New technologies have completely changed the way of doing business and allowed e-commerce firms to compete in the global markets. Today, advertisement in social media helps small companies to reach their target audience easier than ever before.
Even more, with the help of the effective influencer campaign, any firm, famous or unknown, can convince thousands of customers to try its product or service. If you also want to start cooperation with the internet celebrity, you should check the following bits of advice to make the right choice.
Set your goals
First of all, you should answer the question of why you decided to run a social influencer campaign. Do you want to enhance brand awareness, build brand loyalty or boost sales? Only when a goal is clear, you are able to design a precise and effective campaign.
Also, you can outline key performance indicators (KPIs) such as desirable audience reach, engagement, the number of views, number of new subscribers, click through rate, etc. This data will help you to measure return on investment (ROI) after the marketing campaign completion.
Select media channel
Depending on a niche, in which your company operates, you can launch a social influencer campaign on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. You should base your choice of media channel on the preferences of your target audience as well as your specific goals. “If you strongly believe that you need to promote your product on a few platforms simultaneously, an outstanding influencer will help you to handle this task”, – adds Kimberly Jenkins, marketing specialist at Do my math homework website.
Factors to consider while choosing an influencer
Relevancy
You should try to find an expert specifically in your very niche. This task is rather challenging and time-consuming. The most important part is to make sure that influencer’s followers belong to your target audience.
Let’s take a look at an Instagram profile of Galina Thomas, London style and family blogger. She has 23,000+ followers, so UK fashion companies like Chicwish consider her as a perfect candidate for a social influencer campaign.
However, if you analyze Galina’s profile in more details, you will notice that at least 50% of her subscribers speak Russian and live outside of Great Britain. It’s obvious that this group of people will not make any purchase at Chicwish or any other UK store, even though they truly like an advertised product. If you don’t want your campaign to fail just like this one, you should scroll through the list of subscribers and check the comments under the published posts.
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Screenshot source: https://www.instagram.com/p/BnQTekUnUdG/
Number of followers, reach and engagement
The number of followers is not the only thing, which matters. “In some cases, even a huge number of real followers cannot guarantee the success of the social media campaign,” shares Natalie Andersen, CEO at GetGoodGrade, from her experience. You should ask an influencer to provide you with the insights of the previous post to evaluate possible reach. Also, Ifluenz’s influence calculator provides you useful data on any influencer.
It’s important to make sure that the chosen influencer is able to create a buzz around your product and bring you desirable results. There is no sense to overpay for a hundred thousands of followers if you can get the same engagement for less money. For example, sponsored posts by fashion bloggers Polina Ross and Karelea got the same number of likes and comments, even though these celebrities have 105k and 33.6k followers respectively.
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Screenshots sources:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BgZZyIyBK2b/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BmWKNv7n3tm/
Reputation
You trust an influencer to promote your business image, so you should be very careful with your choice. Make sure that this person has good professional resumes and knows how to present your products in an unobtrusive way.
Some social media stars are able to incorporate ad in their profiles almost invisibly, yet effectively. For instance, food blogger Jennies Prescott masterfully uses sponsored items to create beautiful layouts. Most of the followers don’t even notice that some of his posts include product placement: every photo with new recipe looks so natural.
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Screenshot sources:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnW9Yjug4_c/?taken-by=dennistheprescott
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnzSHDrhWBb/?taken-by=dennistheprescott
An influencer should create content in accordance with the 80/20 principle: only 20% of all posts should contain sponsored products or links. However, some internet celebrities want to earn as much money as possible and decide to publish ads in unlimited quantities. As a result, they not only spoil their own reputation but also shatter confidence in advertised brands.
Ensure high quality of content
You should audit every post before social media celebrity will publish it on his profile: make sure that the core message is absolutely clear. Don’t allow to use content, which contains even one typo or spelling mistake, because it will ruin a marketing campaign. One option is to utilize editing and proofreading services like Canada-Writers, and Hemingway Editor.
Also, you should choose the right hashtags, which will help you to increase reach. You can complete this task with the help of apps like Hashtags for Promotion and RiteForge or research social media trends manually. Don’t forget to create your own hashtag and add it to every paid post.
In conclusion
There is no doubt that social influencer campaign can benefit your e-commerce business a lot, so you should make it as precise and effective as possible. The hardest part is to find a suitable internet star, which can drive the curiosity of your target audience. Take this task seriously, pay attention to small details and, in the end, the ROI of your marketing campaign will meet or even exceed your expectations.