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Originally Posted On: Influencer Marketing 101: Top 10 Tips for Social Media Marketing – Forge Digital Marketing

 

Influencer marketing has become popular because of its effectiveness in building trust with customers. The strategy leverages human connections─which tend to feel more relatable, relevant, and honest.

 

This new marketing method capitalizes on experts on social media to spread your brand message. These people may include famous and trusted industry leaders, athletes, or celebrities.

 

Influencers have earned the trust of their fans and can help drive your message to a broad audience. Use these ten invaluable tips to get the best out of influencer marketing.

 

1. Find an Influencer Who’s Expert Level in Your Industry

 

A perfect social media influencer for your brand isn’t anyone who has many followers. You need someone who has an active and engaged following. And given that there are different influencers, it would be best to select an expert in your niche.

 

Sometimes, a niche-based expert may not have many followers but they are more appropriate for targeting your audience. Their endorsement is more useful than that of a celebrity who engages a diverse audience.

 

2. Turn Influencers into Your Brand Ambassadors

 

Influencers have a strong influence on how their followers act on social media. Most followers are ever eager to hear what the influencer will say. Working with them means milking their engagement to sway attention to your business. You can also go the extra mile and convince the influencer to become your brand ambassador.

 

As an ambassador, the influencer will not only recommend your products but will also embody your brand. This can help bring good publicity and attract more followers to your brand. Customers may also feel more connected to your brand, and they can convert into loyalists.

 

3. Link Influencer Marketing Campaigns to a Social Cause

 

Today, marketing campaigns are more effective when brands show concern for social causes. Eighty-seven percent of customers say they would choose brands that take part in a good cause. College students also prefer socially responsible brands.

 

Involving your influencer in a cause can help you connect with audiences at a deeper level. An influencer draws your audience’s attention to your campaign. This can leave many people feeling emotional and inspired by your brand’s actions.

 

Walmart teamed up with Rosanna Pansino, Logan Paul, and seven other influencers in a campaign to fight hunger. The campaign generated massive engagement─leading to millions of more likes and followers.

 

4. Give Influencers Promo Codes or Discount Codes

 

Influencers can also help drive your sales. Think about giving your influencers discount codes or promo codes to promote to their fans. The impact can make the influencer more popular and also bring more conversions your way.

 

Promo codes can also enable you to track your influencer marketing campaigns. More sales resulting from the codes can show that you’re working with the right influencer.

 

While promo codes are useful, they can sometimes be risky. Hackers can take advantage of them and cause you losses. So, work with an agency that can guarantee your coupons’ safety. Digital marketing agencies can help with finding influencers for you and giving them coupons.

 

5. Enhance Endorsements on Podcasts

 

Getting influencers on podcast endorsements is a fantastic trick to grow sales. A podcast allows the influencers to connect to your audience on a personal level.

 

Sound is more expressive and can enable the influencer to grab your customers’ attention. Beyond that, podcasts attract a vast number of listeners. Research suggests that more than 144 million Americans listen to podcasts.

 

6. Request the Influencers to Become Your Affiliates

 

Many influencers may have a colossal audience but don’t have a product to sell. What if they could become your affiliates? Affiliate relationships are usually more profitable than influencer marketing.

 

Affiliating encourages the influencer to engage their audience on your behalf more often. The affiliates earn a commission from each sale.

 

This can motivate them more than a one-off contract. Instead of focusing on more likes from a single post, leverage real sales from the influencer.

 

7. Avoid Micromanaging Your Influencers

 

Influencer marketing is a lot about relationships and trust. Good influencers are authentic and engage deeply with their followers. They may take their time to understand your brand and your marketing expectations.

 

Yet and still, an influencer isn’t like an employee whom you would control or manage. Instead, they’re a brand on their own. They invested years of effort to build an audience, so they know how to excel in social media.

 

It would be best to give them the freedom to create content. Let them use their proven strategies to bring you success.

 

8. Let Them Review Your Products

 

Positive online reviews can earn you a good reputation and a positive image. Customers trust reviews because they seem more honest. An influencer review can even be more powerful because of their market influence.

 

You can request an influencer to review your products in return for a discount or a free product. Your brand can attract more likes and followers because of the increased attention. Reviews can be in the form of a social media post, a video, or a tag.

 

9. Allow the Influencer to Take Over Your Social Media Accounts

 

If you want immediate results from influencer marketing, you could try a takeover. This is a temporary granting of your account’s privileges to an influencer. The influencer takes control of content creation, posting, and engagement.

 

A takeover helps to entertain your audience and generate hype. It can speed up the growth of your accounts and increase brand exposure. The rub is you giving out your passwords, which could cause privacy issues and loss of data.

 

10. Use Shoppable Influencer Content

 

Influencer marketing has grown from a traffic generation tool to a selling tool. Before, only brands could link to products and share shoppable posts on Instagram and Facebook. But with Influencer shoppable posts, brands may see a bigger ROI from Instagram marketing.

 

Using influencer shoppable posts could help you sell to a large audience with a single post. This shortens customers’ journey by reducing the number of page visits before buying.

 

Grow Your Business With Influencer Marketing

 

Influencer marketing can give your brand more followers, extra engagement, and higher revenues. But you have to do it right to reap its benefits and grow your business. Find the right influencers and regularly apply these tips on influencer marketing.

 

If you’re looking to take advantage of this proven marketing method but need help getting started, feel free to contact us for assistance.