more and more
of their marketing efforts and dollars
towards influencer marketing campaigns
and I think, it's around, yeah,
18% are spending anywhere from $100,000 a year
to $500,000 a year,
but launching a successful influencer marketing campaign
isn't just about connecting with the right influencer.
To be effective, you have to take it get one step further.
You need to find the right influencer
who can help you create the right content for your audience.
- And now, influencers only exist
because they create content that resonates with an audience.
While we're here to discuss
how to optimize influencer marketing,
it all leads back to creating great content.
You can hire a dazzling influencer
with hundreds of thousands of followers,
but if at the end of the day
they can't help you connect with your audience,
you're just wasting your time and money.
So here are a few tips
that will help ensure that you're set up
to build winning content
into your influencer marketing campaigns.
- So first off, evaluate Influencer content.
A big part of your time discovering
and evaluating perspective influencers
should be spent looking at the other content
they create for themselves
and for the other brands they work with.
So, don't choose to work with an influencer
solely based on the size of their audience,
now, that can be pretty misleading,
and don't choose to work with an influencer
that you're just looking
at the level of engagement they receive.
What we would encourage you to do is evaluate
the type and quality of content that they create
and then decide if it aligns with your brand
and your audience. - The next thing you wanna do
is throw out the cookie cutters.
Every influencer will approach content differently
and there is no one-size-fits-all approach.
Because of the unique relationship
and opportunity that exists,
you should spend time
developing an individual content strategy
for each influencer you work with.
Spending the time upfront to think about the unique content
a particular influencer could create
for your brand and audience
will help ensure that you're building a more interesting
and compelling library of content in the long run.
It'll also help you experiment with different types
and styles of content
in order to learn what your audience likes
and responds to best.
- So where should you look?
Try looking within your existing community.
When you're looking for good content partners,
honestly, sometimes it's that easy,
just looking at your existing community.
And before you spend too much time
evaluating talent agencies
and negotiating with top dollar influencers,
find out if you have any passionate
and willing content creators within your own audience.
How cool would that be?
And going this route
will allow you to spin up campaigns sooner
and you won't have to spend time educating influencers
on what you're all about,
what your products do and what your business can offer
because guess what?
They already know it well.
- I mean, it'll also likely cost you less money.
Brand loyalists and brand champions
might help you in exchange for free products
or because they simply wanna see your business
continue to succeed.
Because influencer marketing pretty much always requires you
to allocate a significant portion of your marketing budget
towards something that might not make
a directly attributable impact on your business,
it's important to think about
how you're gonna ultimately measure success.
I mean, influencer marketing isn't a trendy, quick-fix.
So here are a few more tips to consider
as you think about what you're trying to get back
from influencer marketing campaigns.
- First off, be willing to play the long game.
Influencer marketing is not a get-rich-quick scheme.
It can take a while to see any sort of return or impact.
- And then know which metrics truly matter.
When you're thinking about what success looks like
in an influencer marketing campaign,
you also have to recognize the difference
between views and true engagement.
Don't get distracted by big numbers
or vanity numbers as they say.
Focus on how your audience is engaging with
and responding to influencer content
to truly understand how it might be impacting your business
and relationships with the potential buyers.
- Next up, recognize the true value
of an influencer marketing campaign.
And when you are spending real dollars,
it's easy to wanna dig in to the exact financial impact
of a campaign.
And you wanna be able to measure direct ROI,
but with influencer marketing,
you have to understand that the return
is significantly more complex.
It goes back to being willing to play the long game,
first thing we started off with,
and seeing what impact you can make to your business over time
and in what ways.
- Now, influencer marketing
is not a one-size-fits-all strategy,
it's not a golden nugget or a silver bullet,
and like most marketing tactics,
it's easy to plan but hard to implement effectively.
It takes time, money, and effort.
You're going to fail, but you're also going to learn,
and through this process,
you can build a strategy
that meets the needs of your business
and more importantly, your audience.
- All right, that's a wrap,
but your journey doesn't have to end here.
We have over 300 videos for you to check out.
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Thanks for watching.
This is The Journey.