Spending thousands of dollars on advertising alone is a thing of the past. Small business knows they have to rely on both advertising and influencers to build trust, awareness, and engagement if they want to increase sales.
So let’s say you decide to spend some of your marketing budgets on that popular comedian who seems to have a lot of success on Instagram. Perhaps he could make some jokes, put a link to your product, and that’s it. Profit, right?
Including “big” influencers in your marketing budget won’t be enough to drive more sales. Influencer Marketing is about trust, storytelling, and –believe it or not, influence.
Here are 5 mistakes small business make when teaming with influencers:
1. Focusing on the number of followers
Most people mistake social media influencers with accounts that hold a solid follower count. The more followers, the better, they would say.
When it comes to influencers, engagement is far more important. An influencer with 100k followers may have a lower engagement than an influencer with 10k followers –and the latter may have more appealing content to your audience.
In fact, micro influencers tend to have higher engagement rates, and it’s easier for consumers to trust them, as there’s a narrow gap between the audience and the micro-influencer.
2. Not telling a story
You may have seen this quite often. An influencer uploads a post that seems totally unrelated to the brand they’re sponsoring. Storytelling is key for influencer marketing.
To avoid this, make sure to have a detailed campaign plan where the main campaign goal is clear. Want to create awareness? Make some noise. Want to build trust? Tell your story.
3. Telling a story that doesn’t align with the core value of the brand
Consumers aren’t dumb. Years of advertising and marketing have taught them to distrust the obvious. If you partner with an influencer that throws some unrelated jokes while holding your product or embedding a link to your product, your audience would notice it, and they won’t forgive you.
When partnering with an influencer you have to make sure their persona, and what they reflect is somehow related to the values of your brand, or at least, you have to make sure the story is somehow related to what your brand represents.
4. Choosing an influencer that won’t influence your audience
The best way to understand influence is to picture a nutritionist or a fitness coach. What would they recommend? Candies? Fast food?
Not every influencer would influence every type of audience. A tech influencer is well regarded for her knowledge about gadgets, laptops, digital cameras, and so on; so someone who’s selling tech products should contact a tech influencer. Also, an influencer might have 1M followers (re-read mistake #1) but her opinion might not influence consumer choices.
If you want to know whether an influencer is able to influence an audience, check the comments on their social media. It’s all about the engagement.
5. Not being consistent with your partnerships
Partnering up with an influencer isn’t about mindless hookups. Instead, try to see your partnership as a long-term relationship –provided your campaign worked as planned.
It’s not about having every influencer backing your product. Anyone could recommend your product once. The real question is, are they still using it when the camera is turned off?
Partner with an influencer
Influencer partnerships can make the difference between your brand and business. Avoiding these mistakes can help you run a successful campaign without losing credibility or money.
Make sure to study which influencer works best for your brand, and you might find you don’t need a 1M follower’s influencer to increase your sales.
