August 19, 2015 1:51 pm
Published by Murray Legg
Whether you’re a blogger or a brand, you’ve grown and refined your tone and approach to creating and sharing content with your audience over a period of time. The topics you discuss, the articles you share and the amount you engage with people is not only an expression of yourself or your brand, but rewarding on a social, personal and economic front.
We recently wrote about the six steps to building a successful influencer marketing plan, outlining best practice to engage with influencers and achieve meaningful results with your influencer marketing campaigns. But what about the best approach to captivating your audience through the content you create and go on to maximize the shareability of your it?
In 2006, while still at the Huffington Post, Jonah Peretti started BuzzFeed with a small amount of seed funding. It’s gone on to become an internet content hub of huge significance. Peretti has experience in creating content that gets huge traction online. Remember 40 Things That Will Make You Feel Old (3.2 million views), and the 45 Most Powerful Images of 2011 (10.1 million)?
We looked into the online forums and business analyses of the BuzzFeed model and have created a list of tips to putting together great branded content.
Emotionally engaging content does best
The reason kittens and memes tend to be shared so much is their innate emotional connection. By exploring the emotional connection of your content with your audience, you’ll have a good shot at it getting traction. Think about a fitness brand doing a piece on the 15 best workout songs, for example.
Target the “Bored at Work Network”
“Bigger than the BBC, CNN or any traditional media network is the “BWN” and is made up of millions of bored office workers blog, Tweet, Facebook and IM all day.” In the new world of networked media, where links passed via social networks can send millions of pageviews to a site in a matter of minutes, Peretti says the bored-at-work network effectively “decides what content is popular today.”
Employ the mullet strategy
Business in the front, party in the back. YouTube, CNN, BuzzFeed and Huffington Post all have an incredible slick front page that’s visual and able to draw people into their content. Behind the front page, users can argue, comment and fight things out in the comments section. Remember, you wrote emotional content to start with, so give your audience an easy way to discuss it.
If your readers are on your website, make it shareable
Every BuzzFeed article has several icons at the top and bottom of its articles, for sharing on StumbleUpon, Google Plus, and Twitter, among others. Users can also pass judgment on a story using BuzzFeed’s proprietary yellow reaction button system, which include “LOL,” “omg,” “wtf,” “fail,” and “ew.”
Seed the content in fertile land
“Big seed marketing” hinges on the basis that content going viral needs to be different to how a disease goes viral. A virus epidemic starts with a single patient, “patient zero” and has a break out from there. But what if there were many patient zeros, based in different networks, giving your content an opportunity to go on to a wider audience?
Assume people aren’t reading your content on your website
“What if you assume people’s home page isn’t your site but Facebook or Twitter or StumbleUpon, or one of these social sites?” Repurpose your content and share it on your social channels to reach a wider audience.
Sign up as a marketer if you would like to find out more or start using our platform to run successful Influencer Marketing campaigns.
References:
http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/14770-buzzfeed-the-ad-model-for-the-facebook-era
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/38013/20150306/buzzfeed-make-money.htm
https://hbr.org/2007/05/viral-marketing-for-the-real-world
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August 18, 2015 12:14 pm
Published by Kirsty Sharman
This blog post was originally written by Ruan Fourie.
What does the league, reach, relevance and resonance scores on your Webfluential Influencer Profile mean? It’s a question that it a lot of our influencers and marketers have asked.
It’s time we explain Influencer Scores in more detail
This post will be the first in a series of posts that explain the core elements of Webfluential’s Influencers scores: league, reach, relevance and resonance.
Understanding influence is both an art and a science. As we’re in the business of suggesting the right influencers for a particular brand and campaign objective, we had to look into the maths behind each influencer’s content. Not an easy task, and certainly not something we expect you to find incredibly interesting, but we want to share our thinking nonetheless.
What is league?
League is a score that ranges from 1 – 5. Influencers with higher reach when compared to other Webfluential influencers end up in higher leagues. Influencers with lower reach potential, but an ability to be highly engaging, are generally league 4 or 5. It’s important to remember that our scores are calculated based on data we compile from all the influencers on the Webfluential platform.
Is a higher or lower league score better?
If Lady Gaga was signed up to Webfluential as a Twitter influencer she would most likely be put into league 1 because she has the potential to reach a massive audience with her almost 50 million strong Twitter following. She doesn’t have the time (or perhaps inclination) to have engaging conversations with each of her little Monsters. But an influencer in League 4 or 5 probably is interested in the conversation, and does more than raise awareness, but can actually influence an engagement or conversion to a sale.
Will I get more jobs for having a specific league score?
No. Each campaign has it’s own specific objectives and marketers will look for influencers that will help them reach those objectives.
Some campaigns are about generating traffic, so influencers that can best drive traffic will suit the campaign objective. Getting people to talk about a brand might be the objective for another campaign, then influencers that generate a lot of engagement will be included in the campaign. Typically the platform suggests a mix of influencers across all Leagues for a specific campaign.
What is the purpose of having a league score?
We want to find the right influencers to help marketers meet the objectives of their Influencer Marketing campaign and with our platform we make the process as easy as possible. League score helps us and marketers find the right influencers to meet the campaign goals. Just because you’re not in League 1 doesn’t mean you aren’t in the Premier League. What is of far more importance is your resonance and relevance, which we will discuss in two upcoming posts.
How to check your league position?
Log in to Webfluential by clicking here and looking at the scoring of your channels on the Dashboard. An important thing to check is that your channels are still authorised to link to Webfluential. Go to the “My Profile” section and click on the “Test Token” button (shown in the image below) for each of your channels.
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August 12, 2015 12:11 pm
Published by Kirsty Sharman
Do you feel completely overwhelmed by trying to create a successful Influencer Marketing plan? Perhaps you are not sure where to even start, let alone knowing how to produce a winning plan.
Using influencers as a media channel is new and not everyone feels confident conceptualising, managing and tracking an Influencer Marketing campaign. This is where Webfluential can help you. Our six steps below provide guidance on how to create an industry-leading Influencer Marketing plan.
However, the best news is that our platform has all the tools you need to complete step two through to step six for you. All you need to do is define your target market and as Influencer Marketing experts, we will do the rest. Phew – it is ok to breathe a sigh of relief!
- Define the target market
The first step to any marketing plan is to define your target audience. It is no different with Influencer Marketing. This helps you understand how your customer thinks, discovers, makes decisions and purchases product. Consider specifics like the gender, location, age and number of people you would like to reach.
- Conceptualise your campaign
Brainstorm concepts for your Influencer marketing campaign that will meet your marketing objectives and easily integrate into your marketing plan. Think of influencers as another media channel being added to your media planning. Just like you brainstorm a concept that works best for radio or television, think of a concept that works best for influencers. Also give thought to the type of content you would like created, what the key messages are and what format is best to share this message (video, blog post, photography etc.).Platform tip: Webfluential gives you access to a team of dedicated account and campaign managers that are pros at developing ideas for brands when working with influencers.
- Discover relevant influencers
You need to find influencers that are relevant to your brand and messaging you want to share. It is important to not only look at the reach an influencer has, but also how aligned they are to your audience and message. You want the content they produce for you to be relevant and resonate with their audience for better engagement and shares.Platform tip: Webfluential gives you access to a database of thousands of influencers as well as the tools to search for the most relevant influencers for your brand and campaign. Our search tool allows you to add filters to your search according to the interests of influencers. For example, you could search for a mommy blogger that enjoys running or fitness.
- Manage workflow and logistics
Monitor and manage all campaign logistics like briefing of influencers, content schedules, workflow and payment. As more influencers are added to a campaign, it is important to ensure you have enough time allocated to work closely with each influencer to get the results you desire from their content and audience.Platform tip: Webfluential campaign managers will oversee all your campaign logistics like briefing, follow up, content fact checking, deadline management etc. As content is posted online to blogs or social media channels by influencers, you can access a detailed workflow to view all posts, tweets and shares in one place, as they go live.
- Track your results
Monitor the results and impact of your campaign according to your objectives and measurement indicators like reach, resonance, relevance, engagement, link clicks etc. You want to ensure that your budget spend has resulted in return on investment (ROI).Platform tip: Webfluential has a detailed tracking and reporting tool that actively measures and showcases your campaign results. The reporting tool has been built with researched algorithms to accurately measure the results of Influencer Marketing and ROI. Check out one of our reports here
- Unpack your learnings
Evaluation and learnings are significant for understanding both the successes and challenges of your campaign. This allows you to adapt and improve your plan for future executions. Some influencers might have worked better for your brand than others. Content may have resonated more with certain audiences. The more you learn, the better your future campaigns could be and the bigger your portfolio of best practice becomes.Platform tip: The Webfluential reports unpack any of the campaign learnings for you, so that you can take advantage of any successes or avoid mistakes in future campaigns. Our team spend time analysing each report for any key findings.
Sign up as a marketer if you would like to find out more or start using our platform to run successful Influencer Marketing campaigns.
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