Influencer Marketing mistakes cost brands and companies a lot of money and sometimes damage their brand equity as well. Be it an advertisement on T.V., a billboard outdoor or an influencer marketing campaign on Facebook, promotions need to be sensitively planned from the consumer point of view before they are launched in the market. Over the last few years, Influencer marketing has picked up immensely, as people follow people (popular celebrities) on social networks (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) vis-a-vis opting for content themselves. This has also led to patterns such as consuming such content (in small portions) throughout the day.
Clearly, marketers have to keep in mind all current consumption patterns of their consumers if they want their communication to be received/communication well.
The making of successful campaigns ensures the basic rules of marketing are not messed with, and certain mistakes are clearly avoided. We will look at some of those mistakes to avoid, especially when it comes to an Influencer marketing campaign.
Most common influencer marketing mistakes and how to avoid them easily:
1. The many million plus followers of an influencer are not your strategies. Besides, are you aware how many fake profiles, cheap followers, and spam bots are part of this million plus figure? You should not choose your influencer just on the basis of attractive numbers; he/she should be relevant to the campaign and be popular among your target audience.
2. To make things practical and realistic, the influencer remuneration can be done in parts, and definitely key among them should be the response and engagement generated by the campaign. So, the campaign will not be judged by “the millions of followership” of the influencer, but by the Likes, comments, shares and overall type of response (negative/positive) and sales (if applicable). Pay per click, Pay per engagement, Pay in Kind and pay per post is popular compensation models.
3. Not having a SMART (Specific Measurable Achievable Resourced Timed) goal for your campaign. It would be the inane thing to do to use the online medium and still not prepare measurable goals in advance. The goals should be SMART, which is specific, measurable, achievable, resourced and timed.
SPECIFIC
Are your goals specific – what is the main objective of your campaign? Is it a) Awareness b) Sales c) any other? be specific.
MEASURABLE
Similarly, is your goal measurable? a) number of likes and shares b) number of orders.
ACHIEVABLE
Is your goal achievable? Is your goal realistic – are you choosing the right influencer? Do you see the numbers happening?
RESOURCED
Do you have the necessary marketing team in place to drive the campaign?
TIMED
Hope you’ve created a time frame for this campaign? Because things can be measured only by a time framework. It can be on the internet forever, because it may be a someone’s post, but for marketing purposes, a time frame has to be set for it to be measured against.
4. The influencer you bring on board is the voice of your brand. His tone should match with your brand’s tone. If you get the right tone match, then just go for it. Don’t pick an influencer just on the bigger name or bigger platform. Sometimes a celebrity/influencer works in a small niche and is extremely effective in that. We are today living in a world of specialization and niches, and there isn’t a better place to see that than the social networks. People simply follow their interests, their people their inspirations – Mark Zuckerberg or Guy Kawasaki, Beyonce or Kendall Jenner. The engagement seen in niches is way more.
5. Research on the followers of your influencer. Now this involves going deep into the demographic break up (age, sex, working, income, students, married, geography etc.). Other than this, one should also study deeply the kind of relationship the followers share with the influencer. What are the engagement patterns of the influencer’s posts? Is it just likes? Or are there lots of comments from a curious and interested audience? Is this audience, plain youth (jobless) can only contribute to “Page or Post Likes” or is it a homogeneous audience that can even contribute to sales online?
6. When you are planning to buy a product, what do you bother about searching most? Reviews on that products. That’s right! We are constantly looking for referrals, recommendations and reviews by real consumers, they can even be an important influencer, but what we are actually seeking is true advice. You consumers are just the same, they want to hear a credible voice sharing a real, an authentic experience.
Online, you are not addressing an audience, you are addressing a community. The fact that people didn’t watch TV ads, happened in isolation. Little Meghan Markel at the age of eleven got P&G to change their sexist television advertising by writing letters to powerful influencers in America. She got positive responses from everybody and eventually the soap manufacture itself. The ad got changed from, “women all over America are busy washing greasy pots and pans.” to “People all over America are busy washing greasy pots and pans.”
Things on the internet are even more difficult. One mistake by a marketer is there for everyone to watch, and especially the community. The word spreads faster on the internet – both the good and the bad. A lot of previous trends that had a conventional thinking such as banner advertising and pop-up ads are all dying. The ad-blocker has changed it all and we are moving on to more “community” trends than ever before. Influencer marketing is thus a sensitive tool. It is even more sensitive than television brand endorsements. Here, if not done well, your influencer is likely to get trolled and bashed publicly. So, in matters of influencer marketing, choose carefully.
If you think of it, influencers are everywhere, on all social platforms. There are there in your building, neighborhood, your newspaper…they could even be your employees! On the internet, Google is the biggest influencer and so is Facebook. Your Facebook group is another influencer. If Facebook shows news as “trending” you follow it. While shopping online, Amazon is your biggest influencer as it gives you actual customer reviews. People like to see people and read and listen to their stories.
As a marketer, simply follow the hacks of influencer marketing and get your campaign becoming the most trending thing. Because the world follows what’s trending!
