Because trust in advertising is at an all-time low, consumers are looking towards each other to find the best products, services and brands. With social media and online reviewing platforms, word-of-mouth marketing has become an increasingly important way for brands to assert themselves in the market.
How does a brand tap into this new marketing landscape? One solution is to develop a user generated content marketing strategy with the help of an influencer marketing campaign. You’ve undoubtedly heard of influencer marketing, but a newer—and more effective—influencer marketing strategy is to target a micro-influencer to serve as brand ambassador.
Just what is a micro-influencer, and what advantage does one have over bigger celebrity names? Let’s explore below.
What is an Influencer Marketing Campaign For?
Influencers are celebrities or content creators have large audiences your brand can engage through sponsorship or collaboration. Influencers are viewed as trustworthy by their audiences, driving UGC that promotes your brand, product and services in an authentic way.
Influencers and UGC are important because word of mouth and personal recommendations are among the strongest forms of digital marketing. Customers are highly trusting to recommendations from friends and family—and, yes, influencers. Another benefit to UGC is that it can’t be blocked by adblockers.
Micro-influencers offer the same benefits to brands, but at a smaller scale: they typically have audiences ranging in the thousands to tens of thousands. So why would a brand want to target influencers with a smaller reach? The answer lies in engagement.
Why You Should Target a Micro-Influencer
Micro-influencers build hyper-niche and highly engaged communities. They’re far more accessible to their fans than big-name celebrities, which means they drive even more engagement despite the smaller reach—about 60% more than the big guys. Pair this high engagement with a low up-front cost—many content creators will feature your brand when offered a free product or trial—and you’ve got a UGC marketing strategy with a great ROI. When visibility on visual platforms like Instagram relies on engagement, this is incredibly important.
Offering a stronger sense of authenticity than celebrities, micro-influencers can often feel like friends or peers to their audiences. Scrappy and hustling, they’ve already proved themselves while carving a niche, making them respected voices within their communities. This further illustrates the power they wield when giving their thoughts about a product or brand. In fact, that’s often why users turn to them in the first place, as seen with the wild popularity of unboxing videos.
How to Choose and Target a Micro-Influencer
The first step in working with an influencer is to decide on a demographic and influencer to target. Remember, the value of a micro-influencer is in their creative voice and strong sense of community. Consider which community and niche fits best within your brand. For example, highly engaging beauty vloggers are obvious targets for cosmetic brands. A game developer, meanwhile, would want to target a YouTuber who publishes “let’s plays” of games in a similar genre or style.
When choosing the individual influencer, remember to consider what makes them unique in the first place. Don’t think just about the audience; what do you like about the influencer and their work, and how do they exemplify or augment your brand voice and values? It’s essential that you map out these points when planning an influencer marketing strategy and when reaching out to your influencer of choice. Your overall goal is to generate trust in the brand through the influencer’s genuine and authentic voice, so find out how their personal brand style matches your own.
What Should Your Influencer Marketing Strategy Entail?
Once you’ve chosen an influencer, it’s time to decide how they’ll participate in your brand community. This may depend on your micro-influencer’s platform of choice. If they’re a YouTuber, for example, it might make sense to task them with featuring a product in a video. Allow them to maintain creative control of the project. This ensures authenticity. Of course, you must ensure brand voice and values are understood by the influencer.
You might also feature the influencer on multiple channels. Share a photo of them on Instagram that portrays how they use or enjoy your product, then host a Twitter takeover to drive up buzz and engagement.
Moderate User Generated Content Marketing Response with AI
The goal of influencer marketing is to connect your brand to a new audience. If successful, you’ll receive more engagement and discussion around your brand. This can be a double-edged sword, though; some fans of the influencer might have criticism for the brand. Therefore, you should incorporate social listening into your influencer marketing strategy to respond respectfully to brand mentions and engagement.
On your own profiles, consider using a tool like Smart Moderation to better manage your profile comments in times of high engagement. You can connect many of your favorite social platforms to the software, allowing you to manage all their comments on a single dashboard. This makes it much easier to keep up with the quickened pace of conversation.
Smart Moderation can also help you identify and deal with abusive, spammy or otherwise inappropriate comments automatically using artificial intelligence. With time freed from moderating your comments, you can focus on engaging with influencer communities to ensure a good ROI on your influencer marketing campaign. Learn more about the software’s features and benefits here, and try it out for free today!