“Targeting a large number of individual influencers will have a bigger impact than a one-off celebrity endorsement”
- Victoria Partridge, Senior Account Director, Ogilvy PR
Ok, if Kim Kardashian endorsed your new eyelash curler, there is no doubt you would see an instant spike of activity on your social pages. But it would be just for that period of time; a day, a week, maybe. And chances are that your social media metrics would go back looking the same the week after.
This is why smart brands are being savvy in their marketing strategy by collaborating with relevant influencers in their industry who would form a long lasting relationship both with your audience and you.
The amount of data we have at hand has changed a great deal because of the rise of social media in recent years. From third party blogs, to building communities, to being relevant to your audience, we have a lot more ways to understand what people want, and how to have a lasting effect on your audience. Read on to see how you can be more relevant on social media by using effective influencer marketing.
“People don’t read ads—they read what interests them, and sometimes it is an ad.”
- Howard Gossage
It’s easy to be boring. You merely have to continue focussing on reach instead of being relevant to your audience. A one-off celebrity endorsement might give you short term gains, but if you put your efforts in finding the right influencers that your audience care about, it is likely to translate to long-term engagements.
Most marketers segment their audience using demographics. Male, between the ages of 20-30 years, living in London might be accurate, but it doesn’t tell you if they like the product or brand you’re trying to market to them. It’s most likely not relevant to them either. But if you know what your audience is thinking, what their likes or dislikes are, when and how often they engage with your brand, it will be easier to hone in on an influencer - whether they’re bloggers, vloggers or Periscope enthusiasts - to advertise to your target audience.
Advertising regulatory bodies are fast clamping down on bloggers and vloggers who aren’t completely transparent about their sponsored blogs/posts/Tweets. This most definitely hurts brands. One of the ways to overcome this problem is to find influencers who are relevant to their audience, and who do not overcharge brands just for one blog post. Having your social media influencers bare all is a better option than hiding certain facts which will cause an outrage by your audience and eventually hurt your brand image. Kim Kardashian recently came under fire by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) for posting a misleading post about a morning sickness pills on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, and eventually had to delete the post.
It’s no secret that consumers are tired of being targeted for ads that are not relevant to them. According to this survey, only 23 percent feel that communications they receive from marketers are highly relevant to them. They will soon have the option to block ads that they don’t feel are aimed at them. This could easily be turned into a positive for brands: Use your influencers to target your audience responsibly to ensure that your brand remains relevant to them and on the ‘whitelist’.
The Journal of Consumer Research says that consumers often form opinions about products and services based on the opinions of they people they know. For example, if you’re marketing a book for a publishing house, don’t look to a random celebrity for an endorsement if you can get a book reviewer to reach out to your bibliophile audience.
Like the above, the spam ban isn’t necessarily bad. It would mean that brands will be able to operate in a less crowded space and the way they reach audience will change. It also means that the focus will be on quality and not quantity. Marketers will be able to put all their energies on finding the right content and include a more relevant influencer marketing strategy by looking at the right insights.
How else can you be relevant on social media by using influencer marketing? Tell us in the comments below.
