Know the power of Instagram influencers, but don't know how to get started?
Finding an Instagram influencer to promote your brand or product is an excellent way to utilise word-of-mouth marketing in the modern day.
Unfortunately, knowing how to find Instagram influencers can be a challenging process.
But don't worry! With this guide, you’ll be a pro in no time at all!
First of all,
So, what exactly is a social media influencer?
An influencer is someone who has a significant group of loyal followers within a specific niche or sector.
People are more receptive to endorsements from people they admire, which is what makes influencer marketing so effective.
In this digital age, social media influencers are increasingly outranking celebrities in the effective promotion of products and services. Influencers can also help companies to engage with specific niches that may have previously been more difficult to specifically target.
Influencer marketing helps to make brands seem both desirable and accessible.
Twitter’s research shows that 49 percent of consumers seek advice from social media influencers before making a purchase, and 20 percent said that a Tweet from an influencer led them to share their own product reviews.
Instagram has over 800 million monthly active users and is rapidly expanding at a faster rate than its competitors - Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter.
Leading social media influencers show a preference for Instagram, as the focus on high-quality images and video lends itself well to product reviews and promotions.
Graph via Shane Barker
According to Mediakix, the top 50 most followed influencers on Instagram have 2.5 billion followers in total and in 2017 over £719 million was spent on Instagram influencers, a number that is expected to rise to over £1Bn in 2018.
Now we know what an influencer is, here's how to find one:
Clearly there is phenomenal marketing power to be leveraged through the use of influencers on Instagram in particular.
It’s important that you select the right influencer who will fit in well with your brand and your marketing message to ensure you are getting the most out of this form of marketing.
When thinking about which influencer to select to promote your brand, keep in mind the three Rs:
Relevance - check that the influencer is producing content that is in keeping with what your business stands for.
Reach - take a look at the number of people you might be able to reach through a particular influencer.
Resonance - find out to what degree the influencer’s content is engaging their audience.
Think about the audience that you are trying to attract, and only use an influencer that this target demographic will trust.
Once you’ve identified the sort of influencer you would like to connect with, how do you go about finding the right influencer?
Using Instagram’s hashtag search you can look for locations, keywords and topics related to your business niche.
This enables you to browse posts and look for those who are publishing the most relevant, attractive and well-received content in your industry area.
You can also use Google, or influencer search tools like Kred, Klout, Traackr, Followerwonk or Buzzsumo to find suitable influencers you may wish to work with.
Number of followers - keep an eye on the number of followers an Instagram user has. If you find excellent content but no one is following the account and few people are engaging with the content, they will not provide your company with the audience you are looking for.
Bigger isn’t always better - finding an Instagrammer with a huge number of followers is useless if no one is paying attention. A smaller follower account can be powerful if the followers are engaging well through likes and comments.
An influencer with over 1 million followers will be expensive and can appear to be a less authentic way of introducing your brand. The recommended follower target for those starting out with influencer marketing is 10-50K as these influencers usually charge less than £250 per post or will accept free products in exchange for their promotion.
Explore influencer networks - once you’ve located a few influencers, find out who these influencers are following. Influencers often build up a network of like-minded users so by examining who your target influencers are following, you will naturally find more Instagrammers who you may wish to contact.
Once you’ve identified the key influencers who are likely to leverage your marketing message to great effect, how do you encourage them to work with you?
First contact - reach out slowly to your influencers.
Make your first contact through ‘likes’ and comments on their posts.
Make sure you approach them in a genuine way - posting a flurry of likes and comments in a short space of time is unlikely to be received well.
Try to make insightful, empathetic or humorous comments (where appropriate) that connect with the particular post you are engaging with. Do this regularly over a significant period of time, such as a month, before messaging them directly.
Message - direct messaging (DM) or emailing an influencer after you have spent time engaging with their content can be great way to make contact. Be brief and clear about who you are and what you want and remember to be friendly!
Value - creating mutual value through giving influencers something, such as a free trial of your product or service, whether they expect additional payment or not, will help to set a positive tone and helps to build long-term relationships.
Payment - some influencers, particularly those with followings of more than 50K, will expect payment for promoting your business. According to tech company Tribe, depending on the number of followers an influencer has, you can expect to pay per post:
After building up a relationship with influencers and working with them to promote your business, it’s important that you track the results of these marketing campaigns.
Having clearly defined KPIs will help you to focus on what it is you want to track. Using Instagram’s analytics can help you to understand metrics such as engagement rate, reach and growth.
You can also use marketing tools such as Buzzsumo to give you an overview of how your influencer posts are performing.
Other programmes such as Google Analytics can help to measure impact.
A more organic way of tracking your ROI is to provide your influencer with a unique promotional code to use. This will help you track sales that occurred as a direct result of their posts.
The best influencer campaigns work through using a combination of promotional posting, cross promoting, takeovers and collaborations (where possible).
Here they are in more detail:
Promotional posting: where an influencer uses their social media account to promote your business through a post dedicated to whatever it is your business is selling.
Cross promotion: where an influencer shares, or re-posts your content across the different social media channels that they are active on.
Collaboration: working with an influencer to develop products or services that unite their niche and your brand.
Takeovers: where an influencer ‘takes over’ your company’s social media for the day and uses it to promote your business.
This can be particularly effective when influencers take over Instagram stories for the day. Stories can be used in a variety of ways depending on what your company is selling.
If you sell a service, the story can be trialling the service for the day.
If you are selling a product, the story snippets can be used to show a ‘making of’. Takeovers enable influencers to unite their following and yours, by cross-promoting from their channel to yours, advertising to both sets of followers for the duration of the takeover.
Building a good business relationship with an Instagram influencer can take time, but it is worth it!
Studies by TapInfluence have shown that influencer marketing content delivers 11x higher ROI than traditional forms of digital marketing.
Why not start now by allocating an hour or two every week engaging with influencers you’ve identified. By increasing your social media presence, you can begin to build trust with both influencers and your target audience.
Do you use video as part of your marketing strategy? If you don’t, you should be. It is no longer an option but a necessity for marketers who want their visual content to have the greatest impact, reach and customer engagement.
We are entering what Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg considers to be a, ‘new, golden age of videos online’. By 2020, experts estimate that videos will account for just over 80% of all web traffic. Whether you are reaching out B2B, B2C or sharing personally, in all categories we are seeing a phenomenal shift in the way that people are receiving and responding to information.
Online videos, whether accessed via social media or on websites, form a significant part of a strategic business model for branding and marketing alike as they creatively seek to hold consumer attention. I am sure we can all think of a memorable video that sparked our imagination, affected our emotions or demonstrated to us the benefits of a certain product or service.
Video can make us feel something in a way that text alone cannot. Emotionally charged posts, or those that are imaginative or inspirational are proven to have a greater likelihood of going viral on social media. Our brains are hardwired to respond better to storytelling, which enables us to retain more information and remember it for longer than when we are faced with hard facts and cold selling techniques. Functional MRI neuro-imagery has revealed that, when assessing brands, consumers are mainly using their emotions (personal feelings and experiences) rather than gathering information on features and facts.
Videos can provide audiences with content that is truly valuable in and of itself, rather than overtly trying to sell something. This is something that the consumer can find more authentic and genuinely satisfying, which is beneficial when building a brand.
If you are marketing a product or service, what better way to do so than to be able to demonstrate features, effectiveness and functionality via visual content. Videos enable prospective customers to more clearly imagine how what is being marketed might benefit them. This is why retailers see conversion raters tripled on product pages that contain video compared with those that do not.
‘Say it quick, say it well.’ In an age of ever-decreasing attention spans, this mantra has become a key for contemporary marketing strategies. A well-constructed video with engaging visuals has the ability to stop people scrolling through a website or social newsfeed in a way that text has to work harder to do. It helps to keep videos short, those that are under five minutes in length account for 55% of total video consumption time on smartphones. Additionally, videos that are under 90 seconds in length have an average viewer retention rate of 53% compared with just 10% retention for videos over 30 minutes.
Since many marketers and brand builders have already recognised the value of getting audiovisual material out there, it is important to ensure what you are offering cuts across the noise of this digital content storm. Higher-quality videos perform better as they see higher levels of engagement and are more likely to stand the test of time. This means you will see a higher ROI overall than when releasing a plethora of lower-quality content.
If conversion is your goal in using video, then make the path clear to your consumer through using a call to action, such as a button or link, that will take them where your video has made them want to go!
Lastly, using analytics is key to establishing what is working and what isn’t. Keeping an eye on the stats will ensure that you are producing relevant, engaging video content that is reaching the right audience, in the right locations, at the right time.
What is a Call to Action?
The term Call to Action (CTA) is used widely in digital marketing. It refers to a specific instruction to an audience designed to provoke an immediate response. These actions could be anything from a phone call, to an email, to downloading an e-book.
It can be difficult to measure the success of a Call to Action. The reason for someone interacting with a particular CTA can vary, and pinning the success or failure on the styling is something that should be done cautiously. Saying that, an attractive and well-made CTA will do significantly better than one ill-thought-out.
What makes a good Call to Action?
Colour, copy and layout are key to creating an engaging Call to Action. It’s important to understand your target audience, how they will interact with your instruction, and what their user journey will be.
It is with this information that a stand-out, attractive and visible Call to Action can be designed.
Examples
What makes these good?
Having an attractive and well-thought-out Call to Action is a vital part of your digital marketing strategy. If you are interested in supercharging your digital presence, get in touch with us here at Air Social.
We love taking on work experience students, giving them the opportunity to learn about our industry, experience our working environment and learn new skills. Here's our latest protégé, Simon, talking about his thoughts on digital marketing.
Marketing has been the key way for establishments to gain vital information on consumers and their purchasing trends and habits for a significant period of time, and allows them to continually adapt their processes in order to attract customers and obtain their loyalty. The unique concept adopted by Air Social Marketing has risen from the increase in the use of online mediums, such as social media, which allows businesses to efficiently capitalise on to develop relationships with prospective customers. The challenge with this opportunity is that many firms are unaware of how to use this form of modern marketing to accurately pinpoint their target market and develop their online portfolio of information and make it accessible to the consumer. This is where Air Social Marketing comes in. The company's team of employees that are adept to their specific roles, which include animation, web design, lead generation, account management etc. and the businesses they serve experience the export relationship marketing strategy that Air Social is renowned for.
As a sixth-form student I am looking to gain expertise from experienced individuals in a number of roles, within the digital marketing environment so that I ca obtain a grasp on how business knowledge can be applied to developing an online portfolio of clients. I am also interested in how creativity is nurtured in order to differentiate companies from their competitors, enhancing brand image in the process. I firmly believe an insight into these skills can be of great use to me as I try to conceptualise marketing strategy that caters for the present and future needs of clients/businesses in a practical manner.
Written and published by Simon Ansari
Although it is becoming a less common occurrence these days, occasionally we come across a client with a website that isn’t optimised for mobile devices.
Five years ago, mobile responsiveness was considered an optional extra for many businesses. Those actively concerned with future-proofing did build their sites to respond to different device sizes but a large proportion went with the traditional, now-outdated, method of a static page built with only desktop devices in mind.
Today, having a website that looks great on mobile devices should be at the top of your list when assessing the quality of your web presence. Although hugely dependent on the individual and time of day, our clients find on average that more than 60% of website traffic comes from mobile devices.
Whether it’s while commuting, sat on the sofa, or out and about, when we need to find something out we generally pull out our smart phone and go to Google. When we land on a website that stands out as difficult to use, unclear, or slow, we quickly move away and visit the next result. This common behaviour illustrates the importance of a mobile responsive site.
In short, if your site doesn’t look great on a mobile, you are losing business.
How to tell if your site is mobile-ready?
The best way to tell is the simplest; visit your website on your phone and see if the content resizes. Look at features like your navigation bar and contact forms; is the text easy to read, clear and an appropriate size? Or are you seeing an extremely shrunk-down version of your desktop site?
The other, more quantifiable, way of checking your site’s mobile performance is by using one of the many website score checkers our there:
https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
GTMetrix offer an incredibly in-depth look at the performance of your website.
If you do use a score checker, always take these results with a pinch of salt. We find that for anything bar the smallest websites, an A grade is highly unlikely. Instead a 50% plus score is a good benchmark, this indicates a good user experience.
What to do next?
All tests aside, the most important reason to upgrade your website is to improve the experience of your user. If your site doesn't look great on a mobile then we can't stress enough how important it is to get this fixed. You can't afford to overlook what was the future, and is now very much the present of internet use.
If you would like advice on getting your website up to scratch, give us a call. We'd be happy to help.
In the year that has seen Donald Trump become president, said goodbye to Ziggy Stardust and Severus Snape and, of course, seen families country-wide feud over Brexit, 2016 has been a year of mass upheaval. But how has the world of digital marketing changed? Well, most obviously we have witnessed the continued rise of social media. In the US Presidential Election race we have seen how crucial social media can be; Trump attributes much of his success to his large social media presence, particularly on twitter. However, it’s not only been his social media presence but the presence of Twitter ‘bots’ that automatically tweeted pro-Trump propaganda and used hashtags to firstly infiltrate the Clinton support and then use the platform to smear her. Social media has been intrinsic to the success of many other unlikely campaigns; take the recent example of A-Level student Nick Jablonka’s fake John Lewis advert which went viral after social media users mistook it for the real thing.
The power of visual media platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest also continue to grow, where many consumers review and recommend products, and, with the continued popularity of audio and audio visual media such as podcasts and YouTube vlogs added into the mix, the power of word of mouth between consumers cannot be underestimated.
However, next year’s innovations look set to be on a whole new level. It’s now commonplace to see advertisers using Snapchat, making it possible to ‘try on’ a new lipstick from your own home, or transport a person into the scenery of an upcoming blockbuster. In 2017 experts predict this trend will develop into companies creating more specific apps to immerse the individual into their product. Nevertheless this is just a small dent in comparison to the impact virtual experience is going to make.
The dawn of virtual reality is upon us and there’s no wondering why people want to utilise it for their marketing strategies. A recent survey says that 90% of business owners now say they prefer personalised content rather than mass outreach. It’s becoming easier and easier to target advertising so to stand out content will need to be more unique, of higher quality, and as engagingly interactive as possible in 2017.
In the current digital landscape, engagement is everything, and marketers succeed when their audience not only consumes content but also enjoys and acts upon it, which is why interactive content will be so important going forwards. The facts back it up; static content generates conversions 36% of the time whereas interactive content generates conversions moderately or very well 70% of the time. So expect to be inundated with ground-breaking apps and virtual reality experiences and in the coming year.
But the innovation doesn’t stop there, not only will consumers be immersed within technology but they will be wearing it. After a slow start for wearable technology 70% of consumers now say they are ‘ready for wearable technology’, giving yet another platform for advertisers to take advantage of.
To summarise, marketing in the new year is only going to become more diverse; we predict that the tried and tested methods such as social media advertising will still has its place in digital, but new developments such as interactive content and virtual experience are going to enrich the digital marketing landscape. It’s up to marketers to embrace the changes and approach marketing in 2017 holistically.
Social Media is the heart of all marketing. To understand how social media can impact your business with Air Social’s tried and tested social media lead generation expertise, contact alex@airsocial-build-com.stackstaging.com or come and meet the team at our Guildford office for a complimentary social media training session.
This week Twitter announced that it would be shutting down its mobile video app Vine, the infamous portal where people upload and share their six-second ‘home’ videos.
Soon after its launch in 2012, Vine became a haven for You’ve Been Framed-style clips of people's cats falling off refrigerators, goats singing along to Taylor Swift tunes and start-up comedians trying to get their jokes heard.
The short-lived platform has been an important part of the internet's evolution to a place where creativity could be unleashed in extremely short bursts and there’s no doubt that it kick-started the video revolution on social media.
Today, no effective integrated communications plan is complete without incorporating the power of social marketing and videos are a key aspect of that strategy.
In this digital age, every major online business is making a concerted effort to trumpet how many video views they are racking up and spreading the outreach of this content via social media is a sure fire way to ensure viewer numbers remain at their peak.
This summer, Facebook announced it had reached 1 billion monthly active users on its Facebook Messenger app, making it one of the most popular apps globally. Vine only ever reached a fifth of that.
In fact around 8 billion videos are viewed each day on Facebook, that’s around 100 million hours of video so, if you combine the power of video marketing with the popularity of Facebook, your business could go through the roof.
If you’re interested in learning more about how Facebook for Business and social video marketing can help your company expand online, contact one of the team at Air Social now on 01483 789434.
We are an established, creative & growing Guildford based consultancy offering marketing, social media & website services to a selection of clients.
You will have a solid commercial background in maintaining & developing Websites using PHP, WordPress, WooCommerce, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JQuery, and Adobe Creative Suite.
Essentially, this role will cover a variety of aspects of the development life-cycle including design, development and quality assurance.
Key skills for this role include:
The role includes:
Don’t miss this incredible opportunity! Please apply now or for more information please contact Alexandra Vinall alex@airsocial-build-com.stackstaging.com
Air Social, Guildford’s leading social media and creative marketing agency, pulled off yet another fantastic Student Takeover Night at The Friary on Tuesday (4th October).
The shopping centre, in the heart of Guildford town centre, called upon Air Social to help deliver not only its most lucrative event of the year but also one of the most important events in the student calendar.
More than 3000 students attended the free 'lock-in' evening, which ran from 6pm to 9pm, and featured a DJ, and in-store promotions which included discounts of up to 30% at fashion retailers including Topshop, River Island, Armani Exchange, Urban Outfitters, Sunglass Hut and SOLETRADER for anyone who had pre-registered for a Student Takeover wristband. There was also a chance for five lucky students to win a £100 gift card.
This is the third consecutive year The Friary has chosen to work with Air Social to organise the event, after the marketing company, which delivers bespoke social media and creative marketing campaigns for local businesses and organisations in Surrey, exceeded expectations by attracting record numbers of students to the shopping centre in 2014 and 2015.
Air Social Managing Director, Alexandra Vinall, comments: “After the success of the first two student nights at The Friary, we were thrilled to be appointed to help organise the event for the third year running.
“By working with our portfolio of clients in the higher education sector including Surrey University, Guildford College, Farnham Sixth Form College, Merrist Wood and ACM we were able to deliver the message to students county-wide and we are delighted to have made this event a hat trick triumph.”
For more information about upcoming events at The Friary, visit facebook.com/thefriaryguildford or follow @FriarycentreGU1 on twitter.
For more information about how Air Social can help you get the message out there about your brand call 01483 789434 or visit www.airsocial.co.uk.
On April 27 2022, Alex Vinall and Lucy Blackmore from Air Social joined hundreds of other local businesses at the Surrey Business Expo, which took place over two days at Surrey Sports Park in Guildford. Surrey Business Expo was started in 2005 and is today run by the super-well-connected Paul Bridgland and Steve Page. The […]
As an experienced Paid Social and PPC Manager, you will be responsible for managing the strategies and performance for a portfolio of clients. You will be passionate and excited about achieving success for B2B and B2C clients, understanding audiences, coming up with new and innovative ideas and using data and insights to drive your campaigns. […]
Air Social Digital Marketing is looking for a Social Media Manager (full-time) to join its award-winning team of digital marketing, social media and PR experts, based in Guildford, Surrey. The ideal candidate will be educated to degree level and have at least two years’ experience working for a social media marketing/advertising agency with exceptional copywriting […]
Air Social Digital Marketing is looking for a PR account executive (full-time) to join its award-winning team of PR, digital marketing and social media experts, based in Guildford, Surrey. The ideal candidate will be educated to degree level and ideally have work experience in PR or journalism, exceptional copywriting skills and plenty of creative flair, […]
Air Social Digital Marketing is looking for an Account Executive (full-time) to join its award-winning team of digital marketing, social media and PR experts, based in Guildford, Surrey. The ideal candidate will be a degree graduate or have some experience in digital marketing or multi-media PR. They will have good copywriting skills and plenty of […]
Air Social Digital Marketing is looking for a PR Manager (full-time) to join its award-winning team of PR, digital marketing and social media experts, based in Guildford, Surrey. The ideal candidate will be educated to degree level and have at least two to three years’ experience with a background in PR or journalism, exceptional copywriting […]
Air Social Digital Marketing is looking for an Account Manager/Senior Account Manager (full-time) to join its award-winning team of digital marketing, social media and PR experts, based in Guildford, Surrey. The ideal candidate will be educated to degree level and have at least two years’ experience working for a social media marketing/advertising agency with exceptional […]
This month, on September 21st, Google plans to roll out a new strike-based system, which it will enforce against advertisers who repeatedly violate Google Ad policies. The three policies are: Enabling dishonest behaviour This includes businesses or individuals that provide fake documents (such as fake IDs or passports), hacking services, products used to track a person without […]
The video messaging app popular with Millennials and Gen Z now has over 293 million daily users Snapchat is growing faster than it has since 2017, the year it went public. Last month, the messaging app said it added 13 million daily users during the second quarter of 2021, which is a 23 per cent increase from the same period last year. That means that 293 million people across the […]
