1. INFLUENCER
How to Effectively
Use the World's Most
Powerful Marketing Tool
instabrand.com
Influencer marketing is a constantly evolving
practice, that when done correctly, is the most
powerful form of advertising. Many companies
understand the need for influencer marketing, but don’t
understand the complexity behind the process, which could
end up costing them hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The most effective influencer
marketing campaigns are those
targeted at a specific audience that
influencers have a direct connection to.
The alternative equates to a shot in the dark.
Relevance is key when it comes to any kind of
marketing. The way to get relevant using influencer
marketing is to know exactly who you’re targeting.
What it is, how to do it, and why it’s forever
changing advertising as we know it.
2. Where
do they live?
How
old are they?
Male
or Female?
What kind of
personal interests
do they have?
Take a few moments to develop a detailed persona of the person you’re most interested in targeting.
3. Companies that don’t understand the importance
of demographic targeting are prone to waste money on
campaigns, reaching an audience that doesn’t resonate
with their product.
The kind of authentic, organic content that is produced
with effective influencer marketing is impossible to replicate
in traditional advertising spaces. All of those Coke
commercials with smiling people in straw hats and short
sleeve button down shirts are attempting to recreate
exactly what is done effortlessly when an influencer posts
your product.
68%
of B2C
consumers
‘mostly’ or ‘always’
ignore social
media brand
posts
The most significant difference between traditional
advertising and influencer marketing is the consumer’s
perception of who is talking to them. With traditional ads,
people feel skeptical because they know the message
is coming directly from the brand. They know they’re
being sold.
When the consumer sees a sponsored post on Instagram,
they are more receptive because they are familiar with
who’s posting it. There is an inherent trust because of the
interpersonal nature of the medium.
4. With attention being diverted from
traditional advertising spaces (TV,
Radio, Billboards) to posts on Instagram,
Snapchat, Vine, and increasingly
Periscope, brands are at risk of being
left behind if they don’t embrace this
new form of marketing.
Think about it- almost all the people who
watch TV have their programs recorded,
so they can skip through the commercials.
And when they can’t, guess where their
eyes go when it’s commercial time. That’s
right- their phones. It’s becoming clear
that the easiest and most direct channel
to send your brand’s
According to a report
done by Forrester.com,
“Mobile has bumped
TV as America’s First
screen. People with a
mobile device now spend
an average of 2 hours
and 57 minutes on them
each day, putting phones
ahead of TVs.
The End of TV Ads Dominance:
message to young eyes is social media.
In fact, in 2013, “For the first time,
marketers spent more to advertise on the
Internet (a total of $42.8 billion) than they
did for broadcast television. (MediaPost)”
In 1941, Bulova Watches ran the first
television advertisement ever. Despite
being a revolutionary idea at the time, TV
ads quickly became a social norm and
would dominate the advertising space
until recently. Now, fast-forward 58 years
to today where (albeit less and less)
advertising on Instagram is the
revolutionary way of advertising that TV
was when Bulova did their ad in 1941.
5. DAILY USERS
Twitter’s newly released Periscope
doesn’t offer force-fed ads just
yet. However, that hasn’t stopped
brands from searching for a way
to advertise on the live-stream
platform. Both Wendy’s and Nestlé
have begun to take advantage
of the app, enlisting influencers
to share their live stories
using their products.
(see above)
With the number of users growing over 25% per quarter, there is no mobile
marketing platform as powerful as Instagram.
Despite Instagram’s powerhouse position in the mobile media advertising space,
Snapchat has been making some innovative strides in their marketing viability.
The recently released 3V lets advertisers create content optimized for mobile
devices. 3V stands for Vertical Video Views: Mobile video that doesn’t force you
to either turn your phone on its side or suffer through video in a minimized box.
According to a survey done by comScore 71% of Snapchat’s users are between
17-30 years old. If you want to target the younger generations of the world,
Snapchat is the place to do it.
With more platforms optimizing for advertisement, the choice to avoid
influencer marketing altogether could be very costly for your brand.
6. 60M
PHOTOS
per day
75
million
DAILY USERS
2.5B
likes
clicked daily
300Musers around
the world
Demographic Composition % of Leading Social Networks
Source: comScore Media Metrix Multi-Platform, U.S, Age 18+, Dec 2014
16% 22% 19% 18% 15% 10%
14% 21% 22% 18% 16% 9%
19% 22% 21% 18% 13% 7%
23% 26% 19% 15% 12% 4%
28% 23% 17% 15% 10% 7%
45% 26% 13% 10% 6% 1%
AGE 18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65+
7. You sure can. This approach includes hiring your own team to research and reach out to influencers, hoping that
they will respond to your posts and promote your products. Choosing this approach, you gain by developing
real relationships with influencers. However, you sacrifice the opportunity to access the analytic platforms of top
influencer marketing agencies. This means less relevance, less control of what the influencer posts, and ultimately,
less return on your investment.
Other issues include price per post fluctuations that can be difficult to manage when working with a small pool of
influencers. From 2014-2015 our average price per post doubled. In addition to rising costs, tracking things like
cost per engagement is difficult with larger scale campaigns. Finally, managing a 500-post campaign can get very
messy on an excel spreadsheet.
Can you do it yourself?
9. Creative Department: Our creative department focuses on the aesthetic strategy
of your campaign. They work diligently on crafting a brand message that fits the
look of the influencer’s content. They work with influencers to create an image that
shows how your product fulfills consumer needs. It can be as simple as casting
Influencers who can integrate the product/brand into their lifestyle, or as complex
as triggering emotional responses using psychological cues.
Campaign Management: Most influencer marketing agencies have a
department dedicated to guiding you through the campaign, making sure
it runs as smoothly as possible.
When you sign up for a campaign at InstaBrand, you’ll be assigned to one of
our account managers who will be your point of contact throughout the process.
It is their responsibility to make sure the content being created holds true to your
brand’s message and the influencer’s natural aesthetic. They provide you with
daily & weekly updates on your campaign, so that you can retarget in real time.
Consider them your bridge to the influencers.
10. Analytics: In this day and age, analytics are one of the most important aspects of
any endeavor. They allow you to track the effectiveness of your time and effort.
Attempting any kind of marketing campaign without proper analytics will lead to
wasted dollars and a lack of future direction. InstaBrand differs from its competitors
in that we have our own, built-from-scratch analytics platform that you get access
to when you sign up for a campaign. Track follower growth, followers by location,
engagement, and who is seeing your posts so that you know where your message
resonates the most. You’ll know how to prioritize your marketing efforts in the future
on top of what you gain from the campaign itself.
11. Overall, our biggest concern is matching you with the right influencers, guiding you
through a smooth and seamless marketing campaign so you not only grow your follower
base and awareness, but also understand how to more effectively connect with those
consumers in the future. You can absolutely recruit influencers on your own, but at a
heavy cost in time and effort. Influencer Marketing is quickly becoming the most powerful
way to advertise, and now is the time to take advantage.
12. 1
Coffee, Patrick. “STUDY: 68% of Social Media Users Ignore the Brands They Follow.” Adweek. Adweed, 26 Feb.
2014. Web. 24 July 2015. <http%3A%2F%2Fwww.adweek.com%2Fprnewser%2Fstudy-68-of-social-users-ignore-
the-brands-they-like%2F87264%3Fred%3Dpr>.
2
Jennings, Rebecca, Christine S. Overby, and Alice Bresciani. “Reaching Young Consumers With Social Media –
A Social Computing Report.” Forrester.com. Forrester Research Inc., 24 Apr. 2008. Web. 22 July 2015.
3
Sullivan, Laurie. “Internet Ad Revenue Hits $42.8 Billion In 2013, Surpasses Broadcast TV.” Mediapost.com. Media
Post Communications, 10 Mar. 2014. Web. 23 July 2015.
4
Kafka, Peter. “Here’s the Chart That Explains Why Media Companies Are Obsessed With Snapchat.” Recode.net.
Vox Media, Inc., 26 Mar. 2015. Web. 22 July 2015.
5
Johnson, Lauren. “Nestlé Will Be the First Brand to Run a Sponsored Periscope Stream.” AdWeek.com.
Adweek, 19 June 2015. Web. 22 July 2015.
6
Johnson, Lauren. “Wendy’s Enlists YouTube Stars Rhett & Link to Put a Twist on Livestreaming Will It Work like
Meerkat and Periscope?” Adweek.com. Adweek, 18 June 2015. Web. 18 July 2015.
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