Goal
First of all, you need to find suitable social media platforms that would be most likely engaging the target audience of your brand. According to the research of CROWDYHOUSE’s audience demographics, the average customer is a female of 35 years old, who has a stable income above average. She has a partner but feels quite free and ambitious to learn new things in life. She quite enjoys the comfort and especially creating authentic kind of atmosphere in her house/apartment. She has an eye for the detail in interior design, that’s why she is looking for some unique designer products with the story.
Choosing a suitable platform for your brand
There is all kind of influencers, creating different sort of content on social media. They can be divided into categories based on their niche-based content. The niche of the influencer should correspond to the brand’s values and its target audience’s needs. The influencer creates not only the awareness about the product he reviews but also drives to action. His/her tools for that differ from brand-like commercial with a beautiful visual and catchy slogan. They drive to action by actually sharing their opinion on their social media feed, it can be a video, blog post or an image of the product, depending on the platform (Brandignity.com, 2017).
CROWDYHOUSE has several active social media profiles where the content is updated on a regular basis. According to Google Analytics Social Network Referrals, the highest amount of incoming customers is redirected from Facebook page to the main website. Instagram is the second social media platform, which redirects the high amount of customers to the main website (Pic. 2.1).
Pic. 2.1 “Google Analytics Social Network Referrals of CROWDYHOUSE”
Facebook is more useful for tracking the purchase level of company products. There are several internal tools that provide you with campaign analytics. It is recommended to use the advantage of Facebook along with Instagram for launching a successful influencer campaign. Facebook owns Instagram, it’s hard to talk about one without the other. Instagram can be used for testing the campaign before starting it on Facebook. You can observe and analyze which campaign posts are performing well organically on Instagram and use them for Facebook afterward (MarketingProfs, 2017).
Instagram is a good social media platform to search for highly talented influencers posting quality content. Instagram influencers share the highly engaging content while delivering the brand message along with it. The content of Instagram influencers is considered to be more original and authentic and less likely looking like a paid brand ad.
Pic. 2.1-1 “Instagram Analytics tool of CROWDYHOUSE target audience”
Instagram fits well as a potential social media platform that is suitable for CROWDYHOUSE target audience as well as a good source for influencer marketing search. Instagram is known to be a social media platform, used by the majority of women (31%) comparing to male (24%) audience, to like, share, and post. The most active age group of Instagram is 18-29-year-olds (55%), the next group is 30-49-year-olds (28%), the one which corresponds to the age group of CROWDYHOUSE target audience (Hootsuite Social Media Management, 2017).
You shouldn’t confuse the influencer marketing with paid ads and endorsements. It’s beneficial for both sides to develop good relations that require proper management to capitalize on. The strategy of influencer marketing shouldn’t be based on money transaction and instant results, the influencer needs time to introduce your brand product to the audience. The trust between the influencer and his audience should grow along the time he’s building awareness about the introduced brand product. The audience is sensitive and skeptical enough to recognize not authentic commercial (Traackr.com, 2017).
Conclusion
The easiest way to find a suitable influencer for your brand is to use one of the influencer marketing platforms. You will get access to the influencer database and make your choice based on the requirement of your brand. Those platforms have the advantage of measuring Influencer-Specific Metrics and KPIs.
If you are going to search for the influencer manually, then you will need to use several tools and techniques. One of the most common is look out for the hashtags, that might be used by the influencer, related to your brand niche. You can make a list of the most relevant ones and then make the top 10, which will help you to narrow down the list of the potential influencers who you might approach (Blog.kissmetrics, 2017).
Another useful tool is Google alert. By typing in the necessary keyword you would like to get the information about, you will get the e-mail with the needed information every time the new source, regarding the topic you need, appears online. It’s wise to look out for the most popular bloggers in your niche, who might be interested in promoting your brand (Blog.kissmetrics, 2017).
References
Blog.kissmetrics,. (2017). The Definitive Guide to Influencer Targeting. Retrieved 12 April 2017, from https://blog.kissmetrics.com/guide-to-influencer-targeting/
Brandignity.com,. (2017). How to Choose the Right Influencers for Your Brand |. Brandignity.com. Retrieved 7 April 2017, from https://www.brandignity.com/2016/06/choose-the-right-influencers-for-your-brand/
Hootsuite Social Media Management,. (2017). Top Instagram Demographics That Matter to Social Media Marketers. Hootsuite Social Media Management. Retrieved 7 April 2017, from https://blog.hootsuite.com/instagram-demographics/
MarketingProfs. (2017). Influencer and Marketing Campaigns on Social Media: Which Platforms to Use and When. MarketingProfs. Retrieved 28 May 2017, from https://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2017/31671/influencer-and-marketing-campaigns-on-social-media-which-platforms-to-use-and-when
Traackr.com,. (2017). 5 Key Questions to Ask When Choosing an Influencer Marketing Platform | Traackr. Traackr.com. Retrieved 7 April 2017, from http://www.traackr.com/blog/5-key-questions-to-ask-when-choosing-an-influencer-marketing-platform