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]]>Influencers play an integral part in a brand’s reputation as well as creating awareness and in some cases even sales. If you are a marketer who expects influencers to participate in campaigns for product alone, unless said product is of considerable value, ask yourself if you would offer the same compensation for a radio or TV spot? The fact is, influencers are just another marketing channel to reach target markets.
We all remember the good ol’ days when a brand would send a couple of desk drops (product) to bloggers or influencers and their brand would be all over social media. Unboxings were a big fad a couple of years ago. These days, only certain niches still do unboxings, but most have found that their audiences aren’t as interested in unboxing videos as they are in actual reviews or just hearing more about the product. Although desk drops have its place, especially to introduce new products or keep brands top of mind with influencers, it doesn’t cut it anymore in terms of getting them to be part of campaigns. Fair enough. Influencers are part of a brands’ marketing team for the duration of campaigns, they create content to subtly promote products and services (which isn’t free and takes time); and, if chosen correctly, they speak directly to target markets. That type of marketing is priceless.
Then why do some campaigns fail and sometimes marketers feel less than impressed with the money they spent on influencers?
The key is selecting influencers that are right for the brand and who will be best suited to achieve campaign objectives. These influencers need to share brand values, already like a brand’s products or services or be a voice in the industry in order to be authentic.
So often brands are blinded by the wrong numbers when it comes to choosing influencers. They want those with huge followings, no matter what their campaign objectives are. Numbers can be deceptive. I would like for brands to shift away from this mindset and start becoming obsessed with engagement numbers and actual, not perceived, influence. We find that macro and mega influencers are great for creating awareness, but they don’t have highly engaged audiences, which means that their followers see brands on their timelines, and that’s where it stops a lot of the time. Nano and micro influencers, even though they have smaller followings, are much better to drive brand love and purchase consideration because their followers and social circles trust and value their recommendations and opinions.
Truth is, if the right types of influencers are used in the right way, they can bring immense value to brands. They can be the difference between consumers loving or hating a brand or choosing competing brands; and thus, they deserve to get paid.
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]]>Does she consider herself an influencer and what is the golden thread that runs through influence and journalism?
Listen in as she expertly unpacks this for us!
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]]>This means that nano, micro, mid-tier, macro and mega influencers mean something else in South Africa than it does in the more established markets when we look at follower counts.
Nano influencers
Every single person is a nano influencer because everyone belong to their own tribes. These are the various social circles we operate in on a daily basis – i.e. work, family, different friendship groups, clubs we belong to and so forth. It’s only natural that we share our product and service experiences with our tribes. Think about it, if you loved a product you will always recommend it to your friends and family, and likewise if you didn’t like it at all. This makes you a nano influencer because you’re influencing someone else’s purchasing decision or opinion on a particular product or service. Nano influencers don’t necessarily have a lot of social media followers and are more about real life conversations with their tribes. They typically have up a combined following of up to or less than 1 000 followers across platforms and they generally personally know their followers. Nano influencers are incredibly influential in their circles as they are seen as genuine and authentic – someone who won’t recommend anything they don’t personally use or like.
Micro influencers
If someone is an expert on a given topic and has built a decent following on social media, we refer to them as a micro influencer. These, for example, are the fitness, food and beauty bloggers / vloggers and influencers who have highly engaged audiences. Micro influencers generally have a combined following of up to 10 000 across platforms. As with nano influencers, they are very influential because they have credibility with their followers and seen as authentic within their area of expertise.
Mid-tier influencers
Mid-tier influencers are famous within their niches and includes up-and-coming celebrities. They have big followings on social media but are still regarded as accessible by their audiences. Mid-tier influencers have a combined following of up to 50 000 across platforms. Their audiences aren’t as engaged as with nano and micro, but they have a big reach and thus create awareness to larger audiences.
Macro influencers
One of the most well-known influencer categories is macro influencers. These influencers are celebrities and social media celebrities who aren’t only famous within their niches, but also to the general public. In South Africa, we regard macro influencers as those with a combined following across platforms of up to 300 000. They are known for partnering with brands and aren’t always seen as 100% authentic when it comes to sponsored posts, but they create awareness to mass audiences.
Mega influencers
The last and most exclusive influencer category is mega influencers. They have big star power and commonly aren’t only known locally but also have an international presence. Think Black Coffee or Bonang Matheba. Mega influencers have over 300 000 followers across platforms. The general public view them as another advertising platform when they partner with brands and thus, they aren’t good for influencing purchasing decisions, but they create mass awareness to mass audiences.
All influencers have their place and it’s dictated by the objectives and target markets of influencer campaigns. Brands need to know what they want to achieve and what success looks like in order to put a plan in place that can be measured at the end of it. Every category of influencer has their own strengths when it comes to marketing products and services.
Even though the local influencer marketing industry is still small, it’s growing every day. We at Nfluential can’t wait to see what the future holds for the industry and are even more excited to be part of shaping the landscape by guiding brands and agencies through the often-confusing landscape.
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]]>Have you ever wondered how public relations uses influencers in reputation management? Wonder no more, Mary Gearing, deputy MD at Magna Carta Reputation Management, unpacks how the rise of influencers has changed the industry.
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]]>Influencer Marketing is fairly new but breaching the introduction stage in South Africa. One of the biggest learning of the past few years has been that the length and breadth of the market is not fully invested in intense planning to impact performance. A new business has been set up to specifically tinker with the nuts and bolts to bring clarity in direction and process. Listen in as Anne Dolinshek, new media guru and gladiator in a pencil skirt, painstakingly emphasises the role and NEED for planning!
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]]>I’m going to try to make it simple.
What brands don’t understand yet, and need to; is that although a blog’s unique visitors are important, it’s not the be all and end all. A big hoo-ha is made over these stats and is often the deciding factor in meetings to determine who is or who is not to be used for campaigns. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dispute the fact that those with big numbers aren’t influencers; they are without a doubt, but who they are talking to? In other words, determining who their audience is; is a much more important question than determining their unique visitor stats.
The fact of the matter is that if a blog gets 100,000 unique visitors a month, chances are that any product or brand could be featured on the blog and visitors would see it or more likely glimpse over it – if it’s random. If the blog is not geared towards the right audience for a brand i.e. the right target market the brand wants to create awareness with, it doesn’t really matter how many people see it because they won’t care for it.
The brand will be wasting its precious budget on a big influencer (with the incorrect audience) because, let’s face it, that blog’s stats would go a long way to impress the big bosses when reporting time comes. But what percentage of the 100,000 visitors were actually influenced?
When PR teams put together influencer strategies, we constantly need to ask ourselves whether the proposed influencers are talking to the correct market for the brand. Is it their niche? If not, move right along even if this person is the “IT” or popular influencer at the time.
Here’s why:
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- 1. The brand will look silly, for a lack of a better phrase, if it’s talking to an obviously random audience. People will notice and will talk among themselves or even worse, online. This poses a reputational risk for the brand.
- 2. It’s bad for the influencer’s reputation. They will be alienating their hard-earned audience by posting about random products or some that are only vaguely related to their niche. For instance, just because a blog’s audience is mostly women, this doesn’t mean they should post about baking if their niche is beauty. Of course some of their audience probably bakes from time to time, but readers aren’t visiting that particular blog for baking tips, they read it for the latest beauty product or industry news. I can guarantee the influencer will start losing credibility and traction over time. PR consultants should also ponder as to why any sane influencer would agree to post about something that’s not part of their niche?
If there isn’t a big influencer playing in your brand’s space, it sometimes pays off putting budget towards a couple of smaller influencers speaking to the right audience. These influencers may not have the big hit rate, but they have a loyal fan base that they influence on an on-going basis and who they can potentially convert into a loyal fan base for your brand. Isn’t that what brands want at the end of the day? A legion of organic brand ambassadors?
Another important element that some PR consultants and brands tend to forget is that not all influencers are right for every campaign.
In South Africa we often see the same influencers on every campaign from beauty, food, entertainment, gaming etc. It baffles me how brands think that these influencers speak to and influence all of these audiences? Or do they perceive this handful of influencers to be the “IT” influencers right now? I can understand if the influencers focus on lifestyle as they speak to a wide audience with different interests, but if they have a definite niche, what are PR consultants and brands thinking?
PR consultants should make a habit of booking a couple of hours a month into their diaries to do some research into the lesser-known influencers with high engagement rates in the markets that their brands want to talk to. It’s not that difficult to do – Google and social media are your best friends. Another technique is to talk to friends or colleagues and merely ask them whose blogs they’re reading lately and why.
It’s important to find the up and coming, fresh-faced influencers and to cultivate relationships with them before they become big. Influencers remember who supported them when they started out and will show more loyalty to those brands in the long run. They will also be more open to give brands extra added value than the bigger influencers.
In conclusion, the next time the same influencers are suggested for campaigns, do a bit of research first to find out whether they truly are the right fit for your brand and the messaging that you are trying to push.
Article originally posted on Bizcommunity: https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/18/148333.html
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]]>In fact, there’s been a spike in buying Instagram followers of late. The platform is where it’s at right now, with brands flocking to Instagram to pay influencers to promote their products.
Fake it ‘til you make it
We have to admit that Zuckerberg messing with the algorithm meant that most of us are getting a lot fewer likes and engagement. If you’re trying to build a brand, and not just show off your pets on the platform, this is bad news. Hence, many started buying likes and in turn followers.
Fake followers are a massive problem, as SA duo proves
It’s almost become an unspoken fact over the years that social media has a major problem with fake followers. Now, two writers have brought the problem into the open by running a dummy Instagram account and buying fake followers in the process…
HADLEE SIMONS 3 APR 2017
The rationale is along the lines of “fake it ‘till you make it” aka buying followers will lead to real ones being interested and following organically. I would caution strongly against this. Once a brand gets sniff in the nose of such trickery, your reputation as an influencer might fall to tatters.
The other reason is the fact that brands are ignorant. They are laser focused on how many followers their influencers have, that they’ve lost sight of the important bits like whether they speak to the correct audiences, do they have good engagement rates and most importantly – are all their followers real?
Fake reach and engagement
Websites selling likes and followers have also become smarter. No more do they sell completely fake followers, but rather promise “real” ones these days. Yes, these users now have real followers and likes, but it’s still paid for, therefore the reach and engagement is fake.
What now? I’d suggest that you take some time to look through people’s followers and likes. Are most of it from a foreign country, in other words, not from where they’re based or related to the post?
Have they all of a sudden gained a lot of followers? Do they suddenly get significantly more likes than before? All of this always raise alarm bells for me. It just doesn’t add up. Everyone is suffering under the algorithm curse, except for these people. *insert side-eye*. Buying followers is not exclusive to Instagram however, it’s popular on Twitter and Snapchat too.
The rise of micro influencers
I’m hoping that the rise of micro-influencers was partly due to most huge followings proving not to be as influential as brands thought to be – real or not. It’s been proven that accounts with smaller followings influence their audiences more as they are viewed to be peers rather than being aspirational. They have small but loyal followings, who trust in their opinions.
Will the real influencers please stand up?
A growing army of YouTube stars is finding instant fame and wealth thanks to millions of subscribers to their pages and are fast becoming as influential, and in some case more so than mainstream actors and musicians…
BRADLEY ELLIOTT 18 DEC 2017
If you’re a big brand looking for big followings, I’d advise that you’d most probably get more bang for your buck investing your money into a couple of smaller accounts with the right audiences to garner better results.
Article originally posted on Bizcommunity: https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/669/182799.html
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