If you are a marketer working in eCommerce or with social media, then you have probably heard of influencers and influencer marketing. With 49% of buyers relying on influencers to help make buying decisions, it is no wonder that this is quickly becoming a key part to many digital strategies. In this blog post we will:

• Give a high level overview of the different types of influencers & content;
• Different aspects to consider when choosing an influencer;
• Key KPIs and measurement tactics for your campaigns.

Types of Content

As the name suggests, influencer marketing is a type of social media marketing that involves an influencer endorsing or promoting a product to their audience who follow them for a certain level of knowledge of social power. This can done in  two ways:

Organic: meaning the influencer promote a product they love without being paid in some way 

Paid: the brand will work with the influencer to establish what content will be produced and provide payment

Another key component of this kind of marketing is distinguishing the difference between influencer marketing and user generated content (UGC) which involves brands reusing organic content posted by a customer on their personal social medias. 

For example: imagine you post a photo wearing your favorite shoes, with a caption promoting how much you love them, and then tagging or hash tagging the brand. By showing your interest in getting the brands attention, they may then reuse your organic promotion on their own social media channels.

User generated content is a great way for brands to get a ton of content from different sources, all of which are actively promoting your brand in an authentic and spontaneous way. The consumer is quickly becoming the next ambassador and in months and years to come the line between the two types of marketing will continue to blur. 

Types of Influencers

Within influencer marketing there are different tiers of influencer, depending on the size of their audience:

Nano (0-10k followers): Seen as the most authentic, typically influence on the side, very common to use these types of influencers for UGC

Micro (10-100k followers): they have access to more influencer features on social media channels (like swipe up links), are more established and are more likely to create content full time. 

Mid (100-500k followers): this group is works as an influencer full time and as a result have their niche and base audience established and actively engaged, and their rates will reflect this 

Macro (500k-1M followers): these influencers have a wide reach and can be used for significant brand awareness or help to  shift brand perception to a new or existing audience.

Mega Macro (1M+ followers): often these creators are multi faceted (author, designer etc), and they create content as an extra source of income for their existing audience. This is the most expensive kind of influencer to work with due to the size of their audience. 

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So which influencer tier is best for your brand?

When it comes to choosing your influencer strategy, Later & Fohr suggests three tiers to consider in relation to your brand:

1. Marketing Objectives: Targeted Conversations (Nano) -> Mass awareness (Mega Macro)
2. Target audience: Hyper niche (Nano) -> Varied (Mega Macro)
3. Budget: Low (Nano) -> High (Mega Macro)

How do you evaluate if your campaign works?

One of the biggest challenges with Influencer Marketing is around the question of what makes a campaign successful and how to measure it properly, specifically when it comes to Return On Investment (ROI).  Firstly, you need to decide what metrics you deem to be most important, some examples include:

• Engagement: this includes likes, shares, comments, reposts, and any other interaction with the post ‍
• Impressions: numbers of times a piece of content has been viewed. Can be considered as the “actual views” metric. ‍
• Reach: As mentioned, the number of unique accounts that see a post in relation to follow count It is an indicator of audience size, which is helpful for marketers to forecast potential impressions. ‍
• Results/Resonance: how many people took action based on the post, for example sales

From there, post campaign you can take the total of your chosen metric and divide it by your total spend. This can be easier said than done however, as you need access to these numbers which requires relying on the influencer to send them to you. However, as the market has grown, there are many agencies and platforms that can assist you in accurately measuring all the different KPIs and ROI to make future data driven decisions.

Now that you have a high level understanding of influencer marketing, we will take a closer look at how personalization and the understanding of audience behavior can bring your strategy to the next level.

User behavior and Personalization in Influencer Marketing 

With the rise of social media it was only a matter of time before influencer marketing took a more prominent role within overall digital and content marketing strategy.

In terms of behavior, more and more consumers trust micro/nano influencers along with user generated content then traditional advertising, especially as social media platforms have become a key destination for information to make buying decisions. 

For Personalization, 62% of consumers surveyed stated that a personalized experience is important to them, which ranges from personalized product recommendations to discounts and offers. They believe that technology should be used to help make the buying process simpler, but there is a catch 22,  because you need to ensure transparency in how data is used to avoid coming off as creepy.

When combining both of these aspects, it is clear to see: consumers trust influencers but also expect personalization to some extent once they have made that buying decision. So the next natural question is, how can you create this entire journey from initial post to post purchase?

Imagine this scenario: You run an apparel company and you have chosen an influencer to work with, and the subsequent content they will create. You send them your product, the content is created and the content then runs on your chosen social media platform. The audience sees it, and makes the decision to click through to the product page of the item being shown. 

Once that link is clicked, the user then becomes one of two things: a returning user or a new user. Typically, when it comes to personalization and product recommendations, depending on how the user is classified will decide what items are shown. 

A new user: seeing as there is no first data on that user yet, they will most likely be shown the most popular items, perhaps something similar or other complimentary items.

A returning user: will be shown items that also take into account their previous purchase history and click history

However, one key element not being considered in both cases is an obvious one: the fact that the user came from a specific influencer campaign. This extra source of information is invaluable when it comes to personalization. Imagine taking the specific known characteristics of an influencer and their audience and factoring that into your recommendations, along with the specific intent that the user clicked onto that specific product

Using this source will also give you even more insight into the audience, for example what they most often bought together, or perhaps if other products were more interesting to them. This level of insight goes one step deeper than ROI, as it allows you to identify quickly if this audience is a match for a product while also identifying if there are better products to show them. 

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To sum up...

In conclusion, we covered a lot in this crash course! From the different kinds of influencer content and tiers, to how user behavior and personalization work together, the benefits of using these strategies in combination with what is authentic to your brand is a no brainer. 

Ready to get started on your personalization & influencer marketing journey or perhaps you and your team have some tips & tricks to add? Reply in the comments below and our team will be happy to book a quick coffee chat!