If you’ve spent even a short time on Instagram, you’ve come across at least one influencer post. And if you don’t, you’ve at least seen something promotional on Instagram. Influencer marketing on Instagram is on track to be an $8.5 billion market in 2021. Businesses that embrace influencer marketing are going to see large increases in sales and traffic.
How Does It Work?
This works best with social networks like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. All social media requires a disclosure of some kind: users should know when they are reading materials that may be sponsored, and they should have the ability to opt out of certain content that they don’t want to see. With instagram however, things get a little weirder, because the platform allows you to create separate profiles for different purposes: such as business or personal.
Social media campaigns tend to use the medium to promote products and services directly. They may write their own sales pitches or offer their own recommendations. Personal recommendations come from real life people (influencers), who feel they can accurately represent themselves as consumers. This makes them a great asset to business marketers, since they have been through the process and know how it works. The upside here is that these campaigns tend to generate the highest engagement rates.
The Problem With This Structure?
Well, the problem with this structure is that it limits marketers. Since the market is already overcrowded with content, marketers are swimming in one direction with a lot of competition. The goal of many social media and micro-bloggers, as well as SEO businesses, is to be ahead of that crowd, and have their pages indexed and ranked ahead of all the noise created by the ever-growing number of marketers attempting to do the same thing. If a page isn’t seen by the top third of your niche’s audience, it’s effectively worthless to your overall strategy.
However, it also means that micro influencers are left out in the cold. Micro influencers usually have very little influence over the size of an audience and can’t push the needle in front of a large number of readers. As a result, they often don’t get much attention from marketers, and wrongly so. Micro influencers have certainly contributed to the explosion of social media use and marketing on the internet, and marketers need to find creative new ways to connect with influencers that will help them gain greater impact through engagement, rather than reach. Below are a few methods that we believe will help you accomplish this:
Freebies for influencers
One of the biggest challenges facing micro-influencers and social media users in general is getting started. Many people who become interested in getting started with social media are simply too excited about the possibilities to sit down and start trying to build communities. However, by offering free products to do so, marketers create an opportunity for influencers to get started with their own followers while promoting the products of the business they are promoting. This not only creates excitement about the product itself but also helps to position the business as a leader within the industry – something that can help with gaining higher engagement rates.
Tools for Instagram Influencers
Since Instagram is currently one of the most popular social media platforms, it’s no wonder that there are a plethora of marketing tools available to businesses that are designed to help them market to their followers in the most effective way possible. One of the best tools we have found to be useful for social media management is the Instagram Insights. Instagram Insights takes a look at the number of followers Instagram influencers have, as well as providing valuable information on how that user’s account is performing compared to other users of the platform. One particular section of the tool that will allow you to take a look at how effective a certain strategy is will be the “heat map.” A heat map is typically used by social media managers to highlight areas where a campaign is performing above the rest.
You could also consider using an Influencer Marketing Platform to help you find influencers for your campaigns. You can not only discover influencers, but also analyze their performance metrics such as engagement rates.
So, if you’re looking for your business to reach new audiences via social media channels, we recommend using the tips above. They will allow you to focus your marketing efforts on micro-influencers that will drive significant engagement with your followers. With this information, you’ll be able to leverage social media outlets to your advantage and truly make a difference in your business.
