The most important thing about influencer marketing

In the article, we will consider the advantages and disadvantages of influencer marketing and tell you what you should pay attention to when choosing a blogger for integration and building productive cooperation.

Influencer marketing is the promotion of a company's goods and services by posting materials on the personal pages of bloggers and opinion leaders.

Influencer marketing has been sufficiently tested – the market shows multiple growth from year to year and this trend does not plan to decrease in 2024.

Difficulties in searching may arise only for niche projects, in extremely rare cases you will have to create a "blogger" yourself (the face of the brand).

As a result, it is possible to find an option with the most comparable target audience, an acceptable budget (in some cases, integration is carried out by barter, i.e. investments are minimal).

The initial popularity of influencer marketing is due to the fact that communications are not carried out on behalf of companies, are advisory in nature and arouse more trust among potential customers.

The influencer knows his own audience well, so he "knows better" how to design an advertising integration in order to cause a minimum of irritation.

Influencer marketing is a fairly flexible tool. Blogger's integration is often enhanced by promotions (in the format of promo codes), such options as fan meetings, streams, etc. are possible.

The reaction of the audience is visible from the first minutes of the publication of the advertisement – in the comments. This allows you to quickly collect the aspirations of the audience and adjust the advertising message.

Given the prevalence of hype reactions and comments, it can be difficult to choose a blogger with a live audience.

There are leaders on every platform who are the "kings" there. Therefore, when choosing a social network, pay attention to the stars.

The number of new content creators is constantly growing, and many old bloggers are being forgotten. Be able to catch trends, otherwise you will overpay for forgotten and uninteresting former stars.

At the moment, influencers, not opinion leaders, are preferred for the placement of advertising materials. Opinion leaders, for the most part, are celebrities familiar to the viewer, who have moved from advertising on TV to the Internet. The demand for image advertising with media faces continues to decline.

The algorithm for placing the integration at the influencer looks like this:

• Explore the interests of the target audience,

• Search for channels and blogs on the resulting topics,

• Select high-quality channels that are ready to advertise,

• To put forward a clear and elaborated proposal,

• Wait for the answer and placement of the advertisement, after discussing the questions that have arisen,

• Track the result of the campaign and make adjustments based on it for subsequent placements.

One of the most difficult stages is the search for a high-quality and suitable CA influencer. A cross–section of customer interests is carried out through research - most often surveys. At the moment, there are many services that make collections of pages on various topics and provide the opportunity to search for communities by keywords.

Demographic characteristics of the audience and distribution by region are also monitored on third-party services. For really professional influencers interested in effective advertising, information about the gender and age structure of the audience, its interests, geography, etc. can be found at the links in the profile description. As a rule, this is a good sign.

Next, it is necessary to avoid integration with low-quality channels. Again, we resort to the help of third-party services. From the metrics, attention should be paid to the number of subscribers (large channels have a lower level of engagement, and trust in niche channels is higher), the dynamics of post views (it should be a curve, a smooth decline), the level of engagement, the difference in the coverage of advertising and conventional materials (perhaps the cheat is on advertising integrations). It is also necessary to study who is advertised by this influencer – in the interests of brand safety.

At the moment, integration with microblogs is considered the most effective - around 5,000 subscribers. As a rule, these are niche projects with the most loyal and engaged audience.

Finally, it is better to choose influencers who are not prone to provocative actions and statements, restrained in comments on socio-political topics.

First, to study the terms of advertising. Some of the options will be eliminated at this stage. Then – put forward a succinct proposal, specifying information about the company, a link to a product or project, and requirements for the timing of placement. If the parties have reached an agreement, attach a clear and understandable task.

Secondly, do not remove yourself from the dialogue after the basic conditions have been agreed upon. A blogger may have questions about topics related to your product – and it is in your best interest to answer them for the sake of a more native presentation.

Thirdly, it is necessary to work officially. Do not try to work around the law, it can lead to problems.

Finally, do not hesitate to remind yourself – this also applies to questions about the statistics of an advertising publication – many indicators are available only to the page owner.

Thus, influencer marketing is a flexible tool that allows you to convey brand information to the audience in a rather unobtrusive form.

It is based on the trust formed between the influencer and his audience, therefore, the search for a high-quality influencer for cooperation is the primary task of the company. When searching, it is necessary to exclude blogs and pages that use hype, advertise questionable products and/or media, and provocative personalities.