All over the world, professional organisations invest millions on developing, carrying out, and maintaining intensive marketing efforts. New members must be recruited to replace those who leave. With growth comes increased power and influence.
Newspapers, magazines, billboards, and TV commercials are all examples of traditional marketing strategies.
Influencer marketing and user-generated content are two more recent strategies that are modernising traditional marketing by adapting to current behaviours.
What techniques should you use?
Let us walk you through these new marketing tools so you can ensure your marketing strategy stays up-to-date. Then, we’ll see why these new techniques could be exactly what you need for your next ad campaign.
What is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing is all about establishing a relationship between a brand, an online personality, and that person’s digital audience. The content created is often only shared on social media.
Here are the steps that make up a typical influencer marketing campaign:
- Choose a message for your campaign
What aspect of your organisation’s work do you want to showcase? You can focus on teaching, networking, or lobbying. Choose only one theme to guide your work.
- Determine your ideal audience
Who should know about your message? Are you targetting students who want to work in your sector? Or are you trying to connect with influential and wealthy people in your field?
- Identify an influential person
Find someone who speaks to the population you want to target. Finding someone with thousands or millions of followers isn’t always better than finding the right audience.
- Share your ideas
All of your campaign material will be created by your influencer. However, you may provide comments or suggestions on the script, props, setting, and other aspects.
- Set up a payment schedule for yourself
Almost all influencers are paid for their time. They usually set their fees, but if you can offer something valuable (like a wider reach) in exchange, you might be able to negotiate.
- Reinforce the impact of the message
Influencers promote their initiatives on their personal social media pages. However, you can also find the content and share it.
Natural influencers exist in lots of different types of organisation. Cosmetic companies, for example, can target make-up artists and beauty salon owners. Carpenters’ associations can call on famous home builders. Bakers and celebrity chefs can be promoted by professional catering organisations. And the list goes on…
UGC is authentic content
User-generated content is any content that’s created by a user outside of your marketing team. UGC (User Generated Content) includes things like social media comments, product reviews, and even comments on your social media posts.
However, when it comes to marketing for industry bodies and User Generated Content campaigns, there are generally a few very specific asset categories, such as:
- Speakers
Is there someone in your area of ??influence who can reach the people you can’t reach?
- Audience
Can you reach potential members on your own, or do you need someone else’s help?
- Budget
Is it better to pay an influencer if you can afford it, or should you keep your costs as low as possible?
- Message
Can you entrust your most valuable assets to someone else? Or do you require full control over the script?
User-generated content initiatives are suitable for business groups with a limited budget and a high demand for control. Likewise, commercial organisations that have no natural influence are fine.
However, if you have an influencer that caters to a demographic you can’t reach and your budget allows you to build a connection, it may be worth investigating.
Never forget that you can mix strategies for maximum impact. You may find one strategy particularly appealing, but that shouldn’t prevent you from using the others.
Influencers, the new face of your brand
An influencer is a person who can influence the behaviour of consumers in a certain field thanks to their status media exposure (in this case on social media and, in particular, Instagram). Today, there are five different categories of influencers:
- Celebrities
These often have tens of millions of followers and can help boost a brand’s exposure, awareness, and public relations.
- Macro-Influencers
We can classify an influencer as “macro” if they have more than 100,000 social media followers. They can generally offer boosted exposure and brand awareness.
- Niche Influencers
Their subscribers turn to them for advice and product reviews, even if they don’t necessarily have the highest follower count (beauty, technology, etc…).
- Micro-Influencers
Micro-influencers have a significantly smaller audience than macro-influencers: the most common audience range for micro-influencers is 10,000 to 100,000 followers.
Studies conducted by the Markerly agency show that some micro-influencers boast a higher average engagement rate than that observed on some of the biggest social media stars’ posts, which can make them more beneficial for marketers than macro-influencers.
- Nano-Influencers
The influence of a nano-influencer is even weaker than that of a micro-influencer. It’s generally considered that nano-influencers have between only 1,000 and 5,000 followers.
Although pretty much anyone can easily style themselves as a nano-influencer, their content should not be confused with UGC. Nano-influencers do officially partner with brands, albeit for less money than macro-influencers.
For more information on nano- and micro- influencers, we set up a battle to find out the advantages and disadvantages of each, which you can find in this blog post. ?
When audiences know that an influencer is promoting a product in return for money, their objectivity and impartiality may be called into question.
Influencers’ audiences understand the concept of influence. They’re aware that collaborations with brands take place and that their favourite influencers are becoming increasingly demanding in terms of ethics.
Due to its strong authenticity and reliability, UGC can prove reassuring to consumers in the face of growing scepticism. Since consumers are never pressured by the brand to approve content, their genuine thoughts can help build customer trust and more open communication.
Need advice?
Neads is the social shopping agency you need to boost your sales.
By Nathan Elmaleh
