Influencer Marketing: Create a winning strategy for your brand

Your go-to guide for everything related to influencer marketing
28 Mar 2024

Whether you believe it or not, we all are addicted to social media. Just endlessly jumping and swiping from one app to another. As per a study conducted by the Indian Institute of Management of Ahmedabad in 2023, the average daily time spent on social media in India is 193.5 minutes. With such high usage, brands have been actively spending most of their marketing budgets on social media.

Also read: Social media marketing (SMM): advantages, how it works and how could it help your brand

Brands are likely to spend more than $219 Billion on social media ad spend in 2024, and influencer marketing is going to be a key spending activity for marketers all around the world. Influencer marketing is going to reach an estimated $24 Billion by the end of 2024. So, yes, influencer marketing is important. And if you want to join this trend, then here’s everything you need to know about influencer marketing that could help your brand ace the game.

Influencer marketing: getting the basics right

Whenever a brand reaches out to a social media personality and collaborates with them for a paid post, it’s called influencer marketing. The people that these brands choose use their influence (hence, the term, influencer marketing) on social media to boost the brand’s communication.

Brands could reach out to influencers with various propositions. They can collaborate to create a product or service awareness post, lead generation or help them boost sales. These decisions are made by the brand, but the influencer, who has a wider reach plays a very crucial role as they are essential the face of the brand for a specific post.

Also read: What is email marketing? Your 101 guide to email campaigns

Whom to target and which influencer to use?

Influencers are divided into 4 categories:

  • Nano Influencers (1k – 10k)
  • Micro-Influencers (10k – 100k)
  • Macro Influencers (100k – 1M)
  • Mega Influencers (1M+)

There are millions of influencers around the world who are placed in either of the categories mentioned above. To on-board an influencer for your campaign will require a lot of research. You need to create a list of influencers who create content that resonates with your product and brand values.

For instance, you cannot onboard an influencer from the finance industry who has millions of followers but has various complaints made against him/her. This could hurt your brand’s reputation on social media.

So, once you create a list of influencers from different categories (depending on your budget), you need to thoroughly check the page, content, public perception, demographics, and, of course, their page’s engagement rate. Once you choose the perfect influencer for your brand, you can fix the budget and create paid posts that would suit your brand’s objective.

There are tools available online that might help you get a detailed analysis of the page you want.


Choosing the right platform

Since India has banned TikTok (although the platform is hugely popular in terms of influencer marketing in the rest of the world), we have 4 popular options to choose from – Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube. Some influencers might have a huge follower base on Facebook, but the engagement rate is not what you, as a brand desire. However, the influencer might have a limited reach on Instagram, but the engagement rate is far better compared to other channels.

Remember, each platform works differently and each target audience will behave differently on these platforms. While Instagram might be a popular choice for static posts and short reels, YouTube could be beneficial for you if you’re looking for long video collaboration. Ensure you review the influencer’s social channels and analyze their page before choosing.

Also read: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Explained

Tracking Your Success

One of the key advantages of running a paid campaign on social media is that you get results that are measurable to a great extent. So, if you want to run an influencer marketing campaign, then below are the key metrics you need to track:

  1. Reach & Impression: Reach is how many people have seen your ad, and impression refers to how many times the ad was shown to the target audience.
  2. Engagement Rate: the total number of engagements (likes+comments+reactions+shares) you get on a post.
  3. Brand Mentions and Share Of Voice: These are complex metrics that are not available in Meta’s insight section. However, if you want to see how many times your brand’s name has been mentioned or what’s the presence of your brand compared to your competitors, then you can also buy tools, that would help you get this data.
  4. Web Traffic: Tracking website traffic is crucial. Every link that you use for your influencer marketing campaign should be linked to your website, and make sure the landing page is optimised for faster responses. If the end goal is to increase sales, then tracking the website is the way to go as it’ll also help you find out the conversion rate.
  5. Conversation rate: When a person completes an action (visits a website, makes a purchase, fills up a form, tags your page, downloads a PDF, etc) it’s called conversation rate.

In today’s dynamic world, where people’s buying decisions are shaped by what they see on social media, influencer marketing stands as a pivotal force in the digital realm. Not only does it offer brands unparalleled access to different sets of target audiences, but it also does it at a scale like no other. With robust tracking and analysis, brands can refine strategies and maximize ROI in any campaign.