Standing out from the crowd in today’s advertising climate is no easy feat. So how do you generate valuable and genuine recommendations for your brand while keeping out in front?
With experience in developing and executing engagement campaigns for brands such as Kelloggs, Vodafone, OnePiece and GAP, Tribal Media’s Mel Kirk will discuss the benefits of influencer engagement, as well as tapping into existing communities and building long-lasting, cost-effective relationships.
This session will demonstrate the value of online influencers in an industry where buying fans is rife, offering advice on avoiding common pitfalls in order deliver true value for money on campaigns.
2. We live in a world which is
bombarded by ads.
Consumers are more skeptical of
brands than ever before.
Peer to peer recommendations
have never been more important.
3. “In the 18-44 y/o age group, 8 out of 10
said they’d be influenced by a
recommendation in a blog post”*
24. The Results
A wealth of content for use on Special K social channels
Genuine advocacy towards the brand
300 blog posts
3m readers
56 bloggers across 7 countries
This shouldn’t come as a massive shock to you. I’ve not seen any of you fall off of your chairs yet…. (and I’m not completely accustomed to the health and safety procedures of the venue, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t). However, I think you’ll agree that the process of peer-to-peer recommendations has always existed. It used to be in the school grounds and in pubs – the only difference now is that the people making recommendations have the tools to have their voices heard by thousands if not more.
Paying for links is no different than an advertorial. A blog post that is sponsored has to be declared by the blogger and loses it’s credibility.
What’s more, bloggers that have been paid to create content TEND to create what they’re contracted to create. If you spend the time, care, love and attention into turning them in to true advocates, they’ll be talking about you for years to come – way out performing any coverage generated by sponsored links.
Making people love you so much that they can’t wait to tell people about you.
By giving a shit. One size fits all doesn’t survive in today’s environment, it’s all about personalisation and dealing with influencers is no different.
Too many people consider influencer engagement to be an after thought. They come up with a social campaign and want a “free” way of promoting it afterwards. Or their an agency that’s sold something in to the client without checking the viability of what they’re selling.
You have to get your process right.
Establish what you’re trying to do and who your target audience is.
From there, you can work out who influences these people, the types of content that they engage with and produce and therefore how to work with them.
In a world where it’s easy to buy followers, how can you be sure that your brand is having the right impact and becomes part of a conversation rather than just another piece of push marketing?
We researched each of the average interaction levels per influencer to ensure that their audiences were highly engaged and therefore likely to consider the product at a much greater level. We used a number of tools to ensure that their audience was in our prime market of UK and that their blog fitted the brand ethos.
We looked at the value of each of their platforms to establish what success would look like. In this instance, OnePiece were keen to see a post on their blogs containing an affiliate code and self-styled images of the product – but in some instances this was just as successful using another short-form platform such as Instagram where engagement levels were much higher.
Words are all very good, but let me give you some examples
Who doesn’t know what a OnePiece is? You’re missing out! I swear. I sometimes go on Skype calls wearing a OnePiece and I’m not even ashamed. It’s a casual piece of clothing which has a luxury element to it. The quality is second to none and with many of the pieces costing close to £200, it’s not a disposable fashion item. It’s serious, even if it’s branding isn’t.
OnePiece came to us about this time last year. The brief? To create buzz within the online fashion community, generating traffic and sales.
Sounds easy right? Just email everyone that you have listed as a fashion blogger – which is where a database would fall down.
We mapped the most influential fashion bloggers in the UK along with those who had previously posted about an affinity to the brand or “onesies” in the past.
Google blogsearch
Bloglovin’
Technorati
Most importantly – our own database, with contact preferences, copies of all emails, personal details about them. We know our influencers inside out, we know what they would write about and we know what they wouldn’t. No technology in the world will EVER be able to replace that.
Establish relationships with them before you need anything
Pay attention – not just around the period that you’re waiting for them to post something
Treat them with the respect and attention that you would do a friend (and more importantly a journalist)
Put yourself in their shoes – why should they want to increase their daily prep time by an hour to try out your product for free before spending more hours writing a post about it to an audience you’ve spent years building up? Why?
Have grace. Take the time to say thank you when you’ve spent the time sending 4 emails chasing a post. If somebody says no, accept it. They’re saying no for a reason – either they don’t have the time, or the same vision as you or their audience wouldn’t appreciate it – either way, they’re doing you a favour as it would have damaged your brand.
We gifted them each a OnePiece of their own – this meant that there was mass exposure to the brand without saturation of one product. You need to remember that the reader of one blog is also likely to be the reader of another. Therefore seeing different pieces styled is beneficial.
By giving them a product that they were genuinely excited about, we had crossed the first hurdle of turning them into advocates. We weren’t asking them to write about a product that they’d never experienced first hand and they could genuinely become passionate about the brand – spreading their message offline as well as on.
We gifted them each a OnePiece of their own – this meant that there was mass exposure to the brand without saturation of one product. You need to remember that the reader of one blog is also likely to be the reader of another. Therefore seeing different pieces styled is beneficial.
By giving them a product that they were genuinely excited about, we had crossed the first hurdle of turning them into advocates. We weren’t asking them to write about a product that they’d never experienced first hand and they could genuinely become passionate about the brand – spreading their message offline as well as on.
Not always. We’ve worked with brands where their target audience doesn’t naturally align with the product. For example, we have worked with Kelloggs now for close to 2 years. Most people would assume that food bloggers would be used for this type of product but when we spoke to the client, they really wanted to reach the glamorous yoga bunny who cares about their appearance and wants to make the most of the inspiration online. Armed with this information, we went away to do some further work.
We established that fashion, female lifestyle, health and fitness and beauty influencers could all have a part to play in reaching our target audience. The issue – many of them would never consider covering a breakfast cereal – so how would we engage them in an authentic and meaningful way?
The crux of the campaign was “make one change to make you more confident. Kellogg’s wanted to move away from their “drop a dress size” legacy to recognise that it’s about the way you FEEL when you make that change.
Therefore, we engaged 56 influencers across 7 different regions in Europe asking them to pledge to make one change over a 3 month period to increase their confidence. It could be anything they liked – the only thing that we asked was that they ate Special K during that time frame as well.
The responses that we got were varied, from hiring personal trainers and nutritionists through to seeing dermatologists for skincare complaints. The influencers would then provide progress posts every two weeks, as well as updates to their social channels using bespoke hashtags.
The result of the campaign was that Kellogg’s were provided with a wealth of content which they could use on their social channels providing authentic credibility to the brand and product. At the end of the 3 months, the influencers felt better about themselves and more confident, all thanks to Kellogg’s, which turned them into advocates for life.