November 5, 2015 1:05 pm
Published by Kirsty Sharman
Editor’s note: This post was originally shared on Wallblog to showcase some unexpected brands that are getting Influencer Marketing right.
Word-of-mouth recommendations are the holy grail of marketing, promoting brand recognition, reputation and sales in one consumer-friendly bundle. Revamped for the digital age, personal recommendations have given way to Influencer Marketing platforms.
Allowing every brand the opportunity to talk directly to thousands of receptive customers, this innovative channel uses established online influencers to drive sales, increase brand recognition and appeal to new demographics. With Influencer Marketing revolutionising the field, we thought it was high time we got to know a few of the more surprising brands emerging as champions.
1. Downy work with influencers to create engaging content
A household name in fabric softeners from P&G, with more than a few competitors, Downy’s marketing strategies are constantly evolving. Taking a chance with Influencer Marketing, this home-based brand used influencer content to “Bring out the SoftSide” of hard situations and icons encountered in everyday life – such as alarm clocks, high heels and even politics.
Downy created fabric sculptures accompanied by the tag #softside and witty lines promoting its signature fabric softener. The brands newly enlisted influencers were set to work posting images of these sculptures across social media. One of the best examples was from the Vine influencer, Meagan Cignoli, of how Downy can help solve the Rubik’s cube. It became one of the most popular pieces of the campaign with close to 500 shares and more than 8,000 likes on Facebook.
Meagan Cignoli’s interpretation of the Downy brief
Designed to initiate conversations between influencers and their followers, the #SoftSide campaign helped consumers to define what the soft side means to them, increasing brand recognition for Downy and marking it out as an influencer marketing champion to keep an eye on.
2. Cooper Tire target a new market working with Mom bloggers
They’re not going to feature highly in any wedding gift registry, Christmas hints or birthday list, but for the average family, tires are a must-have. They’re just not sexy, or something many consumers shop around for, and they’re definitely not a product most women covet. Until now.
Having identified a demographic its competitors had left untouched, Cooper Tire decided it was high time they utilised the untapped purchasing power of the female population. And to do that, it needed ‘Mom bloggers’ — women who had successfully built up reputable blogs with dedicated followings.
Macaroni Mum putting Cooper Tires through their paces
Inviting these bloggers out to its test track in Texas gave Cooper Tire the opportunity to demonstrate the performance of its tires on multiple tracks and conditions. A few adrenaline fuelled laps later and the brand had provided each of its guest influencers with a fun-filled day that no one was likely to forget in a hurry — and more than a few would blog about later.
3. Vodacom Deezer achieve brand awareness with nearly 4 million music lovers
When Africa’s biggest mobile communications company met the music streaming service Deezer, it was a match made in heaven. They wanted the whole world to know about it -so they turned to Webfluential for advice on relevant influencers. Our team recommended ten key influencers with the likes of Live Magazine, Texx and the City and StephanieBe helping get the word out.
These music-centric bloggers were charged with getting the conversation started, creating original content that introduced Vodacom Deezer and recommended its streaming services to their musically minded followers. To sweeten the deal, Vodacom worked with the influencer Da L.E.S, timing its campaign to coincide with the launch of the rapper’s new single, available exclusively on Deezer.
Da LES shares the availability of his new single on Deezer
This two-pronged attack certainly did the job. Influencers’ posts on social media helped Vodacom reach nearly 4 million music lovers and engaged with over 11,200 people, substantially increasing brand awareness and online talkability with one influencer campaign.
4. Boxed Water’s ‘Retree Project’ highlight charity campaign
It bills itself as ‘part water company, part sustainable water project, part philanthropic project and part completely curious’, so it was no surprise that Boxed Water chose to think outside the box when it came to creating a buzz around its latest charity campaign, the Retree Project.
A partnership with the National Forest Foundation, the Retree Project aims to plant one million trees within the next five years. Loathed to plant them quietly, Boxed Water turned to influencer marketing to spread awareness, ensuring its latest venture went off with a (digital) bang.
The campaign was launched by social media influencing gurus Jaime King and Aiden Alexander. Each posted their own pictures of Boxed Water products to get the ball rolling, tagging them #Retree and informing their followers that, for every tagged product picture posted, Boxed Water would plant two trees.
Jaime King shares her thoughts on why she likes the Boxed Tree project
It was certainly a creative way to put a digital spin on a real-world project. It also worked wonders for promoting both Boxed Water’s partnership with the National Forest Foundation and its products, successfully highlighting the brand’s philanthropic activities at the same time.
5. Better Sleep Council target a niche demographic of diabetes patients
Proving that every brand stands to benefit from influencer marketing, non-profit Better Sleep Council used this innovative channel to promote their annual campaign, ‘May is Better Sleep Month’.
Entering into a partnership with the Diabetes Influencers Network, Better Sleep Council found the perfect platform from which to launch its campaign. This community of health, wellness and fitness professionals (and the odd celebrity) all suffer from diabetes and have a diverse array of followers motivated to live healthier lifestyles. By hosting a Twitter Chat Party with Dr. Amy Peterson Campbell, a diabetes educator, Better Sleep Council succeeded in generating more than 11 million Twitter impressions. Its success demonstrates just how useful influencer marketing can be when targeting a niche demographic.
Some Tweets shared around the Better Sleep Council campaign
With the ability to take campaigns in any creative direction, make relevant and engaging content, successfully target niche demographics or new markets and increase brand awareness, this multifunctional channel is increasing in popularity as more and more ‘surprise’ brands continue to achieve impressive results.
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October 28, 2015 1:58 pm
Published by Kirsty Sharman
Just admit it. You love the idea of being an Influencer Marketing rockstar and creating content that has unstoppable sharability. You even dream about showcasing your results as a best practice case study for your brand. However, you are nervous about co-creating content with influencers which aligns to your brand’s messaging.
How do you trust someone else to interpret your brand’s messaging and make it relevant for their audience?
How will they understand what is best for your brand?
What happens if they get it wrong?
But the more important question to ask yourself is rather, what happens if they get it right?
Getting it right
We recently approached the team from How Far From Home to work with us on our very own Influencer Marketing campaign. With the objective of creating awareness of Webfluential with influencers all over the world, we needed to work with influencers who have a global audience.
HFFH have a cult-like following of people who have been inspired by their story of travelling the world and seeing ‘how far from home they can get.’ But they also have a following of eager online influencers wanting to learn from them and how they built such a large audience in a very short space of time. This is where we found relevance to partner with them for our own brand.
Even with part of their audience being relevant to our brand’s messaging, we wanted to ensure we did not alienate the inspired wannabe travellers with content that was of no interest. How could we make our content relevant to both?
It was time to handover to the HFFH team.
We trusted HFFH to conceptualise content ideas for their travel blog and Instagram followers. They know their audience best and we gave them enough guidance to understand our brand and objectives.
I suspect a sigh of disbelief or a little nervous laughter from most marketers at this point – but it worked.
HFFH responded with an idea that we not only loved, but would also resonate with their audience. They would show how many items they could tick off their ‘Wanderlist’ with the money they made from a Webfluential job whilst in Sydney, through sharing a blog and Instagram post. This would appeal to the inspired travellers who want to know what they are up to next, as well as, the influencers who like to learn more about how they make money.
The post they shared on Instagram received 3 801 organic likes within the first few hours.
The blog post they wrote was accompanied by some fantastic illustrations to showcase the items they could tick off their Wanderlist. Not only was the blog post great for building awareness with their audience, but the illustrations provided us with great content we could share with our own Facebook and Twitter communities.
What we learnt from co-creating content with influencers
- Select relevant influencers for your campaign. This might be obvious, but it is a common mistake. Marketers often prioritise reach over relevance, which can result in content not resonating with an influencer’s audience. Our search tool assists with sourcing influencers with interests related to your brand or campaign.
- Explain your objectives in a clear and concise brief. Unpacking your messaging and what you want to achieve from the Influencer Marketing campaign is key. We have a great group of campaign managers that help facilitate this process.
- Trust the influencers you work with to know their audience best and how to position your brand’s messaging. Influencers understand how to position content to their audience and should guide the process on how to share your brand’s messaging with their audience.
- Be open minded. You know your brand best – but not the audience that will be targeted with your messaging. Whilst you need to ensure that you adhere to brand guidelines, be open to new ideas you might never have considered in the past.
As an Influencer Marketing tool, we are advocates of the co-creation of content with influencers – not only for the marketers that use our platform – but for ourselves too. We ensure that we ‘practice what we preach’ in order to share learnings and give guidance to the industry from experience with our own brand.
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October 13, 2015 4:12 pm
Published by Kirsty Sharman
Editors note: This article originally appeared on tech.co to help answer a question we get from marketers often on how to pitch Influencer Marketing and get buy-in from the top.
You have read all the recent Influencer Marketing case studies and are a little jealous of the return other brands are achieving. You would prefer to be the ‘cool kid’ rather than the ‘new kid’ on the block and have a great idea for an Influencer Marketing campaign. There is one thing stopping you from achieving rock star status with your branded content – approval from your boss.
You recognise Influencer Marketing is a necessary addition to your marketing budget, but how do you get buy-in from the top? It is simpler than you think. Just explain the concept of Influencer Marketing to your boss, as you would to an 8-year-old child.
1. Tell a story
As humans, we are wired to be captivated by stories and easily recall information if it is relayed to us with rich meaning and visual cues. Stories engage the emotional side of our brains and drive us to take action. If you open your pitch with a story, you will be able to grab attention, make facts stick and data more retainable and understandable.
You know your boss best and what story would be relevant to them. Perhaps share a personal story of why you booked the company lunch at a restaurant that a friend recommended on Facebook. You could relate your story back to relevant stats such as: the average consumer mentions specific brands over 90 times a week in conversation with friends or family or that 68% of people feel that Facebook is the most trusted platform for product and service recommendations.
Tip: Don’t make your story long, but make it memorable.
2. Be the favourite teacher
We all had a favourite teacher at school that was an expert at explaining complex topics. Influencer Marketing is new and can appear to be overwhelming if explained poorly or if not understood correctly. It is important to provide background information, definitions, statistics etc. but don’t overcomplicate things to appear smart or knowledgeable on the topic.
Instead, keep things simple and avoid using too many technical terms that although might be relevant, make your boss feel that you need to be a rocket scientist to run a successful Influencer Marketing campaign. Don’t make them feel you are under qualified to do the job. Instead, make them feel confident that you have done enough research to take advantage of this new opportunity and are convinced of the value Influencer Marketing can add to your business and marketing plans.
Tip: When explaining complex topics, show how something works rather than resorting to just talking about a topic.
3. Gives examples of superheroes
My own childhood superheroes were the Ninja Turtles and I was absolutely convinced that nothing could ever beat their ninja moves. In the world of marketing, there are many brand superheroes that kick butt at Influencer Marketing. The internet is full of case studies and examples that you can use to showcase potential success and return on investment. Search for case studies related to your industry, business objectives or even concepts you find innovative. These case studies will provide credibility to your pitch and also give you a foundation for best practice.
Tip: Show what your competitors are doing with their own Influencer Marketing plans and explain how you will differentiate your business. If they are not using Influencer Marketing yet, this is an added opportunity to highlight.
4. Show how you can achieve a gold star
Now that you have given the background into what Influencer Marketing is and have shown the results that other brands are achieving, you need to explain why you think it is relevant for your business and how you plan on achieving your own Influencer Marketing gold star status. This is the point you need to reveal how it will add value to your business.
The most effective way to do this is to show that you have already put thought into your own Influencer Marketing plan. As an Influencer Marketing platform, we have experience in planning campaigns and have developed a 6-step model to make building a successful plan easier. In short, a solid Influencer Marketing plan will specify the target market, propose a campaign that meets the business objectives, identify relevant influencers, explain how workflow and logistics will be managed, as well as how you will track the results.
Tip: Having a plan instils more confidence that the additional investment has potential to add value. Ensure that you showcase what you foresee as being the potential return on investment for the new budget allocation. Use your Influencer Marketing plan to propose not only how you will achieve your first gold star, but also how it is sustainable to be awarded ongoing gold stars.
5. Be ready to answer “Are we there yet?”
Once you have buy-in and approval to go ahead, first give yourself a pat on the back and then be prepared to answer many eager progress questions. Trying something new and innovative is not just exciting for you, but all the stakeholders involved. You will be anxious to prove your campaign victorious and your boss will want regular updates on the status and results.
Tip: There are Influencer Marketing platforms and tools which make tracking your campaign results easy. This is important to not only showcase success, but also to justify ongoing Influencer Marketing budget. Investment in tools like, Webfluential, help you answer the question, “Are we there yet”, with confidence and provide all of the relevant data of the journey.
The tips I have shared are intended to help you put your best foot forward when explaining Influencer Marketing to your boss. Just remember that you know the audience you need to pitch to best – so tweak and personalise your content to what is most relevant to them.
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