When was the last time someone said working with influencers is easy?
Oh wait, nobody has ever said that.
What you usually read about online is how difficult it is to work with influencers.
- They demand a lot of money for a small job.
- They produce similar types of content e.g. just another IG reel or TikTok video.
- They will say good things about the product if they’re being paid (not authentic).
While sometimes the above can be true, in most cases, they can be assumptions you make because of what you read online. And when this happens, you tend to narrow down your options in influencer marketing, which ultimately reduces its benefits.
Influencer marketing is a marketing strategy that brands, big or small, utilise to hit objectives like increasing brand awareness, launching a new product or service and fostering a community–using influencers. Influencers range from nano-tier to celebrity influencers. Think of your friend who's recently been promoting a lipstick they like from a local brand to David Beckham, who's the face of Adidas.
They are "influencers of today", and with that comes assumptions that we will be breaking down today. Let's dive right into the 3 assumptions you made about influencer marketing.
1. I can’t afford influencer marketing–it’s too expensive.
How often do you hear that influencer marketing is expensive? The assumption that influencer marketing is costly comes from the traditional understanding that you can only work with celebrities or macro-influencers with large followings. And this isn't an assumption–they can be expensive to work with due to their profiles.
However, you should understand that an influencer marketing budget has several factors–from the type of platform, content format, selection of profiles to the difficulty of the task–affecting the budget.
You don't need to spend your budget on just celebrities to boost your brand awareness or gain traction on your latest product. There are several other tiers of influencers to consider to hit your marketing goals.
- As a small brand who wants to run an influencer marketing campaign that is budget-friendly, you can choose to work with nano-influencers (with 200 to 4,999 followers), which typically have lower difficulty campaigns but are able to deliver high engagement rates.
- If you still choose to work with one macro-influencer and keep it budget-friendly, you can then also simultaneously work with 10-20 nano-influencers to amplify the campaign's effect.
It's important to note that collaborating with influencers doesn't follow a uniform model; flexibility is key.
2. After working with an influencer on an ad hoc or one-off basis–it’s done.
The most popular way marketers use influencers is by engaging them for one-off ad-hoc campaigns.
While this may be true, it's not always the most impactful way.
You will be surprised to hear that influencers can help to establish and sustain a community through long-term partnerships. It aligns with brand loyalty, which is possibly one of your goals in your overall brand marketing strategy.
Upon encountering an influencer's promotion of your product, customers might find it intriguing initially, yet may not make an immediate purchase. However, with repeated exposure and consistency, people start to imprint that face on similar products. After weeks or months of seeing the post, they think it's worth a try.
When your followers see consistency through the many campaigns, they are more likely to purchase your product and continue to support you in the coming years. This eventually grows into a community.
Customers can be your influencers, and can also act as ambassadors for your community.
Influencer marketing is all about authenticity and consistency.
3. Influencer marketing campaigns involving macro and nano-influencers are the same–right?
How brands usually work with macro-influencers is to have a list, shortlist, filter and contact them to get their rates. It's possible because there are only a few of them, and it's easy enough to hand-pick them.
When you engage with nano-influencers, it's probably at scale–say, hundreds of them. Many brands still assume or demand the same list of nano-influencers, which is impossible (or not worth your time). Hence, the ways to shortlist and pick the profiles are different.
The concept involving employing nano influencers is similar to Facebook's targeted ads: targeting individuals with aligned interests and demographics to amplify brand messaging at mass rather than expecting tailored content creation.
Macro and nano-influencers have different engagement values, varying target audiences, and more. As a brand, you need to understand which tier you want to work with, their capabilities and what outcomes you can achieve from these groups of influencers.
Collaborating with influencers doesn't follow a one-size-fits-all approach.
The takeaway
Don't get us wrong. Some of the assumptions you read online can be true. However, these are the most common assumptions we hear from brands and influencer marketing–they're expensive, only viable in one-off campaigns, and all tiers work the same.
At Partipost, we work with large businesses, SMEs and everyday brands that cater to varying target audiences. We've heard of these assumptions, and we want to educate brands, marketers and, of course, to a certain extent, influencers about these assumptions.
If you're ready to hear more about influencer marketing and how it can benefit your brand, get in touch with us.