Everything about Influencer Marketing

Definition Influencer and Influencer Marketing

The term influencer comes from the verb “influence”, which in turn means influencing, influencing, shaping. Building on this, Prof. Dr. Frank Dege’s influencer in the Gabler Economic lexicon as persons “who publish content (text, image, audio, video) on a topic at high and regular frequency on their own initiative and thus initiate social interaction. This takes place via internet-based communication channels such as blogs and social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat or Twitter. Influencer marketing stand out from the crowd of social media users because they achieve a high reach with their work. ”

According to Prof. Dr. Frank Deges.

In summary, influencers are influential people who have reach on social media. If these are used by brands to achieve various corporate goals, then one speaks of influencer marketing.

Influencer Categories

The distinction between influencers in subcategories is mostly characterized by the number of followers. These five categories are often used:

Mega influencers are mostly celebrities and are already in the classic testimonial business. Your number of followers is usually in the seven-digit range.
Macro influencers have mostly become known through social media and often focus on one or two subject areas. Your number of followers is between 50,000 and 1,000,000.
Micro-influencers are general topic / industry experts and have between 10,000 and 49,000 followers.
Nano influencers are mostly interactive users with a reach of less than 10,000 followers and have a close and personal relationship with their followers.
Friends and family, because in principle all people are influencers. Because by exchanging experiences with friends and family, the willingness to buy in the environment can be significantly influenced. Therefore, these influencers are considered particularly trustworthy.

The important thing is: the greater the range, the lower the impact. People with whom there is a personal relationship are classified as particularly trustworthy and can therefore exert a great deal of influence, even with a limited range.

Social media platforms and formats

Instagram:

Instagram is widespread and arguably the most popular platform for influencer marketing campaigns. Thanks to a wide range of functions, Instagram offers an ideal playground for marketers and content creators. The formats of the platform are feed posts, stories, Instagram TV (IGTV), live functions and the still quite new reels.

YouTube:

Google’s social media platform YouTube is a pure video platform. In addition to the classic video format, YouTube also offers live formats.

Facebook:

Influencer marketing campaigns on Facebook are rarely carried out anymore. But the Facebook ad manager is still used to promote existing content. Because Facebook Ads offer the opportunity to set direct links to websites within the campaigns and also to display them on Instagram.

Blogs:

Blogs are still often part of influencer marketing campaigns, although blog-only campaigns are becoming less common. In contrast to other platforms, the focus of the blog is on the content and the long term.

TikTok:

TikTok (formerly Musical.ly) is a mobile app that focuses on short videos. With its short videos and hashtag challenges, the platform offers great influencer marketing potential.

Pinterest:

Pinterest is a kind of visual search engine. In this way, the target group is reached through one’s own interests. The posts on Pinterest are called pins. There are static Pins, Video Pins, Recipe Pins, Product Pins, and Story Pins, among other things.

Twitch:

In the gaming sector in particular, the Twitch platform is a clear must-have for every influencer marketing campaign. The live streaming platform has become an absolute insider tip in recent years.

LinkedIn:

LinkedIn has developed from a business platform to a social network in recent years. This is where users exchange ideas about current industry topics. In addition to text, image and video posts, LinkedIn also offers the option for presentations and similar publications.

Forms of cooperation

There are a number of possible forms of cooperation in influencer marketing. Basically in influencer marketing there is no limit to the creativity of combinations and other forms. Here are a few common forms of cooperation:

Discount code and product links (discount codes and links are placed by influencers on the social media channels. This enables the leads and sales generated per influencer to be optimally measured.)
Competition (the product or service is presented and then raffled off to the followers.)
Live event (influencers visit a company, an event or the like and share their impressions with their followers.)
Account takeover (influencers take over a brand’s account for a certain period of time and report from their point of view of product launches, etc.)
Brand ambassador program (influencers take on the role of brand ambassadors for an agreed period of time and thus become the brand’s advertising face.)

Benefits of influencer marketing

1. Influencer = content producers

Influencers are artists, photographers, models, musicians, video editors and social media experts rolled into one. In contrast to classic branded content, influencers not only take on the distribution, but also the entire production effort for the content.

You only need a precise briefing with all the criteria that should be adhered to in an influencer marketing campaign and produce your content on this basis. You should make sure that you don’t limit the creativity of the influencers too much. They usually know their own followers best and know what goes down well with them.

2. Authenticity and Credibility

One advantage of influencer marketing is the authenticity and credibility that influencers have towards their followers. Various studies have shown that consumers trust the recommendations of influencers more than the companies themselves. This can be justified by the fact that the relationship between influencers and their followers takes place on a much more emotional level than the mostly commercially driven relationship with companies.

3. Access to specific target groups

Media use has changed drastically with advancing digitization. Young target groups in particular, from Generation X, are spending more and more time on social media. In order to continue to reach these target groups, advertising has to be rethought. Banner ads, which initially generated good click figures, are becoming increasingly less important in times of ad blockers. Influencer marketing does not have this problem, because with the help of influencers, these target groups can be reached with comparatively little wastage. Special niche target groups can also be reached with the right influencers.

4. Measurability of success

You can pursue a wide variety of goals with your influencer marketing campaign. To know how it went after the campaign is over, you can use a wide variety of KPIs – social media and influencer marketing offer you many options here! The key figures can range from pure brand awareness KPIs such as reach and impressions to sales figures. You should set your main goals, KPIs and measurement techniques before the start of the campaign in order to be able to measure success transparently.

Challenges in influencer marketing

1. Identification of suitable influencers

Before you can start your influencer marketing campaign, of course, you first need the right influencers for your brands. This is one of the most important points and at the same time a great challenge, because the manual identification of suitable creators is usually extremely time-consuming. Reachbird has recognized this challenge and offers intelligent solutions and services with the help of which suitable influencers can be found based on key figures, demographic characteristics of their followers or topics.

2. Creative freedom vs. control

As already mentioned, influencers usually know their followers best and know which content can score. In order to be able to communicate authentically, influencers therefore need a certain amount of creative freedom. You should therefore make sure that you do not restrict your influencers too much with the specifications of your briefing. The aim should be to bring the influencers closer to their own brand communication, but not to control it. It can often be observed that both sides first have to get closer and that a long-term approach and continuity when working with influencers pay off.

3. Organizational implementation

If you plan to run an influencer marketing campaign, then you will ask yourself the question: “Can I do this myself or do I use the services of an agency?” Both are possible and depend a lot on your and your company’s needs dependent. Basically, a professional handling of the cooperation should be a priority for you, so you should consider either recruiting experienced influencer marketing managers or hire a influencer marketing agency.

Would you like to find out more about the trends in influencer marketing?

You can find more exciting topics from the Outreachway world in our blog posts that have been published so far .

Everything about Influencer Marketing