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While social media has only been around for a few decades, it has transformed the world in numerous ways, from expanding the reach and effectiveness of small businesses to driving major cultural and geopolitical changes. It’s no secret that social media is one of the most engaging and effective ways for startups and major corporations alike to reach their target audiences. However, like most technology, social media has evolved over time and looks very different from the initial versions. The way people use social media is changing rapidly.
While most content sharing and interactions were once confined within the social media platform itself, more and more consumers are choosing to share content with friends and family outside of the platform through private channels like text or email. This practice is known as dark social and makes it difficult for businesses to track social media performance and engage effectively with their audiences. Another shift is the rise of AI-generated content. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for social media audiences to distinguish between real and fabricated content intended to generate likes or manufacture outrage.
For startups and small businesses, navigating this new social landscape requires a fresh approach. Consumers today crave genuine connections with brands and content producers instead of mass-produced, generic content. Influencer marketing, when done right, offers a powerful way to adapt, build trust and foster meaningful relationships with your target audience.
Related: Influencer Marketing 101: A Blueprint for Running a Successful Campaign
1. Define your target audience and select the right influencers
Before you start looking for influencers, make sure that you have clear objectives for your social media marketing strategy. Take the time to clearly define your ideal customer and decide what actions you want them to take when they interact with your content. Do you want them to share with as many people as possible? Do you want to create a specific feeling or image for your brand? These goals will help you as you build out your influencer marketing strategy.
When it comes to selecting influencers for your brand, many companies make the mistake of focusing too much on the number of followers that the influencer has. While this can be an important metric, it’s just one piece of the puzzle. Reaching a lot of people won’t be effective if the audience is too broad. In many cases, micro-influencers with less than 100,000 followers will have better engaged, niche audiences versus macro-influencers with millions of followers and low engagement.
Instead, focus on the influencers who create content that is most relevant to your target audience. While you may reach fewer people, meaningful content will be much more impactful to the influencer’s audience. A best practice is to allocate your budget across multiple influencers rather than putting your eggs in one basket.
2. Build genuine relationships with your influencers
Building strong relationships with the influencers you select is a key to a successful influencer marketing strategy. While you are paying them to promote your product, don’t treat your partnership as purely transactional. Providing value to the influencers beyond monetary compensation can go a long way to improving the results of your campaign. Offering them the ability to participate in the creative process, providing exclusive access to new products or services and involving them in your brand story can enhance the sense of ownership and pride in the brand they are promoting.
3. Collaborate, but give creative freedom
Influencers are influencers because they are masters at creating authentic and highly engaging content. While you may have a skilled marketing team, you don’t want to discount the input or opportunity to collaborate with your selected influencers on marketing messages. After all, they know their audience better than you, and you want your content to feel authentic and natural, as opposed to an obvious commercial. In addition to more effective content, letting influencers do some of the creative work can alleviate pressure from your in-house team.
When creating content, it’s critical to ensure that your campaign is transparent and provides proper disclosures to the target audience. Ultimately, the goal of influencer marketing is to provide a genuine and trustworthy experience for social media users. The last thing you want is to break that trust by not being transparent about the relationship between the influencer and your brand. This is not only an ethical practice, but is a legal requirement in many areas around the globe.
4. Campaign measurement and tracking
Tracking the effectiveness of your influencer marketing campaigns can be tricky, especially with dark social being common practice. To combat this, focus on metrics such as website traffic from influencer links, brand mentions in the influencer’s social media channels, engagement rates on certain posts or content and utilization of unique discount codes. By leveraging the right data points, brands can continuously improve and modify their campaign strategy.
There is no doubt that social media will remain a valuable tool for startups and small businesses to generate sales and brand awareness in the immediate future. Navigating the new social media landscape will require a shift in mindset from traditional tactics to more innovative approaches. If done correctly, influencer marketing can create unique and powerful ways of authentically connecting with the brand’s audience.