What is

Influencer
Marketing?
Your Ultimate Influencer
Marketing Guide
Introduction.
No matter what industry you cover, or what style of marketing you
choose, at some point, someone will have considered using a social
media influencer marketing strategy to promote your brand.

It’s a fundamental way for your business to interact and integrate with
consumers. And according to a Tomoson Report, it’s very profitable
too. With businesses making on average $6.50 for every $1 spent on
Influencer Marketing.

It really is making a huge impact on business.

In June 2000, ASOS was established as a UK fashion retailer. Today,

they sell over 80,000 products around the world.

Their innovative marketing, incorporating influencers such as the

ASOS Insiders, has paid off bigtime. They now have over 20 million
social media followers, and in the last 12 months received over 1.4
billion product views.

With influencer marketing, the sky’s the limit. But how exactly do you
build social influence into your marketing strategy? And what are the
pitfalls to avoid?

This ultimate guide will cover everything you need to know about
influencer marketing, from campaign concept, right through to
completion and analysis.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

04 What is an Influencer?

12 Why use an Influencer Marketing Strategy?

14 Identifying the Right Influencer

21 How to Find Influencers

24 How to Use Influencers

31 What to Measure in Your Influencer Campaign

35 The Risks and Mistakes of Using a Social Media

Influencer Marketing Strategy

40 The Future of Influencer Marketing Strategy

42 Influencer Marketing Tools

44 Let Influencer Marketing Influence your

TALKWALKER 2018 ©

Marketing
YOUR ULTIMATE INFLUENCER MARKETING GUIDE

What is an
Influencer?

Every time you go online, you’ll interact with influencers. Whether

you’re watching a video from your favorite YouTube vlogger, picking
up recipes from a chef on Pinterest, or reading the latest Facebook
story about your favorite celebrity, you’re engaging with an influencer.
These are the people who are at the forefront of social trends. They
could be innovators, who create new ideas, concepts or content,
that grabs the attention of social media on a regular basis. Or
early adopters. Those that discover trends before anyone else, and
invigorate them with their own creativity, spreading them further into
the social medium.
Influencers have their finger on the internet’s pulse, and social media
users listen to them.
Marketers should also be listening. According to a Marketing Dive
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study, 41% of marketing professionals have seen more success in

influencer campaigns, than traditional advertising. That’s the type of
results you want. But what type of influencer do you need?

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The 3 Types of
Influencers
Generally, when the industry talks about influencers, they categorize
them into 3 levels based on their potential reach. For ease, they’ve been
ranked the same here as...

The Celebs
These are the biggest players and probably a brand within their own right.
They’re TV and movie actors, sports and music stars, and social media masters,
with around 1 million plus followers.

The Execs
These are your macro level influencers. Here, you’ll find journalists, bloggers,
industry experts and other content creators, with between 10,000 to 1 million
followers.

The Everyday
This is the lowest level of social media influencers, but there are more of them
than the other two levels combined. With 500 to 10,000 followers, they could
be your employees or even vocal customers. You can include your day-to-day
consumers in this category too, encouraging them to generate content for you.
User-Generated Content can work well for influencer marketing.
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However, reach is only one of the aspects you should consider

when defining your potential influencer.

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Influencer Aspects
Reach
This is simply how many potential people your influencer talks to, whether
that’s followers or subscribers. But a great reach doesn’t always mean a great
result.
Imagine standing in a city with a megaphone, and shouting your message at
people. Yes, you’re going to reach a lot of people, but you’d engage with them
more if you talked to them face to face.

Engagement
This is the flipside to reach. It is how much interaction you gain from your
audience. And it is becoming more important than reach when considering
influencers.
Engagement comes in two forms. Passive engagement is usually the bare
minimum of what a reader can do; clicking a like or retweet button. It doesn’t
mean they have actually fully absorbed the content message.
While active engagement is when someone has taken the time to read the
content and add to the conversation around it. These are the people who are
generating ideas about the message and will more likely engage with it further.
What type of engagement you receive depends on the audience.

Audience
Who is your influencer talking to on a regular basis? Is it a wide audience that
has a general interest in what is said, or a smaller, more specific group, who
are focused on a niche subject the influencer works in?
This will be key to how far your message travels. A niche audience tends to
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be more connected within their industry and will help promote the content
further. However, it probably won’t escape the social bubble it was created in,
and therefore will reach fewer people.
When choosing your social influencer, consider who or what is relevant to your
audience.

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Recognizability
It’s vital to consider your influencer’s recognizability, especially within
their market. Traditionally, you’d imagine an A-list celebrity would be more
recognizable. And in a wider market, they probably would be.
But in a more niche market, an industry blogger or speaker may gain more
recognition from their audience.
The same can be said for younger markets. YouTube vloggers and the like
could actually be more recognizable than your A-listers, and therefore be more
relevant.

Creativity
There are two types of influencer, the creator (who innovates trends) and the
disseminator (who adopts them).
A creator will be followed for their creativity. Their audience will appreciate
their originality, and interact with it in a more in-depth way.
While a disseminator is someone that shares ideas, and you would expect their
audience to simply do the same.

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Which Type of
Influencer is Right
for You?
Well, that depends on what you’re expecting from your campaign
(there’s more on that later), but it’s worth remembering that
increasing your reach, will compromise on your engagement.

The Reach vs Engagement Compromise

Whether you focus on Reach or Engagement will have an impact on

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your message diffusion.

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Why Your Message Diffusion Matters

It’s worth considering how a message travels, to help you decide the type of
influencer you want to use. That’s why your potential message diffusion is
important.
Imagine your content on a globe. Every time it is shared, it travels a bit further
across that map. And a bit further. And a bit further. But, because it’s social
media, it can travel in multiple directions at once. A tweet in San Francisco
could send your message all across America, while a blog post in London
engages it with young mothers, as a Facebook post in Beijing helps it make
headlines.

One Single YouTube Post Can Diffuse Across the Internet - Tracked by a Virality Map

That’s the message diffusion. Your post passing from one media stream again
and again, until it saturates the market. You can see more about message
diffusion here.
When it comes to influencers, their aspects will impact on how your message
diffuses. A larger reach means your content could potentially travel further,
while more engagement means it’s more likely to be encouraged on its way by
other users.
The influencer’s audience will also make a difference. If they have a strong
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engagement with a specific market, your message is likely to infuse deeply

into that audience, but not much out of it. Yet, if your influencer has a wider
audience that engages with different demographics, your message can spread
further (though maybe not as densely).

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Other Things to Consider

Each influencer type has pros and cons. According to a recent study from
Carat, YouTube influencers (Execs) are 4 times more effective than Celebs at
driving brand familiarity. Yet Celebs are still better at driving recall (84% vs.
73%).
The celebrity market is also much smaller, so your choice of personality is
more limited and more expensive. Your budget will be a key aspect of what
type of social media influencer you can work with.

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Influencer
Marketing Examples
To give you an idea of what can be done with the 3 types of influencer,
dotted throughout the guide are Influencer Inspiration cards.

Diageo and Their Brands Were Trending Over Christmas 2016

These influencer marketing examples should give you some idea on how
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to effectively integrate an influencer into your brand. They include some

relevant marketing statistics too, to demonstrate how impactful an influencer
marketing strategy can be.
It’d also be beneficial for you to check out some of the influencers currently
making an impact on digital marketing.

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 Why use an
YOUR ULTIMATE INFLUENCER MARKETING GUIDE

Influencer
Marketing
Strategy?
Social media should be a major aspect of your marketing strategy. It’s
the modern-day word of mouth, and consumers are putting more and
more trust into it.
According to Hubspot, 71% of consumers are more likely to make
a purchase when referred by social media. And 92% would trust
an influencer over a brand when making a purchasing decision.
Traditional advertising no longer has the clout it used to, and that’s
where social media influencers come in. TALKWALKER ©

An influencer will have an established and engaged following. You can

benefit from this in 3 ways…

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Product Placement
Many influencers use product reviews or ‘how-tos’ as part of their content.
Therefore, their audience is already prepared to hear product placement
messages, and will more likely accept the influencer’s opinions of products as
fact.
This is perfect if you want to improve your brand engagement or sentiment,
though is more suitable for Everyday or Exec level influencers.

Brand Endorsement
Many influencers have built up such a following, that they have almost become
a brand in themselves. A brand which has a lot of integrity that their audience
trusts. Something that your brand can buy into.
Try this if you want to build a more trusted image of your business as a whole.
It’s mainly for the Celeb level influencers.

Content Creation
Often, an influencer has made their career from their content. It’s their
originality and creativity that makes them stand out, and their audience
follows them for this.
If you want to get creative with your brand and demonstrate your products
in a different way, this is what you want. It’s less about promotion, but more
about creating original content that the brand’s audience can engage with. It’s
this type of content that will often go viral.
You could use this to create new content for your own social media streams,
but you’d miss engaging the influencer’s established audience. (Although,
you’d expect some cross-promotion from their streams).

The 3 Whats
A simple way to remember this is the 3 ‘Whats’. Your social media influencer
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campaign will either be about What they Say (Product Placement), What they
Mean (Brand Endorsement) or What they Do (Content Creation).

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 Identifying
YOUR ULTIMATE INFLUENCER MARKETING GUIDE

the Right
Influencer
Great. You’ve realized that influencer marketing is right for you.

Now what?

Well, before you jump into finding your influencer, it’s best to consider
the two key areas of every marketing campaign. ‘Who are you talking
to?’, and ‘What do you want them to do?’ TALKWALKER ©

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Who is Your
Marketing
Audience?
You probably have a strong idea already who your brand audience is.
But now is the time to dig deeper.
Look at who your audience is interacting with. Check your shares and retweets
to see who are your most active sharers. And check who your competition is
targeting too.
Influencer marketing is especially effective in attracting younger
demographics, so consider this if it’s an area you’d like to reach.
At this stage, it’d be beneficial to set up some free Talkwalker Alerts. Use them
to track your brand, your competitors’ brand, some key industry trends, and
any social media influencers already on your radar. This’ll give you an idea of
who’s talking about you and your industry at any one time.

TALKWALKER ©

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What Response
are you Expecting?
This is the ultimate goal of your campaign and should underlie every decision
you make going forward. Unless you have a clear, tangible expectation, then
you won’t know where to direct your influencer, or how to measure whether
the campaign was a success.
Create clear, measurable goals that you want to achieve, rather than
ambivalent ones. You don’t just want to promote X product. You want 10,000
sales of it. Some vanity metrics like post likes will improve brand awareness,
but they won’t make sales. Or help you justify an influencer marketing cost to
your boss.

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YOUR ULTIMATE INFLUENCER MARKETING GUIDE

What You Need to

Know About Your
Potential Influencer
Now you know exactly what you want to achieve, from which
audience, you can start defining the influencer that you want to use
for your campaign. Here are a few things to consider:

Reach & Engagement

How many people is your influencer reaching? And how much active
engagement do they drive? Is your potential audience not just liking, but
interacting with the content they’re creating?

When Analyzing
Most Influential
Authors for ‘Thor
Ragnarok’ @Jedi_Jill
Generated Almost
the Same Engage-
ment as
@ComicBookNOW,
Despite Having
Significantly Lower
Reach
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Compatibility
Just because an influencer has a large audience, it doesn’t mean they’ll be an
audience susceptible to your brand. How compatible are you really?

While @omelete was an Active Tweeter, with 2.2k Engagements, When You Look at Their Usual
Brand Mentions, They’re Not Very Compatible

Personality
Not all social media influencers are followed for being likable. They could be
rebels, pranksters, or controversy creators. Would these traits hinder (or
benefit) your campaign?

Sentiment
What do people think of your influencer? Look at the engagement they
generate and see if it’s generally positive or negative to the influencer. There
are some personalities that people love to hate.
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Media Impact
Which media does the influencer
post on? Do you want someone
more image focused (from
Instagram or Pinterest), or more
capable of sharing technical
stories (Blogger)? Remember, each
channel has its own benefits and
pitfalls.
Social Media Channel Reach vs Number of
Influencers - Sponsokit
Honesty
Some influencers pride themselves on giving very frank reviews. (Hence
their increased consumer trust). Would this suit your marketing campaign?
Would you want an influencer to discuss your brand’s weaknesses as well as
strengths?

Brand Affinity
If your influencer has interacted with your brand before, how informative
were they? And how complimentary or critical? Does your potential audience
consider them a person to listen to?

Brand Loyalty
Is your influencer loyal to your brand? Ideally, you want to build a long-term
relationship, so look at influencers that will engage with your brand frequently.
The last thing you want is someone who engages with you one week, and then
your competitor the next.
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@gvnegirl has Great Brand Sentiment and Regularly

Mentions Relevant Themes When Tweeting

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It’s not a complete list, but it can help you get a better understanding
of who your influencer will be. Remember, consider your audience at
all times.

What Was Trending at the Oscars? Note the Keywords for the Campaign:
“YouTubers” & “The Rest” TALKWALKER ©

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 How to Find
Influencers

At this point, you should have a clear picture of what qualities your
ideal influencer should have, and a full understanding of how they will
impact your current (or future) audience.
But how can you find the influencer you’re looking for? The internet
is a big place to search, but here are a few ways to find the right
influencer for you.

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Read the Blogs

The first step would be to do an online search of your topic. Search for your
industry, keyword, product, or message, and the word ‘blog,’ to find the blogs
more likely to be clicked on. Then get reading. Look for influential posters, but
also who they’re linking to, and who is engaging with them. After a while, you
should start to get the feeling who is a creator and who is a disseminator.

Look at the Hashtags

You can also do the same with #hashtags. Search for any you feel might be
relevant, to find the most prevalent people talking about them on Twitter,
Pinterest, and Instagram. You can also find popular hashtags for any topic
with Talkwalker Free Social Search.

Check out the Competition

It’s always worth keeping one eye on what your competitors are doing.
Although, you certainly don’t want to copy. Look at who is engaging with their
brands on social media, and check out any blogs or articles that link to them.

If they’ve done any influencer campaigns recently, see which professions

they worked with. You could either look for people in a similar area or look for
someone in an opposing industry, to reach an alternative target market. Link

Up with LinkedIn
LinkedIn is made for networking. So network. Just use a keyword or relevant
phrase search as you would in Google, and you should find plenty of people
that are engaging with your market.

Search Your Own Social Media Interaction

Who is most engaged with you on social media? Don’t just look at one stream,
but see who is interacting with you across multiple networks. And don’t just
look for passive likes or shares. Find people that are actively engaging with
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your content and helping drive it further.

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Or, Just Use the Talkwalker Tool to Find Influencers

That is a lot of time-consuming work, and even after all that, you still could be
missing out on the perfect influencer for you. So, cheat, and follow the Simple
3 Step Process for Finding the Perfect Influencer using Talkwalker. Seriously,
it will save you a lot of time. And will give you more confidence that the
influencer you’ve chosen is exactly who you need.

TALKWALKER ©

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How to Use
Influencers

Now we’re cooking.

So far, you’ve found the perfect social media influencer and you know
what they’re going to do for your audience. We’re almost at the fun
bit: the content creation.
But first, you need to persuade your chosen influencer to work with
you.

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How to Approach
an Influencer
This could be the make or break of your campaign idea. But if you
approach your influencer the correct way, then there’s a much better
chance of them jumping on board and starting a long-term business
relationship with you.

Be Professional
Just because your chosen influencer has a more brash or relaxed persona
online, don’t assume they’re the same offline. Approach your social media
influencer as you would any other provider; in a professional manner at all
times.

Don’t Overreach
It’d be nice to get the likes of Selena Gomez (The 2nd most followed
Instagrammer in the world, behind Instagram themselves) in every campaign
that you do, but honestly, is your brand big enough for them to react with?
Most Celeb influencers will receive pitches every day and can afford to work
only with the biggest names. Maybe look more at the Exec influencer level
instead.

Like Them First

Samantha Kelly, @Tweetinggoddess, says you should engage initially “either
by retweeting one of our tweets or commenting on our tweets...Build a
relationship with us first.” Likes, follows, and retweets are an influencer’s
TALKWALKER ©

lifeblood, so demonstrate you admire their content by engaging with it first.

Your relationship should be mutual right from the start, so it’s beneficial for
you to make the first move. It might encourage the influencer to organically
interact with your brand too.

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Everyone Likes Freebies

Another way to encourage organic engagement would be to send the potential
influencer some free examples. There’s no guarantee they will react to them
online, but it’ll help improve your brand awareness in their mind and promote
your future relationship.

Send a Pitch
Now’s the time to actually contact your influencer. Try to find an email, and
send them a clear pitch, just like you would a client. After all, you’re selling
them your brand. Ensure it’s bespoke to them, and acknowledge them as a
professional. Give them a feel of what you’d expect from the campaign, but
don’t go into too much depth.

Be Patient
Finally, you wait. Your pitch may be your biggest priority, but it won’t be for
your potential influencer. Maybe follow them up after a few weeks, but don’t
harass them. Bear in mind, you may have to scrap your initial plan and start
again if they say no, or don’t reply.

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YOUR ULTIMATE INFLUENCER MARKETING GUIDE

How to Brief an
Influencer
Once your influencer agrees to work with you, it’s time to brief them
on the most important elements you want from your campaign. The
trick is providing the right amount of information. Don’t bore with
too much, but also, don’t miss out any key info. To save time, we’ve
provided a free Influencer Brief Template, that’ll ensure you include
all your key info. Download yours now, then see below for how to
complete it.

Our Company
Provide a summary of your company. Don’t be too detailed, but also don’t
assume they know you already. Include your core brand guidelines.

Our Product
Detail the key product(s) you want to discuss. Don’t try to incorporate your
entire catalog into one campaign. Focus on the key benefits of the product(s),
or negatives you’d like to counteract.
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More Details
Include any links, reviews or other product advertising.

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What we like
Share any successful campaigns you’ve run in the past. Also, include other
campaigns run by competitors, or your chosen influencer, that you enjoyed.

Concept
Share your ideas with your influencer. Don’t give them too many constraints.
This is more as inspiration. You want to let your social media influencer to do
their job.

Aims
What do you want to achieve? Think back to the goals that you set at the
start.

Key Messages
What are the key elements you want your audience to remember? Include any
keywords, straplines or #hashtags.

Preferred Outlet
Which social media outlet would you like your campaign run on? Remember
the influencer’s established audiences when considering this (i.e. if they are
more Twitter-focused, don’t ask them to mainly promote on YouTube).

Posts
Tell your influencer how many branded messages you’re expecting now, not
after the campaign. They’ll want to ensure they meet your expectations, so if
this is a KPI, let them know.

Conception
How long has the social media influencer got to create the content? Will there
be a conception meeting at any point for them to confirm their ideas with you?
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Air Date
When do you want the campaign to go live?

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Other Media
If this will be part of a multimedia campaign, what other elements will you be
producing and when will they go live?

Key Contact
Provide a contact to liaise with the influencer throughout the campaign.
Consider any staff holidays or other commitments that may arise.

Number of Mentions of Nissan X-Trail Since the Campaign Launch

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How Much Should

You Pay Your
Influencer?
This is going to come up at some point, so it’s best to cover it now. Sadly,
there’s no right or wrong answer.
You can have a look at some of the influencer rate cards available online
(Influence.co has a great interactive one for Instagram), to get a better
idea of what to pay. It’s down to each individual influencer to decide what
payment they want, though you should certainly expect Celebs to be the most
expensive, followed by Execs and Everyday.
If the social media influencer requests a payment that’s outside your budget,
try negotiating. Or see if they are willing to provide content in exchange for
product.

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 What to
Measure in Your
Influencer
Campaign
Finally. You’ve put in the hard work, and your influencer is promoting
your brand just as you briefed. Now you have the most complicated
part of the campaign, but also the most important.
It’s time to analyze your results.

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Analyze Right
from the Start
Okay. You shouldn’t expect overnight results from your campaign. A
social media influencer’s role is making a social impact, ingraining their
messages into their audience over time. This will be the same for your
brand.
However, if you monitor results right from the beginning, you can see what is
working, and amplify it further. This goes back to the message diffusion we
discussed earlier.
Use the Talkwalker virality map to see how your campaign message diffuses
across the world, as it happens. You can see which blogs, sites, news stories,
tweets or posts are sharing your content, and which of those are being shared
significantly too.

Watch Your
Influencer Campaign
Spread - As it Happens

When you find

a source that is
generating more
shares than others,
you can help it
along the way,
either by promoting
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it yourself or getting your influencer to interact with it. At this point, look for any
major disseminators. They could be an influencer for your next campaign.
You can also see how the content travels around the world, and which territories
you’re missing. If there’s a key region that’s not being hit, you can either re-
strategize with your influencer to see how you can engage with it, or bring more
relevant influencers from that area into your campaign.

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Post Campaign
Tracking
Remember those campaign goals that you set? This is where you
discover if you achieved them. After all, they were the destination you
were heading for, so it’s good to see if you’ve reached it.
We’ve covered social listening strategies for influencer marketing in this free
report. If you’ve not read it before, get it now.

Here’s a brief idea of what to cover. Just remember, though you had a specific
aim in mind, don’t underestimate the impact you have made elsewhere.
Product sales may have been your ultimate goals, but the campaign could
have impacted on other areas of your social media too. You can also look at...

Brand Reach
Check all the networks, not just the medium you focused on. Look at page
likes, Twitter followers, YouTube subscribers and more, to see if your brand
audience has grown across your streams. It’s also worth checking blogs for
unique visitors too.

Views
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Your audience isn’t just the people that follow you, but the people that follow
them as well. Remember, every user could be an Everyday influencer, and if
they share a message, it’ll spread even further.
Consider views, reaches, and impressions to see how wide reaching your
message got.

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Engagement
You’re not just interested in who saw your message, but who interacted with
it. Reading is one thing, but engaging is something else. For this, you need to
look at Post Likes, Comments, and such like to see how much of your audience
is engaging.

Sentiment
Analyzing how your audience feels about a campaign is practically impossible
to measure without social data analysis. However, you can get a basic
understanding of your brand’s sentiment using the Talkwalker Free Social
Search.
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Or, if you’d like a more detailed more at what to analyze, check out The
Complete Guide to Social Media Analytics.

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The Risks and Mistakes
of Using a Social
Media Influencer
Marketing Strategy

Now you should have a full understanding of how to use influencers in

your marketing strategy. But don’t assume it’s all going to be cookies
and rainbows. There’s plenty of blunders you can make along the way.

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The Risks…and
How to Avoid Them
Remember those campaign goals that you set? This is where you
discover if you achieved them. After all, they were the destination you
were heading for, so it’s good to see if you’ve reached it.

Influencer Honesty
While the vast majority of influencers are hardworking and dedicated people,
like in any other industry, you may come across a few less-honest ones that
rely on misleading tactics to drive clicks and traffic.
You can monitor multiple clicks from a source with Click Fraud Detection
software. This should help you decide if it’s your social media influencer or
their audience that’s clicking with you.

Reliability
Not all influencers are as business-focused as you. They may be good at what
they do, but many won’t be used to integrating their work into an outside
environment. Therefore, don’t always expect a 9-to-5 mindset as you would
from an employee or freelancer.
You can prevent this by thoroughly vetting your influencer right from the start.
An agency might help, but see if they’ve worked with brands on a similar scale
before.
Also, communication is key to the whole project. Make sure you set deadlines
in the briefing stage and liaise with your influencer regularly to ensure they’re
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hit. A gentle reminder now and then should help keep your project on track.

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Negative Impact
Not everything will be smooth sailing. Expect to get at least some negative
feedback from your consumers at some point. But as long as you’re prepared,
it shouldn’t have too much impact on your campaign. Though even brands like
Pepsi can get unexpected negative results.
If you’re not certain what sentiment will arise from an influencer campaign,
start off small. Test your ideas with an Everyday influencer, and if it doesn’t go
well, you will only have reached several thousand consumers at most. If it’s
a-okay, you can scale the campaign up.
Again, communication will be key here too. Don’t leave your influencer to
tackle issues alone. Make sure they know where to escalate problems if they
arise, and then tackle them together.

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Almond Breeze Engaged Nearly 34 Thousand People with Recipes in H2 2017

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Common Influencer
Marketing Mistakes
If you’ve followed this guide so far, you should avoid the more
common social media influencer mistakes. But it’s worth keeping an
eye out for these...

Not Doing Your Research

Don’t skip out on the initial steps. Know your goal. Know your audience. And
know your influencer. The last thing you want is controversy caused by linking
the wrong influencer with your brands.

Not Knowing the Law

Now, this is a complicated one. As the influencer market grows, it’s attracting
more and more scrutiny from advertising authorities around the world, in the
US, UK, and Germany.
Make sure you keep up to date with the latest rules and get your legal team
involved in any social media influencer campaigns you engage in.
Most importantly, ensure you enact clarity at all times. The biggest issues
have come from consumers feeling misled about the professional relationship
between a company and an influencer. Be clear in all your messages that there
is a link, and that often means using more than just the #ad.

Using an Influencer to Counteract Bad PR

This is the same as pushing them under a bus. PR issues should only be
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handled by a professional, as your influencer will not be able to handle the

flack. It could cause serious damage to both the influencer’s brand and yours.
Simply put, don’t do it.

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Criticizing an Influencer
“The worst thing to do is say something negative about (an influencer),”
Samantha Kelly, The Tweeting Goddess, says. “We will find out! People
are always watching and social media world is actually quite small so I get
messages with screenshots all the time.” Think before you post or write
anything about an influencer that may be seen as being negative. The last
thing you want to do is create a Detractor.

Restricting your Influencer

Remember, you’re not just hiring your influencer for who they are, but for what
they do too. Don’t constrain them. Take another look at your brief before you
send it over. If it looks as precise as the one you’d write for your own social
marketing team, then you’re holding your influencer back. You need to give
them everything they need to make the campaign work, and that includes
creative freedom.

Not Seeing the Smaller

Picture
It’s easy to think that Celebs
are your most important
social media influencer, but
don’t forget that the Everyday
influencers have their benefits
too. Try to think outside the box,
and not only can you make your
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campaign more impactful, but

you may save on your budgeting
too. Your Everyday influencers
can make a difference, even if
they’re only an intern. What a Difference a Day Makes -
#AskEddie Trended on Twitter

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 The Future of
YOUR ULTIMATE INFLUENCER MARKETING GUIDE

Influencer
Marketing
Strategy
Although some people believe influencer marketing is a fad, it
looks like it’s going to be around for some time at least. Especially,
since recent research from Stanford Graduate School of Education
demonstrates students are more susceptible to sponsored content
than first thought.
However, there are some changes ahead you need to know.

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There Will be More Regulation

As noted earlier, expect further legal regulation from various advertising
bodies, as they race to catch up with the influencer trend.

Expect More Exec and Everyday Influencers

Gil Eyal, @gileyal, the founder of HYPR, said “More than 90% of posts are
made by influencers with less than 1 million followers. This number was
around 60% in the beginning of 2016.” This is worth considering for your
future campaigns, with these influencers becoming more effective than ever
before.

Improved Authenticity
The industry is changing fast, and so are consumers. As they catch-on to the
financial relationship between brands and influencers, they’re becoming more
authenticity savvy too. You’ll need to work harder to find the right influencer
that integrates believably with your brand.

Rising Costs
As marketers are getting savvier about the benefits of social media influencer
marketing, so are the influencers. They’re getting a better idea of the impact
they have on your marketing strategies, and therefore, expecting a bigger bite
of your budget. The UK has already seen a rise in influencer costs, and you
should expect that trend to continue worldwide in the coming years.
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 Influencer
YOUR ULTIMATE INFLUENCER MARKETING GUIDE

Marketing
Tools
Stay ahead of the game, and make your influencer marketing strategy
easier with some great marketing tools.

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YOUR ULTIMATE INFLUENCER MARKETING GUIDE

Buzzstream
Can be used to find and manage influencer contacts found through your
favorite content sites.

GroupHigh
A powerful search tool, to help you find bloggers from over 15 million blogs
worldwide.

ClickCease
For click fraud detection and protection.

Inkybee
Scours the web to find relevant blog content for you.

Contactually
Helps manage your influencer contacts with a smart CRM system.

Discover.ly
A Chrome browser extension that lets you see a content provider’s information
from social networks as you browse.

ContactOut
To help you find the contact details of influencers from their social profiles.

IMA
A leading agency for sourcing influencers.

Talkwalker
The #1 social media analytics tool.
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 Let Influencer
YOUR ULTIMATE INFLUENCER MARKETING GUIDE

Marketing
Influence your
Marketing
Hopefully, this guide helped you understand the social marketing
trend that everyone’s talking about.
One last tip. Remember, influencer marketing is really about people.
Not just those you are dealing with, but those you are reaching. You
need to always consider them in your campaign, so they will consider
you. Influencer marketing is not a quick-fix solution, but a long-term
strategy to build long-lasting relationships.
Now, go out there and be the next influencer marketing wonder. If you
have any questions or some great social media influencer tips of your
own, please get in touch. Or, if you’d like to get a free demo on how
Talkwalker can help your influencer marketing strategy, just click.
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 Impact starts here.
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