Advanced Influencer Strategies Archives

How To Get Results: Influencers And Pre-registration For Games Launch
Pre-registration campaigns for mobile games are more and more common. They rely on generating hype in communities connected with the game to drive interest and expectations about the game. Pre-registration campaigns connect with influencer marketing and social media user-generated content to expand the campaign’s reach further and show the community already built around it.
Why pre-registration and influencer marketing
Mobile games significantly benefit from pre-registration since it is an excellent way to stand out and incentivize potential players to get involved with the game from the beginning. Particularly in the case of games with prominent multiplayer features having a community involved right off the bat is going to be an essential part of the success of your project.
Influencer marketing uses influencers with online followings in relevant communities to promote your products or services less invasively than traditional publicity. Because influencer marketing relies on people who are organically followed and have built their reputation in a field, it can target particular niches and allow us to engage with them.
You can check out other ideas on combining gaming and influencer marketing here for the best results.
Define the right audience
Targeting the right audience should be one of the prime concerns of any marketer. And this includes the proper age group, interests, and even the right countries. A good target audience definition can create a successful marketing campaign. Defining the right target audience is especially important in a pre-registration campaign since it entirely relies on involving people with something that still needs to be released.
Pre-registration campaigns for mobile games are more and more common. They rely on generating hype in communities connected with gaming to drive interest and expectations about the upcoming release of a game.
However pre-registration campaigns are most effective when they’re not organized by themselves. By flanking it with the involvement of relevant influences is going to be possible to obtain a much greater audience involvement and reach.
Why pre-registration and influencer marketing
Mobile games benefit from pre-registration as a way to generate early interest in the launch, establish a community, and incentivize participation and interactions with other marketing initiatives. Particularly in the case of games with prominent multiplayer features a community involved right off the bat is going to be a huge help to the success of the project.
Influencer marketing uses influencers in relevant communities to promote products or services less invasively than other marketing channels. Because influencer marketing relies on people who are organically followed for their content and have built their reputation in a field, it can target particular niches and allow them to access these audiences and engage with them.
Combining a pre-registration campaign with influencers’ involvement is going to provide the best of both worlds and boost the success of the game launch.
But in order to do it right, there are a few things that need to be taken into consideration, in the following paragraphs we will illustrate step-by-step how to ace it.
You can check out other ideas on combining gaming and influencer marketing here for the best results.
Define the right audience
Targeting the right audience should be one of the prime concerns of any marketer. And this includes the proper age group, interests, and even the right countries. A good target audience definition can create a successful marketing campaign.
Both pre-registration and influencer marketing campaigns have a heavy emphasis on the audience. While pre-registration campaigns need to be finely tuned to speak to the right people, influencers are able to access highly segmented audiences allowing them to precisely target the campaign aim audience.
Once identified a target audience, it is time to go ahead and understand what will motivate them. Not all communities reply the same way to the same stimulus. For example, European gamers are more likely to pre-register for a game if a discount is involved, while APAC players may do so just to obtain exclusive in-game items. Giving your audience the right incentive is vital to engage the communities.
Once you have the target audience figured out, you can start working on finding influencers that will be able to effectively access it. Using services like CreatorDB will make it easy to individuate the right influencers for your campaign by browsing a large influencer database and being able to perform searches using advanced filtering options and parameters.
How to use influencers for boosting pre-registrations
As for the target audience is essential to have well-established the goals of your marketing campaign. In the case of a campaign aimed toward game pre-registration, it would mostly be done by setting a quota of users to pre-register. When picking influencers, there is a considerable debate about whether it is better to go with prominent names that hold accounts with millions of followers, small influencers with a few thousand followers, or something in the middle.
There are good reasons on both sides: more prominent creators bring your message in front of many more people at once but obtain a lower engagement rate on average, and small creators have fewer but much more dedicated followers.
Another significant difference is how smaller creators often cater toward more specialized niches while larger ones tend to attract much broader, less focused demographics. It is essential to consider that, especially if your marketing strategy wants to break through specific groups.
Learn everything you need to know about micro-influencers here.
But much of the decision should come down to which influencers are going to be able to better target your desired audience and achieve your goals.
Once chosen the influencers, think about your messaging strategy. Unlike other forms of advertising, influencer marketing is often discouraged from having a script set in stone that each creator should follow.
Many campaigns still want to keep a unified approach to their messaging and that is going to be important to ensure that everyone can easily recognize every piece of content as a part of the same campaign.
The messaging strategy should be able to create a connection between the influencers’ styles with the game branding and content.
By leaving the influencers enough creative freedom, they are able to craft messages that resonate with their fanbase better than any other message could.
How to launch a pre-registration campaign
Google Play allows games to be searchable in the app store and in pre-registration for up to 90 days, even if many large studios seem to be given extensions.
In general, a pre-registration campaign should be started 1 to 2 months before the launch of the game to be able to maintain the hype and excitement around the project.
Since the pre-registration campaign is a prolonged effort, it is important to be able to have a sustained push when it comes to marketing. Activating many relevant small content creators throughout the duration of the campaign is a perfect way to keep the target audience engaged with the game and aware of the launch.
Generate buzz through influencers to improve pre-registration
Pre-registration campaigns are proven to lead to higher daily installs and improved day-one to day-seven retention.
By promoting pre-registration through relevant influencers is possible to mobilize and engage with online communities. Doing so the marketing message would be amplified and have a great chance to gain traction.
In order to better attract interest and registrations is helpful to offer exclusive content or discounts for the ones that participate in the pre-registration. This approach can be taken a step further by including content tailored around the influencers’ likings or signature traits.
Including and encouraging user-generated content in your campaign is another good approach to extend the buzz around the campaign and boost audience involvement and community-building efforts.
Sharing early access or game demos with the influencers is another crucial way to generate hype around your game and drive in pre-registering users.
Showing off parts of your game can give your audience a sense of what will be and create excitement and anticipation.
Conclusion
In conclusion, a pre-registration marketing campaign can be an excellent tool for mobile game launch since it enhances the game’s visibility and works towards establishing a community around the game even before it has been found. They can be boosted by collaborating with influencers, which is especially important since they can work towards mobilizing online communities and groups to participate in your game or marketing campaign actively.
That’s why we at CreatorDB offer a series of services that can accommodate your needs: our proprietary software will help you identify the right influencers in no time. But if you are looking for a more hands-off approach, our agency team can deliver end-to-end influencer marketing campaigns across the globe. They flaunt expertise in 10 of the most spoken languages and are used to individuate contact and manage content creators for our clients. Contact us to learn more about what influencer marketing can do for you.
Davide
August 31, 2023
Industry Trends
Advanced Influencer Strategies, gaming, Mid-Level
6 Terrific Halloween Ideas for a Nightmare 2023 Influencer Campaign
Halloween: the holiday that millions celebrate across the world. There’s no doubt that everybody loves Halloween – make the most of this annual tradition by collaborating with influencers on Halloween-themed content! If you want to pumpkin-spice up your influencer marketing for Halloween this year, this is for you.
Why use influencer marketing during Halloween
Halloween is a prime moment to execute an influencer marketing campaign. As during other holidays, people are more likely to spend time on social media and engage with brands and they are prone to shop.
Moreover, Halloween is a very visual holiday: costumes and dressing up are a main part of it, and many will prepare decorations for the house and so on.
To find inspiration and tutorials many look to influencer content on social media making it a prime time for brands to organize partnerships and campaigns.
By partnering with influencers for a campaign around Halloween a brand will have access to a highly interested audience.
With the spooky season coming there are going to be many dedicated content categories that will emerge and that can be integrated with a marketing campaign.
In this article, we will introduce six content ideas for brands to use when partnering with influencers. Is always possible to mix and combine to create some unique approaches.
It’s all about the scare, cook or bake a scary treat!
Sweet treats are a hit all year round, so why not add a spooky edge to them this Halloween? Keep up with the trends by working with influencers who can show your audiences how to cook or bake a scary treat. Choose influencers who are up to the challenge!
Google-sponsored influencer Rosanna Pansino delivered exactly that with her last-minute recipe video – check it out!

Pumpkin season or ghost season? Show yourself carving a pumpkin!
There’s no surer sign that Halloween is coming than seeing jack-o’-lanterns everywhere! Carving pumpkins is synonymous with the spooky season, so select an influencer who can show their carving talent this.
Influencer DaveHax showed us how easy it is to put everyone in the right mood by carving jack-o’-lanterns.

Dress-up your fur babies this Halloween
Everybody loves fur babies! If your company offers products or services for pets, then this is the perfect time to partner with an influencer who can showcase the spookier side of their pets this season!
Take a look at YouTube influencer Stephanie Moratto, who is known to have a lot of fur babies and pets. Since she loves her pets, she grabbed this opportunity to dress up all of her dogs!

Spooky Halloween makeup
If your company is all about makeup, then partnering with a makeup guru is one of your best shots this Halloween! Choose an influencer who can show off your products as part of a makeup idea video.
Youtube star Stephanie Toms is an excellent makeup guru who came up with an excellent,scary looks!

DIY your terrifying Halloween decorations
You can foster creativity and imagination by partnering with content creators who focus on how to make your own decorations for a haunting party!

Mix Fun and Terror
Collaborate with content creators in the costuming scene to find and show how Halloween can be also a moment for laughs.
@rosannapansino
My best Halloween Costume yet! What are you going to BEE this year? 🐝 #fyp #halloween #halloweencostume #funny #tiktokhalloween
♬ original sound – Rosanna Pansino

Davide
August 29, 2023
Industry Trends
Advanced Influencer Strategies, Mid-Level
Granfluencers are the Trend That is Fascinating Social Media
Social media may appear a young people’s business but these perceptions haven’t stopped a new wave of influencers from carving their niche in the space. Granfluencers is their name and while they cover very different topics they are all 65-and-more years old.
In a sea of young, pretty, impeccable bodies for many is refreshing to encounter a wrinkly face that shows the sign of time passed while dispensing the knowledge they accumulated in almost an entire lifetime.
For marketers, granfluencers are a precious source of trust and candor, none would doubt their grandma, right?
Not only that but they also bring the value of their experience and wisdom to the table, things that are almost impossible to have been acquired by younger generations, yet.
Many granfluencers started during the pandemic. They were looking for a way to keep themselves entertained while connecting with others. They rapidly discovered that were not only their peer to find their content interesting but also many younglings could feel captivated and inspired by them.
Since they appeared for the first time, granfluencers have evolved into a real phenomenon. Many of them started collaborating together and created geriatric versions of the content houses, the most popular being appropriately called Retirement House, which collected over 5 million subscribers on TikTok.
What are Granfluencers?
They are old, they are cool, and they are here to rule. Granfluencers are showing that social media are not exclusive to the younger generation but can be a powerful tool for anyone.
The name, portmanteau of grand plus influencer, wants to show how their most visible differentiating characteristic is their 65 and above age.
Typically we expect older people to be weak and frail, to spend most of their time napping, and be overall boring, granfluencers are subverting these expectations by showing how there is fun and joy even after retirement.
Granfluencers have been able to bring themes related to older age to a younger audience and disprove some of the myths about getting old. Research has found that their three most common themes are breaking stereotypes about aging, explaining the vulnerabilities of old age, and, finally, exposing ageism. Overall the content created by granfluencer is positive or when negative is mostly self-deprecating.
Thanks to their content and efforts granfluencers have been able to bring the problems and challenges of aging and later life stages to the young audience that populates TikTok. They are helping to create a better understanding of older people’s limits.
While not the definitive solution, granfluencers are showing themselves as an important step in breaking common age-related stereotypes. Their example is showing that even in older age people can be living an active life.
What are the unique characteristics of Granfluencers?
Like normal influencers, granfluencers post about their hobbies and passions: Baddie Winkle, with 3.2 Million followers on Instagram, shares about fashion. TravelingBlackWidow shows how you can still enjoy adventures in foreign lands even in your retirement years. Meanwhile, Bo is going to teach you all the dad wisdom he accumulated.
- Granfluencers show that aging is not the end of their world. There are still many ways to enjoy your life even in later years.
- Their message is powerful and unique. Able to transcend age groups and resonate with younger audiences
- They are grounded and real. Showing that it is enough to be oneself to be happy and fulfilled.
- They remind us of our limits. Both as things that we need to accept but also not as insurmountable obstacles to living life to the fullest.
Why Granfluencers are important for brands?
As discussed above granfluencers are a largely positive phenomenon that is helping break stereotypes and misconceptions around older people.
For brands partnering with older influencers is a unique opportunity to show their inclusivity and norm-breaking stance.
On a more practical side, a granfluencer partnership can deliver a strong surprise, especially if the sponsoring brand is not particularly targeted at older folks.
Overall any brand can find the right angle to partner with a granfluencer. Baddie Winkle, whose real name is Helen Vanwinkle, has taken numerous partnerships with large fashion and makeup brands like Sephora, Fashion Nova, and Skechers. But even more unexpectedly she signed collaborations with Bumble, Svedka Vodka, and LG. In all these partnerships the main focus of the campaign was to show that age is not a limiting factor and that elders can still doll up, party, and enjoy themselves. Helen’s character with her over-the-top attitude and colorful attires is very well suited for this kind of partnerships.
Makeup brands are some of the strongest endorsers of granfluencers, and for a good reason: by reaching out to older audiences they are going to tap into a large customer base that is often neglected when it comes to fashion and beauty products. Concurrently by partnering with elder influencers, they are able to break the traditional makeup ad formula that would see a young and attractive girl being the main character. Not only this unique approach is going to deliver more striking and memorable ads but is also working towards showing the brand image as inclusive and attentive to the needs and desires of different groups of people.
Charlotte, the Traveling Black Widow is instead more focused on her partnerships: they are mostly locations where she is traveling that sponsor her Instagram. Thanks to these she is able to bring to her audience how is possible to enjoy traveling in many different places even during retirement and that older people shouldn’t be confined at home.
Another interesting case is the one of Aura Frames: their core target audience is much closer to the granfluencer demographic than the previous examples. Still, many older and family-oriented people may not come across them or expect them to be complicated or of no use to them. By collaborating with many granfluencer Aura Frames was able to establish itself as one of the big players when it come to Eframes.
Conclusions
In the truly open and inclusive nature of the internet, granfluencers are here to represent the elders and break the myths around aging. Just by their mere existence, they can help us all remember that aging isn’t the end of the world and there are still plenty of opportunities to enjoy life at its fullest after retirement.
For brands, granfluencers are a new powerful vector to drive attention. They not only appeal to the young crowd but they can also help to connect with older generations and present products and services that they wouldn’t have felt comfortable with by themselves.
Yi
August 10, 2023
Industry Trends
Advanced Influencer Strategies, Granfluencers, Mid-Level
AI Influencers: What They Are And How To Use Them
Introduction
AI influencers are here, but they are not going to take over and completely replace human influencers. Still, if you are a marketer, is important that you keep up with this trend and know how working with virtual influencers can boost your marketing results.
AI influencers, sometimes referred to as virtual influencers are a particular type of influencers that emerged in recent years.
Their appearances are virtually generated and their posts are curated by a team of experts.
With AI tools becoming an integral part of our lives and making it easier and easier to generate entirely synthetic content, AI influencers are becoming increasingly common.
In this article, we will discuss the history of AI influencers, their impact on influencer marketing, and their future trajectory.
What Are AI Influencers?
AI influencers are an improper term in the sense that as of now none of them is AI-powered: their images are generated using AI technology or good old CGI but their interactions are managed by a human team.
Nonetheless, many of these influencers use AI as part of their narrative: LilMiquela and many others include AI in their name or bio to create a narrative of high tech and sophistication around their character.
Currently, the closest to a true AI influencer is Kuki which is integrated with an advanced chatbot and offers the possibility to talk with Kuki herself.
What’s the history of AI influencers
The concept of AI influencers can be traced back to the early 2010s, with the creation of virtual characters for gaming and entertainment purposes. As AI and computer graphics advanced, these characters became more sophisticated, leading to the birth of virtual influencers.
The above-mentioned Lil Miquela is considered the first hyperrealistic AI influencer and at the time of her release in 2016, there was a major debate about if was a real person or not.
Many brands have developed their own AI influencers starting from their mascots. The most successful is CB de Casa Bahia, the face of a major retail brand in Brazil with over 10 million followers.
While initially AI was just in the name while the images were CGI creations in the past year, with the explosion in popularity of stable diffusion and generative AI, have emerged profiles like Milla Sofia whose images are generated by an AI model.
With the advancement of generative AI, virtual influencers will become more and more integrated with the real world and offer a more engaging experience to fans.
Why Some Brands Choose AI influencers over human content creators
According to Influencer Marketing Hub data, 59.8% of marketing professionals have worked with AI influencers, and another 15.5% are planning to do so in the future. Over 60% of the ones that had collaborations with virtual influencers consider themselves satisfied.
These data are encouraging for the future development of AI influencers and show how brands are interested in experimenting with new and innovative ways to reach their customers.
virtual influencers offer a unique appeal to brands as they allow brands to maintain complete control over the messaging and branding. Also since they don’t have an existence outside of social media they are very unlikely to be caught in scandals or controversies.
Since AI influencers don’t exist as people outside of their social media feed but they are managed by a team of professionals it is easier to have them allying with the specifics of a marketing campaign.
How to use AI influencers in your marketing campaign
The data about the effectiveness of AI influencers are still non definitive but what can be seen is that similarly to human influencers the fit with the product is the most important factor for a successful campaign.
Audiences enjoy the innovation of AI influencers but they often still find human influencers more relatable and are more likely to be purchasing an ad involving a human influencer.
Still, virtual influencers are a great way for brands that want to show an innovative image and place themselves at the forefront of a trend that is not going to stop.
Hugo Boss Rebranding (2022)
In the spring of 2022, the 98-year-old brand Hugo Boss underwent a huge rebranding effort in order to increase its appeal to the younger generations. The campaign included many traditional influencers like Kendall Jenner and Hailey Bieber.
Along with them, they partnered with Nobody Sausage and Imma two of the largest AI influencers around. Integrating virtual influencers in the rebrand was a powerful signal that the future of Hugo Boss is going to be focusing on tech and innovation.
Showing themselves embracing new and emerging trends even older and more traditional brands can showcase a vibrant spirit that is going to appeal to the young crowd.
Miquela for Samsung
Miquela Sousa has collaborated with prestigious brands such as Calvin Klein, UGG, Prada, and many others. Among her exceptional work, one particular paid sponsorship stands out her collaboration with Samsung’s #TeamGalaxy.
The fusion of Miquela’s self-proclaimed robotic identity with advanced technology, like the latest Samsung phone, is a match made in digital heaven. Miquela Sousa’s presence as a virtual influencer has redefined the concept of brand ambassadorship.
With her captivating persona and futuristic identity, she brings a unique allure to the brands she collaborates with. By leveraging Miquela’s influence, Samsung has effectively connected with a tech-savvy audience and embraced the essence of modernity, ultimately enhancing their brand image.

Noonoouri for Dior
In 2018 Noonoouri substituted Natalie Portman in the Dior “Rogue” campaign. With her cartoonish appearance and exaggerated eyes, Noonoouri was a huge break for her predecessor.
The commercial copied the original, with Noonoouri dancing while applying makeup. While it would be a standard ad for the cosmetics industry the use of an AI influencer is creating a sense of novelty and unexpected that allows the ad to be much more striking.
The Future of AI Influencers
AI tools like Midjourney, and ChatGPT are becoming integrated with many other services to provide a more personalized and effective experience for the users. With these tools becoming more precise and reliable we can expect to see them integrated with virtual influencers soon.
If the first generation of AI influencers had AI only in the name, the second generation is going to be fully backed by AI technology. Soon we will be emerging influencers whose story arc is completely decided by an AI model.
The integration of “true AI” tools in AI influencers is going to allow these influencers to better connect with their audience. As in the case of Kuki, AI models can be tailored to chat with users while keeping in character.
Once this kind of implementation will be proven reliable we can expect many brands to start developing their own AI influencers and relying on them as brand ambassadors while also including them in much of the online material of the brand.
Conclusion
In conclusion, AI influencers have opened up a new frontier in the world of social media marketing. While they present exciting opportunities for brands to engage with their audience in novel ways, they are still in the early stages of development. As AI technology progresses, AI influencers will become more and more common while also providing better value to brands.
Davide
August 3, 2023
Industry Trends
Advanced Influencer Strategies, Influencer Marketing Strategy, Mid-Level
How to Boost the Customer Journey with Influencer Marketing
The customer journey visualizes how customers go from discovering the brand to becoming loyal advocates. Thanks to it is possible for marketers to spot the right time and place to engage with potential customers.
Developed in the late ‘90s to better understand how customers interact with brands to make their purchase decisions, the customer journey is a formidable tool to understand how a brand can better nurture its customers.
In recent years, the rise of influence marketing as an effective marketing strategy has created infinite new opportunities to engage customers at different stages of their journey in a manner that many find less invasive than traditional marketing.
What is influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing is a form of marketing that involves collaborating with individuals who have a significant online following to promote a brand, product, or service.
Influencer marketing leverages the influence and popularity of social media personalities and content creators to reach and engage with highly segmented potential customers through their decision-making process.
By partnering with influencers who align with their target audience, businesses can tap into their credibility and authority, effectively accessing the trust and loyalty established between the influencer and their followers.
Influencer marketing often involves sponsored content, product placements, or affiliate marketing. Successful influencer marketing campaigns can yield significant results by harnessing the power of authentic and relatable endorsements to connect with potential customers on a more personal level.
What is the customer journey?
The customer journey is a 5-step process that exemplifies how an individual goes from becoming aware of a product or service to being a loyal customer of it. It involves understanding the customer’s needs, preferences, and pain points at each stage, to provide a seamless and satisfying experience that fosters loyalty and advocacy.
By mapping and analyzing the customer journey, businesses can identify areas for improvement, optimize their processes, and tailor their marketing efforts to better cater to their customer’s needs and expectations.
Each potential customer will go from not knowing about a brand or product to knowing about it, this is the awareness phase, and at this point, there is no intention of buying the product but just a passive learning moment.
The awareness phase is followed by the interest phase, which is characterized by the potential customer researching more about the product, and similar products, to understand which one fits its needs the best.
After collecting enough information, the customer would pass to the decision phase, here is when the actual sale is made.
The next phases are very important to create a lasting connection with the customer and turn a one-off sale into a returning customer. The loyalty phase is the first after-purchase moment and is focused on maintaining the engagement with the customer to empower their decision and strengthen the relationship.
After successfully establishing loyalty brands should focus on developing the advocacy phase at this point the customer is not just happy with his choice and will come back once again in need of the same product or service but will also present the product/service to people in its circle.
Why do Brands need Customer Journey?
The customer journey is a powerful tool by which brands can get closer to their customers and understand the process they go through before and after the purchase of a product or service.
By mapping the customer journey, marketers can understand when potential customers are going to be more susceptible to being approached and what kind of information they are looking for at different points.
Overall the customer journey allows marketers to focus their efforts and resources on those moments and messages that matter.
How can influencer marketing help all the stages of the customer journey?
When leveraged correctly, influencer marketing can effectively target each step of the customer journey and improve the results of any brand’s marketing efforts.
Influencers have established a trusted relationship with their audience and their opinions and suggestions are often taken into consideration when making decisions about purchases.
Way too often influencers are only considered for the awareness phase and get neglected that one of the things they excel in is community building.
Potential customers are increasingly looking at social media and influencers for suggestions and opinions about products and services. So not only they can boost brand awareness but influencers are going to be a repeated and trusted touchpoint between potential customers and brands.
While traditional advertising largely relies on being placed where the customer is going to see it, advertising through influencer marketing is going to be shown where the customer is actively going to look for information.
Because of its unique properties influencer marketing is an excellent way to establish a brand image and a relationship with customers.
But let’s go with order and see how each of the phases of the customer journey can be targeted by different approaches to influencer marketing.
Awareness
The awareness phase is where influencers are usually employed and this is because they allow for access to a unique and highly segmented audience.
In this phase, the goal is to reach as many potential customers as possible while introducing them to your brand. Conversions or purchases are not going to be a priority for now.
To kick-start awareness:
- Collaborate with relevant influencers. This way the brand will gain access to its audiences and show itself as a player in the industry.
- Cast a wide net with micro-influencers. Micro-influencers are great when it comes to maximizing reach, and therefore awareness, while targeting a selected audience.
- Product seeding campaign. Send your product to many influencers and earn unadulterated exposure to their audience.
Interest
In this phase of the customer journey customers are looking for more information, they have questions and they are looking to find answers.
The influencer’s role here is to help them navigate various options and point them to the best fitting for them.
In this phase is important that the potential customers start building trust in the brand, recognize it as a valuable player in the industry, and be proud of its product.
Campaign ideas to nurture this phase are:
- Reviews. Have a content creator go through the product and explain what it can do, which features are available, and how they can help in situations that relate to their audience. Using influencers in this role is especially helpful to cover many niche use cases that may not be as obvious outside of particular communities.
- Personal experiences. They allow the influencers to relate their experiences with your product and create a more genuine connection with the audience.
- Q&As. Organizing live events hosted by influencers in which they can take questions and solve any doubt about the product.
Decision
The potential customers are about to lose their potential status and become real customers. Now is where your unique selling proposition comes into play.
Even when trust and recognition are established is still important to be able to give that extra incentive to be different from the competition.
This is when is important to use:
- Access to exclusive deals. Creating special offers for specific content creators is a great way to push their audience to make the purchase.
- Direct-to-shop feature. Allowing users to reach the product from the post or story that mentions it without having to search for it.
- Giveaways and ruffles. Encourage conversions by creating the possibility of obtaining a prize or a special experience tailored around the influencer’s niche.
Loyalty
After the purchase is important to give the customers a reason to stay in the community, strengthening the trust bond created previously.
For this phase is crucial to show that the brand is seriously committed to its values and truly cares about the community around it.
The loyalty phase can be nurtured by:
- More suggestions about the product. Giving new insights about what the product can do and how it can be useful beyond the first impression.
- Designating brand ambassadors. Transform some of the long-term influencers into brand ambassadors giving them a more prominent role and connection with the brand.
Advocacy
In the advocacy phase, the goal is to shift the customers from passive supporters to active and vocal advocates for the brand.
This phase needs to foster engagement with the brand and content creation, to push for creativity and participation.
Advocacy can be promoted by:
- Creating campaigns focused on user-generated content. Activate the community by organizing special campaigns through your brand ambassadors to generate organic content around your brand.
- Incentivize user reviews. Create discounts or special rewards for those users that leave a review.
Davide
July 31, 2023
Guides
Advanced Influencer Strategies, Mid-Level
Why Cross-posting? The Ultimate Guide to Cross-post
You are partnering with an influencer and they have a presence on multiple social media, should you want them to cross-post the same content on all their accounts or should you want content specifically crafted for each platform? Both options have their strengths and weaknesses and this article will go through what they are and why you should keep both options in mind. By the end of it, you will know when to choose cross-posting and when not to.
By now, every marketer should be very familiar with influencer marketing and its advantages, after all, social media are becoming more popular than search engines when it comes to product discovery, and almost 3 in 4 people trust influencers when it comes to product recommendations.
But if you lived under a rock for the last 10 years here is why influencer marketing matters to you: influencers, or content creators, gathered a following online by publishing content around their passions and areas of expertise. By doing so, they have been able to establish a trusted connection with their followers that see them as reliable sources in their field. For marketers, this means that partnering up with the right influencers is going to give access to extremely segmented target audiences.
Influencers often focus their efforts, or they are successful, on one social media but have a presence on other platforms. This situation makes it possible for marketers to require them to post on multiple social media to obtain more exposure and capture a larger audience.
To take advantage of this opportunity one may be tempted to ask the influencer to just prepare one piece of media and publish it across all of their networks. While there is nothing inherently wrong with it this strategy can easily feel tone-deaf to the part of the audience that is not from the main platform.
To understand why this is the case, it’s important to know that each social media has a different tone and caters to different interests of the users: people visit Instagram for highly visual content, while if you spend much time on Twitter you are likely to be interested in short text content. From there is easy to see why the same content is unlikely to perform well when cross-posted to other platforms.
On the other hand, cross-posting present the advantage to be quick and doesn’t require additional work after the original piece of content has been prepared to allow it to cover multiple channels and keep the costs and time low. In certain situations, a campaign may be targeted to a specific channel but you may still want it to be spread to other channels to maximize reach while not developing new creatives for each social media.
As you can see choosing between cross-posting and creating content for each social media from scratch is not a choice devoid of nuance and should be something to be considered when designing any influencer marketing campaign. Important factors to consider that we will see in detail through the article are the objectives of the campaign and the platforms’ characteristics.
Why ask an influencer about cross-posting content?
Cross-posting is the practice of creating a single piece of content and using it across multiple social media. Can be done both by influencers and by brands on their owned channels but here we are specifically discussing the case of influencers cross-posting branded content across their accounts on behalf of a sponsoring brand.
Reach and exposure
Crossposting presents many advantages. Most notably it increases the reach and exposure of a campaign: since the average social media user is active on 6 different platforms covering as many of them as possible is going to help reach them multiple times and provide a longer-lasting and stronger impression of your brand. Concurrently each social media audience is slightly different and having branded content circulating to most social media platforms is going to ensure that it gets exposure to diverse audiences.
Time and cost efficiency
Another benefit is the efficiency both regarding production time and costs for the creator and the marketers. Using a single, or a few, creative make for a much shorter cycle when it comes to designing, creating, editing, and reviewing. By cross-posting the same content you can obtain very fast campaigns that embrace multiple channels but don’t require as much effort as carrying out different campaigns for each social media platform.
Speed of execution
Last but not least, cross-posting is perfect in those cases in which a brand may be afraid to present itself with a fragmented image and messaging. Dealing with different social media, each with its unique aspects and tones can be a challenge for many marketing teams: while trying to appease the quirk of each platform to better gain visibility one could easily lose sight of the brand image. Therefore, not differentiating a campaign to especially fit a platform but using material based on the brand’s core values across all social media can be an easy and effective way to deal with maintaining a solid and coherent brand identity.
Overall cross-posting offers an interesting option for any marketer that is looking to rapidly deploy a campaign that encompasses different domains and platforms. While it sacrifices tailored approaches to each different channel it has the advantage of being fast, cheaper, and delivering a unified look and feel of the brand.
Why create unique content for each social media platform?
On the other hand, creating unique content for each social media is going to play into the uniqueness of the format and tone that each platform has. Many marketers are swearing at it. In a recent Hootsuite study, was found that the 18% of the marketers that prepare different content for each social media is also the segment with the highest confidence in the value of their content.
Each platform has specific limits and rules around what kind of content can be shared: famously Twitter limits the number of characters to 280 for each post. Concurrently each social media algorithm is going to react differently to different types of content translating into more or less exposure of it to the audience depending on the platform preferences.
It should be clear by now that creating unique content for each platform is going to allow it to be fitted for the specific audience and taste of the platform itself.
But how does creating unique content for each platform translate to benefiting your campaign? There are three main ways it can be a real game changer for your marketing efforts:
Fit the platform
By creating content tailored towards each platform-specific feature and with in mind the audience’s characteristics and tastes users are more likely to engage with your content. Being able to create content that is not just relevant to your brand and your marketing goals but that is also fitting in the culture and liking of the specific audience it approaches would make it more relevant to that audience and entice engagement in the form of views, likes, and comments.
Authenticity
Content especially crafted for specific platforms increases the feeling of authenticity and resonance with the audience. As we saw before the average social media user is on multiple platforms. If you promote on different platforms is likely that the same user will come across more than one of your messages.
Having each of the messages purposefully crafted for the platform it is shared on is going to give them a more humane look at the brand itself which would be presented slightly differently each time. Furthermore, small variations in the messaging or the approach of each message have the chance to strike a different cord and allow one to engage with the same audience in different ways maximizing your potential success.
Platforms’ strengths
Each platform’s unique strengths can be used to achieve optimal results for your campaign if played correctly. And having content specifically created with a platform in mind is going to optimize your results by offering your audience an almost 360-degree view of your product.
For example, you may want short and direct videos about the most eye-catching parts of your product on TikTok, where short video content is king, but a long and in-depth review of all your product features and the influencer’s personal opinions for a video posted on YouTube, where long format video content is going to perform best. Similarly, Instagram is the country of high-quality pictures, and short video content, while Facebook allows and boosts long descriptive captions.
In conclusion, creating content specifically crafted for each platform is going to be a winning choice in terms of engagement, perceived authenticity, and effective messaging. All these benefits come with a non-zero cost: longer times of production obviously and majorated costs due to the creation of new content for each platform.
Cross-posting or not cross-posting
While both cross-posting and not cross-posting have their advantages and disadvantages jumping to any conclusion is important to know and understand what are the factors that will weigh heavily on the outcome of your campaign and the success of the cross-posted, or not cross-posted content.
First of all, is important to keep in mind audience demographics, after all, they are who is going to consume the content. Understanding how they use different social media platforms, which they use and which they don’t is going to be an important first step.
For example, you may decide to cross-post content to a platform that has a low concentration of your target audience while creating new content for those platforms where they most often hang out. Concurrently is important for you to know what are their preferences in content: a platform may be mostly about video or text but certain communities may use them for other features not as popular.
Taking your time and learning about the communities your marketing campaigns are targeting is never a waste of time.
Platforms limitations
Learn about the limitations of each platform and consider how they are going to be fitted with the content you want to share on them, especially if is content created for another platform. There is always a workaround for those limitations: a long text could be split into many different tweets to fit the character limit and similar approaches can be taken for videos as well. But is important to consider how that will fit in the larger picture of the campaign and the brand image.
Brand identity
The campaign goals and how the guidelines around messaging and brand identity should be another point to be taken into consideration when deciding if you want to cross-post or is better to generate original content for each social media. As we discussed before the fewer creatives are used easier it is to maintain a unified and coherent brand image at the expense of fitting in with the etiquette of each platform.
Influencers’ approach
Finally is important to take into consideration the differences that each influencer has in how they approach and use the different platforms: they may be not active on some platforms, making it superfluous for any brand to require them to post through those channels. In other cases, it may be that certain channels are completely dedicated to specific parts of their image and therefore more or less desirable for a brand to be promoted there.
Cross-posting best practices
Hybrid approaches to cross-posting
While is important to decide what to do about cross-posting or creating unique content for each platform is to be kept in mind that they are not mutually exclusive by design. While it may seem counterintuitive a hybrid approach can be the best solution in many cases.
For example, a TikTok video can be posted as an Instagram Reel with no difficulty and the creation of unique content can be reserved for other platforms where short video content is not going to perform as well.
A content waterfall can be another way to approach it. While production is focused on a major piece of content specifically tailored for one platform, the other platforms receive content related to the main one but adapted to their kinks.
For example, the main piece being a long-form review video for YouTube, highlights of the video can be edited together into a short video to go on TikTok and Instagram while photos and written versions of the review can be used to be posted on Facebook and Tumblr.
With this approach is possible to keep the production time and costs low while still providing a unique experience to the user of each platform.
Experimenting with cross-posting
Base your approach on the best information available to you. While both strategies have pros and cons your decision should be based on how they work for your brand in the specific. Therefore, is important to conduct tests on both approaches and evaluate how they affect different metrics.
This way will be truly possible to understand which approach is the most effective for the needs of the brand. Once there are data and a clear understanding of how different approaches can help the brand then is time to act.
Conclusion
The decision between cross-posting content or creating unique content for each social media platform is not a simple one. Both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses, and it’s crucial to consider various factors before making a final decision.
Cross-posting offers the advantage of increasing campaign reach and exposure. By leveraging multiple social media platforms, you can engage diverse audiences and leave a lasting impression on your brand. It also provides efficiency in terms of production time and costs, allowing for rapid campaign deployment. Moreover, cross-posting ensures a unified brand image across different platforms, maintaining a solid and coherent identity.
On the other hand, creating unique content for each platform plays into the specific format and tone of individual platforms, tailoring it to the audience’s characteristics and preferences. This approach increases engagement, authenticity, and resonance with the audience. It allows you to strike different chords with the same audience, maximizing your potential for success. Furthermore, leveraging each platform’s unique strengths optimizes your campaign results by providing a holistic view of your product to the audience.
Ultimately, the decision should be based on various factors, including audience demographics, platform limitations, campaign goals, and influencer preferences. It’s important to understand how your target audience uses different platforms and their content preferences. Additionally, considering the guidelines around messaging and brand identity is crucial in maintaining a unified brand image.
While cross-posting and creating unique content may seem mutually exclusive, a hybrid approach can often be the most effective solution. Combining elements of both strategies allows for flexibility and optimization. For example, adapting content from one platform to another or creating a content waterfall approach can be viable options.
To make an informed decision, it’s advisable to conduct tests and evaluate metrics to understand which approach works best for your brand. Each brand’s unique needs and objectives should guide the decision-making process. By leveraging the best information available and analyzing the impact on different metrics, you can determine the most effective approach for your influencer marketing campaigns.
In the dynamic landscape of influencer marketing, staying adaptable and open to experimentation will lead to refined strategies that resonate with your audience and drive meaningful results.
Davide
June 15, 2023
Guides
Advanced Influencer Strategies, Cross-posting, Mid-Level
How can the Healthcare Industry Apply Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing is carving a significant niche in the dynamic intersection of healthcare and digital marketing. As communication methods, patient engagement, and information distribution evolve in the healthcare industry, the application of this powerful marketing strategy becomes more relevant.
How, though, can the healthcare sector effectively utilize influencer marketing? How can trusted individuals with a substantial online following bolster brand awareness and enhance patient interaction?
This article seeks to demystify the role and impact of influencer marketing within the healthcare industry. Our goal is to illustrate how forging strategic alliances with influencers can drive traffic, engender trust, and present your healthcare brand in a relatable light.
Read more:
Finding influencers for your brand, do’s and don’ts
Whether you’re a healthcare professional or provider looking to revolutionize your marketing approach and forge deeper bonds with your audience, this examination of the transformative potential of influencer marketing in the healthcare industry promises to provide invaluable insights. Continue reading to unlock the full potential of this powerful marketing tool.
What makes healthcare influencers different from others?
Healthcare influencers certainly stand out from influencers in other niches due to several distinguishing features:
- Specialized knowledge and expertise: Healthcare influencers have unique and specialized knowledge that spans across various categories:
  - Healthcare professionals: This includes doctors, nurses, and pharmacists who provide expert medical advice based on their clinical experience and training.
  - Wellness advocates: Nutritionists and fitness trainers fall into this category, often sharing advice on diet, exercise, and overall wellness.
  - Holistic health coaches: Wellness coaches promote a holistic approach to health and wellbeing, considering all factors that contribute to overall health.
  - Patient advocates: Patients sharing their personal experiences, insights, and reviews on various health issues or treatments offer another perspective, often resonating on a personal level with their followers.
- Strong ethical responsibility: With the knowledge of the profound impact their content can have on their followers’ health and wellbeing, healthcare influencers carry a heavy sense of responsibility. They diligently adhere to the guidelines and regulations of their respective fields, disclose any potential conflicts of interest or sponsorships, and respect the privacy and confidentiality of their patients or clients.
- Engaged and loyal community: Healthcare influencers cultivate a loyal community, built on trust and consistent interaction. They value and respond to their followers’ questions, comments, and feedback and often collaborate with other healthcare influencers or organizations to widen their audience reach and add more value for their followers.
Why is influencer marketing essential for health and wellness brands?
Influencer marketing is essential for health and wellness brands because:
- Consumers are increasingly looking for authentic and personalized content that resonates with their values and needs. Influencers can provide relevant and relatable content that showcases the benefits and features of health and wellness products or services in a natural and engaging way.
- Consumers are more likely to trust recommendations from influencers than from traditional advertising. According to a survey by Nielsen, 92% of consumers trust word-of-mouth recommendations from people they know, while only 33% trust online ads. Influencers can act as trusted advisors and advocates for health and wellness brands, influencing their followers’ purchase decisions and behaviors.
- Consumers are more likely to take action after seeing influencer content. According to a study by Twitter, 49% of consumers rely on influencers for product recommendations, and 40% have purchased something after seeing it on Twitter, YouTube, or Instagram. Influencers can drive traffic, leads, and sales for health and wellness brands by creating compelling calls-to-action and linking to their websites or landing pages.
To know more:
How CreatorDB’s influencer marketing platform can help your business scout the right healthcare influencer
How can you find the right healthcare influencer?
Finding the right healthcare influencer for your brand can be challenging but rewarding. Here are some steps you can take to find the right healthcare influencer:
Define your goals and objectives
What are you trying to achieve with influencer marketing? Who is your target audience? What are your key messages? How will you measure your success?
Identify your criteria and budget
What are the characteristics and qualifications of your ideal healthcare influencer? What are the platforms and formats you want to use? How much are you willing to pay for influencer services?
Research and analyze potential influencers
Use tools like Google, social media platforms, blogs, podcasts, or influencer databases to find relevant healthcare influencers in your niche. Look at their profile, content, audience size, engagement rate, tone of voice, style, values, etc. Check their reviews, testimonials, or case studies to see their previous work and results.
Reach out and negotiate
Contact your shortlisted healthcare influencers via email, direct message, or phone call. Introduce yourself and your brand, explain your goals and expectations, propose a collaboration idea, and discuss the terms and conditions. Be respectful, professional, transparent, and flexible.
Monitor and evaluate
Once you start working with your chosen healthcare influencer(s), monitor their performance and progress regularly. Track metrics like impressions, reach, clicks, conversions, etc. Provide feedback and support as needed. Evaluate the outcomes and ROI of your influencer marketing campaign.
CreatorDB’s multilingual client service team can help you find the right healthcare influencer for your business. Same budget, better result. Click on the banner and get to know better our expertise and approach!
On a final note
Influencer marketing is a powerful healthcare marketing strategy that can help you reach new audiences, build trust and credibility, and increase conversions.
In order to succeed in influencer marketing, you need to find the right healthcare influencer(s) who can create authentic and engaging content that aligns with your brand’s goals and values.
Yi
May 19, 2023
Industry Trends
Advanced Influencer Strategies, Healthcare, Mid-Level
How Scientific Education Helps Innovators
Our world is rapidly evolving, with new technologies emerging every day. These technologies impact how we live, work, and interact with the world. However, as with many other new things, they can often be misunderstood and looked upon skeptically.
One of the most common challenges in introducing new topics to the public is the complexity of the subject matter. While exciting and transformative fields for the one involved, emerging sectors can be overwhelming for those unfamiliar with the jargon and concepts.
Due to the high entrance bar, conducting effective scientific education with one’s target audience is vital.
By leveraging the reach and credibility of influencers, brands, and organizations can educate the public about new technologies in a way that is engaging, accessible, and informative.
Influencer marketing has become an increasingly popular marketing strategy in recent years and for good reason. It allows brands to reach a large and engaged audience through trusted individuals who have established credibility in their field.
Influencers in the field of science and education are experts in explaining concepts in a way that is relatable and easy to understand while highlighting the benefits these technologies can bring to society.
Influencer marketing effectively breaks down these topics into more digestible pieces.
Additionally, influencers can showcase how these technologies are used in different industries and applications, helping to demonstrate their real-world impact.
In this article, we will explore the potential of influencer marketing as a tool for educating the public on complex topics.
We will examine the benefits of influencer marketing for public education and analyze one of the most important companies at the forefront of innovation have used influencer marketing to educate and entice its audience.
Finally, we will discuss best practices for influencer marketing for scientific education and provide insights on creating effective campaigns that resonate with audiences.
What is influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing involves collaborating with influential individuals in a particular industry or niche to promote a product or service. Influencers can be anyone from social media personalities, bloggers, experts, or celebrities, who have established credibility and a dedicated following on social media platforms. The goal of influencer marketing is to leverage the reach and influence of these individuals to promote a brand or product to their audience.
The way influencer marketing works is simple. Brands identify influential individuals who have a following that matches their target audience. They then approach these influencers with an offer to collaborate, including anything from product reviews to sponsored posts or collaborations. One of the benefits of influencer marketing is its ability to reach a highly engaged audience. Influencers have built their following based on their interests and expertise, and their followers are often highly engaged with their content. As a result, influencer marketing campaigns can effectively reach a targeted audience and generate qualified engagement with a brand or product.
Another benefit of influencer marketing is its ability to establish credibility and trust with the audience. Influencers are often seen as experts and trusted by their followers. When an influencer promotes a product or service, followers are more likely to trust their recommendation and consider purchasing it themselves.
Why use influencer marketing for scientific education
Influencer marketing for public education can provide several benefits, including increased reach, credibility, engagement, and targeted messaging.
Influencers have built their audience by consistently creating engaging content that resonates with their followers.
Scientific education campaigns can leverage this established audience to sensitize a certain group on an emerging topic. While scientific publications may provide more in-depth resources, they are followed only by an already expert audience.
At the same time, influencers offer access to a more mixed audience of experts, enthusiasts, and people curious about the topic.
Influencers have established credibility with their audience and are well-versed in presenting topics to the audience in an easy and manageable way, making them effective messengers for public education campaigns.
Followers trust the recommendations and opinions of their favorite influencers, which can lend credibility to public education campaigns. In addition to credibility, influencers can also drive engagement with public education campaigns.
By using social media platforms to share information and generate discussions around complex topics, influencers can create a space for their followers to engage with the content and learn more about the issues.
This engagement can create interest and awareness and potentially spark further conversation and learning.
General Electric’s (GE) “Unimpossible Missions” campaign
General Electrics partnered with Adam Savage to present a series of experiments that challenge action commonly thought to be impossible and proves how with science they can be handled.
GE has been at the forefront of storytelling and scientific communication for over 130 years. They can be considered pioneers of influencer marketing with their GE Radio Theater. At the time, only famed actor Ronald Reagan presented plays, short stories, and interviewed guests alongside delivering updates on the latest GE research and products.
In 2015, GE updated the script with the “Unimpossible Missions” campaign to highlight its technology and innovation initiatives. The campaign featured a series of videos in which Adam Savage from Mythbusters attempted seemingly impossible tasks, such as extinguishing a fire using fire, making a snowball survive a bath in molten metal, or catching lightning in a bottle.
The “Unimpossible Missions” campaign generated significant buzz and engagement on social media. While the original uploads have been deleted, reuploads are available through Savage’s channel and sit well over 200K views each.
How to use influencer marketing in scientific education
Influencer marketing can be used by scientific institutions to build familiarity and trust in emerging fields and allow the general public to be acquainted with new technologies.
Influencer marketing can be a powerful tool for promoting scientific education and introducing new technologies to the public, but it also comes with challenges and considerations. One of the biggest challenges is finding the right influencers to work with.
Regarding scientific education, it’s essential to discover influencers who are knowledgeable and passionate about the subject matter and have a track record of producing high-quality educational content.
This can be challenging in fields that can be highly technical and complex.
Another challenge is ensuring accuracy and credibility. Scientific education requires a high degree of accuracy and precision, and it’s essential to work with influencers who can communicate complex concepts in a way that is both accurate and accessible.
To be sure that your selection of influencers is up to the task requires careful vetting of influencers and a commitment to fact-checking and verifying information before sharing them with the public.
Balancing education with promotion is another consideration when using influencer marketing for scientific education. While promoting new technologies and innovations is essential, providing accurate and unbiased information about these technologies is equally important.
Achieving the correct composition requires a careful balance between promotional messaging and educational content and a commitment to transparency and honesty.
Finally, measuring success is a critical consideration for any influencer marketing campaign. Regarding scientific education, measuring success can take various ways, including engagement metrics such as likes, comments, and shares, and qualitative measures such as changes in attitudes and perceptions.
It’s essential to set clear goals and KPIs for each campaign and to track and analyze data to determine what is working and what can be improved.
By finding the right influencers, ensuring accuracy and credibility, balancing education with promotion, addressing ethical considerations, and measuring success, brands and organizations can leverage influencer marketing to help educate and inspire the public about the latest advancements in scientific fields.
Conclusion
Influencer marketing has the potential to be a powerful tool for promoting public education on complex topics.
By working with knowledgeable and passionate influencers, brands and organizations can help educate and inspire the public about the latest advancements in science and technology.
The benefits of influencer marketing for scientific education include increased reach, credibility, engagement, and targeted messaging.
However, some challenges must be addressed, including finding the right influencers, ensuring accuracy and credibility, balancing education with promotion, addressing ethical considerations, and measuring success.
Influencer marketing will likely play a significant role in science education and public outreach efforts.
As technology advances and new scientific discoveries are made, there will be a growing need for effective communication and scientific education strategies to help the public understand the impact of these developments.
Influencer marketing offers a unique opportunity to connect with audiences in a meaningful and engaging way and to foster a deeper appreciation for the role of science and technology in our lives. And positions itself as a valuable tool for promoting scientific education and driving the acceptance of new technologies.
By approaching this tool with care, thoughtfulness, and a commitment to excellence, brands, and organizations can help ensure that science and technology continue to be accessible and engaging for everyone.
Davide
May 11, 2023
Industry Trends
Advanced Influencer Strategies, Mid-Level
Influencer Product Seeding: How To Strengthen Your Product Image
Influencer product seeding is a great way to generate organic and genuine interest in your product while using the most prized characteristic of influencer marketing: its authenticity. But what is influencer product seeding, and how can you use it to turn your product into a global sensation? We are here to explain everything you need to know about it. By the end of this article, you will be able to design your influencer product seeding campaign and understand how and when it will be the right choice for your success.
What is influencer product seeding?
Influencer product seeding or product gifting indicates sending products to relevant influencers to generate content around the product and start long-lasting relationships with the influencers. It aims at organically creating interest from the influencer in your product. In opposition to paid content, where the creators are obligated to generate content, there is no guarantee of return with influencer product seeding.
Why influencer product seeding?
If there is no return guarantee, why would anyone start an influencer product seeding campaign? Because the content generated by an influencer product seeding campaign will be genuine and authentic.
Unlike a scripted campaign, influencer product seeding allows content creators to express their honest opinions. Honesty is one of the most appreciated characteristics of influencers, and using a marketing strategy that can build upon it will be a winning choice.
What are the benefits of influencer product seeding?
It provides a low-cost way to establish relationships with influencers who really like your product while improving the social proof around your product.
Influencer product seeding benefits your marketing plans and the audience’s perception of your brand. Nailing an influencer product seeding campaign can be a total game changer for your brand in order of reach and image. Here are some of the benefits, especially regarding influencer marketing:
It is low cost
Compared to other influencer marketing strategies, influencer product seeding will allow you to reach a large number of influencers at a lower price point.
Finding influencers genuinely interested in your product
None of the creators is obligated to post anything. The ones who create content about it strongly connect with and like your product. This is going to be a way to weed out any influencer that would have been in only for the money and allow you to discover a good fit for your brand influencer marketing in the future.
Establish strong connection at scale
Influencer product seeding is a great way to start connecting with influencers: it will portray your brand image as generous and confident about your products. It will also allow you to do it with many influencers simultaneously, and because you can find out who is genuinely interested in your product, you can know where to focus your efforts.
Generate reviews
Sending out your product to many influencers will generate some content regarding it and create a track record for it. Having influencers talking about your product will work as social proof for its validity and further boost it towards anyone who may stumble upon the content.
When does influencer product seeding work best?
Influencer product seeding can work towards influencers of any size and for any product. But is best suited for small creators and for products that are particularly visual.
Small creators
Nano-influencers and micro-influencers will be more responsive to influencer product seeding campaigns, especially if your brand is not a large and prominent name. Large creators may also like your product but are unlikely to create unpaid content for your brand. This is not necessarily a downside since micro-influencers are some of the best-performing when it comes to influencer marketing.
Visually striking products
The product you will seed will benefit from being visually appealing and prone to be turned into content. Fancy packaging, bright colors, or unexpected features will be easily turned into content. Conversely, a software subscription may be harder to present well (but your software may be doing something astonishing, so never say never).
How to design an influencer product seeding campaign
To create a successful influencer product seeding campaign you want to find relevant influencers, reach out to them, and send your product to the one interested, track the results and repurpose the eventual content the influencers make.
Now that you know what an influencer product seeding campaign is and when it is best to use, let’s think about translating everything into practice. In this section, you will learn all the steps to consider when designing your campaign.
Find influencers in line with your product
With millions of influencers spread worldwide, no one can contact each of them. That’s why you must individuate the ones that will help achieve your campaign goals. You can do this by establishing which geographies you are interested in, what content categories the influencers should be posting about, and their follower size, then using an influencer discover software, like CreatorDB, to individuate them and obtain their contact information quickly. Alternatively, you can manually search for them on social media using hashtags.
But content categories and the following size are not all. You should also consider whether their style and values align with your brand and how they place themselves towards sponsors and promoting products.
Reach out to the influencers to understand if they are interested
Before sending out packages, contact the influencer and introduce your brand to them. Let them know you want to send them a present, and if they are okay with it. This first contact with the creators will help your brand look professional and respectful, helping establish a solid foundation for a mutually beneficial, long-lasting relationship.
Send personalized packages
Everyone likes to feel special, and influencers are no different. If you want to increase your chances of generating content around your product, you should put in the work to tailor each gift to the creator who will receive it. You can create personalized cards and choose colors and styles that fit the creator’s aesthetic, plus add your touch to make it feel coming from someone who truly cares about them. While mass sending the same package over and over can seem tempting from a convenience standpoint, it will always have a different impact and effect than a carefully prepared gift.
Track the results
As for each of your marketing campaigns, you should collect data about your performances and have benchmarks for the results. But in the case of influencer product seeding campaigns, this can be tricky since you will need not know where the content will be published and in which form. A common way to address this problem is by keeping track of the influencers you contacted on various social media platforms and monitoring your brand mention across the board. While not knowing where the buzz will come from can be unnerving for some, it can also be the chase for you to discover your brand potential on platforms you had not considered before.
Repurpose the content
Once you start seeing content about your product emerging is time to make it work for you: it can be incorporated into your social media to support exposure and reach or in your website to increase social proof. There are many ways that you can decide to include the influencers’ content in your owned media; how to go at it is up to you.
Build lasting relationships
Now that you have established a first connection with content creators genuinely interested in your product, it is time to nurture it. Use these first connections to launch long-term relationships that will help your brand expand even further and fuel your success. One way would be to turn these content creators into brand ambassadors. Otherwise, consider creating special promotions for them and their followers.
Product seeding best practices
By now, you should be very clear about how influencer product seeding works and how to get great results. But let me give you a final piece of advice to cement your success. These are some best practices for obtaining a smooth experience from your campaign and getting the best results possible.
Don’t push for content
It may sound obvious to some, but it is essential to remember it. Even if you send these influencers your product, they do not owe you anything. It was a gift, after all. Be happy with the content you will receive, and you will, but don’t dwell too much on the one that doesn’t show up. It is useless to contact the one who didn’t create any content and try to get some out of them, and it would just make your brand look petty.
Seek feedback
Use this influencer product seeding as a chance to test your product. Look at all the comments the influencers gave, and when they are negative, think about how you can improve upon them. If you find solutions or improvements to the criticism and flaws of your product, consider sending a new and improved product to the influencers to have a new review done, highlighting how you took their critics at heart and used them to improve.
Engage with the influencer’s content
Increase your brand visibility by interacting with the creators talking about you. Keep it friendly and joyful even if there are some negative comments. You want to use this occasion to introduce your brand to their followers and gain their trust and respect.
Davide
April 14, 2023
Guides
Advanced Influencer Strategies, Mid-Level
The 4Ms Model for a Perfect Influencer Marketing Plan
Get familiar with the 4Ms model for influencer marketing and ace your next campaign.
If you have studied marketing, you are familiar with the 4 P’s, one of the pillars of marketing theory, which see Product, Price, Place, and Promotion as fundamental for any marketer that wants to pursue their objectives in a market.
While this model was and still is a fundamental base when discussing how to market a product, the emergence of new channels to reach clients has pushed for new models. In 2004 Sid Peimer proposed the “Internet Mix” composed of Sell, Tell & Dwell as the central pillar to succeed in online marketing.
The “Internet Mix” is, under many aspects, still a valid model and can be a perfect guide to understanding the needs of a digital marketing campaign and if your planning is going in the right direction.
With word of mouth becoming a more and more prominent aspect of digital marketing, especially influencer marketing, a new model came to light to frame how influencer marketing campaigns should be organized and their life cycle: the 4Ms model.
Thanks to this model, you can identify the core tenants of an influencer marketing campaign and easily understand your positioning.
Where does the 4Ms model come from?
Danny Brown and Sam Fiorella introduced the 4Ms model in their 2013 book “Influencer Marketing: How to Create, Manage and Measure Brand Influencers in Social Media Marketing.” In it, they introduce the idea that influencer marketing, like other forms of marketing, needs to include goals and metrics to be effective. Brown and Fiorella suggest using the 4Ms model to create successful influencer marketing campaigns based on your goals and metrics.
What are the 4Ms?
The 4Ms are: Make, Manage, Monitor, and Measure, and they are used to create and follow an influencer marketing campaign from start to finish. The 4Ms are especially important not to get distracted by the many vanity metrics and secondary achievements that often become the main point of influencer marketing campaigns while focusing on the real benefit of influencer marketing:
Make
“Make the influencer” by understanding where in the buying stage your customers are. Each different position in the funnel would require a different approach to successfully being pushed further down. Therefore knowing which kind of audience you are targeting is extremely important to make the correct decision about which influencers to collaborate with. Identifying the audience of any influencer and understanding how they fit in your sales funnel is the first step to success.
Manage
Manage is the more experimental moment of any campaign. Now that you have the right influencers for your campaign, it is time to see how their audience resonates with a different kind of content. While other influencers may target a similar audience, there can be significant differences in what their audiences enjoy. Considering that the influencer is the one that best knows its audience preferences is essential to keep their ideas in mind and give them at least a fair shot.
Want to learn more about how different content can lead to different outcomes? Check our Wargaming case study!
Monitor
Once the campaign is up and running is vital to monitor it actively. Social webs are not static, and by offering them a stimulus, the marketing campaign, they will answer to it, sometimes in unpredictable ways. By keeping track of mentions, sentiment, and trends around the sponsored content, you can individuate other influencers that will benefit your campaign and how external factors are aiding or disrupting your messaging. By proactively monitoring, you can rapidly adjust your campaign and react to changes in the circumstances that could disrupt your goals.
Measure
As for every marketing campaign, ROI is the most critical metric. Whatever your final goal is, you should have had it very clear since the beginning and have divided it by measurable metrics. Using content categories benchmarks to establish goals and thresholds. Controlling various measurements will make it easy to spot the influencers that overperformed, who underperformed, what kind of content was more effective in achieving your objectives, and much more.
Conclusion
Too often, companies and marketing departments decide to adventure into the world of influencer marketing because they expect it to be the next big thing and to bring results anyway. But like every other form of marketing, influencer marketing needs to have a solid backbone to work, a backbone that will sustain your current strategy and help you improve upon what you have already done, and boost your growth in the future. The 4Ms model provides you with all the tools you need to present and future success.
If you are looking for the perfect way to handle your influencer marketing campaigns, look no further than CreatorDB.
CreatorDB’s platforms let you access all you need to achieve your influencer marketing goals in one place: from influencers discovery to performance tracking to market analysis.
CreatorDB also shows the audience’s sentiment about each influencer’s content and lets you easily differentiate between organic and sponsored content. If you want to succeed in influencer marketing, book your consultation today.
Davide
April 10, 2023
Guides
Advanced Influencer Strategies, Mid-Level