How to write a Perfect Influencer Brief?

When brands ready to roll with their influencer marketing campaign, a perfect influencer brief will give the influencers several guidelines and touchstones. It is a core element for the clients to reach a wider audience via influencers. Influencer marketing is just about creating strong bonds with individuals who can share your brands with their followers.  The best way to build prolonged, cost-effective relationships is by setting and managing expectations. 

 

The visionary influencer brief is the key to any successful marketing campaign. It prevents further communication gaps and highlights the purchaser’s perception and makes sure everyone, both clients and influencers, speak the same language.

 

Can you imagine a world without communication? Certainly, not. It applies to market campaigns too. When brands don’t communicate what they’re looking for, influencers are completely clueless. The reason they are not able to handle this situation is that they don’t know what’s expected. As a result of it, campaigns are behind schedule just because everyone is dazed and obscurity will go on and on.

 

So what is the solution? An influencer campaign brief.

Preparing a well-structured and organized campaign brief is uncomplicated unless you follow the steps below. Write an excellent influencer brief, catch influencers’ attention, direct your campaign to the accomplishment.

What Is an Influencer Campaign Brief?

influencer-brief

An influencer marketing brief is a document, but not an ordinary one. That kind of document is sent to the influencers which clients want to collaborate with. The client’s purposes, timetables, expectations, deliverables, guidelines, and key performance indicators (KPIs) for cooperation are pointing up in the brief. It may also include legal clauses on disclosure and content usage rights.

It’s the comprehensible outline of your brief is a great way to transmit your request from influencers.

The influencer campaign brief ensures that your influencer and brand’s goals function properly.

Why should you create an influencer marketing brief?

We somehow explained what is this influencer brief, nonetheless, why do we need it?

Let’s take an example, imagine you are planning to create a long-dated influencer marketing arrangement and run not one but even more campaigns, at that time creating an influencer brief is vital. For the record, talented influencers get requests of cooperation from brands almost every day.

 

A perfect brief can be the tool to make them believe you are the one they should work with. The Influencer Brief creates a common ground for both clients and influencers to elaborate softer cooperation processes. It makes influencers understand what are your objectives and how they should share suitable content to the audience which you want to reach.

How to Write a Perfect Influencer Brief?

Clearly there are some steps you should follow in order to prepare an excellent brief. Here they are.

 

Step 1. Campaign Essentials

In this part, you should introduce your brand and product to potential influencers. You should tell them who you are, what is your motive in this campaign, what you want to achieve and how. Explain your company’s activities with two or three sentences. If you add your logo it could give you a boost too. Provide influencers with excessive information, what were the past campaigns your company implemented. So influencers would know how your product or service is used and how they could promote them to their audience.

 

Step 2. Campaign Overview

Two or three sentences will be enough to describe to the influencers what you want to accomplish via launching this campaign (brand awareness, consideration, engagement, etc.).

Influencers have to know your expectations to succeed. Which channels you want the content to be shared, how many posts you want to create, branded hashtags, links, etc. What you want to include in their captions or bios. Duration of the campaign and your target audience. Will you provide an additional budget for promotion purposes. Decided deadlines for the campaign, and how are you going to calculate the report’s results. Provide payment information. Which social media accounts you want your brand to be tagged in their post and last but not least the goals and key performance indicators of your campaign.

influencer-brief-example

Step 3. Campaign Deliverables

First of all, give further instructions for the influencers, and ask them to pass their address, phone number or to order the product from your website. Second of all, provide guidelines for the content that you prefer. You can emphasize some points as well. Such as, what should influencers highlight in their photo or what should they write in their captions and so on.

 

Despite the fact that you should give freedom to the influencers as much as they need, still, their content should fall into line with your brand. Setting guidelines for content theme and style could be a good idea because it allows influencers to use their creativity and ensure that what is passed to the audience is aligned with your brand. Key messages you want to include whether they should use tags & hashtags.

 

Collaboration with influencers is not just about promotion, it’s also about finding somebody who could share your visions into the wider audition. You should trust them and see them as new partners, you could also get some content ideas from the influencers themselves.

Step 4. Campaign do’s

This step is quite crucial and in the course of preparing influencers briefing you should include the campaign messages in the post captions, content for review should submit on the date indicated, logo or product have to position to brand guidelines, sponsored hashtag and brand tags should include in your post.

 

Step 5. Campaign don’ts

Your pictures, as well as posts, shouldn’t contain alcohol or drugs within them, don’t falsify or misinterpret information about brands and never compare one brand to another. Don’t include another sponsored post into yours.

 

Having a perfect influencer brief is the first stage in any successful campaign. It outlines constructions with clear objectives and will give you clear direction and understanding of your own expectations. You will achieve greater achievements in influencer marketing that you imagine.

To let you understand what an influencer brief looks like we’ve attached an Influencer Brief Example for you here.

 

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Key facts you should know about an influencer marketing in MENA

With its different culture, marketing ecosystem, and size of the market, the Middle East, and North Africa (MENA) have a huge potential that you cannot place this region behind your influencer marketing strategy. Consumer spending in the UAE alone is expected to exceed $261B by 2021 offering a huge opportunity for overseas expansion.

 

Moreover, the region experiences digital transformation with the increase in the internet, mobile, and social media usage in recent years. Statistically, 9 out of 10 Arabs use at least one social media platform daily. 

This sudden increase in social media users then led to the emergence of influencers with a relatively larger audience. After the surge in the number of influencers, the advertising industry has started to zoom in on influencer marketing. The Middle East leads the GCC market with the highest demand from top paid influencers and brands. 

 

But first, let’s get to know the region better and later we’ll give you tips on how to start your own influencer campaign starting from today!

#1 Influencers make a real-world impact

For millennials, influencers are the preferred choice when it comes to discovering new products. According to the study, 47% of women between 18-24 ages say online platforms are the main sources of information on brands and products. And 73% of respondents said they’ve purchased a product after an influencer mention, which is a strong number to show the social power of influencers. 

 

For global brands, mega influencers are stars to expand into the region. Fashion, beauty sectors introduced worldwide known mega influencers such as Huda Kattan and Maya Ahmad. Along with launching her own brand, Huda Kattan also collaborates with leading beauty and fashion brands. 

Dubai based beauty influencer Maya did numerous partnerships with famous makeup brands including MAC Cosmetics, Dior, Kiko, and Givenchy.

 

 

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The popular influencers effectively convert global brand promotion into the local context. 

For its haircare brand Elvive, Loreal started long-term influencer collaboration with Dubai based lifestyle influencer Narins Beaty. She explains the features of Elvive products which allow growing long and healthy hair while using heat tools. She is very popular in MENA and always shown with beautiful and her long healthy hair and growing popularity among Gen Z makes her the best choice for Loreal’s #dreamlong campaign.

#2 Cultural diversity

Almost half of the marketers that work in MENA use influencer marketing and 94% find it successful for their brands’ marketing. However, influencer marketing in MENA differs from the Western market. Your influencer marketing campaign should be specially designed to the region’s culture and tastes otherwise you will end up with low KPI. 

 

Content that allows the influencer creativity and freedom always wins in influencer marketing in MENA. According to the Mc&Kinsey report, the market is characterized by less loyal consumers who are always in search of affordable and substitute products. In this context, influencer marketing is a great way for global brands to enter the MENA market.

#3 Influencers are replacing TV commercials

Social media is viewed as trustworthy and it has overtaken TV as a source of information. 

Marketing strategies that are cleverly designed to the market features are winning in influencer marketing too. Uber has an outstanding new-comer example of influencer marketing in MENA. 

 

 

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Uber effectively ran the influencer marketing campaign by tailoring its brand objectives to Saudi Arabia’s socio-economic system. The goals were to grow the brand’s social media communication and build credibility. Together with the government’s support for the modernization of socio-culture, Uber’s campaign touched several hot topics such as women empowerment, entertainment, and employment. The long-term partnership with big size influencers drew high ROI and positive engagement towards Uber. 

#4 Micro-influencers are more persuasive than celebrities 

Micro-influencers especially are on the rise and gaining more online power. They have dominance in terms of the level of trust and therefore having more brand partnerships. Not surprisingly, influencer marketing is experiencing a shift from macro-influencers to micro-influencers as they generate more engagement and authentic content. 

Besides, working with micro-influencers enables brands to reach multiple audiences with less spending. They are more relatable to their audience, therefore have more influence over them. Unlike celebrities, they introduce themselves as they are. As a result, YouTube stars became more popular than TV stars.

How to rock influencer marketing in MENA?

Local and global brands have done noteworthy collaborations with mega influencers especially on the beauty industry. Although influencer marketing is going crazy in the region, it requires different approaches. Here are a few of our tips:

Leverage Credibility of Micros

Despite its growing size, influencer marketing in MENA is an infant industry with lots of niches and influencers to be discovered. Credibility is a key component of micro-influencer marketing. 

As marketing experts suggest micro-influencers are the future of influencer marketing. Even now, they have more engagement rates and profitability. MENA is not an exception. With a high level of engagement and authenticity, micro-influencers have the potential to increase awareness and bring new consumers. They are especially relevant for small budgets.

Target Gen Z

Gen Z population of the MENA region is rapidly growing and going to dominate social media platforms as well. Social media usage by Gen Z’s leads to the emergence of nano-influencers and the rise of micro-influencers. 

 

One of the prominent influencer campaigns were run by Egypt’s Commercial International Bank. Considering that banking is not among the interests of Gen Z, that was pretty risky to take. So, to make it engaging for the youngsters the bank added popular dabbing fashion into the action. The campaign was calling young people to make changes in the New Year. The campaign ended with high engagements, almost all of the socially engaged users were asking about bank services.

Work with Experts

Even if you have done successful influencer partnerships before, the MENA market has a distinct nature and legal requirements to consider before diving into partnering. 

 

The biggest issue brands face in influencer marketing is not having a clear view on how to find the relevant influencers and negotiate with them. BPG Cohn & Wolfe Influencers Survey revealed that 55% of brands’ biggest challenge was finding relevant influencers, and followed by 41% negotiating terms and conditions.

 

If you plan to enter the region you will need an expert consultancy to run an efficient campaign and to reach your target audience smoothly. Keepface gave assistance to many brands over the years, helping them to find the best fit influencers and to manage all the process from negotiating with influencers to reporting the success. 

Choose the Right Social Media Platform

Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube have millions of active daily users in the MENA region. 

 

YouTube is a destination for tech and gaming influencers, while fashion, beauty, food, lifestyle influencers choose Instagram. About 30K Middle East-based YouTubers have more than 10K followers. Video content is the highly preferred choice by lifestyle, entertainment, gaming influencer niches while photo content is popular among fashion and interior concepts. 

 

With comprising 10% of the world’s Instagram users, influencers in MENA are mainly focused on Instagram. Social media users in the region are a vivid consumer of stories and videos. 

And, of course, there is TikTok. From celebrities to TikTok evolving influencers the TikTok sees a huge surge in usage since 2019. Most influencers in terms of follower count are coming from UAE and Saudi Arabia mainly on comedy, acting, and fashion content. TikTok itself launched #CreateForGood and #TikTokCares campaigns with MENA influencers to educate people on tolerance and safety manners.

 

@salmansfamilyThree things to avoid at the beach ? ##tiktokcares ##pourtoi ##foryou ##couplegoals @isleym.b♬ son original – salmansfamily

Despite its differences with the rest of the world, the MENA region has a vibrant influencer marketing ecosystem. The population is hyper-connected and their personal experiences are more important than brands’ popularity. Therefore conducting authentic influencer marketing is challenging but rewarding. Here at Keepface, we’ve helped brands around the world by finding the right influences, creating and managing high ROI campaigns, and advising to build the right influencer marketing strategy. 

If you’re looking to amplify your brand’s voice through influencers feel free to contact us.

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6 Types of Influencers are Effective in Pandemic

How would you engage with your community in the middle of crises? Almost every industry is affected by the global pandemic. There is a certain category of influencers who will help you to reach your customers and bring your sales up during the crisis. 

 

With all the cuts in ad spend, the global pandemic turns influencer marketing into a more meaningful form of digital marketing. Influencer marketing is adjusting itself to changes requiring more improvement based content. Followed by the spike in consumer demand for social media content, influencers massively increase their posts. Live streaming gets more popular as it generates more social interaction. They also try new content styles and new platforms. 

 

Let’s see some influencers categories who are shining during the crises and will help your brand to reflect it.

#1 Foodies are busy at the kitchen

 

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Raise your hands if you have cooked something you have never done before the quarantine. We all did. And the biggest inspiration for us was food influencers who are busy with sharing posts about trying something new. 

Also, affected by the closure of restaurants, now people have more time to try homemade recipes. Live streaming is the most popular and rising content type among food influences to educate and enjoy time with their followers. 

Besides, this is a godsent time for food brands to communicate with their consumers and nail their influencer campaigns. There are so many creative ways brands can work with food influencers during the lockdown crisis.

#2 Lockdown is going well for fitness bunnies

There is not a better time to stay healthy and physically active than ever. While the demand for a home workout is increasing digital fitness industry has boomed. Today, fitness videos are one of the most viewed videos on YouTube. Home exercise videos have increased by more than 200 percent in the UK. 

 

Since gym studios were forced to close fitness influencers make home exercise tutorials. They encourage social interaction among followers and help to reduce stress and anxiety during the quarantine. 

#3 Home has the best background 

Although there is no place to try fashion trends of 2020, fashion influencers do not stop creating content with work-from-home outfits. The quarantine also forces fashion gurus to create more creative and purposeful content at home.  They offer a healthy distraction in this nervous situation for those who want to work on their personal styles. Video content is also popular among fashion influencers as they prepare videos while taking ongoing social media challenges.

 

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#4 Tech wizards are upgrading influencer marketing

Tech influencers are taking advantage of crises by actively posting about the latest digital news and innovations. Influencers often share their user experience and recommendations. Usually, these people are industry bloggers, experts who are a genuine source of information and tent to have authenticity and engagements. This is also an opportunity for people to add new skills while getting digitally connected. 

With the rapid digital transformation, the role of tech influencers is becoming more important as consumers value third party advice before making purchase decisions. Considering that many brands continue to digitalize their operations the role of tech wizards will be vital for B2C and B2B business as well.

 

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#5 Lifestyle influencers reshape their content strategies

Lifestyle influencers are tailoring their content to “home edition”. The range of lifestyle content is increasing with lifehacks to combat the crisis, to #workfromhome, house cleaning, the lists of books, must-watch movies, and of course Netflix recommendations. In addition, influencers try and advise different time management tools and apps to manage time at home efficiently. 

 

Along with influencers, many brands increase their social media posts and adjust timings to drive more engagement. A good example was done by P&G’s brand Always. The brand let popular social media influencers take over their Instagram stories for a day and post IGTV videos on the brand’s page. Such activities contribute to better brand-influencers also brand-audience relations.

#6 Hustlers beat crises

Entrepreneurs are another rising influencers category during crises. By posting about their taken steps and future expectations of the business these people are getting more social interaction. Profound knowledge and solid backgrounds allow them to be accepted as a valid source of information. From marketing perspectives, entrepreneurs have more significance in B2B business being the right players for endorsing related products.

Last but not least

 

These are influencer groups who pivoted their content and expected to be in favor of brands in crisis. Influencer marketing has never been this important to connect your audience and spread your message. To find more influencers go to Keepface’s Influencer Discovery and get access to one of the largest influencer database. Here’s our step-by-step guide on how to find the right influencers for your brand in seconds. 

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Top 6 Mistakes in Your Influencer Marketing Strategy

We live at a time when there is so much competition amongst brands and services. This challenge has forced brands to come up with a highly effective marketing strategy to stay in business. One such is influencer marketing as a social media marketing strategy. For instance, in the online casino gaming, a brand such as Lightning Link is engaging influencers in their marketing strategy to create brand awareness.

According to a study conducted by Tomoson, businesses are making as much as $6.5 for every $1 used in influencer marketing strategy. The poll additionally rated influencers as one of the fastest-growing customer acquisition channels. 

 

We highlight 6 of the most common mistakes in influencer marketing strategy.

#1 Not Cherry-Picking an Influencer for your Marketing Strategy

influencer-marketing-strategy

If you pick a wrong influencer, your marketing strategy will barely result in sales. The biggest assumption that we make is that more social media followers would result in more sales, while it is not an obvious cause.

To effectively pick an ideal influencer for your online business’s marketing strategy, we recommend that you consider the following:

 

Scrutinize the Influencer Followers

 

For influencers, followers make one of the most critical marketing strategy elements, and hence they are always on the race to bag them. Surprisingly, some influencers purchase ghost ‘followers’ such as bots, which would always have their numbers spiking. Looking at the posts by most influencers, you will always find the bots posting unrelated or incoherent comments, which should be a red flag.

 

Analyze Previous Influencer Engagements

 

If a competitor previously used the influencer in their marketing strategy, it would be prudent to analyze the level of engagement on their posts. A keen analysis of the influencer posts helps you understand whether the comments and interactions are by organic followers or bots. You will know rich influencer interactions from the comments and feedback on inquiries made by followers. 

 

However, there might be posts with followers who comment or engage more with the influencer’s personality instead of the product. This only means that this influencer might not be ideal to be one of your marketing strategy components

  

#2 Having No Primary Goal in Mind

influencer-marketing-mistakes-tips

Since you are considering an influencer for your marketing strategy ideas, do you have any specific goal in mind? 

It would be a waste of resources to engage an influencer without any intent. Just getting the product mentioned is not always an end to itself. 

Thus in your business marketing strategy steps, you need to pause and analyze your primary goal for involving an influencer. Some of these goals could be:

  • To increase your own brand social media following.
  • To capture a new audience through brand awareness.
  • To drive sales and business leads.

Develop a specific communication strategy for any of these goals without a general one unless under special circumstances. This critical component should point you in the direction of the right influencer for that marketing strategy. 

#3 Failing to Measure Results in the Marketing Strategy

To gain a return on investment (ROI) in your marketing strategy, measure the effectiveness of the influencer campaign vis-à-vis the set goals and objectives, ensure that each objective ties to a measuring metric, and link the results. 

If, for instance, you aim to drive traffic to a site like Lightning Link, insert tracking links on the website. The tracking helps you understand if there is any new traffic to the site resulting from the influencer’s posts. 

 

On the other hand, if gaining more social media followers was your primary goal, use relevant social media analytical tools to gain some insights. At the end of it, the results help you analyze your marketing strategy and learn from any mistakes in future influencer engagements

#4 Ignoring the Few Posts by Micro-influencers

While celebrity influencers have millions of followers, micro-influencers rake in between 1000 to 100,000 followers on social media. We recommend that you target both types of influences but with a balance on the volumes of their postings for your marketing strategy. 

Develop a marketing strategy whereby a given number of micro-influencers will post a certain number of posts per day and for a certain duration. The repeated posting will result in the audience remembering the message or call to action much longer.

#5 Sitting Back as Influencers take Center-stage

Once you came up with a clear marketing strategy for online business and identified an influencer to champion it, you should not take a back seat. Influencer marketing requires that you walk with the influencer throughout the marketing campaign.

If you identified the right influencer for the products, you would expect that inquiries, comments, calls, and reactions would be on the rise. Practically, it is nearly impossible for the influencer to respond to all these inquiries. It is at this point that you kick in and address the relevant questions concerning your brand. No matter how long it takes, keep track of the post, and respond to queries. 

#6 Treating Influencer Marketing Strategy as Actual Sales

A big mistake made by businesses that hire influencers for their marketing strategy is assuming that influencer marketing is actual sales. In the real sense, influencer marketing strategy is just that; marketing. 

Influencers could help drive traffic to your website or social media platforms, which would make most of the time drive sales. As marketers, you need to involve them in your marketing strategy so that they own the process and become persuasive in their pitches. 

 

Conclusion

 

Finally, social media influencers have become a big hit, and if tapped into correctly coupled with a proper marketing strategy can magically create the much-needed sales leads and traffic.

Do you know of any other mistakes made in influencer marketing strategies? We would love to hear from you in the comment section below.

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How to Find Right Influencers via Keepface’s Influencer Discovery

With more and more brands investing in influencer marketing, influencer discovery becomes more complicated and diversified. The growing market generates new influencer categories and new audiences over time. And brands should stay up-to-date to nail the most effective influencer marketing campaigns.

 

In 2020, 51% of marketers say influencer-created content is more effective than brand-created content. So, finding the right influencers is half of a successful influencer marketing strategy. The more influencer resonates with your brand, the more successful your campaign will be. But finding the fittest influencer is not as easy as it sounds. 

If you’ve already defined your campaign goals, the next step is to dive into influencer discovery. It’s in your best interest to find and reach out to relevant influencers in the shortest time. Today we’ll guide you through how to streamline influencer discovery and outreach via Keepface’s Influencer Discovery. 

Let’s get started!

Search and find influencers

After logging in to your account jump in Discovery it’s just in the left corner. 

influencer-discovery

Click Discovery and you will be directed to Search bar automatically. Below the bar, you can see the latest registered influencers.

Use Filter to get concentrated results for your campaign. Filter button is designed to find out the most relevant influencers by their category, audience size, engagement, social platforms, price range, country, and gender. And with the Upgraded Plan, you can even go further by filtering influencers’ audience search on language, location, gender, interests category, and age groups. 

 

Click Show Results next to Filter to get the results according to your filter. 

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Influencer names come with filtered results. In a few seconds, you will find your best fit influencers on the database. There are two view options, List and Grid view. You can choose how you want to see your results. 

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Overview of each influencer’s profile

Click View details to quickly see the overview of influencer profiles. You will be able to see the latest and most engaging posts of influencers, as well as their category, global and country ranking score, total audience, and media value. So you get an in-depth view of influencers without leaving the platform.

 

Dive into their Audience Analyze to see whether that influencers’ audience matches with your target audience. By looking at the latest posts you will have an overview of their styles and engagement of the recent posts beforehand. These are all necessary stats that will help you to decide whether the influencer is relevant to your brand or not. 

influencer-profile

Add influencers to your lists for later use 

On the right side of the section, you see Add to list. Lists are a great way to save your filtered results so you will save time while campaign planning. 

add-to-list

You can either add influencers to the list you created before or Create a new list. Influencer lists help you in your future campaigns where you just choose the list and submit the campaign.

Say, you need a list of “Fashion micro-influencers”. Adjust filters accordingly and select influencers who you think are the right fit by clicking the box in front of each name.  Click Add to List (red button below Search Bar), choose the List and all the selected influencers will be added to that list. Or you can add influencers individually, just clicking Add to List (blue button next to Influencer Profile) and selecting the list. 

Your list is ready

You can reach your lists anytime by clicking Lists on the drop-down menu under the Influencer Box (see on the screenshot).

list-is-ready

Note that the number of lists depends on your Subscription Plan, so with a free plan, you can create only one influencer list. 

Creating lists before starting your campaign will save you a huge time, so when you create a campaign you’ll only need to add your brief, content types and add your list of influencers with a few clicks. That easy!

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7 Benefits of Working with Micro-influencers

In this day and age, as people are becoming more and more skeptical regarding traditional advertising methods, famous companies or smaller businesses need to reinvent their strategies and find ways to make their self-promotion more authentic. This is where so-called micro-influencers come into play.

A lot of brand names used to prefer working with famous celebrities with a large number of followers, through methods such as product placement, but over time people have become more apprehensive towards this promotion strategy. It seems like the tide is turning, and more and more companies seek for the increasingly numerous benefits of working with smaller influencers.

Difference between micro-influencers and celebrities

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Being an “influencer” has become the newest trend this century. It is a lifestyle many people turn to, and as an Awin study states, “social media influencer” is the second most popular career option for people aged 11 to 16. Anyone can be a social media influencer these days, although people tend to call people with less than 10,000 followers micro-influencers

 

These micro-influencers make up the majority of influencers on most digital platforms, and while their number of followers is small, their influence is quite big. In fact, because they have fewer follower bases, these small-time influencers have the tendency to be more engaged with their audience on a daily basis. This cannot happen with people with huge follower bases, as they cannot interact with all of them constantly. 

 

Another thing that sets apart smaller influences and social media celebrities is that the first category tends to be more relevant to a more specific industry. Micro-influencers tend to be experts in niche categories, and their audience is also made up of people interested in that niche. Bigger celebrities will not have followers that are as invested in specific aspects of their brand. 

Why do companies prefer smaller influencers?

1. Cost-effective

micro-influencers-are-cost-effectiveFirst and foremost, many brands nowadays turn to micro-influencers as opposed to celebrities because they are highly cost-effective. Celebrities tend to charge a lot higher fees for their collaborations, which is a lot of the times not worth it for the value of the work they can deliver.

 

Any brand should include micro-influencers in their business strategy, as it will give long term benefits for their budget. The same amount of money they put into a top-tier influencer to promote their products through a single post could be used to pay a larger number of smaller influencers. By doing this, brands have a higher chance to reach a wider audience, a more engaged audience, and thus allowing them to build a genuine fan base

2. Scepticism of the public over celebrity promotions

Not so long ago, promotions made by celebrities used to be highly effective. However, in recent years, the culture around celebrities seems to have diminished, as people became more and more skeptical. People nowadays seem to have become aware of the fake aspect of sponsored promotion, and instead prefer promotions based on actual preference. It is proven that once a smaller influencer crosses the line of 1 million followers on social media, most people will brush off their posts as sponsored deals rather than genuine passion.

3. They seem more genuine

authenticity-micro-influencersPeople with only a few thousand followers generally give the impression of being genuine, trustworthy people, as they provide more authentic and relatable content to their audiences. Fans tend to engage more with an influencer if they have a certain aesthetic to their content, if they connect to a more personal level and if their tone is authentic, friendly, and engaging. They can also spread the message a company intends to send in a cleaner, more genuine way. 

 

As they are sharing their personal content, micro-influencers show their appreciation towards their growing community more, and they are highly likely to attend certain events and interact with their followers by replying to their comments or messages. For someone whose posts get around 300 comments every day, it becomes increasingly harder to engage every single person on a personal level.

4. Smaller influencers have more specific content

Micro-influencers tend to have a niche audience, meaning a smaller number of followers, that is more connected to the specific topics the influencers represent. These follower bases will tend to have a lot of people usually engaging in similar content, and part of a similar demographic profile, assets which are really useful for companies looking to promote specific products. 

 

“Smaller influencers often allow companies to target audiences interested in that niche. Not only that, but since the influencers themselves are familiar with that particular niche, they can provide detailed descriptions and recommendations for the products themselves. This makes for a better, more genuine promotion, which really helps in the long, as the relevance of the promoter to the brand is key in any marketing scheme,” explains Adam Kirrian, a social media writer at Assignment Writers and UKWritings.

5. It is easier to find genuine brand fans

micro-influencers-fan-baseWhen a smaller influencer is involved with a niche topic, chances are they may already be fans of the brand a company is trying to promote. This is particularly good for any business because it doesn’t take any time to convince them to help you promote your products. In fact, a lot of the times smaller influencers do promotions by themselves without the companies’ knowledge, so it is worthwhile to find someone who is already promoting the desired product. 

6. They are better to work with

Typically, micro-influencers tend to be more engaging on a personal level, which makes it easier for businesses to establish personal connections to them.  

“A lot of the times, businesses claim that smaller influencers go above and beyond to satisfy the needs of their client, as they show their gratefulness towards the people that notice them and value their work. They also claim that it is easier to contact them and that they tend to be more open to explore the tasks they are given and provide out-of-the-box content,” says Hillary Ian, a blogger at State Of Writing and Oxessays.

7. Great for small businesses and startups

startups-influencer-marketingUnlike big companies, which have bigger budgets and can afford to hire anyone to promote their content, smaller companies have to find cheaper options in order to compete with the big leagues in the market. This is not a problem since small business owners or startups can rely on micro-influencers who closely relate to their brand to work with, on a smaller budget. 

 

This is great for anybody who is just starting up in the business, as it no longer means that only big brands and names compete in the market. In fact, starting with smaller fan bases can be a good thing, as you establish your relevance to the market while building up a reputation among the consumers, without having to spend a lot of money on promotion. 

 

As it seems, there are many benefits to working with smaller influencers rather than people with large follower bases. Nowadays, people are becoming less and less interested in the traditional advertisements, resorting to Adblock software most of the time, so using micro-influencers can become the new, more creative method to reach your target audience, without seeming forced. 

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Top 10 Russian Micro-influencers to Follow in 2020

As one of the most effective digital marketing strategy influencer marketing is spreading to even new fields. With this on, marketers emphasize the role of micro-influencers for getting even more engagement, better brand awareness, and increased sales. 

 

In our previous blogs, we have given you the insights of US, Turkish, Chinese influencer markets. In this blog, we will get to know the Russian influencer market focusing on the micro-influencers you as a brand need to know and work with.

What does the Russian influencer marketing look like?

 

Influencer marketing is also widely spread in Russia. Different range of influencer niches such as travel, book, beauty, fashion, parents are among the popular ones. It is easy to find influencers of each audience size. And due to Lingua Franca, Russian influencers are also followed beyond Russian borders. 

 

In 2018, influencer marketing spending in Russia was $70 – $80 million out of $3.12 billion total digital marketing spendings. Although influencer marketing is 3-5 years behind Europe and the US, global makeup, technology, clothing, food brands are involved in Russian influencer marketing. 

 

Influencer marketing has mainly built on Instagram and YouTube. And influencer campaigns work best when they target young customers. 

Now, we will introduce you to 10 Russian micro-influencers from different niches. Let’s get to know the promising Russian influencers. 

 

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The first influencer in our list is a mom blogger Irina from Tatarstan. She mainly posts on parenting, space organizing, and indoor house design. Thanks to creating engaging content she reached 72K followers. 

 

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The second influencer in our list is a photograph and makeup artist Elizabeth. With her outstanding makeup talent, she has reached 41K audience. If you want to visit the world of fairy tales then go with this makeup wizard. Despite creating strong looks Elizabeth is superb active on Instagram. 

 

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The next influencer in the extreme makeup category is Liza Klubnika. With her incredible makeup skills, she brings her colorful soul into the face. From smokey eyes to concept makeups Liza creates different types of looks on her Instagram page. Her looks are also appreciated by global makeup brands like Urban Decay, Maybelline, YSL. 

 

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Let’s get a chick with a stylist. Lena is a professional stylist and owner of her clothing brand. Saint Petersburg based micro-influencer is followed by 77K people. Lena’s style is a combination of cozy and delicate dresses. 

 

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Now it is time to travel the world. Alexey Djyrukhyn is a businessman, marathon runner, and avid traveler. From East to West he passed 55 countries and every inch of Russia. Plus to his 28K Instagram account, he also writes blog posts about his travel adventures. 

 

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Continuing with the fashion influencers. Maria is a Moscow based micro-influencer with 53K followers. She perfectly combines modern fashion with classic elegance. Maria personates neutral outfits with dainty accessories, that’s what makes her style different. Pictured perfect angles on fitted backgrounds complete Maria’s aesthetics. 

 

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Moscow based influencer Michael Shemelev is the next influencer in our list. He is a traveler and landscape photographer with 24K followers. While he travels he captures the beauty of nature in different parts of the world. See the harmony of colors through his camera. 

 

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The next influencer category in lifestyle. Ilya’s content covers fitness, food, travel, skin-care. He always serves his audience with in-depth described tips for a happy and energetic life.

 

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Marina’s Instagram is a great medium for food lovers. She claims you can prepare her recipes with only the products that are already in your fridge. Marina’s profile is dedicated to a wide range of cuisines. Add spice to your meals with her profile. 

#10 @mgugirl

 

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Let’s finish the story in a sophisticated way. The last Russian micro-influencer on our list is book lover Alina. She massed 32K audience. Alina shares tips with her audience over emotional intelligence, problem-solving, self-esteem, perception mistakes, avoiding procrastination, ways to set new goals, simply everything you need to find yourself. 
They are only a few of Russian micro-influencers. To find out more use Keepface’s influencer discovery to unlock influencers from every category.

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The Virtual Influencer Phenomenon And What It Means For Marketing

Many people born in the 90s remember when the electro-pop band ‘The Gorillaz” came out. The group was presented to the public as a cast of animated characters that performed the music. Even though the band leader was the well known Blur frontman Damon Albarn, the emphasis was put on the animated band, they were the public face of the group.

 

Fast forward a few decades and people are more worried than ever about the prospect of AI technologies replacing humans. This has become apparent in a recent report that claims that even Instagram influencers will have to watch out for increasing popularity of Virtual Influencers creeping into their space.

 

Large brands such as KFC, Bed Bath And Beyond, and Louis Vuitton have all started to use Virtual Influencers in their campaign and many more companies will be following.

What is A Virtual Influencer?

 

The term Virtual Influencer refers to CGI characters created by people and corporations, often with AI elements, that act as the face for branding or marketing campaigns. In places where individuals would have expected to see humans representing a company or a product AI-based CGI avatars are beginning to take the stage.

 

“A Virtual Influencer can be thought of as a digital person, with a history, personality, background, and style that is created for the sole purpose of advertising a brand, product, or service,” writes Jane Fundon, a marketer at Academicbrits and Phdkingdom.

 

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Perhaps the most well known Virtual Influencer is Lil Miquela who has nearly 2 million followers on Instagram. In cyberspace, Lil Miquela is a 19-year-old half Spanish and half Brazilian girl who enjoys fashion and making music. In 2019 she teamed up with Samsung as part of their Galaxy advertising campaign. Lil Miquela is the first, and still most popular, virtual influencer around.

Why Use Virtual Influencers?

 

VIs are programmed and under the complete control of the owning company. Many times in the past corporations have contracted celebrities or sports stars to be the face of their marketing campaign only to have them say or do something that goes against the image the company is trying to put forward. Famous examples are Jared Fogel and Tiger Woods.

 

By having complete control companies feel they can better manage the risk associated with mass-scale advertising campaigns.

VIs are also flexible creations, they can be changed and modeled as needed to suit the current advertising culture. They are also independent of time, space, and commitments meaning it only requires a small team to put together a specific ad, photo, or video featuring their Virtual Influencer, whereas their human counterparts are not as readily available.

 

Imagine a celebrity, sports star, or pop music icon who has been contracted to represent a brand or product. To have them participate in a commercial, photoshoot, or video session it requires a great deal of foreplanning. These are busy people who have busy schedules. With VIs there is no need to be beholden to the schedules of others. They are ready to go at any time and any place.

 

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What Do Virtual Influencers Tell Us?

 

The rise of Virtual Influencers as a legitimate marketing tool marks a major shift in people’s attitudes towards advertising. “A recent poll showed that 54% of UK residents found virtual entities appealing on some level. The idea of having a digitized human represent products and services to the general public is not something that would have been well received even just a few years ago,” writes Gene French, a business writer at Originwritings and Nextcoursework. Virtual Influencers tell us that attitudes are shifting and that marketing strategies are evolving.

 

There is growing concern that the acceptance of Virtual Influencers and their rise in popularity is a symptom of a society that is growing up in cyberspace just as much as they are growing up in meat space. There is also the issue of perpetuating even further an idea of body image that is unattainable. Photos of models are often airbrushed and edited before they are made available to the public. With Virtual Influencers, they can be molded to fit any appearance the creator desires. Many have concerns about the long-lasting effects of this on the minds of the young generation.

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6 Ways to Use Influencer Marketing During the Quarantine

COVID-19 leaves marks on almost every industry. With the continuation of the quarantine, the world is getting more digitally connected. And marketers harmonizing with the new normal
Consumers do not expect brands to stop advertising, instead, they appreciate brands that avoid hard-selling, value their needs, and spread positivity. It is important to talk to the customers especially in this crazy time. 

 

As many brands are tightening marketing budgets for the coronavirus, influencers also feel the burden of it. But this does not mean influencers getting out of the market. Yet, with the unprecedented increase in the number of social media users, influencers see a 20% to 50% increase in the content views. 

Some brands create content on their own to engage with the followers. Why not make organic partnerships and show that you care about your community. With  influencer marketing, you add a human touch to your campaign. Influencers help to deliver your message in an authentic way and that is what we need these days. 

 

The brand and influencer relations are shifting to value creation. The influencer campaigns are becoming subtle and tailored to the quarantine conditions. Especially In times when homemade content is becoming popular. 

If you are an influencer marketer or plan to leverage influencer marketing during the quarantine, here are the ways to seize this opportunity, we will help you how. 

#1 Go with the flow – Live-streaming

 

Before starting your influencer marketing campaign always search where your audience spends their time now. As we mentioned before content creators on gaming, fitness, food see the highest hike. And streamline is getting even more popular with the jump in the number of live video content. This is where you should look at to reach your audience. 

 

Let’s consider the following case: as a consulting company, you partner with travel influencers and talk about how to tackle anxiety due to loss of jobs, financial insecurity during the quarantine.

#2 Micro-influencers are great mediums

With highly engaged content micro-influencers are still on top of influencer marketing. Considering that people are not going to make luxury purchases during and after the quarantine, micro-influencers are now even more approachable. It also gives impetus to low budget brands to work with the micro-influencers. You can dive into micro-influencer marketing here.

#3 Turn to TikTok 

 

In many of our blogs, we stressed TikTok as the future of influencer marketing. Now, quarantine is proving it, again. 

 

The global downloads for TikTok accounted for 12% between March 16-22. With one of the fastest-growing social media platforms, TikTok has over 500 million monthly users, 42% of those under the age of 25. 

 

Already many companies started leveraging TikTok including Apple. Plus to being active on Instagram and Twitter, Apple has recently created its official account on TikTok. Though Apple has been hosting ads in TikTok, it is not exactly known for which purposes the brand will use TikTok. 

It is important to keep marketing campaigns while not promoting the product features but how to do it during a time. The good case is beauty brand e.l.f Cosmetics that has been already engaged in TikTok since December 2019. The brand launched a campaign called #EyesLipsFace. Over 2 million videos had been created for the campaign’s song. Now e.l.f Cosmetics relaunching #EyesLipsFace hashtag. This time the brand took social responsibility with influencer marketing. During the campaign, influencers washed their hands while not touching their faces. 

#4 Go for ready influencer packages 

 

If you are under the limited budgets pre-built influencer campaign packages will work well for you. Pre-built packages are simply all negotiated and ready campaigns that will save you time and additional cost. You do not need to spend time on influencer search, agreeing on price or paperwork.

 

Influencers are agreed to post ready content. In this way, more audiences will be aware of your campaign without extra spendings. Check out ready-to-start influencer campaign packages here to see how it works in detail. 

#5 How about LinkedIn influencer marketing?

 

This is where you get most of your leads. 91% of marketers choose LinkedIn to create professional content. To boost offers effectively, you need to optimize your LinkedIn account, create eye-catching content which all takes time. Industry thought leaders have already built the community you need. 

 

LinkedIn influencers directly talk to your customers and are known for their authentic content. These people are actively sharing their experiences over different types of services during the quarantine. When they mention a product, it directly affects audience purchase decisions. 

 

Start your LinkedIn influencer marketing without further due. 

#6 Tackle COVID-19 with Facebook groups

Social media groups are a great way to reach your dedicated customers. With social media usage on the rise, the engagement in Facebook groups also increased. 

 

Do not just think about your brand group but also a different range of groups in your industry. Usually, members of these groups are not allowed to directly promote products or share links. Hence, influencers can play as your agent and raise discussions around the features of the products, share their experience, and many more. 

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3 Step Guide to Boost Your Online Game Player Base via Influencers in Stay-at-home Period

The coronavirus has hammered a lot of businesses, but it has lit a fire under others, including the online game industry. Its sales are soaring, but they could be even better. If you’re a game developer or publisher, one way for you to ramp up sales even further would be to use online influencers in your marketing. 

This is particularly true for small companies with limited budgets. Influencers can take big online game makers’ sales to the next level and help start-ups and indie games gain a foothold in the industry at a modest cost.

 

Before we discuss how to use influencers to increase high-quality traffic to your game, and achieve other goals you have, let’s look at what self-quarantining during the virus has already been doing for the industry.

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To start with, mobile game downloads jumped 39 percent globally in February as cities, states and countries began ordering people to stay at home to avoid getting coronavirus. In the United States, which has the world’s highest percentage of online game users — 72 percent of all mobile phone customers — online game playing spurted 75 percent at peak hours. Meanwhile, the gaming platform Steam saw a record 23 million users logging on. Turns out, all of the video gaming has actually been deemed a healthy way to stay connected to others during this period.

 

As good as these achievements were, online game makers and retailers could grab even more business by persuading current users to do more gaming and non-gamers to try their hand at it. And a key way to pull this off would be partnering with influencers

Most influencers would be glad to help because online game marketing would give them another source of income. Some would be especially eager because they have lost income from industries like travel that have been so hit hard that they decided to reduce their ties with influencers. So, what opportunities can influencers provide online game businesses, and how would you go about creating a partnership with influencers?
Here are some 3 Steps based on some of Keepface’s successful influencer campaigns with gaming companies:

#1 Target untapped-niche segments

With millions of people stuck at home, now is a great time to try to convince non-gamers to give it a go. 

After you decide on traffic goals, choose the right social media platform for your campaign. YouTube and Twitch are the most popular for gamers, but depending on your strategy and the audience you want to reach, you might want to try something else — like Instagram, Twitter, or Tik-Tok.

There are a lot of micro-influencers out there. You need to identify those that are the best fit for you.

Start with vetting them on social media. Identify those who have high audience engagement levels and the ability to persuade their followers. Target untapped niche segments like intellectual youngsters,  working women, or “experienced” fathers. ?

This means you need to find influencers who can appeal to different audiences. 

 

Remember: A potential influencer’s gaming experience is the last thing you need to worry about. ?

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#2 Launch an initial campaign

The next step is to make a trial campaign with a pool of selected influencers. Start with streamlined campaigns requiring minimal outlays. This can be as simple as putting a video link in an influencer’s storyAlso, send your proposal to a lot more influencers than you need so you will be assured of a good response. For example, if you need 10 influencers for a campaign, pitch to 200. ?

 

A good strategy for pitching to a lot of influencers at the same time is to join Facebook groups that many are members of and float your proposals there. You will be surprised at how many micro-influencers will bite. Connect with them and you will suddenly enhance your influencers pool. 

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In addition, many automation tools can help you reach out to influencers. One is ours — Keepface. Automated tools not only help you select the right influencers but also help you make tailored partnership pitches to them.
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Your pitch should consist of a concise but inspiring note that includes a description of your game, feedback from your clients, and an expression of how eager you are to work with influencers. Mention that you would like to do a trial campaign and, if the results are good, then begin a long-term collaboration.

Give them the content you want to be posted and ask them to do something simple in the first campaign, reward those whose posts performed well.

#3 Measure and optimize your success

Make sure you have measuring tools ready that can determine whether your campaign is succeeding. If you’re achieving the targets and milestones you set, you will likely want to stick with your campaign content and influencer. If not, change either, or both. The main milestone for any game marketeer is the cost per install (CPI), which you will need to measure with each influencer. CPI is what you pay each time when a user installs your game. 

Give different download links to each influencer and compare the number of viewers, traffic, and the number of downloads that each generates. Use Adjust to gauge the performance of traffic coming from each influencer. 

Also, give instant feedback to influencers who are doing a great job. And start a second campaign immediately with your best-performing influencers. Try different types of content delivery formats — like live streaming, sharing, tagging friends, and calling for group games. 

Limit the time you devote to researching a campaign’s results. Start with one or two measurements, and add or subtract barometers as you need. Your goal should be to optimize campaigns one at a time, with particular focus on those that generate a higher return on investment.

If you are short on time and resources but still want to try influencer marketing, consider getting pre-built influencer campaign modules that you can launch immediately.

We’re here to help

We hope this blog has whetted your interest in the notion of using influencers to help you increase sales of your games and achieve other goals during a time when the stay-at-home economy is creating a lot of opportunities for the industry. 

 

Want to learn more about how to get started promoting your game via influencers? Check our limited ready-to-start campaign packages for gaming companies. 

 

More than 2,500 clients are using the Keepface platform, working with 30,000 influencers we’ve lined up. We’d love to help you take your success to another level during this global digital transformation period. 

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