info@keepface.com
+1 (571) 831-2262
Join
influencer marketing Tag
Home influencer marketing Page 7
Influencer marketingSMM

How to Make Influencer Marketing Work for Your Business?

In recent years influencer marketing gained momentum over traditional digital marketing, and it is a hot topic for everybody these days. To promote their products, prestigious brands spend fortunes on influencer marketing. 

 

It is the known fact that marketing campaigns consume plenty of resources, including a huge amount of their budget along with a few robust employees. However, what if you are a company with a limited budget, a new startup, or you simply do not have the money to pay an agency to start an influencer marketing campaign for you. You cannot afford celebrities, but you also want to be promoted in social media efficiently. Firsts are always harder than seconds, but Keepface makes every step easier for you. 

 

Influencer marketing is quite effective for small businesses more than big ones. After reading this blog, you will be able to run an influencer marketing campaign without spending significant sums.

What is Influencer Marketing?

influencer-marketing
Sure you have already heard about influencer marketing but let’s briefly sum it up now. Influencer marketing goes conjointly with two other types of marketing which are probably more familiar to you: social media marketing and content marketing. Influencer marketing, on the other hand, is a type of marketing that content creators- influencers- that have a unique relationship with a particular audience to promote a brand through social media. 

 

Word of mouth marketing has always been the most dominant form of marketing, from the first time when people start to sell their products, the verbal message still stands valid today. So influencer marketing is based on the fact that consumers trust other consumers more than they believe brands.

 

Here is the list of key steps you need to take for making influencer marketing for your business.

#1 Set Your Goals

 

As in every path of business, setting goals is the first step you have to take. This will help you find the right influencer for your brand. Why are you working with influencers? What are your goals? What are you looking for? Impressions? Clicks? Conversions? All these metrics serve to measure the performance of your campaign. 

Brand awareness

 

Awareness is your main goal if it is your first promotion or you are promoting a new product. It is better to advertise your brand through influencers from a specific niche. Impressions are key metrics for measuring awareness.

Community Engagement

community-engagement
You may grow awareness about your brand or products in multiple ways, but this one is the greatest and favorable. Engagement helps to see the customer attitude towards your brand. Trigger responses from a specific community, through vouchers, contests, and targeted campaigns. This helps your content reach new users, and gives the influencer something unique to offer their followers.

Sales

influencer-campaign-wishaz-
The sale is the ultimate goal of any project. But if it is your primary goal, you need to focus on click and conversions. The niche community you target may prove to be a good and reliable source of customers.

 

That’s how Wish.az the crowdfunding and donation platforms, gets their positive results. They created their campaign by working over ten influencers on Instagram and asked them to produce engaging content for their followers. Thus, they were able to identify fans of the brand that were later contacted and invited to develop visual content for Wish.az official Instagram account.

Brand Fit

 

Along with social media metrics you need to pay attention to other qualities like niche and brand fit. The importance of influencer niche is laid on a coherent base because you need to be sure it aligns with yours. In other words, any influencer you choose needs to be in accordance with your particular audience. 

 

Reputation is another crucial factor to consider when finding an influencer even though some influencers have a loyal following but alienate many others. If the influencer you want to engage in is a pretended person, consider the fact that you may forfeit your potential or existing customers.

 

Once you know what you aim to achieve, you can set a budget to pay an influencer for your brand. This also lets you think about how to reward influencers. For example, you may consider an upfront payment in addition to the commission for any sales made.

#2 Identify Your Channels

social-media-platforms
Before all else, your audience has to be your first concern. What do your potential clients or customers like? Where do they spend their time? Then think about yourself: what is the most estimable thing for your brand? Which channel do you want to grow and which one would be the place you can thrive? By knowing your consumers well you will easily incorporate those data to your influencer marketing. 

 

First, determine which social media platforms you should use based on your business. You can grow your website through influencers on specific niches or just through specific bloggers who generate a lot of traffic and write about things comparable to your technique or you can go with social media platforms.

Instagram

 

Now an almost $2 billion industry, Instagram influencer marketing has taken the social media world by storm. The app offers the perfect space for the brand ambassadorship, with influential users authentically recommending products and services to their loyal audience. With the influencer space estimated to grow to a $5-10 billion industry by 2021, it’s a marketing force that isn’t going anywhere.

 

Youtube

 

YouTube is swiftly becoming one of the most popular influencer marketing channels. With recent advancements in internet speeds, video content becomes the most preferred content for online activities. While you will find videos on most social networks now, and Instagram has even created a competing long-form video platform – IGTV, YouTube is still the de-facto place for people to come to get their video fix. 

 

Facebook

 

In many ways, Instagram has grown to be the star of the Facebook stable of social media apps. It may no longer be the social network of choice for adolescents, but it can even claim dominance of the social market, with over 2.32 billion active users at the end of 2018.

 

We don’t talk about Facebook influencer marketing as much as we do marketing on Instagram. But if your target demographic uses Facebook,  it is where your influencer marketing should be. 

 

Twitter

 

As of 2019, there are approximately 330 million active monthly users on Twitter, making it one of the biggest social networks globally. Consider the steady growth in the number of active monthly users on Twitter for the past few years. 

 

TikTok

 

As with all influencer and social media marketing, you have to avoid coming across as too salesy on TikTok. This is particularly the case because of TikTok’s youthful demographic – brands find Generation Z notoriously difficult to reach because of their total disdain for anything that resembles a traditional advertisement. As with all influencer marketing, the key to success on TikTok is working with influencers whose followers match your target market. 

#3 Find Your Influencers

 

After doing numerous research the next thing is finding the influencers to work with you and to create compelling campaigns around your brand. And to roll with your campaign, you have to make sure that you have a perfect influencer brief. 

 

But, you shouldn’t be a hundred percent sure that they’ll work with you. Sometimes it’s unlikely that they’re accessible from a financial or logistical viewpoint. Also, it’s worth knowing that the influencers you’ve picked might not be in your niche, that means they won’t help you to spread your business’s message to the right people.

 

At Keepface Influencer Discovery you can easily find the right influencers for your brand without spending extra time and money. If you truly want a successful marketing campaign, you’ll need professionals to do tasks for you. 

 

There are no strict rules to prevent you from getting creative or let your influencer be the one. If you use the opportunities social media presents for you to connect with your audience and rely on your influences to act on behalf of you, all those efforts will yield fruitful results.

#4 Manage the Relationship

After hiring influencers for your campaign, you need to nurture the relationship with them for further collaborations. Keep in mind that influencers are business people just like you, with a job to do and a reputation to uphold. 

 

#5 Measure the Results

measure-influencer-campaign-results
You’ve concluded your influencer marketing campaign, now time to measure the results versus your original goals to put a figure on whether it’s worth repeating. Did you get more followers, impressions, leads, clicks, or sales? Calculate your ROI too. What results did you get for the time and money?

Ready to Roll Out Your Influencer Campaign?

 

Once you’ve assessed your results, then you’ll have an idea of what worked and how to proceed next time to do your utmost. Rinse and repeat the steps for the upcoming campaign. You will have a clear picture of who you’ll work within your next campaign, and it will help you to refine your strategy. Keepface provides brands with all the information they need for influencer marketing. 

 

Nevertheless, if you are not getting an acceptable amount of feedback, try a different approach to your influencer marketing. The marketing business changes in a blink of an eye, but these main concepts will mostly hold. Now it’s time to go out there and influence some customers!

Read More
Rumiya Mammadova August 27, 2020
Content marketingInfluencer marketing

YouTube Marketer’s Guide to Influencer Marketing

As a marketer if influencer marketing on YouTube seems to be difficult like a journey to the end of the galaxy, then our tips will be a Hitchhiker’s Guide for your campaigns.

 

Social media use has increased rapidly over the past decade and a half. Making money is one of the most crucial features of social media for brands and influencers. Brands use social media to present their products or to reach new audiences. 

 

As social media grows and the platforms diversify, more and more users are joining it, and these users are starting to create their own content. Thereby the influencers who influence the behavior of consumers were born and opened new doors in business and marketing.

There is an undeniable fact that influencer marketing has flourished since joining Instagram to the social media platforms. But there are other players in the market. According to a survey, Youtube is the second important social media channel for influencer marketing with 70 percent.

 

Moreover, YouTube videos are the third most used format coming after Instagram stories and Instagram videos.

social-media-platforms
YouTube is rapidly becoming one of the most popular influencer marketing channels. It is an actual platform for people to watch and edit their video, while you will find videos on most social networks now. 

 

Instagram has even created a long-form video platform IGTV for competing purposes. It is clear that IGTV won’t replace YouTube, but it could only complement it. 

If Google is the Queen, then YouTube is the Princess

youtube-is-princess
We know that Google is the most used search engine. Youtube comes in next as the second largest search engine when you consider users, searches, and minutes spent on a site, which is owned by Google.

 

When you search for information, YouTube videos appear on Google’s search results as well. Therefore, Google considers videos are as important as text-only pages and it is no secret that searchers click on the first 10 organic results. 

Is It Worthy to Use Influencer Marketing on YouTube?

youtube-is-worthy
Video content is now an integral part of most people’s online experiences with recent improvements in internet speeds. The increase in the use of video also encourages influencers to use this method. YouTube is an extraordinary place for expanding the potential of influencers and influencer marketing.

 

Creating complementary videos as part of your marketing strategy on YouTube is a great advantage for brands who want to boost their business. The following factors prove the role of YouTube in influencer marketing and will motivate marketers.

How to Use YouTube for Influencer Marketing?

How-to-Use-YouTube-for-Influencer-Marketing-?
With the right strategy and influencers, you can make the most out of your YouTube influencer marketing for your brand. There are different ways you can use YouTube, which booms influencer marketing. 

 

Depending on brand goals, customer needs, good marketers can create different types of campaigns. Unboxing videos, giveaway & contests, ads & promotions, product launches are some of the foremost ways you can use YouTube influencers.

 

You can also add hashtags and locations to go even deeper with your influencer marketing. Influencers can be test subjects for marketers.

Step-by-Step YouTube Influencer Marketing Guide

step-by-step-guide-youtube-influencer-marketing

Step 1. Understand your target audience

 

The most vital step in influencer marketing is to analyze and understand the target audience and predict their desire. Understanding the target audience helps to build trust and deliver your brand message.

 

Step 2. Set Clear Goals

 

Brands must be evident with influencers on their campaign purposes. 

As a part of the collaboration, the goals have a profound influence on every YouTube video. The tone of influencer content can change from your campaign purpose. Let’s say, for a sales directed campaign influencer may create a whole video on your new product line. 

Step 3. Identify the Right YouTube Influencers

 

Choose the right influencers who will help you to achieve your goals. The number of followers should not be the most critical priority when choosing influencers.  On the contrary, brands should choose influencers who have a similar culture to their campaign. This is where it makes sense to use Keepface in finding the right influencers for your brand. 

Your budget will also affect your influencer choice. Accordingly, focusing on YouTubers who make videos for the target audience within the budget will be more effective.

 

Step 4. Analyze Creator’s Content Quality

 

When working with YouTube influencers, you should analyze the influencers’ content, their channels’ aesthetics. There must be harmony between your brand, target audience, and influencers. For instance, if you want to promote your family-friendly brand, you should collaborate with YouTube influencers whose content aligns with family values and your brand values,

Step 5. Work with Influencer Marketing Experts

 

Influencer marketing can be complicated and hard to control, especially for large scale YouTube partnerships. That’s where Keepface stepped in. Keepface is an automated platform for brands to reach the most relevant influencers, communicate with them, and manage campaigns using real-time analytics.

 

Working with Keepface brands are handed on every step of the influencer marketing process, including influencer discovery, influencer management, content creation, and analyzing and reporting a campaign’s progress.

Read More
Lamiya Babazade August 25, 2020
Influencer marketingTechnology

The Lord of the Influencer Marketing: Artificial Intelligence

I have watched a lot of science-fiction movies about artificial intelligence, and many of them introduced artificial intelligence as a villain, like Hal 9000 in the 2001 Space Odyssey. For influencer marketing, artificial intelligence is not a negative figure, but rather a hero. If you are curious, I invite you to read the full article about AI’s role in influencer marketing.  

Beyond the AI hype

beyond-ai-hype
In the first place, if you ask what artificial intelligence is, then Wikipedia will answer you that AI is intelligence demonstrated by machines, unlike the natural intelligence displayed by humans and animals. Plus, there is a lot of hype around AI, and most discussions about artificial intelligence concluded with hysteria. 

 

People assume that AI  even replaces human in specific processes as AI can accelerate procedures. Moreover, it is crystal clear for everybody that AI can process data at a level impossible for human capabilities. Nevertheless, in Influencer marketing, human interaction is an essential part of the work, because it is a human-to-human process, while AI alone cannot provide that.

How Artificial Intelligence Can Be Transformed Into Influencer Marketing?

 

In the Search of Right Influencer

searching-for-right-influencer
Digital marketing is extremely noisy, therefore, brands need content that will resonate in the digital world. One of the biggest obstacles to this is finding the right influencers and it is not expected from marketers to be Sherlock Holmes in the searching process. The number of followers should not be the most important priority when choosing influencers, it is not possible to identify an influencer’s potential only based on their follower count. 

 

Marketers need to consider other factors such as the engagement level. Additionally, collaborating with an influencer who has a similar culture to the brands is likewise important. Here AI comes to our aid.

Let’s look at how

 

AI can analyze various data from an influencer’s social media profile. This goes into the scope of Natural Language Processing (NLP). Natural language processing is a form of AI that’s focused on analyzing, understanding, and using written or spoken human languages. 

 

Conveying messages is tremendously important for Influencer Marketing, and of course, creating messages needed words. So, NLP has a powerful role in analyzing. NLP has the capacity to deal with unstructured data on social media. It analyses the content of influencer posts and generates interests, industries, demographics, and brand associations from them. Influencer platforms use these classifications in discovery search engines. 

 

With that, Brand marketers can identify who the key influencers are in growth areas and can gain better insights about influencers. Likewise, marketers can determine what types of content will resonate with social media followers.

Catch Fraudulent Influencers If You Can

catch-influencers-if-you-can
Brands pay influencers who have significant followers on top social media platforms to promote their products and reach a relevant audience. Using social media bots for increasing followers count and creating fake engagement metrics makes it difficult to determine the credibility of influencers. Influencers can buy fake followers and pay for bots to like or comment on their posts that can mislead brands. 

 

According to a report from Cheq, fraudulent activity is costing advertisers $1.3 billion in 2019. Fraud figures not only prevent the product from reaching the target audience but also causes brands to spend money without getting any tangible results. AI can help brands analyze and identify computer-generated influencers, social media bots, which is a real threat for brands.

The Creation of Content

creation-of-content
ML (Machine Learning) technologies can analyze millions of online images and videos within a few seconds. ML algorithms collect more intricate data according to the automatic identification of images and videos. Moreover, ML/AI technologies can analyze comment sentiment. It allows identifying whether the expressed opinion is positive or negative and deciding which posts have a positive attitude, positive feedback, and which one vice versa. It helps the brand to identify which type of content is most likely to get positive responses by the target audience. 

Predicting ROI

predicting-roi
AI allows marketers to closely observe an influencer’s performance and assists track and analyze every piece of content, various engagement metrics. Therefore, it can calculate the ROI of the campaigns and understand whether it has had an impact on your revenue. Where an influencer’s success is irregular, calculating the ROI of an influencer marketing campaign and forecasting results are vital. 

 

Analyzing influencers is difficult without AI because every creator is different. If marketers want to get top-level insights in the data dump, only a machine/AI can deal with the mass amounts of big data.

Eternal Sunshine of the Keepface AI Tool

 

Brands cannot resist the power of AI on running successful influencer marketing. As I mentioned above, AI can support brands from various aspects. Keepface, which implements the latest innovations in its tool, certainly could not neglect AI technology. Keepface offers AI-powered influencer tools that will help brands to pursue their campaigns in the best way.

 

With the image recognition tool, Keepface analyzes accounts, for example, especially suspicious accounts, which can deceive companies causing a huge amount of damage to their business. It is tough for brands to recognize fraudulent figures by themselves without the help of pros.  

Moreover, by using image recognition Keepface can easily classify influencers’ contents. It turns images into readable data. Of course, the only image recognizing is not enough for this process. Keepface ML/AI tools can analyze written data too. At the end of this process, Keepface helps the companies to choose the right influencers which have similar culture with their brands and can deliver content to the target audience.

 

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

Read More
Lamiya Babazade August 20, 2020
Influencer marketing

Which Brands Did Not Sleep During The Lockdown?

Coronavirus pushed the whole world into the back. Brands with years of experience were struggling to find the working strategy during the lockdown. But still, we have agile brands that managed to reach customers with the help of influencer marketing.

 

Let’s see who nailed the biggest global challenge with the right content and creativity. 

#1 Pepsi Virtual Suhour 

 

Ramadan is the time of gathering, spending time with family and friends. But due to the pandemic people are confined to their homes and isolate themselves. With increasing social media consumption during Ramadan, the search for food video content also rises. According to the report, 86% of Facebook users in MENA celebrate Ramadan. 

 

What Pepsi reminded us is social distancing does not mean social isolation. Working with Saudi Arabia key influencer Tareq Al Harbi, Pepsi launched the live series of the Virtual Sohour campaign. 

 

Each week the influencer hosted a Virtual Sohour in a live stream with another popular influencer picked by his audience. Virtual Sohour campaign’s main goal was to generate strong engagement with its main target group, Millenials and Gen Z.

 

With a combination of technology and traditions, Pepsi brought people together when they were apart. 

 

Pepsi was brave enough to take the risk to launch unedited, unfiltered live streaming content on a hard time. But results say it is worth risking. The Virtual Sohour campaign reached a 21M audience while driving a 5.3% engagement rate. 

#2 Activia Gut Health Campaign

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Talilla ? Live Workouts ? (@talillahenchoz) on

Activia is among the brands that worked even more productively during the lockdown. In one of their releases, the brand mentioned since 2015 Google searches for “gut health” is increasing by 400%, meaning people understand the importance of a healthy digestive system for the overall health system.

 

During the lockdown, Activia re-launched their Gut Health initiative campaign to promote its products which contain calcium, probiotics, and natural ingredients that are essential for healthy digestive enzymes. The Gut Health campaign is designed for boosting awareness of the relationship between gut health and overall health. The influencer campaign mainly targets younger people and Gen Z to share the basics required for gut health. 

 

Influencers created content about informing their audience about the importance of gut health and a range of Activia products that support a healthy and balanced lifestyle.

#3 Alo Move’s Sweat & Tone Campaign

 

Lockdown changes the way brands communicate with the audience. But it also creates new opportunities to reach new customers with value and creativity. Fitness brand Alo Moves launched an influencer campaign for the #stayhome with the right message. 

 

The brand collaborated with fitness influencer Calli Gullickson on #sweat&tone seven-day workout series. This helped to increase customer engagement with influencer followers and also raised traffic to Alo Moves’ and the parent company Alo Yoga’s website. 

#4 Puma’s Virtual Ambassador

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by M △ Y △ (@mayaaa.gram) on

Starting from February 2020 Puma adopted a completely new digital marketing strategy by engaging in virtual reality.  Puma scaled its influencer marketing by introducing its own Virtual Influencer in Southeast Asia. By running influencer partnerships with 2.5 million engagement before Puma is familiar with the role of influencers in marketing. 

 

Together with Maya and Asian stars, Puma launched the RiderUnlocked campaign video on YouTube. However, Maya’s content extends from brand ambassador posts to sharing life-hacks for a productive and positive day. 

 

Puma’s also tapped into AR by turning each Instagram user into PUMAN. A combination of UGC and influencer marketing leads to AR face filters. Puma worked with influencers such as footballers, actors, KPOP dancers to share stories with AR filters and call their fans to share stories with PUMAN filters and #RiderUnlocked hashtag to get discounts on PUMA products. 

#5 Oreo Stay Home Stay Playful

After the setting of global lockdown, Oreo was looking for an ad that accomplishes the brand image and will bring joy to people to go through the hard times. Oreo renewed last year’s Stay Playful campaign to #StayhomeStayplayful tagline. The campaign calls people to entertain and be active during the stay home. 

 

As part of this campaign, Oreo launched the #CoockieWithACause challenge on TikTok. The challenge features UGC videos of people holding Oreo cookies and moving it to their mouths. 

 

Oreo’s initiative was to donate $1 for every video with #CoockieWithACause hashtag to SaveChildren nonprofit organization. 

#6 Hawaya Awareness Campaign

 

Hawaya is an online dating app designed for Muslim singles. Due to the pandemic, Hawaya has seen a jump in the number of messages and overall app usage. 

 

To sustain the app’s success and encourage people to connect during the social distance, the matchmaking app launched an influencer marketing campaign in Indonesia and Malaysia. The goal was to increase awareness of Hawaya mainly among female users and increase app installs. 

 

Together with the Keepface Influencer Marketing Platform, 52 diverse tier of social media influencers were picked to work on the campaign. Influencers created IG stories to inform their followers about the app and call them to download the app. The value-driven approach of Hawaya makes the app appeal to conservative societies. 

 

Hawaya Awareness Campaign generated 323,013 and 436,256 Impressions in Indonesia and Malaysia respectively. The app is currently expanding its influencer marketing to Turkey, Germany, Saudi Arabia. 

Take a Step In the New Era  

 

Now consumers are more careful when it comes to the influencers to follow and engage with. Influencers stay as brands’ spokespersons and deliver their messages in a human way. Investing in an influencer platform will help to find the best brand advocates for your marketing campaign. Keepface automated platform offers distinct products to smooth your influencer marketing in every step. 

Read More
Natella Mammadzade August 19, 2020
Influencer marketing

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. 

Read More
Natella Mammadzade April 29, 2020
Influencer marketing

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.

video-games
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. 

Reach more players instantly! Start your influencer campaign now with ready-to-start packages. Click to see.

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. ?

cat-playing-game-tablet

#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 story.  Also, 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. 

influencers-on-facebook-groups
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.
influencer-outreach-tools-platforms
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. 

Read More
Emin Valiyev April 11, 2020
Content marketing

The Impact of Coronavirus on Marketing Industry

As one of the foremost human tragedies, Coronavirus is affecting the lives of the world population, endangering the health of hundreds of thousands of people, bereaving social freedom. It has also dramatic effects on the businesses in public and private sectors. It is difficult to define the true financial cost of the virus on the economy as the outbreak spreads day-by-day to new regions. 

 

Beginning in China and following in the world, leading technology, apparel, automobile companies have been compelled to shut down their factories, close sales stores, and lay off employees. The downturn put pressure on logistics, supply chain management, and shipment services. 

Businesses are canceled 

 

Lockdown due to the Coronavirus negatively affects the B2B market too. Major tech conferences, sports, art events are canceled causing billions of losses to the whole world economy. According to the US B2B marketers, in-person communication and tradeshows are the most effective channels for driving conversion and lead generation. Expected cost of cancellation of the biggest tech conferences is $1B loss. 

What does this mean for marketers?

 

It is vital to keep relations with customers in the first wave of the crises. Discounts, special offers are a good way to engage with current customers. 

 

However, not to exploit the fear people are experiencing, platforms like Google and Facebook are blocking any ad that might be abusing the situation. From the beginning of the outbreak, Facebook started to ban ads for goods like hand sanitizers and face masks. It also prohibited the sharing of misinformation causing panic, or about the cure of the virus.  

Some brands renovate delivering services 

 

Due to the increased online shopping Amazon focuses on the stocking and delivery of the essential products following the situation. The company prioritizes the delivery of household staples, healthcare supplies, personal care, grocery and baby products. Sales outside these categories are suspended up to 5 April, which can be extended.

Cut down in marketing budgets

 

According to the Econsultancy and Marketing Week’s survey, product and service launches are delayed to uncertain times. 55% in the UK and 56% in US marketers said that their marketing campaigns are under review or delayed. 

 

Besides the travel and hospitality, FMCG, restaurants, entertainment industries seriously stumbled in the first quarter and expected to continue in the second quarter, as well. Reduced ad spend on these sectors also cause fall off in the budgets of Google and Facebook. Considering the fact that in 2019, travel ads accounted for 10% of Google’s ads revenue.  Marketers anticipate a 30% to 45% drop in Facebook’s revenue because of hits on travel, consumer packaged goods, retailer and entertainment in the first quarter. 

Social responsibility

 

It is the best time to build public trust that will always be remembered. Through corporate social responsibility programs, companies take initiatives for the benefit of their employees and society. The different range actions include covering sick leaves of workers, helping the government to fight against the disease, producing face masks or hand sanitizers, giving food support away and etc. The American fashion brand Ralph Lauren donates $10M for the relief of the virus. The donation will go to the WHO fund, the corporation’s employees and cancer institutions. 

 

Several brands run different social campaigns to invite people to stay at home. The global franchise chane McDonald’s separated its golden arch M to support self isolation. The change in the logo is only made in the social platforms. Nike, which closed all stores in Western Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the US, launched Play inside, play for the world campaign. To prevent the spread of novel Coronavirus, Starbucks stops the use of reusable cups in its stores. Plus, it offers a 10% discount to customers who bring their reusable cups or ask to use the brand’s cups. 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Now more than ever, we are one team.⠀ #playinside #playfortheworld

A post shared by nike (@nike) on

Despite its diminishing ad revenues, Facebook offers $100 million grants as cash and ad credits to 30 000 small businesses in 30 countries that it operates. Along with donating 10M masks to the citizens in the US and Europe, Apple launched a website and an iOS app that allow users to screen themselves for the Coronavirus. Another tech giant Google gave $800M mainly in the ad form to support the fight against the virus, including $20M in  Google Cloud for academic institutions and researchers, $200M for NGO and financial institutions, $340M for small and medium enterprises. 

Difficulties create opportunities 

 

With all complexity and obstacles, the virus challenges all markets to redirect their marketing and sales plans and utilize them to the current conditions. 

 

Time spent on social media has enormously been rising as more people stay-at-home to minimize the risk of the virus. Now people have “unlimited time” to produce and consume more content than ever. 

 

According to a report by Izea, 66% of the correspondents predict their social media usage will increase. Internet users believe that YouTube usage will increase by 64% while Facebook will increase 63%, followed by Instagram by 43% and Twitter by 34%. 

Remote working is a new era now

 

Several business events shifted online such as Google Cloud Next, IBM’s developers conference. The loss of face-to-face communication and the cancellation of social events creates a huge demand for online conferencing platforms such as SLAC, webinars. Slack said there is almost a 40% increase in the numbers of paid customers. Daily active users of Microsoft Teams more than doubled from November to March. It also added new features to the platform for telehemedice. 

 

The growing need for telehealth and teleconferencing accelerates the implication of 5G technology. 

 

According to the Appsflyer’s report, there is a 15% increase in organic non-gaming app installs starting from mid-February. The non-gaming app categories mainly include communication, finance, health & fitness, news, a utility which means people turn their social habits to online presence.

Spike in online gaming industry 

 

Social distancing makes people gather and entertain on online games. Video gaming companies either extend or introduce new promotions. In China, total game downloads in Apple’s app stores made a 27.5% increase that is a 12.1% rise in revenue. According to Douyu’s streaming index, games like “Honor of Kings”, “League of Legends” and “Playerunknown’s Battleground” now are twice as popular compared to 2019. “Honor of Kings” reached 63 million views during the New Year holiday.

 

In the US there is 75% upswing in the number of online game players. The largely damaged Italy sees a 70% increase in internet traffic which is mainly contributed by the gaming industry like “Fortnite”, “Call of Duty: Warzone”. Steam reached 22.5 million all-time user peaks during last week.

What is happening to influencer marketing in the meantime? 

 

It is important to engage with the audience during this hard time. Social distancing is largely overwhelming fashion, lifestyle, travel influencers whose content is mainly based on outside activities. 

 

Due to economic stagnation and slacking consumer behavior in different fields, lots of clothing, entertainment brands are constrained to withdraw or delay their partnerships. But, this will not cause the influencer marketing to go away.

 

We all know it is not the right time to pose in the perfect looking outfits at social events, holiday travels. At the same time, we see an increased number of social media usage, and engagements rise up. It is an opportunity to create useful and educational content and rebuild trust with the followers. As authorities who influence our lives, they can call people to understand the situation and follow the guidelines, spread positivity, advise on activities to effectively spend our time at home.

The different types of content such as streaming daily vlogs to show how they use their time well in these hard times, adding movie and book recommendations, distant learning programs, and home recipes. It will also help to reform the market in a more authentic and communication-based nature. 

 

Gaming, fitness, yoga and wellbeing influencers are the most followed categories in the stay-at-home period. Psychology experts are the next category people feel the need in self-isolation period. Changing living habits, fear of health issues, and financial uncertainty in many traditional works make people seek to keep physical and mental balance in a sedentary lifestyle.

Challenges with uncertainty 

 

It is early to voice the precise amount of economic loss. Continued uncertainty hinders to define needed actions to be taken. Drop-in the main spheres of the economy makes brands alter their marketing, sales strategies, and set new budgets. 

  

Although negative consequences of the Coronavirus virus is expected to continue in the upcoming months, a positive lesson that we learned in these days is global lockdown opened a new and ongoing stay-at-home economy. The vast majority of businesses more or less can perform the same results as in the in-person working. Now it is possible to serve food, grocery, health care kits to millions of people at the same time. Purchasing habits of people will not be the same as the pre-break period. 

Read More
Natella Mammadzade April 6, 2020
Influencer marketing

9 Challenges of Influencer Marketing: What brands can do about it?

Although influencer marketing is a relatively young industry, 89% of marketers find it more profitable. Plus to its benefits, influencer marketing has challenges, as well. Lack of regulation in influencer marketing creates new challenges for marketers and brands who seek to use it on their marketing strategies. 

What are the challenges in influencer marketing?

 

According to the study conducted by Mediakix, one of the biggest challenges of the marketing industry is spotting fake followers and inauthentic engagement. This is followed by social algorithm changes that make content less visible and building an always-on strategy instead of one-off campaigns. Let’s look through those main challenges of the influencer marketing industry and what brands can do about them.

Fake influencer activities

 

The number one thread in influencer marketing is the growing number of inauthentic influencers with fake followers that increase brands’ concerns about finding the right influencers to work with. Fake bot followers are made to inflate follower numbers and engagement. The aim here is to deceive brands and followers as a trusty channel. Pretty much all social platforms are victims of these fake followers. 

 

Unfortunately, influencer fraud costs millions of dollars to brands. According to the 2018 report by Points North Group, of the $744 million that brands spent on influencer marketing, $102 million was wasted on fake followers, including Unilever’s brand Dove. Yet no brand was as seriously affected as Raw Sugar Living. The same report showed that 46% of the brand’s influencer marketing budget was eaten into bots and paid followers.

 

Fake followers are not only a challenge in the influencer marketing industry, but many marketing agencies also suffer from the same fraudulent activities with their digital ads such as fake impressions. 

 

Luckily, as we already mentioned in our previous blog, there are several methods to spot fake followers like checking influencer growth rate, reading post comments, communication between influencer and followers, and using influencer analytics tools to analyze influencers’ profiles.

Rising influencer marketing costs

The next challenge ahead of brands is the rising cost of influencers. As the demand and industry grow it gets more complicated, more efforts and tools are required to leverage.

 

How much does the influencer marketing cost? It is a partnership fee that you pay, comprising the type of the content, the influencers’ creativity, campaign duration, influencer engagement, or agency fee. Rising influencer cost is also associated with the bot followers which are used for pretending big influencer profiles in brands’ minds. But does paying more to influencers raise your ROI? Brands need to effectively measure relevant metrics and ROI. 

 

What to do?

 

Seemingly low-cost marketing channel in influencer marketing is micro-influencers. Individuals with a small but very active number of followers have more engagement rates and trusty profiles. Micro-influencers are approachable, credible, and generate more engagement rate, 22.2 times higher conversions than the other influencer types.

Changing algorithms

 

Algorithm is pretty much how the social media platforms operate. First of all, changing algorithms might change engagement rates and your posts’ visibility. From the positive side platforms change algorithms for supporting quality content, and users who post authentically and frequently.

Facebook’s new algorithm for example, amplifies personal accounts’ posts rather than business accounts. So, it allows brands to leverage influencer marketing easily on Facebook or think of Instagram’s no like change. The new model helps brands not to be deceived by bot likes, to work with authentic influencers, and to support paid posts on Instagram. 

 

Brands have to set their marketing plans based on the existing algorithms. As these algorithms change regularly, brands should adopt new marketing strategies and optimize them according to the changes. These changes put influencers forward who are authentic and have higher engagements, so that brands can easily work with credible influencers. 

In-house team, agency or influencer marketing platform? 

 

The following challenge to overcome is deciding on in-house team or agency to run influencer campaigns. Considering third party costs on one side, and time spent on influencer search and campaign management on the other side. 

 

After working on influencer market brands move their influencer marketing management to the internal team. Getting accustomed to the market aspect motivates brands to work solely instead of partnering with influencer marketing agencies or platforms. Despite specialized agencies, database tools, the high budget, and needed experience, marketers committed to run influencer campaigns with an in-house team. 

 

Influencer marketing agencies work on the campaigns from the influencer finding to the campaign management. They built reputation and trust in brands and influencers’ eyes have expertise. By maintaining relations with influencers and brands, agencies get to know the market well. 

 

Influencer marketing platforms give brands influencer accounts with relevant metrics and post statistics. On influencer marketing platforms, companies can easily register their brands, filter influencers by different categories, create campaigns and get reports at the end. Along with influencer marketing software, employee advocacy, and influencer analytics tools, Keepface offers influencer lists on different niches. AI-powered products have influencer profiles, performance data, audience analytics, and different other features.

Following trends

 

As long as brands expand their influencer marketing they should go along with changing trends and reshape their strategies. Here includes responding to on-going trends in a creative way, the emergence of new influencers, allowing UGC, building long-term relations with influencers.

Employee advocacy

challenges-of-influencer-marketing-employee-advocacy

While influencers act as trusted agents on behalf of your brand, your employees are even more credible party to promote your brand. Employee advocacy is a smart way of promoting your brand without spending extra money and time. The practical knowledge of these people helps to increase trust and deliver your message even more clearly. The issue with employee advocacy is empowering low-reach people to spread your brand awareness. But if effectively run, employee advocacy can turn followers into real customers. 

 

Keepface’s Employee Advocacy Tool is designed to amplify your social voice. The tool will help to enhance internal and external communication, keep control over brand voice on social media and report on which platform you perform best. All you need is to set up an employee advocacy campaign and manage it in a single place.

Enhancing content marketing

 

Content marketing is a modest way of presenting your brand on social media. The important part of building trust is expressing who you are with the help of quality content. However, creating quality content is the rising challenge of content marketing alone. Consistently writing content can lead to neglect quality. Highly experienced brands, pages with a relatively large number of publications sometimes can fail to deliver their messages, cause misunderstanding or just not get enough attention after all. 

 

What about combining content marketing with influencer marketing? 

 

Instead of writing long content to publicize your brand, prepare short texts that are plausible for the influencers you picked up. You cannot expect a high reputation from influencers without quality content. 

 

Simply, you can create content for giveaway campaigns, video, podcast or social media takeovers, branded posts and ask influencers to optimize it in their style or provide influencers with all the text to prevent extra efforts and misleading by influencers.

Increasing video content 

 

In a world where mobile phones are used as cameras, video content sharing became even more popular. As videos are eye-catching and they generate more engagement. Not surprisingly, algorithms in social platforms also support video content. According to the report, 72% of customers prefer to learn about products and services from videos. Preparing video content requires more time, efforts and in-depth information to share. 

 

Editing is an important part of video sharing. A clear, polished video is more likely to attract more viewers and brands. We have seen lots of influencers quit YouTube due to the long hours needed for making and editing videos. Also, for brands sponsoring video content is pricier in comparison to photo or story posts. 

 

Approaching video content as a challenge ahead, brands can sponsor video tutorials or invite influencers for product promotion videos. Preparing video content allows influencers to signify their creativity, share emotions and spur their audience for communicating.

Competition in existing social media platforms

challenges-of-influencer-mmarketing-social-media-platforms

Saturation of the influencer market leads marketers to look for new places. As the number of influencers increases, content becomes repetitive in existing platforms. Moving to new channels is challenging for marketers, in terms of brand compatibility with app features, finding the relevant influencers, getting accustomed to the app usage. The good thing is social platforms support easy communication, creativity, and attract the young generation.  

 

The increased number of users drives the marketability of platforms. Take the example of TikTok, from clothing to the gaming industry, global brands either enter solely or collaborate with influencers.

 

Another new channel to leverage influencer marketing is podcast. Authentic influencers with a dedicated audience allow running a cost-effective influencer marketing strategy. The rising popularity of the podcasts opens new doors for brands who are strong-minded on influencer marketing. 

Eventually, all these challenges are connected like a chain. Marketers need to clearly define the goals of influencer marketing strategies and apply them to overcome these.challenges. 

Read More
Natella Mammadzade March 12, 2020
Influencer marketing

6 Alternative Digital Marketing Techniques to Grow Your Business in 2019

The number of people who go online is still increasing steadily. Along with it, the way that people do shopping has also changed. It means that traditional marketing is not as effective as it used to be. Marketing is about connecting with prospective customers at the right time and in the right place. Now, it means that marketers need to meet people where they spend a lot of time: on the internet. We can benefit from digital marketing techniques, which is a form of marketing that exists online. Here include all digital marketing techniques that use electronic devices and the internet.

As stated by Philip Kotler, marketing author, Consultant, and Profesor, “Marketing is not the art of finding clever ways to dispose of what you make. It is the art of creating genuine customer value.”

Many businesses use digital techniques and channels like social media, search engines, emails and other sites to connect their audiences. Businesses’ online branding assets encompass a spectrum of techniques such as email and digital advertising, online brochure and so on. All of them fall under the umbrella of digital marketing. 

There are top 5 digital marketing techniques which are: content marketing, search engine optimization, social media marketing, email marketing, and digital advertising. Besides these, businesses can find different alternatives in this digital ocean to focus on to grow in 2019. Let’s dive deeper into five more digital marketing techniques. 

Live Video Marketing

live-video-streaming-marketing-technique

In recent years live video marketing phenomenon has been propelled by social media. Social channels like YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook support live video streaming and some of them has already become a vital platform for gamers, journalists and various types of audiences.

Livestream videos can be a great equalizer for small businesses as it helps to tell the brand’s story and gives access to the brand in a whole new way that has much more contribution.  Live video streaming marketing allows brands to try something new. You can do live stream videos to create conversations, provide the necessary information, highlight partners, employees, and fans. 

  • Live videos are effectively used in the following cases: 
  • Q&A and conversation with the audience 
  • Q&A and customer support
  • Product introductions or special annoncements
  • Live events 
  • Backstage and behind-the-scenes streaming  

Data-driven Marketing

data-driven-digital-marketing-technique

Data-driven marketing is the strategy of using customer information for optimal and targeted media buying and creative messaging.

Modern data-driven marketing began with the invention of the customer relationship management (CRM) software. CRMs allow marketers to track who individual customers are including the name and contact information.

It is one of the most transformational changes in digital advertising that has ever occurred. Usage and activation of data, often in an automated or semi-automated manner, allows for a significantly more optimized media and creative strategy. This people-first marketing strategy is more personalized. It has also been responsible for driving considerable ROIs for marketers.

Today, marketers are spending over $6 billion a year on data-driven targeting solutions like data management platforms (DMPs) and demand-side platforms (DSPs).

Benefits of data-driven marketing are: 

  • Messaging audiences with relevant messages
  • Targeting the right consumers 
  • More efficient media buying 

Affiliate Marketing 

affiliate-marketing-digital-marketing-technique

Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s (or company’s) products. You find a product you like, promote it to others and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make. Affiliate marketing is one of the most effective digital marketing techniques and tactics especially for businesses that don’t have a tonne of capital. Because they only pay money for sales. 

There are a few things that marketers should know about affiliate marketing. 

1. It is challenging to recruit affiliates. 

2. You need to continuously optimize your website. If people are driving traffic but the visitors are not converting into customers, that means they are either driving irrelevant traffic, but most affiliate marketers are good at what they do. So usually the traffic sources typically qualify or it means that your website isn’t converting. And it is usually the issue. 

Despite those challenges, affiliate marketing is a popular tactic to drive sales and generate significant online revenue. Extremely beneficial to both brands and affiliate marketers, the new push towards less traditional marketing tactics has paid off. 

In fact:

Targeting “Generation Z”

generation-z

For many marketers, “Generation Z” is a mystery. They’ve been so focused on targeting millennials in the past ten years that they’ve forgotten about a whole new generation of young’ uns who are now able to buy from brands. From an e-commerce perspective – Generation Z should be easy to target as they’re online already. They know how the technology works and they’re very active on social.

Ways you can target “Gen Z”
  1. Create engaging content – not advertisements
  2. Make your content interactive
  3. Use media that appeal to “Generation Z”
  4. Focus on social channels

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

artificial-intelligence-machine-learning

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are an increasingly integral part of digital marketing. AI has moved beyond a buzzword to a foundational layer in any successful marketer’s toolkit. 

From Google’s use of AI in search results through to chatbots, predictive analytics, content creation, and personalization, we are seeing AI entering our daily lives as both marketers and consumers. So, we highly recommend the usage of Artificial Intelligence in the new digital marketing strategy. As the personalization is really vital than before, and clients are expecting an incredible shopping experience from brands. 

It’s fascinating that 73% of users want to give up information for an increasingly customized advertisement experience. That’s why experts suppose Artificial Intelligence as a connection between the client and the product. Furthermore, regarding investigations, Artificial Intelligence will increase to more than seven billion dollars per year by 2022.

Here are the essential benefits of AI for Digital marketing: 
  • AI can hyper-personalize customer experience by analyzing their profiles.
  • AI increases the speed of the production of certain types and formats of content.
  • AI-powered software can decide what content to create and when to distribute it.
  • AI can process large quantities of data and make accurate predictions based on patterns that emerge from it.
  • AI can predict customer behavior and identify and nurture valuable leads.

Influencer Marketing 

influencer-marketing-strategy

The last digital marketing technique on our list is influencer marketing. Influencer marketing is the process of identifying, researching, engaging and supporting the people who create high-impact conversations with customers about your brand, products or services.

It offers brands the potential to unite their marketing, PR, sales, product, digital marketing, and social media through powerful and relevant relationship-based communication with influencers. Both the ROI and marketing potential of influencer marketing is tremendous.

Recent studies have found that 75% of B2B buyers are influenced by information found on social media. As online customer conversations continue to evolve so drastically, social media influencers are playing a critical role in breaking online clutter, creating relevant customer dialogue and bringing trust to the table for brands and marketers alike.  

In an era where consumers have never been hungrier for reviews, ratings, and word-of-mouth recommendations, influencers are the key to unlocking their trust and dollars. Remember trust pays!

5 things for a successful influencer marketing strategy: 
  1. Knowing your target customers and understanding who impacts how they evaluate, discover and buy your product.
  2. Finding the right influencers who produce and share content that can impact your business or your buyer’s decision-making process.
  3. Monitoring influencers for opportunities.
  4. Following, sharing, and linking to your influencers will be the first step in a fruitful relationship.
  5. Measuring your results and keep track of your effectiveness. 

Influencer marketing is rapidly gaining popularity. No doubt marketers are catching on to the ROI and relationship-building potential. In 2015, Schlesinger Associates released a study in which 84% of marketers said they would launch at least one influencer campaign in the following year. Others have claimed that the industry of influencer marketing could soon expand to $5-10 billion dollars in spending.

Here at Keepface.com, we facilitate straightforward communications and collaborations for both brands and influencers. Through an automated platform, brands can reach the most relevant and matching influencers, negotiate and collaborate with them. At the same time, influencers can create their channels, negotiate with brands and choose their favorite brands for further partnerships. Keep up with the latest developments in influencer marketing by visiting our influencer marketing blog.

Read More
Gulnar Ismayil July 3, 2019
Influencer marketing

How does influencer marketing target kids?

For a good few years now, Millennial has been the word on the lips of many marketers but brands may soon have to shift their focus to a younger, more diverse audience that is growing at a rapid pace, Generation Z and Alpha. Born with smartphones, tablets, and technology at their fingertips, these young consumers are the ones to watch. Generation Z, a group of consumers that were born from 1996 onwards and Generation Alpha, born from 2010 onwards. So this blog covers how big brands use influencer marketing to target kids?

“They are adult consumers of the future.”

Kid-influencer-watching-tv-ads

Here are some interesting statistics about Gen Z.

Technology has always been front and center for these two generations. With 73% of Generation Z having access to subscription video on demand services and over 90% of them owning a smartphone, this younger generation is unlike any other. 

According to a recent study, children between the ages of 5 and 15 now spend at least 15 hours online every week, which is 1 hour and 18 minutes more than they used to but how are they spending their time online exactly?

Surprisingly, social media is not at the top of that list. 73% of children between 5 and 15 use YouTube more than any other online platform. Some even indicated that they would rather watch videos and shows on YouTube than watch TV.

It is predicted members of these generations will make up 40% of all consumers, which means that brands really need to start paying attention to what makes them tick.

So what do marketers need to know about them?

generation-z
  • They do not respond to traditional marketing

This generation does not respond to advertising in the same way that older generations do. The use of ad blockers is almost a given, which means that marketers need to think of more creative, impactful ways to not only reach this audience but grab their attention too.

  • They are all for the community.

Their peers are important to them and they care about what others have to say. All of their most important conversations happen online and they’re much more likely to respond to brands that are more humanized.

  • Optimized contents are their thing. 

These young online users are used to having to sift through mountains of online content all the time, so while it might seem that this generation has a really short attention span, they’ve really just learned how to assess and recognize the content they really want to consume in a short amount of time.

Brands already collaborate with Kid Bloggers to Sell Toys and Clothes

brands-collaborate-kid-influencer

“Toys R” – Toy Box reality show campaign

Brands and marketers are stepping into a partnership with these kid influencers and their parents, and even the more as the holiday shopping season picks up. The big brands in particular – Walmart, Amazon, Target, and eBay – are competing for a greater share of the toy market recently vacated by “Toys R”, which closed down more than 800 stores in June of 2018.

It’s worth noting that while “Toys R” was responsible for a hefty 12 percent of all toy sales in the US before its demise, the toy sales industry has been slowing in recent years. Toy manufacturers are losing market share to mobile games – which now account for 20 percent of the $187 global toy and games market.


Even if you didn’t necessarily buy all your toys there, making the trip to “Toys R” stores with the kids was a holiday tradition in the US.
However, for small toy companies, it can be difficult to get on the shelves of megastores. Influencer marketing provides a way for small toy companies to insert their brand in front of potential customers just as the year’s shopping season gets underway.

To actualize its goal, “Toys R” first partnered with ABC and Mattel to support reality television show called The Toy Box. In this TV series, passionate toy inventors presented their unique ideas to a panel of judges made up of kids. They leveraged young social media star @katieryan430 with 1.9MM followers who was the perfect social media influencer to deliver the brand’s message. They created a humorous series of posts and video contents covering kids having fun and playing with toys.

At the end of the competition, the winning toy was produced by Mattel and sold exclusively at “Toys R”. To promote this partnership, they tasked WHOSAY to design a social campaign that resonated with the “kids know best” creative of TheToy Box.

As a result, her native posts generated over 22.5M impressions and 2.2M engagements (including paid). Viewer sentiment was surprisingly positive with 85% of the comments reflecting enthusiasm for the content. Her original content boosted media metrics with nearly 3.8M impressions and almost 1M engagements.

“Target” – Kid clothes campaign

Back in 2017, Target launched a children’s clothing line designed, modeled, and promoted by a class of kids. The 10 kids worked together to design a collection for children aged 4-16 years old, all displaying their own individual styles.

The kid influencers ranged from 7-year-old photographer Hawkeye Huey to Dance Moms star Kendall Vertes, each with their own unique styles and designs is woven into the 100 piece collection.

“Target” used this same tactic again in later seasons of their “Art Class” line as well as inviting kids to come in and assess their other clothing lines each season. Each campaign features a new batch of kidfluence

“Walmart” – New website

Walmart introduced a completely new website so that it looks more like a traditional lifestyle blog than an e-commerce site. 

walmarts-new-website

Smartly, Walmart is using well-known kid influencers as a way to better position itself to grab a greater share of the toy market, and equally as important, grab a greater share of consumer attention.

Top-Rated by Kids features filmed experiences and unscripted (though not unedited) reviews from Walmart’s cast of kid influencers about the toys currently lining the shelves of Walmart stores and those trending – the ones you can only get on Walmart.com. Products featured on the left and the kid influencer reviews accessible on the right. The review is filtered by kids and age level. 

But, of course, Walmart and Target aren’t the only brands partnering with kid influencers. eBay has recently begun to launch a new advertising offensive featuring a range of influences across a wide range of niches and backgrounds. One of the more surprising choices they made was working with British Dad Blogger and his son –LadBaby. The two of them have appeared in a number of TV commercials, promoting the family-oriented side to eBay. 

Read More
Gulnar Ismayil July 1, 2019