Week 6: Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is when a business partners with an influencer to promote their product. An influencer is someone who has a large and engaged following. In my opinion, someone with 10,000 or more followers on Instagram would be considered an influencer, for example. Typically, the influencer promotes your product to their audience, and you create a code to track when someone from their audience buys your product through the link the influencer promoted. You usually give them a percentage of the products sold as commission.

Best Practices of Influencer Marketing

Pick the right influencers for your brand.
You want someone whose audience shares the same niche as your product, or at least whose following demographics match the target demographics and interests of your product and brand.
Choose influencers that have the best engagement rates, which are usually micro-influencers (people with 10k-100k followers).
You can use tools to find influencers like BuzzSumo, Hype Auditor, and Influencity.

Get in contact with the influencers.
Most influencers will have contact information in their bios. The best ways to reach out include:

• Email:
  Send a pitch that includes these areas:
  • What you like about them and their content
  • Why your product fits with them and their audience
  • Be upfront and clear about what you want to offer them in compensation and commission
• Direct Messages:
  Be short and sweet, and encourage them to message you on a different platform because influencers get a lot of DMs, and you don’t want to be forgotten.
• Collaborative Networks:
  Use platforms like Instagram Collab or TikTok Creator Marketplace to find and connect with influencers.

Norms of Negotiation

Common practices in influencer negotiations:

• Contract terms
• Content format
• Frequency
• Compensation
• Deadlines

Be clear, and make sure both parties understand what they are agreeing to.

Build strong relationships with influencers.
Work together throughout your campaigns instead of limiting it to single posts. This will make your partnership feel more collaborative than just a business deal.
Allow influencers to be creative and work their magic because they know their audience best.
Pay them fairly—this is key to making the relationship feel like one of respect and trust. This will motivate them to give you their best effort, creating a win-win situation.

Know your goals, and choose influencer size accordingly.

• Micro-Influencers:
  Micro-influencers are better for niche targeting and conversions because they have higher engagement and are more affordable.
• Macro-Influencers:
  Macro-influencers are better for brand visibility. They have a larger following but lower engagement. It will cost more but is more effective for the top of the marketing funnel.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Don’t work with influencers who don’t match the feel and niche of your product.
• Don’t hide that your content is sponsored. Maintaining trust with your customers and audience is crucial because people don’t buy online from sources they don’t trust.
• Don’t blindly believe influencers about their following and metrics. Focus more on the engagement of their followers than just the number of followers.

Works Cited

“Influencer Marketing: What It Is and How It Works.” Mailchimp, 2024, www.mailchimp.com/resources/what-is-influencer-marketing/#:~:text=Influencer%20marketing%20is%20a%20form,promotes%20their%20products%20or%20services. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024.