Is There a Right or Wrong Influencer Strategy?
As brands are trying to find new ways to reach consumers, at home, one of the more popular ways that comes to everyone’s mind is influencer strategy.
What is an influencer strategy?
It’s a strategy that identifies people that have a strong influence on a demographic, type of audience, brand, or more.
When you start to have conversations about how to adopt and implement an influencer strategy, one of the most asked questions we get is, “Is there a right or wrong way to execute an influencer strategy?” The real answer is yes. But, it’s a little complicated from both the brand AND influencer side.
I’ll start off by saying, not every brand should want to work with influencers with 1M+ followings. Sure, it’s the goal for some, but it’s not where to start and sometimes not always the best strategy.
I’m going to take you through some of the questions we ask ourselves when creating an influencer strategy.
What is the brand’s main objective for an influencer strategy?
This should be the first question with ANY project or initiative you’re starting. Is it to establish brand awareness? Is it to sell 1,000 of a specific product? Is it to start tapping into a new demographic for upcoming projects? This question can have multiple answers, but it should really be focused and refined.
What is the key demographic?
With any product or initiative you’re looking to embark on, knowing WHO you’re targeting is literally the single most important thing when it comes to social media. Sure, ‘everyone’ is on Facebook, but is everyone on Facebook? Not really. They might have an account, but how often do they check it or spend time on the platform? When you know the target demographic, that should help lead you into a direction from a social media perspective like for example: YouTube vs Instagram vs Facebook groups.
Okay, so we know the goal and the demographic. Now it’s time to take that information and start putting it into action.
Who are influencers in the social media platform AND genre that I’m looking for?
There are a billion ‘influencers’ out there, so this is probably the hardest step. There are websites that help someone search for influencers, like SocialRank or Upfluence. Most of them simply just don’t get the job done. If you’re not already in the space and don’t know the major players, there's a lot of research that needs to be done in this step.
One thing that’s super important to note in this step is that anyone with an extremely loyal and engaging following is an influencer. You / your project will have to weigh Macro influencers vs Micro influencers.
Macro influencers are the bigger audience influencers while micro are smaller, like between 1K-10K size (or so).
How many have good engagement rates?
Out of all the bullets in this blog post, this and the macro v micro are THE most important. You MUST look at the engagement rate or average engagements (or views) per post for an influencer. You can agree to work with an influencer with a following of 500K, but how many of those are actually engaging regularly on their page? How many of those are invested? The days where we only focus on follower numbers are over. Sure, it’s important but engagement is even MORE important. Engagement metrics is really what helps you understand how many people might actually click a link to buy your product or be invested in the initiative.
Which out of those makes the most sense for my brand?
Once you start compiling a list, you’ve got to really take a hard look at if your brand / initiative fits in with the influencers brand. You can ask yourself: “Would these brands be friends? Are they the ideal demographic or buyer?” or “Will people listen when this person says something?” All very hard questions, but you’ve got to ask yourself if it makes sense and a good fit for both parties.
What should we do once we have the influencer (s) picked out?
This question is really the question for the ages. I don’t think I’ll scratch the surface at answering it, but essentially this is the hard part. It’s figuring out what to do with those influencers once you have them. That is case by case. But, lean into what platform does the best, what content usually performs well on that platform for that influencer. Our recommendation is make it look cool, stand out, be different, and be inspiring. Look at what's worked on the influencer's page in the past and see how you can incorporate it with your initiative. That may not be much help, but needless to say this step is all about content and making the collaboration standout.
You might be saying, “Yeah but you haven’t answer the question yet…is there a right or wrong way to do an influencer strategy?” Well I did outline how to create a successful influencer strategy. If you haven’t answered step 1 or step 2, you’re definitely doing an influencer strategy wrong to some degree. You might see likes, follows, but what’s the end goal is what you have to ask yourself.
Here’s some wrong ways we’ve seen influencer strategies been executed:
Not the right influencer fit. Sometimes, the audiences just don’t match up.
It feels like too much of an ad. No one really likes being sold to explicitly. When it feels like too much of an ad, it’s like a forced smile in an awkward family photo.
Paying too much for an influencer. This is a tricky one. Everyone in the business should know their own worth and you should know / understand what the potential reach of their product’s worth is. Is it worth it to spend $20K on one post from a big influencer or next to nothing for 10 influencers of 5K followings?
The content was executed poorly. Not joking. I’ve seen SO many influencer collaborations where I say ‘Man, if only….’ The content is KEY in helping to get a message across. Figuring out the message, how to say it, etc. is the same for influencer marketing vs email marketing, etc. It’s all marketing! So tell a story, make something cool, do something different. Don’t just be an ad to scroll by.
My recommendation:
Don’t agree to anything with an influencer unless you know their average engagements / views per post AND have clear expectations.
Work with an influencer to be a partner OR on a series rather just one post/video.
Don’t be afraid to try an influencer strategy with multiple micro influencers. Low cost, but could be a great budget-efficient case study for the next big project.
Work with the influencer on the content / gameplan. They tend to be more onboard if they’re in on it from the start.
-HP