If you're looking to sharpen your influencer marketing strategy, here's our guide on the dos and don'ts of influencer marketing! Whether you're looking to refine your strategy or just getting started, we’re here to help you navigate this dynamic field.
For a comprehensive introduction to influencer marketing, be sure to check out our previous article on it here. Today, we'll be focusing on some crucial best practices and common pitfalls to avoid.
This quick list will provide you with valuable insights to enhance your influencer marketing efforts, highlighting what you should and shouldn't do. Let’s get started and explore how to effectively implement these strategies.
The DOS of influencer marketing
1. DO set campaign objectives
What goes for other types of marketing also applies here. Timelines, goals, and objectives must be clearly defined before you can move on to other parts of your campaign, including execution.
You may want to check out our previous article on how to make SMART goals, as well as our article on planning content marketing efforts. These can help you clarify aims and roadmaps to guide your efforts.
2. DO research and shortlist influencers you want to work with
It’s so important to find the best fit for your brand when choosing influencers. You want someone who appeals to your target audience while matching your brand’s image or values. And even after you find someone who ticks those boxes, there’s the matter of their content!
A good way to get started is to prepare a checklist of what you’re looking for, then sort options according to how many of those boxes they tick.
3. DO provide creative freedom
Influencers become influencers because they know how to appeal to their audience. So, let them call the creative shots as much as possible.
Unless their work is really against your brand guidelines (in which case you may want to revisit why you chose them, by the way!) let them have creative freedom. It’s actually a great way to get interesting and engaging content that you might not have considered before.
4. DO measure and analyse performance
In our books, measuring results is one of the foundations of good marketing. It’s the best way to validate the efficacy of your strategies as well as identify opportunities for course correction.
Your goals will always affect what you measure in marketing. Depending on what you’re aiming for, it may be anything from Follower Count to Customer Acquisition Cost. If you want to learn more about this and measuring influencer marketing ROI in particular, check out our previous article on the topic!
5. DO repurpose influencer content that does well
If you’ve already proven that a specific piece of content does well, double down on it. Repurposing it is a great way to do this, e.g. by using a previous post as the base for an ad.
It’s worth noting that influencer content often makes great ad content. That’s because many people trust these more than brand ads thanks to the “third-party” touch the influencers add. Just be sure the influencer agrees before you use their content this way before you do this!
The DON’TS of influencer marketing
1. DON’T rely purely on follower count
Choosing influencers based chiefly on follower count is a common rookie mistake. If you do it, you can easily limit your options for no good reason!
Some influencers seem to have a very niche or small following but have super-high engagement. As long as their audience fits your demographic, they may actually end up getting you better results than bigger influencers, thanks to their engagement rates!
In fact, a lot of microinfluencers are often more cost-efficient (and sometimes more effective) than the larger ones. We go into more detail on that as well as influencer types in our section on “how to find the right influencer” in this other article.
2. DON’T neglect terms of agreement
Sure, most of us don’t love the process of drafting contracts, but you absolutely need them for influencer marketing agreements.
Fortunately, you don’t even need a super-formal document for this! You just need to ensure all terms are clearly agreed upon in writing.
Nowadays, that includes email and chat correspondence, so don’t worry about breaking out the old printer just yet. Ensure deliverables and compensation are clear on both ends, and you’ll be fine.
3. DON’T rely solely on the influencer for hype and traffic
Part of making an influencer marketing strategy work is patience: it sometimes takes time to build relationships, brand associations, and results.
So, even if you have a good feeling about this part of your marketing campaign, remember that it’s not the only channel available to you. Go on and work on other parts of your marketing to support it!
Let’s launch your influencer marketing with a bang!
The points above should help you put together a polished influencer marketing strategy already – but if you need more help, don’t hesitate to reach out to us.
We can help you do an influencer marketing campaign for your brand that meets your needs, brand voice, and actual vision. We’ll hold your hand through every step – campaign planning, shortlisting and liaising with influencers, monitoring results and running ads, and even getting repeat influencer engagement.
So, talk to us about what it is you hope to achieve or what influencer marketing campaigns you’d most like to emulate, and we’ll help you figure out how to begin. Contact us for a chat about your influencer marketing needs today!
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