Instagram is now starting to hide likes, and of course, it will affect both influencers and brands, plus the relation between them as well. Obviously, a new question arises: How will Instagram hiding likes affect Influencer Marketing?
If you are curious about the answer, I invite you to read the rest of the article.

We’re currently running a test that hides the total number of likes and video views for some people in the following countries:

✅ Australia
✅ Brazil
✅ Canada
✅ Ireland
✅ Italy
✅ Japan
✅ New Zealand pic.twitter.com/2OdzpIUBka

— Instagram (@instagram) July 17, 2019

With the above tweet, Instagram announced that likes would be hiding for select users. Instagram had already been testing hiding likes in Australia, Brazil, Canada, and some US users and, after the month-long test, the amount of likes will be hiding to the rest of the world. Users can still like by pressing the heart below a post, but a total number of likes will not appear.

 

So when an account likes influencers’ content, it will seem like that  “name of Instagram account and others”.  Users can see only a list of accounts that have liked the post. Like counts will be hidden, won’t be completely gone. While followers won’t be able to see the number of likes, influencers will within their private view.

 

Why Does Instagram Hide The Likes?

The idea here was to help “improve mental health,” Instagram’s CEO Adam Mosseri stated.

 

Mia Garlick, Facebook Australia, and New Zealand director of policy said that “We hope this test will remove the pressure of how many likes a post will receive, so you can focus on sharing the things you love. According to her, the goal is that users feel less judged and to see whether this change can help people focus less on likes and more on telling their stories.

 

Instagram has started this process to push users to concentrate on creating better content rather than worrying about whether the content they share generates numerous likes. 

 

Studies show that this kind of instant feedback on content can boost people’s self-esteem but bring others down if they do not get as many likes, especially for young people.

 

How Will Instagram Hiding Likes Affect The Market Place?

We should take this topic into consideration from  two different aspects. What are the consequences of this change for influencers and brands? Lets firstly look at the influencers who are the ones could be most heavily impacted.

 

My approach is not psychological, but like is important for the influencers. Actually, like is a kind of validation of their works. Like has always been seen as a measure of performance and they have quiet powerful impacts. 

 

If users see content with a huge amount of likes, it grabs the audience’s attention and attracts more followers. If the influencer has fake followers or an unnatural audience, this change would definitely harm not only the influencer but also the brand who has collaboration. It means that organic growth will be gathering more attention.

 

As you see for the influencers it has some disadvantages, but the other side of the coin is that it would be beneficial for brands in particular. Naturally, brands collaborate with influencers who have an adequate engagement rate. As I said, likes have been seen as a way to measure engagement. Of course, it is not the correct way to measure engagement only through likes. The hiding of likes will help a brand understand if the influencer has a loyal and trustworthy audience or not. The engagement rate will play a huge role here. 

 

Some brands still prioritize likes and superficial metrics over the qualitative content and relationships with their audience. Brands should examine the value exchange they are offering consumers. The more balanced this exchange, the more beneficial Instagram will be for driving true business value for brands.

 

How To Handle With Hiding Likes

Certainly, there is no change without complications. If brands have the right technology or tool, hidden likes are not a problem.

That’s where Keepface stepped in. Keepface’s tool will still have access to those metrics even if they’re hidden. With the help of the Keepface brands are able to know an influencer’s engagement rates and have a full report on performance metrics before working with them. Brand can search influencers through advanced filters and analyze their key metrics to find the best fitting influencers for their campaign goals. Brands also get an in-depth analysis of influencers’ social profiles, Instagram as well, performance data, and audience. 

It has been 12 years since “Nothing Sells Like Celebrity” –The New York Times published this article in 2008. After 12 years, celebrity endorsements don’t have the same effect on the marketplace. Although it is undeniable that celebrities are trendsetting, they can’t persuade people that they like the products that they endorse. That’s why celebrities’ ads are being replaced by content creators, or as they say, influencers. At this point, the new slogan pop up – Influencers are new celebrities. But there is a little catch here as well. In some cases, influencers can’t improve personal connections with brands like a friend or family member. In such circumstances, forward-thinking brands use Peer-To-Peer Influencer Marketing strategy.

Regardless of which strategy is used, Influencer Marketing is about relationships, not just buying media. That is why marketers try unique strategies that don’t feel like sales tactics. Peer-to-Peer influence is one of the great examples of these strategies. P2P is a component of Word of Mouth. So, firstly let’s look at what is a word of mouth marketing or WOM marketing.

 

Peer-to-Peer Marketing Is A Big Component Of WOM

The importance of word of mouth marketing in the post-advertising era is irreplaceable.  It is a term for what happens when satisfied customers promote a brand. So? It means you should roll up your sleeves and try to gain loyal customers who will recommend you to their friends.  Higher engaged customers buy more often and recommend their friends more often.  And peer-to-peer is the new age of word of mouth marketing.

 

Peer-to-Peer As An Example Of Authenticity

Now you know that peer-to-peer marketing is a technique that involves customers engaging other customers through recommendations. People who aren’t paid wouldn’t recommend products or services for a company if they didn’t believe in it. That is why P2P doesn’t feel like a sales tactic. The trick is getting customers to share their voices with their networks. P2P method provides authenticity that literally can’t be bought with money.

 

P2P is an organic way of spreading information. It helps boost the company’s emotional marketing efforts and creates more robust relationships with the audience.

 

 

What Are The Benefits Of Peer-to-Peer Influencer Marketing

Nowadays, people care more about what others say about a brand, they trust people like them. According to Nielsen, 92% of people around the world said they trust recommendations from friends and family (earned media) above all other forms of advertising. 

 

Beyond friends and family, 88% of people trust online reviews written by other consumers as much as they trust recommendations from personal contacts.

 

These researches are obvious proof of how p2p marketing strategies are vital and authentic  for companies.No one has a script to recommend a product to a friend. It’s just a normal conversation. Influencers who actually use the product in their daily life can integrate to their content bring credibility to both influencers and brands

 

Brands can gain more by spending less with P2P influencer marketing. Converting customers into an influencer is less expensive than a TV advertisement or celebrity endorsement.

 

Targeting brand loyalists leads to targeting the audience and nothing works better than Peer-To-Peer Influence.

 

 

4 Steps Of Building Strong Peer-to-Peer Influencer Marketing

To get started with powerful P2P influencer marketing, the first thing needed to do is identify the target audience, I mean understanding who the potential customers are. When the target audience is determined, it’s time to find the right people to deliver the message.

 

Choosing the right influencers for being a partner is an important requirement for P2P marketing. If companies find the right influencer for their business, they will bring so much success to it. But the challenge here is to pick an effective influencer who makes a good fit for your brand. One simple way to find influencers is to use the Keepface tools. Keepface offers AI-powered influencer tools that will help brands to find the right influencers, and pursue their campaigns in the best way. This tool demonstrates influencers, their social media profiles, performance data, audience analysis, etc. 

 

Creating an online space to engage and interact for your customers will help with customer retention, lead generation as well as effective sales. With it, companies will manage to create active discussions, increase brand awareness, and create a positive image for their brands. It gives your customers a platform to share valuable insights on everything right from product development to product marketing.

 

In the next phase, you need to keep your community members engaged and active. Peers who create content in your community can have an important role in your business success. The more they are involved in, the more active discussions you will get. For that companies can introduce reward programs. It keeps the motivation and excitement alive.

You may possibly have noticed that the beauty topic sits high on the list of people along with health and wellness. And this is not something we can hide that we want to stay looking young and beautiful as well as being healthy. 

We can say that beauty influencers shaped influencer marketing and quickly adapting to the latest influencer marketing trends.

If you are one of the people who saw themselves in the beauty field, more specifically if you want to be the one who will be the inspiration to the people, you are in the right place.

Following these steps, you can start a beauty influencer career from scratch and rock it. Let’s get to work, here are your tips.

Make Your “Content King”

Nobody expects you to be the genius of makeup or skincare guru from the first time but eventually, you will feel the need of it. If you want your audience to take you seriously you need to know the basic science behind skincare or the different ingredients that affect hair and skin.

How can I make my hair grow faster? How to clean makeup brushes? What should my skincare routine be? How to get rid of undereye circles? How can I make my nails stronger?

All the answers are a click away from you. Spend most of your time on researching then present it to your followers in a glamorous way. However, if you want to take up the limit you may take lessons, beauty conventions and even seminars, they will keep you up to date with the latest trends.  Pay attention to new research and technology in the beauty industry as well.

Being a beauty influencer is not just about looking stylish every time. It’s also about having excellent product and industry knowledge and staying updated with launches, beauty hacks, and latest hair and makeup trends. To become a successful influencer, you need to understand the tricks of marketing and get a grasp of social media platforms.

Choose Your Niche

We all may agree that beauty is a broad topic and it is merely possible that one person could know every aspect of it. Having an overall knowledge is perfect but it is better to put your efforts into the aspect you are focused on.

You may want to sell some beauty products to earn extra money but if you focus your energy on skincare, haircare, or even narrower topics your audience will see you as the guru in that particular topic.

You need to know that beauty influencers with a niche audience are the ones cosmetic and fashion brands lookout for product promotion.

 

Develop Your Social Media Accounts

 

One of the most important questions is how will you reach your followers? For that question, you need to develop strong social media platforms.

Taking this part seriously is vital because if you want to make money out of it you have to work this as a business. First, sell yourself then sell your products and services.

Don’t limit yourself with Instagram. Spread your wings. You need to make yourself seen, useful, engaged, active, persistent, approachable and available. Your content should reflect your customer’s desires, and ease your conscience. Use your listening skills to give your buyers the content that they ask for.

Making yourself is a brand is a game-changing act. The color you choose, style, content etc. will make people think that you are special.

Make your content engaging and shareable. Encourage your followers to share your helpful tips. Additionally, hashtags will clear the clouds for you, they will help you categorize your posts and the right hashtags can instantly gain you more followers. A lot of beauty companies looking to collaborate with micro-influencers and most of the time they use #discoverunder10k. Imagine how this could help you. 

One more thing, using obvious #beauty,#makeup hashtags may not be helpful anymore. Instead of them, you can use hashtags such as #organic, #instamakeup, #skincarejunkie, #IGskincare. They will help your audience find you based on their specific interest rather than simply scrolling on Instagram.  

Which social media giant you choose doesn’t matter unless you mix up your post with facts, latest trends, product pics etc. Don’t forget the more platforms, the more people. Sharing daily posts, keeping yourself active will make you seem that you’ve committed yourself to this niche and because you take this job seriously, you are the person who deserves to be followed.

Stand Out Instead of Blending in

There are millions of people out there who claim to be a beauty influencer who had a vision in this sector. Then what makes you different from these people? Why are you special? Then use your brain to get creative, set yourself apart from the competitors. If the idea you want to try is used before then let me remind you a phrase Pablo Picasso stole once “ Amateurs borrow, professionals steal”.

Your uniqueness, relatable and doable tips and tricks, topical and trendy content, engaging and diversified topics, and regular flow of information are the things which distinguish you from the others.

 

Promote Your Brand

 

You may say “Oh Gee, I don’t have a brand”, my dear, you are a brand. Promote yourself religiously.

Don’t sacrifice your dignity for a handful of followers, always stay on people’s good graces. If your audience recognizes you they will recognize everything you do; good, bad, and ugly.

 

Start to Influence Now

 

What time is better than now?  Now you know how to become a beauty influencer so what are you waiting for? Roll up your sleeves and get busy.

 

What Is Affiliate Marketing

 

Affiliate marketing is like owning a supermarket. Supermarket owners don’t need to produce any product, on the contrary, these products came from various companies. Supermarkets promote those products on the shelves and resell them. Customers buy them at a higher price than the supermarket owner paid to companies. It’s the same principle.

 

The difference is affiliates don’t have to buy the products, they just promote them instantly. And also in affiliate marketing, affiliates promote products for commissions and the final price of the product remains the same. The companies sacrifice a percentage of the profit, but they manage to sell more products without paying for advertising costs.

 

Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting another company’s product and service as well. It allows brands to partner with individuals or companies to do some work instead of them. These individuals or companies are known as affiliates. 

 

An affiliate marketer sells products on behalf of clients and gets to keep an agreed percentage of the profits. Affiliates introduce products to the audience from other companies. In return, they get a commission from any purchases people from the audience make. 

 

It is a kind of revenue sharing. People who have products, but not an audience, can increase their market by working with people who have an audience, but not a product. 

The idea behind it is that you promote other people’s products, often through an affiliate network and earning a commission. In affiliate marketing, promotion of products and services set in on the Internet.

 

Affiliate Marketing Looks Like A Triangle

The company – who wants to advertise its products/services  via the affiliate marketing model.

The affiliate –  who promote the products in on the Internet.

The affiliate network – is an intermediary between a company and an affiliate. These networks usually offer a wide variety of products from companies and there are thousands of affiliates who can promote these products.  

In the network, there are affiliate managers who are a bridge between brands and affiliates, usually responsible for recruiting affiliates to increase conversions for brands and to help affiliates on their promotions.

 

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

The company has to pay affiliates only for customers who will visit their website and take action, and this is a very profitable deal. If potential customers visit the company’s website or purchase its products, then the company pays affiliates the agreed percentage of profits.

 

It means that the company is sacrificing a small percentage of its profits but it is still advantageous than traditional advertising and its promotional costs. In this way, the company pays only when a sale or other action is taken, in other words, when the company reaches the desired result. (the desired result is not always selling products or services). 

 

Affiliates place special links on their social media profiles or websites and blogs. When someone clicks those links they get redirected to a company’s website. By the use of a special cookie when a visitor clicks an affiliate link, it tells the company that the visitor comes through this special link. 

 

Customer service, delivery, or support does not concern affiliates. The only concern might be cookie expiration. For instance, Amazon uses 24-hour cookies. It means that they will pay their affiliates commissions during those 24 hours.

 

Advantages Of Affiliate Marketing

As you understand, this system has tremendous benefits for all sides – for the companies, for affiliates, for affiliate networks.

The company pays in cases of final sales and does not sell without any tangible results. The result is absolutely measurable. With this system, affiliates promote products without the company being forced to pay in advance. This leads to affiliates doing their job more responsible.

For affiliates, the system is overly flexible and lucrative. Affiliates find a product, promote it to others, and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make even if you sleep. They also manage to promote dozens of different products from multiple companies without being in their workplace in a very short space of time. They can make money from a single campaign for years. 

On the other hand, affiliate networks undertake campaign management, offer affiliates, and management tools for monitoring promotions for companies.

 

Affiliate Marketing VS Influencer Marketing

With the integration of social media into our lives, affiliate and influencer marketing have become a major campaign of marketing plans. While these concepts are pretty similar, they also vary when you deep down.

 

Let’s check out the differences which help marketers to discover which option is best for campaigns.

 

Marketers can get good results using both forms of marketing. The biggest feature of influencer marketing is delivering a message across to a relevant target audience. However, affiliate marketing ensures a risk-free investment, it means that marketers only pay for actual results.

 

Influencer marketing is mostly used to increase brand awareness while affiliate marketing for driving sales. 

 

Also one of the main differences is the payment. Influencers usually paid beforehand, but affiliates’ payments based on commission.

 

Influencer and affiliate marketing have different ways to measure success. Influencer marketing mostly focuses on new followers gained, number of shares, and engagement. Affiliate marketing takes a more tangible approach to ROI calculations through sales, orders, conversion rates, new customers.

Selecting the right influencer is the most important step in influencer marketing. But this does not apply to affiliates. Companies can share a unique discount code or coupon code with affiliates, which they can include in their posts.

 

Understand The Power Of Affiliate Marketing With Keepface

Keepface helps brands who want to use the power of affiliate influencer marketing and affiliates who want to promote the brand’s products or services by providing technical support, consulting services, monitoring the quality of affiliates’ work, and offering analytical and other tools.

The conditions of brands vary depending on the product they offer, their marketing strategy, and budget.

Keepface learns all the conditions of brands, find right influencers/affiliates who have a similar culture to brands campaigns. Discuss all the terms with affiliates, such as what they will do, which product they will advertise on which platform, what the content consists of, and, of course, the earning of affiliates.

So, sign in now to take advantage and get the most out of your affiliate marketing.

 

Have you heard about more than 70% of newly launched restaurants shut down within the first year? What is the main reason for failure instead of success? The answer to this question is pretty simple: word-of-mouth marketing. Before social media existed, WOM was slightly different and would be limited to endorsing your product or services. But, in the rapidly changing digital marketing world, there are thousands of practical ways to increase brand recognition. 

 

Influencer marketing is one of the great ways to stimulate brand awareness of your restaurant and attract potential customers. Today, most WOM marketing comes from influencers.

 

It is also interesting to note that, COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected restaurants. But some restaurants still try to find ways to stay in their places and service as normal as they can.

Why Is Influencer Marketing Effective for Restaurants?

Influencers are individuals who have achieved a broad audience on social media by sharing photos, videos, or content for their followers which refer to their interests. They have better targeting and higher engagement rates. Social media influencers have already built a high degree of trust and respect among their followers. Loyal followers believe in their reviews and recommendations; that’s why more than 70% of people are attracted to restaurants based on social media referrals. Thus, influencer marketing is an ideal way for restaurants, even for other industries. 

How Influencers Can Help to Attract New Visitors to the Restaurants?

By using influencer marketing for your restaurants, you can reach your ideal target customer. Social media stars can drive thousands of followers into the restaurant by sharing photos and creating content based on their own experience. Sometimes this occurs organically, but more often it happens to depend on paid promotion or partnership between restaurants and influencers. 

The screenshot above is by Instagram influencer Dana Cowin that was paid for by a California based restaurant called Majordomo. She has captured the “roasted duck crispy rice” dish on camera from this restaurant which is one of her favorite visited meals. Then she has created content about her own experience and shared it with her followers, adding some detailed reviews and recommendations. 

In the comments, people seemed very interested, and the majority of them found it credible. It’s merely assuming that the significant part of followers was attracted to this restaurant based on social media influencer marketing. 

Choose the Right Influencer for Your Restaurant

The right influencers can lead your restaurant to be successful instead of failure. The process of finding the right influencers is worthy of notice. First of all, you need to know your audience and determine your goal. Then, you might be searching for the food bloggers, restaurant reviewers with the same or similar audience that can be relevant to your purpose. Try to understand the authority of the influencer you consider that would be appropriate for your campaign. But, you do not always have to start only with food-related social media stars, even if it might be an influencer who engages in to vlog his daily life. It depends on your goals and the personality you would like to demonstrate. 

 

Another significant point of influencer marketing is that the target audience would be located in the same or around the area with the restaurant. Try staying local and matching your demographics. For example, if you have a casual French restaurant in Miami, an influencer who focuses on luxury restaurants in Italy, it wouldn’t be relevant to each other. That’s why restaurants are more likely to work with local stars rather than an international phenomenon. Therefore, you can search for local influencers according to your target audience. 

 

Influencer Marketing is Very Cost-effective

Today, influencer marketing is a powerful and cost-effective way to generate visibility of your restaurant. Social Media stars can charge differently depending on the followers they have. More followers mean that you should be ready to pay more. However, it does not always have to be expensive. If you are on a tight budget, that is not hard to find an influencer at a reasonable price. Generally, influencer marketing can be quite cost-effective when compared to other online advertisements. Social Media advertising is significantly more expensive than Influencer Marketing. If you find the right influencers and make them the right offer, it would meet with your expectations.

 

How to Collaborate With Influencers?

Have you identified the right influencer for your restaurant? Well, that’s time to make a negotiation. It is a great way to write an excellent influencer campaign brief to grab influencers’ attention. This document is sent to the influencers for collaboration which contains the client’s purposes, expectations, KPIs, guidelines, and so on. Additionally, you can offer a free dinner in your restaurant to test and to create content for you. Encourage them to make long-term collaboration with you. If you have reached an agreement, you are ready to launch the campaign. Choose a date for dinner, and get started.

 

Measure Your Marketing Success

Measuring campaign results using the data will help you to draw conclusions by understanding the effectiveness of the marketing and make the right decisions to succeed. Once the campaign lives, you need to measure its performance. Have new people attracted to your restaurant? Have your followers experienced an upward trend in social media? Have more people visiting your website? In terms of your goal, the results should come in fast or vice versa, it may differ depending on a variety of factors. But, there is nothing to worry about. It would take some time to attract more people. Just be patient for the best results. 

 

Build Long-term Relationships with the Influencers

Building loyal and successful relationships take time. Influencer relationships are an essential part of marketing success. The relationship between an influencer and a brand is called a business partnership. Entering into a long-term collaboration has significant advantages. A loyal partnership shows how much an influencer is willing to engage in your brand awareness. Building long-term relationships with your influencers come from trust, collaboration, efficiency, and help to take more advantages. Keep in mind; even small gestures can drive your influencer to make more effort for your restaurant to succeed. 

 

Manage Your Campaign Efficiently

With Keepface you will reach the desired number of influencers that are in good taste with your brand and ready to work with you. Register on Keepface Platform and create your project. Keepface will help you to save time on influencer discovery, build lasting relations with influencers, and get the most out of your campaign. 

 

What  Restaurants Future Will  Look Like After Covid-19

We have pointed out how restaurants are important for influencer marketing but yet we have not to beat the COVID-19. As it’s been said this virus is not going anywhere it is here, with us and that’s why we need to find ways to live with it. As restaurants and bars reopen to the public, it’s important to realize that eating out will increase your risk of exposure to the new coronavirus.

At that moment two problems occur. First, it’s hard to eat or drink while wearing a face mask. Second, social distancing is difficult in tight spaces normally filled with back-to-back seating and servers who weave among the busy tables all evening long.

There are different approaches to this challenge all around the world. 

There is a vegan restaurant in Amsterdam, called Mediamatic, and it raises all the social distance views to a completely different level. The restaurant built small greenhouses for diners to enjoy a meal while social distancing.

 

Hong Kong, on the other hand, has made different approaches to the problem. Dining in restaurants at breakfast and lunchtime has returned from July 31, but the number of people at a table has been restricted to two. Additionally, restaurants are limited to serving takeaways only between 6 pm and 5 am.

 

Some describe this crisis as a tunnel and everyone assumes we see the light at the end of it but we can not expect everything to go normal all of a sudden. Bad news, it is not going to be normal, everything changed, so we need to be keen to change our mindset and have faith that things are going to be a new normal.