Tag: influencer marketing

7 tips for finding the right influencers for your digital marketing

Influencer marketing is easier said than done, especially when it comes to finding the right influencers for your brand and digital marketing campaigns.

Simply put, influencer marketing involves increasing brand awareness, targeting new and niche audiences and increasing impressions and reach through a partnership with an online influencer. An influencer is an online personality with the ability to influence potential buyers of a product or service by promoting or recommending the items on social media. Of course, social media is a broad term. Truly, an influencer can exist on any online platform, including his or her blog. Ideally, this individual has at least 10,000 followers (but this amount can vary).

Influencer marketing has expanded to a $16.4 billion industry, and about 93 percent of marketers have used influencer marketing in their campaigns. Instagram alone has an estimated 500,000 active influencers. The success behind this style of marketing is that it isn’t perceived the same way as traditional marketing.

When done correctly, influencer marketing is a natural extension of an influencer’s personal brand. This is the case even when links, keywords and other standard marketing tactics are used. With the right partnership, you can tap into the trust that a community has with a particular influencer to boost the reach of your own brand.

But there’s a real risk to feeling like you’re not getting your money’s worth from influencer marketing campaigns. And truly, your brand can look bad if or when working with an ill-fitting influencer.

Of course, marketing in general is never guaranteed, but successful influencer marketing all starts with partnering with the right influencers. The following are seven tips for finding the best influencers organically for your brand and digital marketing goals.

Start with a Google search

It might sound simple, but Google really is a great place to start when seeking the right influencers to potentially work with.

You can search for such terms as:

  • “[Your industry] experts”
  • “[Your industry] speakers”
  • “[Your industry] bloggers”
  • “[Your industry] influencers”

Of course, if you’re looking for more locally based influencers, you can include your state or city in the search as well.

The results you get could be vast, and you’ll then have to narrow down your potential list through researching the influencers you find. But you also could have to expand your search if you’re not getting enough results to work with.

Conduct a hashtag search on Instagram

Instagram is still the preferred social media channel for brands that engage in influencer marketing. So, searching hashtags on Instagram that are related to your industry, product, service or competitor will not only potentially discover viable influencers whom you could work with. You’ll also see related content from different points of view that can inspire your own influencer marketing campaign approach.

An Instagram hashtag search is important because it could lead to social media profiles that your might not have found doing a Google seach alone.

Check out our six tips to master Instagram hashtags.

Explore influencers’ followings

Influencers tend to follow each other on social media platforms. Viewing the Twitter lists of known influencers (perhaps those who might be too big for your brand to afford now) can help you discover other influencers who might be a better fit overall (not just financially).

Of course, this same logic can be applied to exploring the “following” tab of any influencer’s Instagram account as well. It’s just about seeing what connections can lead to the discovery of influencers you might not otherwise know about.

Learn more about social media platforms as they relate to influencer marketing.

Examine your competition’s followers and engagers

By paying close attention to your competitors and their followers, you ensure that you’re not missing any opportunities to reach every possible audience you can.

Who’s engaging with your competitors by liking, sharing and commenting on their content? Who’s following them? The right influencer for your brand could be found in these groups on various social media channels.

Of course, this examination could be part of a larger competitive analysis, which can inform your digital marketing strategy beyond just influencer marketing.

Don’t forget about your own followers and engagers

While those who follow and engage with your competition could include quality influencers you’d like to work with, don’t forget about your own followers who are already engaging with your brand.

Review your follower lists across your social media channels for anyone with a relatively large following of his or her own. Even if they’re not labeling themselves as an influencer, there’s still the potential that they can be compelled to share your content or work with you in a bigger way on a consistent basis.

Browse speaker lists for industry-related events and conferences

Whether in-person or virtual, events and conferences that feature speakers in your industry can be a treasure trove for discovering influencers.

In many ways, the event or conference in question has already done the initial research that these potential collaborators are relevant to your industry (and potentially your target audience) in some way. So, all you have to do is research and decide who is specifically best for your brand.

Keep in mind that there’s no guarantee that a speaker will partner with you. However, they could still connect you to someone else who might be a good fit and is willing to collaborate.

Leverage influencer-finding tools

Of course, discovering the right influencer for your brand doesn’t all have to be a manual endeavor. There are a number of tools available that can help you monitor and discover influencers, including:

There are more tools out there, of course. But evaluate each tool and decide which one best suits your goals and your budget.

In conclusion

Finding relevant influencers is an important step but still just the first step to a successful influencer marketing campaign. Remember that you should still do your homework on any influencer you’re about to collaborate with. You also should have a clear plan and agreement in place that supports your brand’s campaign goals.

Check out our seven tips to know before starting your first influencer marketing campaign.

While you’re seeking the right influencer for your brand, consider leveling up your digital marketing process. DailyStory features automation, dynamic audience segmentation and more. Schedule your free demo with us today.

Nano influencers: 5 tips to grow your brand awareness

When it comes to influencer marketing, it’s often best to think small. Think nano influencers.

Nano influencers are content creators with between about 1,000 and 10,000 followers (although this range can vary). They typically create content around a specific topic that they’re passionate about, which can be an opportunity for brands to connect with niche audiences they otherwise wouldn’t reach.

Other benefits of working with nano influencers include:

  • Higher engagement rates since nano influencers often initiate discussions and respond to comments to keep the conversation going.
  • Leveraging the strong relationship nano influencers have with their audience since followers feel connected to them to the point of trusting them.
  • Cost-effective promotion since working with a nano influencer can cost far less in fees than working with a bigger influencer with a huge following.

And influencer marketing overall only continues to grow. About 86 percent of marketers are investing the same or even a greater amount in influencer marketing in 2022, so working with nano influencers can be a great way to get started.

The following are five tips to use nano influencers in your digital marketing to help grow your brand awareness.

Identify the right nano influencers to work with

The power of influencer marketing centers on working with the right influencers for your brand.

Of course, the nature of nano influencers is that they’re not super high on the radar. But a great way to discover the potential content creators you might want to work with is to browse hashtags that are related to your product of industry. 

For example, a meal-prep company might want to browse the #fitnessaddict hashtag to discover nano influencers passionate about fitness and wellness who align with that company’s brand, as well as the audience they bring to the table.

There also are tools that can help you find the right nano influencers for you, such as Upfluence and Influence.co. It’s also possible to find them in real life at local trade shows and seminars within your industry.

When deciding whether a nano influencer is right for your brand (and worth working with), consider the following:

  • What are their followers’ demographics? Are they an audience you want to target?
  • How are their posts, behavior and tone? Do they match your brand?
  • What is the engagement level? Value this over the exact audience size.

To connect with a nano influencer, we recommend following and engaging with them on their content for a while first. Not only does this give you more information to consider about them, but you’ll also be less “out of the blue” when/if you do decide to message them and start the conversation and potentially working together.

Consider influencer partnership formats

There is no one way you must work with a nano influencer. In fact, a partnership can look however you both agree for it to. But here are some of the typical partnership formats that can inspire you:

  • Sponsored posts are very common and typically contain a review of your product or service. Nano influencers usually will create and share this content for a fee or in exchange for a free product or service.
  • Storytelling takes the sponsored post a step further. The nano influencer basically tells a story about how your product or service fits into his or her daily life. It’s intended to be inspirational and can make followers want your product or service as well.
  • Giveaways can help create buzz through a nano influencer. You’ll want to make sure that the influencer is including the need to follow your brand’s page/account, to share the giveaway post in a newsfeed or stories and to tag friends in the comments. In addition, you’ll want to review the need for terms and conditions so that you can keep your giveaway legal.
  • Affiliate marketing leveraged with discounts can be used to motivate followers to purchase your products or services at an attractive price. Learn more about affiliate marketing.
  • User-generated content (UGC) can happen with one or more nano influencers simultaneously. Essentially, it’s a post where the influencer shares a photo of your product. UGC is trusted more than branded imagery (or “ad spam”).
  • Brand ambassador programs are more of a long-term relationship where the nano influencer regularly posts about your brand at an agreed-upon frequency, tone and style. Compensation would either be monetary or free products or services.

Agree on all the details in advance

No matter what format of a nano influencer partnership you decide on, it’s critical that not only you and your influencer agree on all the details but that you get it in writing in a contract.

Outline all the guidelines and directions so that there is no gray area or misunderstandings during the partnership. This can include:

  • The duration of the partnership
  • Frequency of posts
  • Overall branding style or tone of the posts
  • Any hashtags or mentions that must be used
  • Specifics on compensation
  • Permission to repost/share the influencer’s content on your brand’s channels and website

Of course, you have to give some leeway as well. You want your content creator to be a content creator and have enough freedom to be themselves while also sharing your brand.

Monitor performance of nano influencer campaigns

Just because many companies use influencer marketing, that doesn’t mean that you can jump into a partnership, invest time, effort and money into it and then not pay attention to how it performs. You can’t assume that just because the posts were published that your campaign was successful.

Of course, how you do measure success is up to you. Consider:

  • Post engagement, such as reactions, comments and shares
  • Refferal website traffic from social media
  • Use of any affiliate links or discount codes
  • Social media mentions

Know how you want to measure before the campaign begins with your nano influencer and monitor that performance during the campaign and after the campaign ends.

Look at the potential for long-term collaborations

Of course, a successful campaign or several successful campaigns with a nano influencer should definitely open the door to a long-term partnership. 

The influencer likely will already be loyal to your brand, and hopefully, your partnership has helped them grow their following as well.

Be prepared to propose a long-term partnership (such as a brand ambassadorship) and what that looks like.

In conclusion

Collaborating with nano influencers can be an engaging and cost-effective way to reach your target audience. Just make sure you do your research to find the right influencer (or influencers) for your brand, outline what the campaign and compensation will entail in advance (and get it all into a contract) and be ready to extend a successful campaign into a long-term partnership.

Check out our seven tips to know before starting your first influencer marketing campaign, as well as which social media platform is the best to use for influencer marketing.

As you’re defining your target audience, consider leveling up your digital marketing with DailyStory and our 21-day free trial. Features include automating various marketing tasks, dynamic audience segmentation and more. Schedule your free demo with us today.

8 tips for a successful social media takeover

Looking to shake up your brand’s online presence? Consider a social media takeover.

A social media takeover is a form of influencer marketing where you grant posting privileges to a person of interest for a predetermined period of time. This can be an influencer, expert or other professional. The length of the takeover could be a day, a week, etc. While Instagram and Snapchat host a significant percentage of takeovers, any social media platform can work.

It’s a great way to dip your toes into the world of influencer marketing. From $1.7 billion in 2016, influencer marketing is estimated to grow to have a market size of $13.8 billion in 2021.

See our seven tips to think about before diving into influencer marketing.

Of course, a social media takeover has its own nuances. And it doesn’t just happen in a vacuum on its own. There is a lot of planning and strategy required, especially for the most successful instances. But the benefits are there, including more brand awareness and potentially an increase in your brand’s following.

The following are eight tips to run a successful social media takeover on your first attempt.

Choose who’s taking over

This is a huge factor in the success of your social media takeover. Not only do you want to find someone with a significant-enough following to help grow your own, but this person should also be:

  • Noteworthy within your industry
  • Known or at least respected by your audience (meaning that not all industry experts, for example, hold celebrity status with your following, but their title and expertise do capture attention and interest)
  • Publishing content that complements your own branding

Granted, the possibilities are almost endless, but check in on your goals with this social media takeover, and let those goals help guide you in your influencer research and outreach.

Check out these 18 influencer-discovery tools to help.

Once you’ve identified a few options of individuals you’d like to work with, you should reach out directly but also start (if you haven’t already) engaging with their content. Not everyone you’d like to partner with will say yes (or say yes without requesting pay, depending), so keep looking until you find the perfect partner. Just be aware that while paying an influencer isn’t always needed, it is in your best interest to formulate your pitch to include what’s in it for them to work with you, no matter what that might be.

Sync up your goals

Obviously, your brand has goals when it comes to running a social media takeover, but it’s important that you align these goals with the goals of your influencer.

As part of your initial pitch in starting this takeover, you likely already mentioned (or officially presented) the perks for this individual to participate.

Even if the benefit to the influencer is only increased exposure to your following (or beyond), that’s fine. Just make sure that the relationship is balanced as far as benefits happening for both your brand and the influencer.

Select your social media platform

We already noted that a lot of social media takeovers happen on Instagram and Snapchat. But you can definitely choose whatever platform best suits your brand, your goals and your influencer.

(Of course, not all influencers are strong on all social media platforms, so keep that in mind while choosing who’d you like to work with.)

If there is a platform you’d like to make more of a wave on, that could be a great place to start. Facebook, for example, could feature takeover posts and Facebook Live videos on your business page. 

See our guide on the best social media platforms for influencer marketing.

Plan out your framework

First things first, do not assume that any influencer can read your mind. He or she cannot automatically (and magically) know what you would like to see happen or even what he or she should be doing in general during a social media takeover.

The best thing to do is to put it all down in writing:

  • When will it start, and when will it end?
  • How many posts are expected?
  • What post types are expected? Photos? Videos? Live-streams? Something else?
  • What’s the desired frequency of posts?
  • Any other expectations of the influencer?

You’ll also want to consider providing a list of brand do’s and don’ts, which could include profanity usage, sizing ratio of images and so on.

Just be sure to not arrange too many limitations. The idea of a social media takeover is to let the person taking over be themselves. If the content he or she is posting looks and feels exactly as it would coming from your brand itself, then what’s the point?

Set up platform permissions

This is admittedly the most complex component of a social media takeover. Not all companies want to hand over all their passwords to an influencer, no matter what agreement and/or contract might be in place.

Fortunately, you have a number of options on this front, depending on your level of comfort and the platform(s) being used.

Provide all passwords and total access

This should only be done if absolutely necessary and it’s with an individual you trust. Of course, there are some features on Snapchat and Instagram Stories (like account tags on Instagram) that must happen at the time of posting, and if the influencer needs to design those in a particular way, there might be no way around handing over the password to an account. But you’ll want to change that password as soon as the social media takeover has ended.

Limit posting permissions

The paths here can vary depending on the social media platform(s) being taken over. Facebook, for example, has different permission levels for Page Roles on its business pages, including “Live Contributor” in which the influencer can only go live on your page. To get around giving out your password in order for an influencer to go live on Instagram, you can consider hosting a joint Live session. You also can consider assigning the influencer a role with limited access from within your social media management application. This depends on what management tool you’re using, of course, but it’s easy enough to do if your tool offers customizable user permissions or even team-level access capabilities. Check out these 11 free (or almost free) social media management tools.

Have all content delivered for you to post

This is the most hands-off option possible in which the influencer is given no access or permissions to your social media accounts at all. Instead, he or she delivers to you assets, captions and so on for you to post from your brand accounts. Just be extra vigilant that what posts aren’t too scripted or too similar to what your accounts already share. The overall goal of a social media takeover is to shake up your content at least a little.

Of course, if the influencer delivers content to you and does not post organically at all, this gives you a built-in approval process. Nothing posts without your approval first. 

But even if you offer some or total access, you can still incorporate a content approval process as desired.

Promote your social media takeover in advance

The best takeovers don’t just happen out of thin air. Not from a planning standpoint. And not even from a follower’s perspective. 

As your planning out your upcoming social media takeover, you’ll want to do a separate campaign to hype up the scheduled “event.” Yes, treat your takeover like an event or product launch. Aim to generate excitement around it.

Advanced promotion increases the interest (and your results). It also will help circumvent any confusion from your following when an influencer does step in with his or her own content.

Social media takeovers are far more common these days, but it never hurts to always communicate what’s about to happen. You also could include a note or relevant hashtag on takeover posts to help communicate the nature of the posts during the takeover itself. 

Measure your results

If a tree falls in a forest without anyone around, did it make a noise? Well, if a campaign happens without analysis, did it even happen?

Yes and no.

The point is that you have goals. Otherwise, you wouldn’t bother with a social media takeover in the first place. Be sure to tie those goals to specific metrics you’d like to see boosted. You can even set individual goals for those metrics as desired.

Then, see what happens. Dig into your data during and after the takeover to understand what worked and what didn’t. Doing so will help you improve your approach the next time around. And you’ll continue to improve the overall impact of your hosted takeovers.

Test all these tips out internally

You’re definitely welcome to jump into your first social media takeover with your most desirable influencer. However, you also have the option to test out your plan (and execution) with an employee first.

Doing so allows you to: 

  • Work out any technology kinks
  • Identify any holes in your planning
  • Confirm the most desired metrics for tracking

Of course, when it comes to content, an employee can focus on behind-the-scenes opportunities. But otherwise, your strategy, plan and execution should mirror what you would want to do with an outside influencer.

Running a real test internally with an employee minimizes the risk of something going wrong. It also increases your confidence when you do move on to a non-internal social media takeover.

While you’re planning your first social media takeover, consider the strength of your digital marketing process. Is it everything you want it to be? DailyStory features automation capabilities, dynamic audience segmentation and more. Schedule your free demo with us today.

7 tips to become a successful fitness influencer [plus examples]

A fitness influencer promotes an active and healthy lifestyle on any given social media platform.

Sounds simple enough, right?

But there is so much more to becoming a successful fitness influencer who not only offers advice and support but also works with brands to promote products and services for compensation. This influencer is trusted by fitness consumers, which means his or her opinion carries a lot of weight.

Whether you’re a fitness professional who wants to level up your social media presence or an individual who would like to break into the fitness industry via social media, the following are seven tips to help you become a successful fitness influencer. 

(We also have included links to 11 fitness influencers you can browse and follow for inspiration.)

Choose your niche as a fitness influencer

In the fitness industry, the successful own a niche. Fitness is a crowded arena, so you need to stand out. But identifying your niche also will help you hone your expertise.

Remember, to know a little bit about everything makes you an expert of nothing. It takes expertise and some level of specialism to grow a significant following on social media.

If you’re an expert at bodybuilding, then ideally, you’ve not only coached others but participated in a few shows yourself. Maybe you have your own weight-loss journey to share. Whatever it is, own that specific angle to the health and fitness world.

Being an expert means that you can offer content that will bring value to your followers’ lives. It’s about building trust.

A few ways you can build your expertise include (but are not limited to):

  • Stay on top of the latest research. Fitness, health and nutrition studies are constantly being conducted and are frequently shifting our perception of the “best” ways to get fit. You can share snippets that are relevant and understandable for your audience.
  • Share the latest industry news. You can sign up for press releases from leading brands or even create Google alerts that are related to your niche.
  • Answer audience questions. While you might have to conduct your own research to appropriately answer a follower’s question, this is a straightforward way to establish yourself as an expert.

Of course, once you’ve established your expertise in one area, you can then expand to another niche if you choose to do so. (But this should not be done too soon.)

Find your voice

Once you’ve determined your niche, it’s time to explore your voice. What does that mean?

Your voice determines whether your message comes across as motivational, sympathetic, powerful, etc. 

Ideally, you’ll want to go with whatever fits your personality and your target audience best. Remember, your goal as a fitness influencer is to help people push through their fitness challenges. Your voice in that effort will either help or hurt that.

Voice also includes whether you use emojis and even what emojis you use. The typical length of your captions also can be reflective of your posts. Are you short and to the point? Or, will you treat each post almost like a mini-blog?

Once you’ve decided on your voice, be consistent. Consistency will help you brand yourself and build trusting relationships with your following. 

Tell your story authentically, consistently

Take a look at your existing social media profiles. What would someone’s first impression of you be by looking only at your profile? Are they getting your whole story just from your posts?

Think of your profile as a storyboard of your fitness life. This means that every post is a piece of your story as a fitness influencer.

In addition to constantly thinking through how to add a piece of your story every time you post, always be as authentically you as possible.

Authenticity is a form of currency on social media. Anything less than being truly authentic will turn off your audience. It’s about giving people an honest peek into your life, that you’re a real human being that they can relate to.

As you begin posting, keep in mind that you’ll want your face in your images as much as possible. Photos with faces on Instagram, for example, get 38 percent more likes.

Even when promoting a product, for example, you’ll want to come at it as a human who has tried it and give your honest opinion about it. As soon as you get salesy and detached from your own experience, that’s when you’ll lose interest.

Posting regularly is a must for any fitness influencer. Consistency in your presence and engagement builds trust as well. This might take some planning in advance, but that planning will be worth it. Think through your overall content, which should be a mix of inspirational, educational, networking and sponsored posts. When in doubt, lean toward a heavier mix of organic, unpaid posts. 

Planning will keep your messaging and content on point in a way that your followers will appreciate.

Again, people want to trust you. Never give them a reason not to.

Obsess over engagement, not followers

As you’re looking to establish your status as a fitness influencer, it’s hard not to focus on your number of followers.

But we’d like to challenge you to focus on your engagement rate instead. (Roughly the number of engagements on a post divided by number of followers.)

Yes, the size of your following can lead to higher pay for sponsored posts. However, brands are also becoming more and more savvy about the engagement they’d like to see (versus just the number of your followers).

It’s important to keep in mind that you don’t have to reach “Kardashian level” with millions of followers to be a successful fitness influencer. In fact, the larger the following, the lower the engagement rate can get. 

Having 1,000 engaged followers is better than having 10,000 followers who never interact with your posts. In fact, reaching 1,000 followers roughly qualifies you as a nano-influencer.

Instead, prioritize engaging with your audience above all else, building that back-and-forth conversation with them. Great content leads to high engagement, and high engagement leads to organic following growth.

Simply, treat your followers as individual friends. Have two-way conversations, where you ask questions, respond to comments, run polls and take an interest in them and their thoughts.

(Hint: This engagement should happen outside of your own posts and on your followers’ posts as well.)

Be patient, and keep focusing on the influencer you naturally are and the people you want to serve.

Connect with other influencers

While you are actively seeking to grow your influence, consider connecting with other fitness influencers.

It’s helpful to contact those who share your nice and starting a conversation with them that includes:

  • Showing them support
  • Sharing their content
  • Mentioning them in your own posts
  • Networking with them to gain visibility

Just make sure you’re connecting with influencers who complement your message. Equally important is to make sure you have something to offer them as well. It’s not all take, take, take.

Reach out to brands for sponsorship, advertising opportunities

We’d love to tell you that once you reach a certain level of fitness influencer that sponsorship and advertising opportunities will just fall out of the sky.

Unfortunately, while you might be approached here and there, the fact is that you’ll have to do a lot of the leg work.

First, create a media kit that summarizes:

  • Your brand. This is your introduction that should include your niche, expertise, a touch of your personality and the type of company/products you’re looking to partner with.
  • Your audience. Share how many followers you have, your engagement rate and even a breakdown of their demographics (depending on what you’re using, this should be easily available, whether its Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or another platform).
  • What you can offer to companies should they choose to work with you. Remember that you have to show this company why they can’t pass up a chance to work with you. Sell what you have to offer to them.

Then, you’ll want to compile a wish list of the top 10 to 20 companies you would like to work with. Before you even send on your media kit, be sure to start the relationship by following their social media accounts and interacting with their posts. 

Once you’ve been interacting with a company’s accounts for a while, then you can direct message them a link to your media kit or send a more traditional email.

Do not be afraid of following up if you don’t hear back. The worst thing they can say is no.

Remember that your media kit can constantly evolve as your online presence evolves. Take any feedback you get from possible rejections to adjust your pitch for the next company.

Track your performance

Becoming a fitness influencer takes a lot of passion, but data can be equally powerful.

Take the time to track the overall performance of your social media account(s). These metrics and growth trends can be added to your media kit to help secure additional sponsorships and advertising.

Of course, once you do land a sponsored post, you’ll want to give that post everything you’ve got. The best imagery, boosting the post if necessary, running a related ad campaign and so on. You can then report those results back to your partnering brand. 

You’ll want to include in your report:

  • Reach numbers
  • Engagement numbers
  • Click-throughs
  • Sampling of positive comments
  • Total time users spent consuming the content (which typically is connected to video posts)

The more you can show brands a return on investment (ROI) for their partnership with you, the more likely that partnership will continue and grow.

Examples of fitness influencers for inspiration

The bad news is that you’re not the first to want to become a fitness influencer. The good news is that you’re not the first to want to become a fitness influencer. 

In other words, there are others in the industry you can follow and learn from. Take note of their posting frequency, the various types of content, the overall content mix, who they’re tagging and networking with and so on. All of these observations can inform your own approach and strategy.

The following are just a few examples of successful accounts on Instagram you might be inspired by:

Not sure which social media platform is right for you as a budding fitness influencer? Check out our guide.

While you’re leveling up your status as a fitness influencer, consider DailyStory. Our digital marketing platform integrates with MindBody and Rhinofit to better serve fitness studios and gyms and offers such features as SMS text message marketing, email marketing, automation, dynamic audience segmentation and more. Schedule your free demo with us today.

Influencer marketing: 7 tips to know before starting your first campaign

Once considered the “new kid on the block” of digital advertising, influencer marketing has risen in both popularity and effectiveness (when done right).

Brands are expected to spend up to $15 billion on influencer marketing by 2022, according to Business Insider.

In the simplest sense, an influencer is anyone with a digital following (or audience) on a social media platform (but not necessarily) whom you’d like to attract.

The purpose of influencer marketing involves increasing brand awareness, targeting new and niche audiences and increasing impressions and reach.

What is an influencer?

How many followers should an influencer have to be considered an influencer? Well, that depends.

There are various definitions of influencer “levels,” but here is a good rule of thumb:

  • Nano-influencers: 1,000 to 10,000 followers
  • Micro-influencers: 10,000 to 50,000 followers
  • Mid-tier influencers: 50,000 to 500,000 followers
  • Macro-influencers: 500,000 to 1,000,000 followers
  • Mega-influencers: 1 million-plus followers

As odd as it sounds, bigger isn’t always better. For example, an influencer with 8,000 male followers doesn’t make sense for a national sporting brand to partner with. However, a local gym might be interested in that audience, depending on the influencer’s brand.

Check out our five tips to use nano influencers to help boost your brand awareness.

Either way, buyer beware. As you can already see, not all influencers and partnerships are created equal, and there’s a lot more to a successful campaign than an influencer agreeing to post about your brand or product.

Here are seven tips to know before starting your first influencer marketing campaign.

Set your goals

Goal-setting is critical for any marketing campaign, not just influencer marketing. 

It determines whether all elements are aligned for a specific strategy with a desired outcome that can be measured.

You have to ask yourself:

  • What’s the point?
  • How will it be measured?

Perhaps you’re looking for an ROI (return on investment) based on conversions. Or, perhaps you’re looking for an increase in website traffic. 

Keep in mind that developing an understanding of the type of audience you want to target is helpful at this point as well. If you’re an outdoor brand looking to promote a new product, what sort of demographic do you want to know about it?

Typically, awareness is the goal of most influencer campaigns, but don’t be afraid to take that one step further and tie that to revenue in some way. Awareness is great, but you are spending money on this campaign after all, so the ROI matters.

Whatever the metric, be sure to communicate it to everyone involved in the influencer campaign, especially the influencer him or herself.

Find your influencer

Once you know your goal or goals, you can start searching for influencer candidates. 

We’re calling them candidates because ideally, you should compile a list of influencers who appear to be a promising match for your brand and promotion and are worth taking a deeper look at.

If you are plugged in to your industry on social media and online, you can begin with a social media audit. Is there anyone with a significant following mentioning your brand? Perhaps your products and services? Are any relevant hashtags being used?

There also are several free or almost-free tools you can use, such as Upfluence, Buzzsumo and Crowdfire.

Check out these 18 influencer-discovery tools.

Do your ‘influencer homework’

Once you have your list of candidates, it’s time to do your homework, which is the most critical step before launching an influencer marketing campaign.

Skipping (or not fully doing) your research about a potential influencer risks problems down the line. For example, does an influencer truly reflect your brand? Have they posted controversial images or statements in the past that conflict with your brand? How do they handle other sponsored posts that they’ve done before? How do they engage with their following?

Key points

  • Relevancy. Think how an extreme sports athlete would work for Red Bull but not Cover Girl. However, relevancy doesn’t just tie to who the person is. It also involves the type of content a person posts. If that same extreme sports athlete only posts about his or her cat, that might not be the best fit either.
  • Influence and reach. This can be tougher to gauge without speaking to the influencer directly, but the idea is that you want to confirm that when an influencer posts about something, it can spur action by at least a portion of his or her followers. Take note of any past sponsorship posts an influencer has done, and feel free to ask how those campaigns performed. Any seasoned influencer will have that data available for at least his or her contribution.
  • Engagement rates. It’s very easy to get “razzle dazzled” by an influencer’s following size. The more followers, the more impressive. However, followings aren’t everything. In fact, many brands would opt for a smaller, more engaged following than a larger following that doesn’t engage very much with the influencer. This can help flush out who’s bought a following and who earned it organically. Learn about six different ways to calculate engagement rates. Remember that, ideally, you’ll want an influencer’s audience to engage with product posts as much as with the idea of the “celebrity” itself.

Once you do decide on an influencer, strive to build a relationship with him or her first. You can like and comment on the influencer’s posts, engaging before dropping a partnership request in their messages.

Determine your budget

Influencer marketing does not have a set cost or pricing rate. Every influencer is different, and every business has a different budget.

And spoiler alert: Many businesses do not have a huge budget for influencers (although that is shifting every year).

If you have a tight budget, consider what else you can offer. Is it a prototype of the product you’re promoting? Perhaps a day of the services you want to draw attention to?

Remember that your goal is key here, and more likely than not, an influencer would expect some sort of sampling anyway so that they can authentically post about the brand.

Typically, though, expect that the more sophisticated the influencer and the larger the following, the higher the cost. (That’s why nano-influencers can be better options for small businesses to partner with.)

Review the regulations

This surprises more than it should, but there are regulations surrounding influencer marketing and sponsored posts.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regularly updates its guidelines for online endorsements. While the FTC holds the influencer responsible for knowing and adhering to the rules, don’t assume that every influencer does or will.

It is in your best interest to understand the regulations as well and communicate with your influencer about them.

In the simplest sense, it really comes down to disclosure. Influencers must identify every sponsored post.

The FTC has its own 101 Guide for Social Media Influencers that you can dig into.

Think multi-channel

When possible, developing a content strategy with the right influencer can easily cross multiple social media platforms.

It’s not uncommon for a YouTube star to also have a strong Instagram following. Seize those opportunities and consider what you can do on which platform during an influencer partnership. 

The more touchpoints you can create with a new audience, the better.

Find out the best social media platform to use for influencer marketing.

Contracts are great things

Once you discuss and decide on everything with the influencer, put it in writing.

Better yet, make it an enforceable contract.

While the homework you’ve done on your influencer should serve as comfort that he or she will perform as expected, it’s always better to be safe than sorry.

Examine the steps for what you should include in a social influencer contract, or check out a simple template. Know that there are numerous contract templates available online, but you should always have a lawyer review any final contract you ultimately create.

In conclusion

Influencer marketing can be an effective way to drive brand awareness and sales. It enables brands to reach targeted audiences they otherwise wouldn’t reach (or at least not in the same way). However, the value and success of influencer marketing campaigns depend on your planning and research. Be willing to experiment, but keep your eye on the ROI the entire time.

Looking to go beyond influencer marketing? Take a look at our Digital Marketing 101 Guide for Beginners.

While you’re digging into influencer marketing, consider leveling up your digital marketing process. DailyStory features automation, dynamic audience segmentation and more. Schedule your free demo with us today.