Influencer marketing is a type of advertising where brands use individuals with strong social media following to advertise their products to a broader audience.
The influencers act as the face of the brand and spread the word about the company’s products through a paid partnership. As a result, through the influencer, the brand benefits by reaching more potential customers through social media.
Influencer marketing dates back to 1760 when Wedgwood marketed his tea brand through royalty. He made a tea set for King George III and advertised it as having royal acceptance. Through the marketing strategy, Wedgewood’s brand gained a luxury status. In the 19th century, companies started promoting their products using recognizable people like Thomas Barratt.
Today, thanks to social media algorithms, most brands don’t look at how ‘famous’ an individual is or how big their following is. Instead, brands mostly find individuals with a more engaging audience to push their campaigns.
A social media algorithm is a set of signals to sort and rank content on social media platforms based on the user’s relevancy. For example, through algorithms, two users following similar accounts on Instagram or Facebook are less likely to see the same content on their pages.
So, how do social media algorithms work in influencer marketing
Each social media platform’s algorithm works differently. When you open an App, say TikTok, Facebook, or Instagram, the algorithm recommends the content in your feed. Then, based on your previous interactions, the ranking signals select the type of content to show you.
For example, Facebook will show you dog or cat videos, even if you don’t follow any cat pages. Then, each time you watch the displayed video until the end, the app knows you will likely enjoy more of that content.
Sharing the content to your feed or through Messenger also signals that you like pet videos. Therefore, Facebook will serve you more of those.
Instagram will also show you relatable content based on the pages you follow. They also show you pages you’ll likely enjoy because you follow individuals with similar content. Liking, sharing, and commenting on the posts helps the algorithm push them to more people.
Besides getting new videos and page suggestions, you will see posts and videos from people you follow or those you engage with the most. Other factors Instagram uses to suggest content to users are topic trends and content popularity on the Explore Page of Instagram.
Social media algorithms have become the backbone of social networks, and they can be an advantage or disadvantage to influencer marketing. The ranking signals sort the content posted on the platforms daily and show it to users they will likely engage with.
Some impact social media algorithms will have on influencer marketing are;
Influencers primarily benefit from social media algorithms based on engagement in their content. For example, if your content gets many likes, shares, saves, or retweets, the algorithm will push it to more users, and you could get more followers and likes. Therefore, a brand using an influencer with good engagement will reach more potential customers.
On the contrary, if the influencer posts content and they don’t get likes, retweets, shares, or saves, their content won’t show up to many people. Therefore, a brand that uses a specific influencer won’t reach many potential customers.
Including hashtags related to your content helps you influence the audience outside your following. For example, the algorithm will suggest the products and your page to people looking for similar products. However, the hashtags must include the right keywords.
Every platform has a different use, a specific algorithm, an audience, and trends. For example, TikTok is mainly for entertainment videos, Instagram and Facebook are primarily used to reach more customers, and LinkedIn is used to find employers and employees.
Therefore, you can use Instagram and Facebook influencers to increase your brand’s awareness to a bigger audience. LinkedIn would be a perfect platform to find employees or business partners, but not to advertise.
Influencer marketing significantly impacts businesses, so you must get the individual that aligns with your brand and your target audience’s trust. Here are some ways to find an influencer that aligns with your brand.
You can do a quick Google search on influencers whose niche or expertise matches your brand. You can limit the options by focusing on the influencers in your area or the location you want to reach a wider audience.
Influencers in speaker lists for seminars and meetings related to your brand niche are potential collaborators. These individuals are likely producing content that matches your brand’s and already has an influence on their audience.
However, don’t end your search by browsing the speaker list. You should also check the potential collaborator pages and how much they engage with the audience. It gives you a clearer perspective of how your campaigns will likely perform.
Instagram hashtags help the algorithm to push content to more people, reaching a bigger audience. Influencers tagging your brand or using a competitor company’s hashtag will likely engage with the audience you are looking for.
You can also find more creators producing similar content through hashtags. As a result, you’ll also see other competitor pages or companies you can hardly find through a plain search. To get the right creator to work with, check the influencer pages and compare their engagement.
Your competitors’ pages could have the influencer you are looking for. Peruse their followers’ Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook lists and look at those who engage with them in the comments.
The closest place you can get your next social media influencer to run your campaign is from your followers’ list. Even if they lack the label influencer on their page, these individuals can reach a big audience by sharing their posts.
Besides, these influencers are not known as celebrities, so the regular audience is likelier to believe them when they run your product campaign.
Companies use social media influencers to help them reach more potential customers and boost sales. But how do brands know how the marketing campaign performed?
If you implemented influencer marketing in your business, use these methods to measure engagement and reach.
The best way to define how success looks to your brand is by setting influencer goals. What do you want to accomplish with the campaign? You can set a plan with the influencer to achieve a specific engagement percentage, gain followers, or drive several clicks on your page.
Your goals should also determine the influencer you pick to run the campaigns, so ensure you have the right expectations. If the influencer meets the targets, then your campaign is a success. A successful campaign can also impact the business, even without meeting targets.
Impressions will help you know the number of people who viewed the posted content. However, note that this differs from how many people engage with the content. Impressions show how big an audience the influencer can reach.
You cannot use impressions alone to measure success, but they help you know the potential customers you can reach with the influencer. It can also help you to adjust your expectations when working with the individual.
Engagement rates help the brand know how the influencer’s audience perceives a campaign. You can calculate engagement by adding likes, comments, shares, saves, and retweets.
You get the engagement rate if you add the number of comments, likes, and shares and divide it by the number of impressions. If the engagement rate is low, then the influencer is not your best fit.
Brands create affiliate links with a specific URL or code identifying their influencer to know how many people they reach. The influencer earns a commission if a visitor uses the affiliate link to buy the brand’s items.
You can also determine which goods are selling well through the affiliate links. Count the conversions on each link, and you will see the influencer making the campaign more successful.
Promo codes work similarly to affiliate links, but these contain discounts used at the check-out point. In addition, these codes make it easier for the brand to see sales from the influencer campaign and other marketing strategies.
Before hiring your social media campaign influencer, ask if they can share their analytics. For example, ask them to share the personal follower growth, impressions, and clicks data you might not see on their public profile.
While algorithms have affected performance on social media influencer campaigns, they can positively impact your business. First, however, you must know the best ways to create the campaigns for them to be effective.
Some tips for creating effective influencer campaigns in the era of social media algorithms are;
Social media users prefer live-streaming videos to posts. These have also become attractive to the algorithm, and influencers use them more.
You can hire an influencer to mention or advertise your brand during one of their live streams. That could help you get engagement from thousands of live attendees.
You can also hire influencers to host live events from your brand’s page or ask them to be guests. That way, the influencer’s followers flock to your Instagram or Facebook page.
When using influencers to run campaigns for your company’s products, ask them to use hashtags with the right keywords. These help the content reach a bigger audience. When more people interact with the content, the algorithm puts it at the top of the user’s feed.
Engagement is one of the top ways to benefit from social media algorithms. More likes, comments, and shares make the algorithm rank you on top of other users’ feeds; hence a greater audience reach.
Timing can make your campaigns successful. The influencer should post the content when their audience is more likely to be active.
You can learn the best times to post content by the trial-and-error method. Then, check the times and days you get more engagement and choose those as your posting times.
Social media algorithm works best with consistent creators. You can plan your monthly content and put timers not to forget posting. However, don’t post for the sake of having content on your feed. Ensure you include aesthetics and authenticity. Social media users like those.
Authenticity is the quality of being original or genuine, and transparency is honesty. People like authentic and transparent brands and trust the products more, increasing sales.
Brands should also let their social media influencers exercise transparency and give honest product reviews. Consumers trust an authentic and transparent creator, so those are likely to get more engagement.
Trust is vital if you want to drive sales. Besides, the audience takes recommendations of influencers known for their authenticity more seriously. This way, brands gain new customers and increase customer retention rates.
There are many benefits brands can get from influencer marketing, even with social media algorithms. And it all starts with getting the right influencer to achieve success.
These influencers will help you run campaigns to reach a bigger audience than when advertising in a newspaper. It also improves brand recognition and impacts sales.
Besides, most brands have seen their success through social media marketing. As a result, the future of influencer marketing in the era of social media algorithms is still promising.
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