My Insights on Social Media Influencers

There has been a lot of talk about social media influencers and their work ethics, plus the brands that hire them; for the last few months by Ugandans On Twitter (UOT). And this prompted me to share my insights on this topic in the best way possible.

Below, I break down how influencers can best be worked with, and professionally, to benefit both them and the brands they represent.

Who is a Social Media Influencer?

I understand this is a person who elaborates on a brand and can be used to market its products to his/her audience with an aim to build the brand relationships. Whether their audience is small or large, an influencer can reach consumers via their blogs and social networks that brands may not be able to.

Why use Social Media Influencers?

• Having them discussing their brand experience is considered an online review in terms of purchase decision,
• And we all know that 90% of buyers or consumers trust peer recommendations.
• It should be known that Consumers want authenticity from the brands they interact with, and influencers offer this experience.
• Mid-level influencers like bloggers have a smaller but more loyal audience and drive 16 times more engagement than paid media and “big or colossal wigs/influencers.”
• Influencers, think a step beyond buyer personas and develop an influencer persona that is valued more and tends to reach the right audiences.
• Since influencer marketing is about building strong relationships, a strategy that values a mutually beneficial relationship is key. 
• There is development of relationships with influencers before brands need them. Relationship building takes time and once the connection is there, activating influencers becomes a lot more easy and effective.

As a brand, it is essential to implement a strategy that facilitates the identification of suitable influencers for collaboration, incorporating the following key components to ensure effective partnerships and maximize value for your organization.

These key components include ;

• Topics that speak to your brand’s target customers. Influencers share plenty of things,
• Vetting those talking and discussing issues/topics that interest your brand is a good way to start. With this, you look for content quality, reach, engagement and an alignment of values that align with your brand. Then,
• Relate and engage with those influencers via email and other social channels. Ask them to partner with your brand and offer them compensation to create mutually beneficial relationships. Finally
• measure all earned media and identify which of the selected influencers and the topics they talked about lifted your brand the most, this helps grow your targeted content. If you think there is still need for more influencers, you
• repeat the process so that you can build a stronger influencer marketing database.

 

Numbers of followers or likes don’t matter, except if you are running a reach strategy with the influencers and not conversion through engagement. It’s discussion – talkability and engagement that matters.

How to compensate influencers?

Should influencers be compensated? It is one of the questions many ask. Influencers definitely should be compensated. The only question is how.

But what’s wrong with influencers offering a free service? Because influencers work hard, and they risk a lot when they collaborate with a brand.

It should be known that social media influencers’ influence don’t come easy. It was built with solid work and dedication. They spend loads of energy and time building it. Step by step they created an online presence that brings them joy, social impact and prestige. For most this is a part-time job which consumes their time creating content relevant to a brand. And later spend a lot of time interacting with their audience about a brand. That effort is worthy paying for!

The question should be: What should the compensation plan be like?  Payment? Free samples? Event tickets? I will go with payment because it creates some obligation between the brand and the influencer. The how much should be negotiated with the influencer in relation to the content they create.

Brands like to cheat influencers! Paying them peanuts for so much work and creativity, this should stop! We are not your slaves!

Each industry has its own standards, I agree. But if you need to internally justify a certain amount of money to allocate to such a campaign, ask yourself a simple question: how much is the exposure worth for you compared to the alternative of paid media?

The other forms of payment that I consider non-attractive, which include ticket offers, freebies/merchandise and the rest; I think should be an add-on to the payment as an encourager.

Hope this guides brand on this journey of influencing.