Marketing in the digital world has gone beyond just promoting advertisements on Tv and radio to social media and much more. It has evolved into a dialogue from a monologue of just brands dominating the advertisement space. Brands are investing in heavy finances to get these strategies right and attract the majority of the people. Influencer marketing a segment of strategy, branding and social media has turned the tables on for brands making them stronger day-by-day.
But brands while trying to beat the competition, make some mistakes while using influencer marketing to target huge audiences. Let us look at some of the most common mistakes brands make.
Mistake 1: Treating influencer marketing as a sales strategy
If you expect your influencer’s engagement to directly convert into sales, you are wrong. Influencers help you with marketing and working with them should be a part of your strategy making. To accomplish revenue, one of your advertising division’s destinations is to accomplish social media engagement with potential clients. When you’ve done that for a considerable length of time that you’ve fabricated trust with your devotees, they’re bound to take an interest in spreading positivity about your brand. Hence, while going for influencer marketing always look at it from a strategic perspective.
Mistake 2: Hiring an influencer for a single engagement
Brands often feel that a single engagement with an influencer via a post will do wonders for them. But if this happens, it will feel like an ad and won’t have a lot of credibilities. Their recommendations won’t come across as authentic which defeats the purpose of hiring them for influencer marketing. Brands should always focus on a 360 days engagement technique to emerge out as a better player tomorrow.
Mistake 3: Thinking about the number of followers of an influencer
It doesn’t really matter whether the influencer has a huge number of followers as that does not define influence. Instead, what matters is the power influencers have to introduce something new to their communities and to engage them around that new thing. Look way, way beyond the follower count! Influencers also tend to purchase followers by using automated systems and so such fraudulent influencers are of no use to your business.
Mistake 4: Hiring a generic influencer
It is generally seen that influencers around a niche have better engagement than a generic influencer. Influencers who have a specific topic, industry, or focus are considered niche influencers. They’re the ones your business should concentrate on working with. For example, if your business is an E-learning platform, it’s better to hire influencers who promote tech-based products so that they cater to your specific audience.
Mistake 5: Laying restrictions on the influencer for content
Influencers are generally aware of what type of content their followers are crazy about. Encouraging them to create content will always yield better results for you. Forcing and laying restrictions on them in terms of content creation may hamper your business reputation and won’t engage the audience. If you push them to pursue what you feel is right, then you might just end up making an advertisement for your brand.
Mistake 6: Influencers hired as a contract
Influencers should always be treated as professionals because they take your brand seriously and have the task to engage as many people as possible with your brand. Influencers are students, small businesses, stay-at-home parents and entrepreneurs. They put their invaluable time in bringing engagement, building a community and also create posts for your brand’s image. And so, just like you hire a graphic designer or a software developer, hire your influencers. Hence, all the process should be addressed in a formal manner.
Mistake 7: Waiting long to implement an influencer marketing strategy
It is beneficial for brands to start with their influencer marketing services early, even before they have a product. It might help your brand in giving the right push as well as help in figuring out the common set of problems your audience might face using your product. Through influencer marketing, brands can lay their focus on finding pain points and spreading the right kind of awareness before a product launch.
Mistake 8: Signing up very fast on an influencer
Even if you feel interested in the influencer, wait and perform your due diligence. Follow the influencer’s account for some weeks. Keep a track of their postings and ensure that the writings and the visuals seem appealing. Ensure that his/her followers are commenting and engaging in the right manner. There are a lot of influencers that produce a lot of content but have a large number of bots for followers. A large, but fake audience, isn’t going to help your business. Once you feel that the influencer’s style matches your business, try to make negotiations and then sign up.
Mistake 9: Not reusing or repurposing the content created
If you really hire an authentic influencer, one thing you’ll gain from working with them will be very interesting, original, and super engaging content from a unique point of view. While working with an influencer, it is important to include a clause in your contract that gives you permission to reuse, re-purpose and re-boost the content created by the influencer. This can be effective in your blog posts, advertising, and even on your own website. But remember, you need to include a clause in your contract with the influencer that you are the owner of the content that they create for you.
Mistake 10: Running after a high-end authentic influencer
A high-end influencer who is authentic is great, but the influence is not related. What matters is that an influencer’s followers listen to them, and can become invested in what you do. It also may be possible that the high-end influencer might not cater to a niche segment and hence your audience is not the same as his/her. Getting an influencer whose followers are lesser but at least engage in the activities is always beneficial for your brand.
In order to avoid these mistakes, brands hire agencies that offer influencer marketing services. These agencies work towards building your brand’s reputation and promoting your offering in the entire online community. Online Reputation Manage is one such agency that has the best industry experts to promote your brand through influencer marketing strategies. They discover, manage and work with high-end influencers to make sure that your brand reaches millions of passionate and socially engaged audiences.
