You surely follow at least one social media influencer from your personal accounts: a YouTube wellness coach, a fashion blogger, an Instagram model or even a foodie! It truly depends on your own interests. Nevertheless, they are everywhere and the nature of what they post has a great impact on their followers on a daily basis. Are you going to deny ever taking an action after seeing a post that truly inspired you?
This is the main reason why influencer marketing is becoming very trendy for brands interested in bringing their A-game to their campaigns. Moreover, your brand’s return on investment, ROI, would be 11 times greater than what traditional advertisements will get you in a year!
With Saudi Arabia being the largest social media presence in the world with lots of rising influencers, one thing you need to keep in mind is choosing the right digital influencer for your brand. A single misstep and your campaign can become a 1M-followers disaster. Read through this 3-steps process to ensure success in your influencer activation:
Aim for quality
When doing an influencer campaign, it is very important for your brand to detach itself from traditional KPIs and target new horizons. What I mean is the following:
- Reach is outdated when doing influencer marketing,
- CPM, CPV, CPC and all other costs are a waste of time.
I know reading this now might shock you but it’s true! Doing a campaign with an influencer should be implemented with an open mind. You should never choose one influencer over another because the number of followers is higher! On the contrary, you should focus on what they talk about. The right influencer for your brand is the one with the good content and therefore high engagement.
Furthermore, you should always remember that influencers got to where they are today because they are excellent content creators with artistic minds. Never tell them what to post, give them your brand’s guidelines and see how they manipulate the information into their own words. This technique will ensure a much higher impact on their audience. Besides, people trust influencers since they too are people. So, they follow influencers’ brand recommendation because it’s not the brand talking about itself: They trust that what the brand’s advocate is saying, is authentic!
Simply said, content should be your main focus when reaching out to influencers and finally choosing the right one. But that shouldn’t be your only concern. Looking into the second step will help you get more insights on the kind of influencer you need for your brand.
Look At Their Values And Image
Did you know that about 79% of users in KSA and UAE had unfollowed social media influencers due to disagreements with their values and ethics? This is why, when choosing your digital influencer, you should definitely look at their values! Try to catch a catch a glimpse of their personality and lifestyle through their profiles. And, when you do, you will find influencers who align with your brand’s values and has similar tones of voices. Don’t forget that successful partnership between your brand and your chosen influencer will rely on good match-making. For instance, let’s say your business is about selling healthy and organic snacks all across KSA. What you should be looking at when choosing an influencer is the following:
- What do they “influence” on? It could be health, fitness, mindful living.
- Where are they located? KSA.
The probability of their audience being the same as the one you are trying to reach is very high, and here is your chance to target them as well.
So, finding the right influencer can be challenging; it is necessary to find people that are enjoyable to work with and establish relationships with them. And once you do establish this relationship, the follower who shares similarity with this influencer will share similarities with your own brand.
Do Some Research
Finally, once you start narrowing down and pinpointing few influencers that interest you, you should get an even deeper undestanding of what they previously promoted. This is the most time-consuming step for marketers trying to reach out to the influencer that best fit their brand: Looking at the different posts/ brands, observing the engagements and scouting for the interactions.
What you might find out during your research is the following:
- The influencers you chose promoted a product similar than yours. This can be a conflict of interest for both your brand and them.
- Reaching out to influencers who do not believe in your brand. What I mean by this is, for example, asking influencers to promote your healthy snacks when they previously posted about believing people should follow a strict diet and not eat snacks.
- You will be unable to achieve your goals and objectives since the engagements on the influencer’s post is fairly low. This might be due to the influencer having followers that aren’t “real”. Thankfully, it is not a mission impossible to learn about an influencer’s audience demographics. You just need the right tools. Some of the best ones are Traackr, Brandwatch audience and HypeAuditor. They can give you details for targeting in influencer campaigns. This includes information like age, gender, location, lifestyle and interests. I know what you are thinking, the internet is a lifesaver right?
To Sum It Up
You need to be able to define the objective of your influencer’s campaign and the desired outcome. Only then will you be able to choose the right person for the job. So, to get the best out of influencers, you need a firm understanding of where your brand sits. Keep in mind that the relationship between your brand and digital influencers is mutually beneficial. It is a match made in heaven! Contact Brain Space’s influencer marketing team and leave the rest to us
