Times have changed in the way businesses connect with customers. With social media vastly growing more into a way for businesses to connect with customers, it is essential to know the best way to communicate on each platform. For example, to best connect with your audience through Instagram, you must know your brand inside and out — have a loud voice that unifies your business culture, and the right Instagram Influencer. When using influencer marketing, it is those individuals who will act as a sounding board to help launch your business into stardom. So how do you choose the right Instagram Influencer and measure success?
Instagram is becoming a significant player in terms of the share of marketer preference. There are several influencers to choose from, which does more work for the business. The key is finding the right one to be your brand’s voice. There are some ways that a business owner can identify its brand voice and identify the best market influencer.
· Time Frame– Knowing when your campaign needs to start and for how long.
· Target Demographics – Who do you need to reach?
· Product or service– What is your product or service, and how does it stand out?
· Your audience? – Where are the majority of your shoppers/customers?
These simple questions are more thought-provoking as you delve into the marketing machine you want working for you. As you find your brand’s voice, reveal what you represent, and focus on what your niche will present, it will help you narrow down who is going to be the face of your company and brand.
Your Brand is a Living Thing
It may seem counterintuitive to ask who your brand is versus what your brand is. However, your brand and your business are more than a “what.” It is more of a “who.” Your brand is your voice, your culture, and your ideas. It is a living thing, and some brands are a lifestyle. Take, for example, Red Bull. This company is notorious for its extreme sports and adventures. They use athletes, celebrities, and up-and-coming stars across the world to deliver who Red Bull is. They may not have a niche product, but their consumer base is the key identifier in who they are and the audiences they strive to maintain a connection with. With that knowledge, they know who their influencers are and work with them well. Their Instagram account is a well-oiled machine operating across the oceans in the United States, France, the UK, Canada, and Taiwan.
Branding
It isn’t just your product. If you are selling a brand of organic foods that cater to an active lifestyle, those customers and their lifestyle are who you represent, as the example with Red Bull. What activities do your customers enjoy as it relates to your brand? The influencer that you seek should not only use your product or service; they need to love it and live it, so the Instagram audience has a genuine engagement. They are a part of your voice, and the more engaged with your customers you are with your influencer and your brand, the more and more their voices will unify and become a part of your message as time goes on.
Your Niche
Niche marketing isn’t something easy or small because it represents a small market. The caveat of niche marketing in finding the right influencers is like finding a needle in the haystack. It will be more time-intensive to locate someone with a small niche; however, when searching, some sites can help you dial in and find that one influencer. You can search for a keyword that is similar to your brand. Working with niche market influencers can broaden the scope of your reach when the right one is being used.
Places to Find Influencers
Tap influence, Upinfluence, Famebit,(Youtube) NeoReach, and influencer, are websites you can go to help cut down the cost and time involved in finding a market influencer. Some of these platforms offer a way for you to manage your campaigns. There is an advertisement, graphics, hashtags, and social media mentions. Some give details about a giveaway if you are offering one. Despite the resources in finding an influencer, companies report their biggest challenge is negotiating the contracts.
Influencer Experience
Red Bull has always landed front and center for influencer marketing on Instagram. They have a set of intervals when they post, and their visuals are often up and close. So far, this seems to work with their audience. Doing a little research on your influencer’s background and experience is another way to find them.
· Other brands -What other brands do they represent?
· Activity– How often do they post?
· Quality – What is the quality of their posts?
· Engagement- What does their follower engagement look like?
Look at What Not to Do–Pepsi
Have you searched for any other comparable companies? Some brands have not made the best decisions in who they chose for their influencer. Take Pepsi, for example, when they used Kendall Jenner to promote their product in a commercial. This commercial seems to illustrate a large group of individuals from a generation of those who are leading a social movement, and somehow by a celebrity joining the movement and offering the police officer a Pepsi soft drink was supposed to translate a recognition of unification.
What went wrong? For whatever reason, this message was not well received by the consensus, and Pepsi experienced a massive backlash from consumers. During such a time, it may have been several factors. Timing, wrong influencer, wrong message, or maybe they would have been better off not using a celebrity at all. Some brands may need to stick with what works and avoiding the pitfalls of reinventing the wheel.
Brands may do themselves better justice by being more socially aware of something as sensitive as social justice or avoiding that altogether. Either way, when choosing such a risky move, the influencer would need to be someone representative of the culture or idea who is as equally socially sensitive and well received by the majority of the public.
Look at Who Does Well–Red Bull
Many know Red Bull for their high risk, their type of lifestyle aligned with their brand and message. For them, risk-taking in their marketing strategies seems to work. Maybe that consumers expect this kind of news because that is their brand voice. Everyone knows who Red Bull is just as much as everyone knows who Pepsi is. What is their general perception? It depends on who you ask. However, in the marketing and sales world, there is an old saying, numbers don’t lie in terms of metric measurements based on a set of variables. Red Bull has much success on Instagram using their influencers. It took risky moves like in 2012 when they did a world record diving event, the stratosphere jump with Felix Baumgartner. They advertised for months on YouTube. Later they streamed it on Instagram and had long-term success with engagement for months after that. That is a riskier move in terms of how long they promoted and continued after. However, it paid off for Red Bull because of the right choice of the influencer with a cool event versus something as traditional as a television advertisement.
Frequency
Once you have chosen the right influencer and message, the timing is also vital. When is your audience most active? And how often should posts come through? Marketers who post too frequently with strong sales verbiage may turn consumers off. It may be best to share something fun and relevant to your brand. Behind the scenes of a project, announce a new concept is still behind the scenes. Something that doesn’t come off too much as the straight sales copy. Instagram is for pictures and videos, and often contests. Maybe it would be best to post one time every few hours dependent on time zone etc. Also, make sure that your influencer isn’t too strong and understands the value of an indirect approach.
Finding What Works
Specific objectives for your influencer marketing should have three primary goals.
· Increase brand awareness.
· Generate leads and sales.
· Grow your Instagram followers.
Specific industries have more engagement on Instagram. Higher education has the most, while ironically, health and beauty are on the lower end. Non-profits and sports teams tie for second place. So, it would seem here, depending on the demographic, Instagram users are interested in educational opportunities, non-profits, and what is going on in the sports world. These numbers may reflect something different in comparison to how often they post, for example, however, most industries represented here score close to the median percentage.
Word of Mouth or Word of Instagram
If your product is not something that can sell beyond a niche, it may serve you better to go to work with a few micro-influencers. In 2019 1.60% was the average engagement rate for Instagram influencers having less than a thousand followers. The engagement rate decreases as the number of followers increases.
To measure the results of the different influencer marketing is that a business would have to take some time out to go in analyze the comments looking for qualitative data versus quantitative data, which is the traditional form of metric measurement for advertising success.
- What is being said from followers?
- Search the keywords around your business to find hashtags.
- Look into campaign management if you are short on time and help.
Hashtags
Checking out hashtags is another way to find out what works. Your hashtags should be just as relevant as it would be in your search engine optimization for content marketing. Make sure that your hashtags are not too specific, and on the flip side, make sure they are not too general. Focus on keywords that identify with your business when using hashtags.
How Can You Measure Success?
Measuring the success of a market influencer represented on Instagram is more challenging than the average measurements used for most advertising campaigns. There is a cost to everything with advertising. Not only is there research involved before working with influencers, but there is also the time to put into working with them during your campaign and the dedication in resources after the campaign ends. Having the wrong market influencer may cause more overhead than a company can spare. Measuring the success of an Instagram influencer marketing isn’t something that can be measured in one aspect — it will take the use of your Google Analytics, website metrics, and the metrics from Instagram.
V Eight Marketing
Locating the right influencer for your Instagram campaign takes some work, but in the end, it will pay dividends if done correctly. If you need some recommendations for your marketing, a full-scale operation for a product launch, content writing for your site, or social media management, V Eight Marketing is here to help you. We offer individual consultation and unique recommendations that are suited to you and your brand. Whether you need a little help for one project or ongoing support, V Eight Marketing stands behind our clients, and we value your business.