Go beyond the hype to see if all that social media influencer marketing is translating into new business.

The one constant, when it comes to marketing your business online, is change. New platforms blow up, then quickly fade away (Vine we hardly knew ye). With a simple change in algorithm, Facebook can completely re-write the playbook. (And they have. To an obnoxious extent.)

Add to this the proliferation of ad-blockers and the general ambivalence most consumers feel toward traditional online advertising and you find yourself with a giant problem. How exactly do you reach people online when they actively avoid being reached and the platforms they use keep creating barriers to reaching them?

Simple: You get sneaky.

Around 2014, savvy online entrepreneurs started quietly rolling out “influencer marketing.” Essentially, known quantities online – fashion bloggers, YouTube stars, celebrity Twitter feeds – craft social media messaging around a brand, bypassing traditional channels and delivering a message designed to look like organic praise.

This is nothing new, of course. You can go back to 1760 and find Robert Wedgewood using the sizable social clout of the British Royal Family to hock Wedgewood China. But the advent of the digital age has made it so that any one of us can conceivably carry the kind of social influence reserved for royalty back in the day.

The upside of this kind of guerilla marketing is clear – it cuts right through not only the artificial blocks Facebook puts on people seeing your message, it delivers it through new channels to consumers who don’t necessarily view what they’re seeing as an advertising.

But, this strategy may not always work. Look at these key points to see if your influencer campaign is missing the mark.

1. Your influencers are reaching the wrong audience

So you’ve brought aboard a social media influencer with thousands of followers and they’re telling them all about how great you are. But none of these likes and retweets are converting. What gives?

It could be your influencer isn’t necessarily influencing the right sphere of people. If you’re a local service company, as an example, it doesn’t mean a thing if someone half a world away sees your post. Even if they like it, they were never going to be your audience.

Rather than courting influencers based on number of followers, start locally. It could be your perfect social influencer doesn’t even know what they have – but someone with an extraordinary influence on followers based in your service area could be just the ticket.

Another strategy here is to keep tabs on the overall social activity across your influencer’s page. If you’re not seeing the same number of likes, shares, retweets, etc. on your posts as on others, it could be that their audience just isn’t a good fit for your message.

2. You might be the problem

One of the key strengths of influencer marketing is also its most delicate: authenticity. And one of the people who has the most power to screw this part of the process up is you.

You want whatever your influencers posts about your brand to feel like a genuine extension of their brand. If you get too involved with crafting that message, if a sponsored post reads too much like an advertisement, followers will be turned off and you could cause damage to both your brand and your influencer’s brand.

So while you obviously want to ensure your brand is represented in the best possible light, it’s best to be as hands off as possible and let your influencer take some control over the narrative. It’s scary, we know. But this is ultimately what you’re paying this person to do.

Leaving them alone and letting them create the message will come across as more authentic to followers, allowing them to maintain that audience you’re asking them to speak to on your behalf. Plus, maintaining that genuine voice keeps the audience more receptive to your message.

Even if they add something along the lines of #sp or #sponsored to the post, which breaks the illusion somewhat, you still want to give your influencers the freedom.

3. Advocacy vs. audience

This one gets a little tricky, particularly if you’ve just started working with this person.

Remember earlier when we said to take a look at social action on your posts and compare against their other content? While you’re doing that, take a look at the tone they’re striking and see if they’re genuinely advocating for your brand.

It’s not really something quantifiable, but if you’re expecting “OMG the (service or product) I got from (your business here) was outstanding,” and instead you get “Hey guys check out (your business here),” they clearly haven’t embraced the message.

It’s not just about how many people you reach, it’s how much you can turn them into advocates.

Maybe in this case you flip the script. Take a look around for those who might have limited reach in terms of an audience but have already given you some love on social. Reach out to them and bring them in to really cultivate that passion, and you’ll soon find that rather than a large pool of semi-interested consumers, you have a smaller pool of truly rabid fans ready to go out and spread the gospel.

Even with a history stretching back to the 18th century, influencer marketing is still an inexact science. In the ever-shifting landscape of social media, it gets even murkier. Ultimately, what you want to do is let people know that their friends and neighbors love your business, and they should too.

For more clever ways to get your brand out there, give us a call at (904) 638-7555, or fill out our contact form and we’ll be in touch soon.

Like what you read? Looking for additional tips and tricks to help your small or medium-sized business succeed? Check out more of our blog posts here.

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