If we go by the customary definition, retargeting is a strategic way to remind consumers of their inceptive interest and bring them back to these websites to complete their purchase. Let’s be honest when we say that it could creep most of us out. However when we give it a chance and have a deep look we could say that it’s already part of our life. 

 

To see the big picture, let’s take one person, Daniel, as our customer who checked your product on your website, possibly from his PC. He browses not only one but several products but unfortunately adds nothing into his “shopping trolley”. Then leaving your website without any purchase from his chart and giving not even one notice, now he is long gone, he might or might not visit your website again, even chance. However, a few days later, when he was roaming on the internet from one page to another, he saw an advertisement for his product, the product he checked a couple days ago but didn’t purchase, along with some other correlated stuff. He is a bit confused yet riveted, so now all he needs to do is to go back to the same website and purchase the product he hasn’t beforehand. See, easy-peasy.

 

We can analyze the situation from different angles. Have you noticed that when a customer is about to leave the store, one salesperson approaches you and starts a conversation with you to find more about your needs. After a productive chit-chat this salesperson knows what you are looking for and he\she can persuade you to make a purchase. Same thing happens with retargeting, so that is why we also could call it remarketing. 

 

Retargeting gives online sellers an opportunity to engage with consumers and learn more about their needs and so they can make a personalized sales pitch.

 

How to Turn Potential Customers into Happy Customers?

At the moment retargeting is one of the leading topics in the marketing industry and a huge chunk of marketers are allocating big portions of their budgets to it. Just so you know it is not a baseless claim, retargeting might be the most affluent tactic and nearly 70% of the potential customers who have been seen retargeted advertisement more presumably will convert. 

 

You may have experienced that when you look into a new site most of the time in the bottom of the page we see a question regarding the cookie usage of the website. And bingo, these cookie-driven tactics have been used for retargeting. So marketers can track visitors who have visited the website but left without buying anything, they watch us with eagle eyes.

 

I guess you have so many questions in your mind and one of them would be which platforms you can retarget people. First Google display ads, they sell themselves with “Choose Keywords and Pay for Clicks To Send Users to Your Website” line and astoundingly it really works. Then here comes Facebook and Twitter ads. These ads are particularly eye catching and appealing, so visitors could enjoy more and show an interest in your company or your products. Moreover this may be the best technique to boost your brand awareness.

 

After all that information, it’s necessary to mention that retargeting is not an issue or violation of privacy. When some people come across this product ad they have two ways to deal with it. Initially they can simply ignore it, or click it. The other part of these people would actually be happy to be reminded of something they may have forgotten about. To be targeted with relevant ads would make them genuinely glad.

 

The Importance and Benefits of Retargeting

Although the fact that retargeting sounds like starting over the targeting process it is completely different. How possibly you can start targeting every single new customer who visited your website without buying anything. Retargeting is the complete opposite though. Here you will get anew visitors who are more likely to convert, rather than  fighting to draw the attention of customers who are first-time visitors to your website and there is a huge possibility that they won’t convert.

 

After getting the basic information about retargeting, perceiving the benefits won’t be the hardest task for anyone.

 

• Clearly you will generate more sales
• You will increase brand awareness
• It will maximize your customers lifetime value
• You will retain your existing customers
• Conversion rate  will be increased
• Making your brand recognizable will be comprehensible
• Improvement in cost effectiveness will be inevitable
• Retargeting will increase your ROI
• The level of engagement will thrive
• Reaching interested prospect will be a piece of cake

 

If you see how retargeting actually influences customers you’ll wonder why you have not put your efforts into it. Retargeting will prosper your business for sure.

As Andres Tapia once said “ Diversity is the mix. Inclusion is making the mix work”. Hopefully 2021 will be the year that influencer marketing will be more focused on diversity and inclusion.

 

Unfortunately, we all have witnessed that Black influencers faced inequality and discrimination over the course of 2020’s social activism.  From symbolic effort to unfair pay, several brands hold responsible for their biased actions. 

 

Owing to the fact that representation can shift predetermined opinions, it is very vital in Influencer marketing as well as other creative industries. Just to create a better society, brands also need to do fulfil their duties and add building diversity and inclusion on campaigns to their new year resolutions.

 

Who will Run the World? TikTok.

TikTok was officially launched in 2016 and after four years it surpassed over 2 billion mobile downloads worldwide, I dare to say that app became an inseparable part of millions of young people’s lives. When a brand decides to start a campaign the first thing they need to do is to focus on the people who will influence your target customers. When you intend to work on a more youthful demographic, stop beating around the bush, give it a second thought to work with TikTok influencers.

 

The importance of user-generated content is far beyond noticeable. Moreover, it’s no secret that customers tend to trust user-generated content more than brand-sponsored posts. Just so you know, UGC is a TikTok marketing trend that brands shouldn’t ignore. Even Donald Trump lost a battle with it, therefore if anyone claims TikTok is going to lead Influencer Marketing, we wouldn’t be surprised at all.

 

Ultimate Secret of Art: Being Natural

No way!, you may think, but no, it’s really happening. Authenticity on social media is going to have its fluorescence turn in the incoming year. We all want to show flawless and perfect parts of ourselves on social media, yet revolution is around the corner.

 

Many influencers already start to share their post with #nofilter or #inthemoment taglines and most probably it is going to be huge trend in 2021. Although Instagram could be the platform which pays attention  to the visual attractiveness, if influencers want to stand out with their aesthetic posts they need to  pinpoint engaging captions more than ever.

 

The Rise of Micro Influencers

If you are interested in Influencer marketing you have already heard about them. The amount of these influencers’ followers is not as big as macro influencers or celebrities. More specifically, if you have less than 10,000 followers you will fall into the micro influencers category. In the past brands didn’t pay enough attention to them, but currently the situation is changing.

 

It’s the known fact that micro influencers are more affordable to work with and most of the time it is no trouble to find a micro influencer with a niche audience. So it is expected that renowned brands will open their eyes and start to collaborate with micro influencers who come with fewer demands and don’t make any fuss like bigger names.

As influencers continue to be a hot topic on social media, influencer marketing is becoming more and more popular. Thus, we start seeing more sponsored posts in our feed every day, and that doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. COVID-19 lockdowns have been quite devastating for many industries, however, coronavirus seems to fuel the fire for influencer marketing. In fact, 63% of marketers plan to increase their influencer marketing budgets during 2021. Based on data from Mediakix, Business Insider estimates that brands are expected to spend up to $ 15 billion on influencer marketing by 2022.

According to Mediakix, 89% of all marketers find ROI from influencer marketing comparable to or better than other marketing channels.

 

When we take the influencers’ impact on the consumers’ purchasing habits on the one hand, and the influencer marketing statistics which I mentioned above, on the other hand, we can straightforwardly claim that influencer marketing is the best of the effective marketing strategies. However, when it is used wrongly, it not only damages the brands’ online presence but also its reputation. 

 

So as you see, influencer marketing is sensitive. It isn’t just about finding someone with an audience and offering them money so they can say good things about you. When you start your influencer marketing campaign, you should take some steps and avoid taking some. What are the secrets of successful influencer marketing campaigns? What should brands pay attention to during their campaigns? In this blog, we’ll generally talk about you need to consider to avoid your brand becoming a loser and make your bank account look like a phone number.

 

1. What are you trying to achieve from an influencer marketing campaign?

Are you building awareness about an upcoming product, creating buzz about services, increasing social engagement, or driving clicks to your website?

It’s important to set up specific goals before starting a campaign(in fact, the first and foremost thing you should do) because it is like a guideline for tracking and measuring success throughout the campaign.  Also, these goals assist you to ensure that influencers are on the same page with your brand.

Brands must be as clear as day in their campaign goals. Clear and brief influencer marketing goals are crucial to a successful influencer campaign. Your campaign goals can be various and specific for your brand. However, in influencer marketing, the campaign should target at least one of these three goals: 

 

• Build brand awareness and strengthen brand online presence.
• Increase social engagement and interactions.
• Generate leads and drive sales and profits

 

If you focus on too many goals in one influencer marketing campaign, that is not effective as well. So, every influencer campaign should target one or maybe a couple of main business objectives.

 

2. Your most important criterion when choosing an influencer is number of followers?

Then you already lost the battle. Paying attention to only the influencer’s follower count is the most common mistake while choosing an influencer to promote a brand. It should not be the most critical priority of influencer marketing. On the contrary, brands should choose influencers who have a similar culture to their campaign. Finding the right influencers can be challenging. Brands should carefully analyze the audience, key metrics before starting collaboration because an influencer with a lot of followers doesn’t mean an engaging audience.

 

You can check out the influencer in the following sequence:

• Go through the influencer’s pages.
• Look at what kind of content influencer share:
• Check whether the influencer’s culture fits with your brand.
• Look at the engagement they get on their posts with the help of likes and comments. (However, Influencers can buy fake followers and pay like or comment on their posts that can mislead you.)

 

These steps will help you to explore and make a better-informed decision. Take time to dig into these details. However, searching for the right influencer on Instagram or elsewhere is time-consuming. This is where it makes sense to use Keepface.

How to find the right influencers for your influencer marketing campaigns?

As an influencer marketing software, Keepface focuses on finding the right influencer for your brand with any niche and audience. With the access of over 350K influencers & content creators, you can find the perfect match for your business. Keepface is an automated platform for brands to reach the most relevant influencers, communicate with them, and manage campaigns using real-time analytics. 

 

Keepface influencer marketing software helps you identify, recruit, and negotiate with influencers in one platform. You can find influencers with any audience and engagement rates in the Keepface database with spending less time. Filter influencers by category, country, engagement rate, followers, gender, budget as well as analyze their key metrics to find the best-fitting influencers for your campaigns. You also get an in-depth analysis of influencers’ social profiles, performance data, and audience. 

 

Also, you should consider fraudulent influencer factors. 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 noticeable results. When influencers use social media bots for increasing follower count and creating fake engagement, it becomes difficult to determine the credibility of influencers. 

 

3. Be realistic when offering, make authentic relationships with your audience.

Real offers, communication, authenticity play a huge role in your influencer marketing.

Keep it real and make realistic offers. For example, in February 1992,  Pepsi Philippines announced that they would print numbers, ranging from 001 to 999, inside the caps of Pepsi bottles. Certain numbers could be redeemed for prizes, which ranged from 100 pesos to 1 million pesos for a grand prize (roughly US$40,000 in 1992),  Pepsi allocated a total of US$2 million for prizes. But an error at a bottling plant led to 600,000 winners — and lawsuits, rioting, and even deaths. One marketing campaign creates a big crisis not only for the company but also for the country. Certainly, the above  is not an example of an influencer marketing campaign. However, brands should learn lessons from this mistake: it is better to stick to promises you can deliver on.

 

Also, communication and authenticity can affect your campaign’s achievement. If brands want to pursue a successful influencer campaign, then they must think about building real connections with their target audience.  At least personalizing each message, avoiding cliche statements are ways to keep communication between brand and audience genuine.

We have said goodbye to Black Friday and Cyber Monday. They are not long gone, yet they opened the way for the upcoming Holiday season. Yes! If we take Christmas and New Year into account December may be the best time for influencer marketing campaigns. Despite the fact Covid-19 pushed us into our homes, still when we scroll through our social media feeds Christmas vibes surround us with its thrilling beauty. Not excited? What about if we say that your Christmas Influencer Campaign is already wrapped up, with a bow on top! In order to make our customers comfortable we’re making it simple for you. We’ll manage everything, so you can focus on having your biggest Christmas ever.

Psst! We have something for you

Holiday season has knocked upon our door. Several brands took this opportunity and have already started to plan ways to leverage their businesses. To attract customers attention with product promotions, discounts, seasonal promotions, deals is just part of the job. As we know it is not that easy to affect the purchasing decisions of others. At least not without an insight on the matter. When you, as a brand, think that you’ve stepped into a hard path influencers walk onto the stage and save the day.

A Social media influencer or influencer marketing terms are far from being buzzwords. Right now almost every brand is aware of the fact that those right influencers are the ones who can reach their target audience, build trust, and drive engagement. Just to make it clear, meeting brands and audiences demands is not an easy process and clearly doesn’t happen overnight. Finding the right influencers to work with for your Christmas campaign can be as hard as giving the perfect present for your loved ones. 

 

Word of Mouth is a Campaign Saver

Wasting your precious time and money on a marketing campaign which is doomed to fail is just sad. Make sure you fully analyze and determine the influencers that are best for this campaign is worth the time and effort. It can be easy to fall back on simply looking at the number of followers an influencer has. But this is a poor way to judge whether someone will be a good fit for your campaign. The right influencer creates original and engaging content. Their authority over the matter and relationship with their audience make it possible for them to affect the purchasing decisions of others.

 

 

We all may agree that during holidays, especially Christmas, marketing is mainly driven orally. A huge chunk of consumers trust recommendations from friends and strangers over other marketing channels, so it’s clear the big opportunity this Christmas lies in word of mouth marketing. One of the key points to make your campaign successful is to boost influencers’ holiday contents across channels. Instagram is beyond successful, we agree, but it doesn’t mean that everybody is a fan of it.

 

 

Fake Social Activity Trend

In all sincerity, we are obligated to tell you the truth. Without professional help it is almost impossible to find and hire the right influencer. Having way more followers than an actual capacity of an influencer is an ordinary situation now. More specifically fake social activity and fraud make it really hard to run an effective influencer marketing campaign. Yes, almost every influencer is active across so many social networks and yes, they also generate so much content but yet it’s not enough. However the assessment of influencers – their authenticity, audience, effectiveness and engagement, is hardly possible. 

 

 

Keepface is Here for You

You need professionals who will always provide the entire picture. And here we make our debut for your brand. As an influencer marketing software, Keepface focuses on finding the right influencer for your brand with any niche and audience. With the access of over 350K influencers & content creators, you can find the perfect match for your business. Keepface is an automated platform for brands to reach the most relevant influencers, communicate with them, and manage campaigns using real-time analytics. 

Keepface influencer marketing software helps you identify, recruit, and negotiate with influencers in one platform. You can find influencers with any audience and engagement rates in Keepface database with spending less time. Filter influencers by category, country, engagement rate, followers, gender, budget as well as analyze their key metrics to find the best-fitting influencers for your campaigns. You also get an in-depth analysis of influencers’ social profiles, performance data, and audience. After finding the right influencer, your Christmas campaign is good to go. Keepface tracks metrics like reach, engagement and we ensure you that there is nobody who could direct your investments more effectively.

 

 

Countdown to Christmas

Let’s say, you are almost ready to launch your Christmas campaign but using the same traditional image posts haven’t worn out yet? How about creating short videos or short films, don’t be timid. Let your imagination run wild, certainly doing something out of the ordinary can help your brand stand out from the ocean of holiday campaign posts and brand promotions. 

 

Engaging your audience on a deeper level is the best way to create a truly unique campaign. If you want to capture your customers attention and get more meaningful engagement with them, you need to start advertising with them, rather than advertise at them. Show your customers that what you are trying to get in this influencer marketing campaign doesn’t base on simple holiday purchases. You are selling them an experience, not just a product. 

 

At last we would like to reveal one more secret. Oh, these magical, ravishing holidays. We wish they never end but as every beautiful thing you are also doom to end. First Christmas then New Year. Yet how about extending your marketing campaign beyond Christmas Day? Many customers expect lower prices beyond the holidays, so they would be delighted to continue their holiday shopping even after the holiday season. So here we all could say, after having the great influencer marketing you can cross one out from your New Year resolutions. 

Ready to kick some goals this holiday season? 

Get to work! 

May your campaigns be merry and bright!

 

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.