Over the past few years, we’ve seen many trends in marketing gain momentum.
But no other trend has shown as much success as influencer marketing.
The Success of Influencer Marketing: Crunching the Numbers
More and more companies are following the trend of influencer marketing, and for a good reason.
According to Digital Marketing Institute:
- Influencer recommendations impact people’s purchasing decisions. 49% of consumers depend on influencer recommendations, and 40% say they purchased the product that the influencer recommended to them.
- Influencer marketing allows companies to reach niche audiences. 86% of women follow social media influencers for advice regarding personal care products.
- Influencer marketing allows companies to gain the trust of consumers. 74% of people trust influencers when it comes to making purchase decisions, and brands who engage influencers gain from it.
As the demand for influencer marketing continues to climb rapidly, the value of the influencer marketing industry is expected to reach $15 billion by 2022.
The Role of Social Media in Influencer Marketing
The majority of influencer marketing campaigns happen on social media. Companies search for influencers through social media channels, analyze their profiles for the number of followers, general engagement, type of content posted, and many other factors before deciding whether or not to engage them.
Social media platforms are where influencers grow a following and where they upload the content they produce.
Apart from that, social media platforms contain massive amounts of social data, which your company can take advantage of when preparing for your next influencer marketing campaign.
In the chart above, you can see all the information that social data can provide. Social media platforms mine social data from its users so that advertisers can use its platform to reach a specific audience.
This social data can also be of great help in launching a successful influencer marketing campaign. Let’s see how you can use it.
1. Determining the Content for Your Influencer Marketing Campaign
Good influencers are creative people with many excellent ideas when it comes to content. By collaborating with them, you could get a fresh perspective on the type of content that could interest your target audience.
But first, you need to determine which content type suits your needs. And, social data can help with that.
Social media platforms collect information from every piece of content posted. The type of information collected comes in the form of reach, engagement, and more. Based on these criteria, the platform can provide an overview of the performance of the content, and provide insights on the type of content that works best for a chosen target audience.
Based on social data from the graph above, the best content type for an influencer marketing campaign on Facebook, in this case, would be a photo. Of course, the best type of content would be dependent on many factors, such as the product or service, campaign objective, target audience and, importantly, the social media platform.
So, before you pick an influencer to work with, define the platform on which your influencer marketing campaign will take place.
2. Choosing the Right Influencer for Your Campaign
If you’re unsure about which influencer to pick for your influencer marketing campaign, you can use social data to help you make an informed decision.
For instance, the Starngage platform collects the data on the most-hired influencers, as well as social data from influencers such as their follower count and engagement rates:
You can search for influencers in a specific location and sort out the choices according to the audience country, gender, topics of influence, and hashtags.
This information is also helpful when writing influencer outreach emails, especially to the more well-known influencers who may be inundated with requests. You can make use of the social data you’ve analyzed to express your interest and seriousness about working with them.
3. Tracking the Results of the Campaign
Lastly, social data can be very helpful when it comes to analyzing the results of the campaign and whether Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are met.
Every influencer marketing campaign has three basic KPIs:
- Outreach and awareness – this KPI includes conversions, engagement rates, and referral traffic.
- Audience loyalty – this key point indicator is worth your close attention, as the performance of your influencer marketing campaign depends on how engaged the influencer’s audience is. The ‘loyalty level’ of the influencer’s audience is also the indicator of the quality of their content.
- Sales and ROI – these are key factors, which show that your investment in the influencer marketing campaign pays off.
During the campaign, you will receive social data from the influencer’s audience (feedback, link clicks, etc.), which will indicate whether the campaign is going well. Thus, in the course of your influencer marketing campaign, social data can help you make sure that you keep up with the KPIs and that the campaign brings you the results you expect.
Don’t Underestimate Social Data
All in all, making full use of social data can strongly improve the effectiveness of influencer marketing campaigns. With the potential for high reach and engagement, it’s a great strategy to consider in your company’s marketing mix.
Hopefully, our tips help you better understand the role of social data and how to use it for the success of your influencer marketing campaign.
Ryan is a passionate writer who likes sharing his thoughts and experience with his readers. He likes everything related to travelling and new countries. Currently, he works as a content editor and internet researcher. You can check out his website here.
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