Influencer
(discover the importance of influencers in your online marketing strategy)
INFLUENCER: REAL RESOURCE OR USELESS EXPENDITURE?
In recent years, many people have heard of the influencer: there are those who claim to be an influencer because they have 1,000 followers on Instagram, those who buy a product because they have seen it on a profile of the influencer they follow, the newspapers talk about new fashions and trends created after a famous influencer did or said something…
With so much talk on the subject, our instincts as business people (with their own website/online store) ask us something as simple as it is fundamental:
“Can we use an influencer in our digital marketing strategy to increase our customer engagement and get more sales?”
Well, the truth is, contrary to what everyone says, we are of the opinion that the answer to this question is: IT DEPENDS.
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And it is not a circumstantial answer, but rather the reality of the facts that we have been able to verify with our customers over the years. So what does our decision depend on?
To explain it in the best way, as always, we will indicate at least the most important data on this topic (because data is what gives you context and allows you to think in economic terms, what we have what to do to make the right decisions).
The data that resonate the most are the following (various sources including Cyberclick, Influencermarketinghub, Kolsquare, Marketingnews and Statista):
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- In 2021 influencer marketing grew to $14 million
- 75% of brands invest in influencers for their marketing strategy while the majority (almost 80%) of influencers usually post on Instagram, there are also some who are getting famous on TikTok
- 25% of companies do not generate income from influencer marketing, even though the majority say they have an ROI = 5
- 60% of brands find it very difficult to find the right influencer for a successful campaign and often fail to accurately measure the benefits generated by a campaign
- If we add up all the categories of influencers in Spain, starting from those with +1,000 followers, up to those with +1 million followers (nano, micro, macro, hungry and mega), we arrive at almost 250,000 influencers out of a number of active monthly users of 1.2 million.
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If we wanted to summarize this data in a couple of sentences, we could say that the importance of influencer marketing grows every year, especially through Instagram and that there are few companies that manage to exploit it with so much work, but that at the same time there it's who loses money, especially considering that 1 in 5 people on Instagram seem to be an influencer.
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Now that we have some numerical information, we can begin to analyze the possibilities behind this marketing medium and explain our considerations.
When we say that the answer to whether or not to use influencers is IT DEPENDS, we are referring to a very important question: budget. This is because if we want to make money we need to generate sales and if we want to generate sales we need to get the right influencers and this process is quite complicated and expensive. Clearly there is no way to know if the companies that have generated sales thanks to influencers are the ones that have invested the most in it, but it is an inference that we can draw by seeing the difficulty that brands have in finding real influencers: if you publish regularly on your Instagram, surely you have already gone from receiving messages from people with 2000 followers, asking for a free sample of your product or giving you a link with their rates to post a photo or video on their profile. It often happens to us and to our clients, and the truth is that today we receive so many messages of this type that it is almost impossible to tell if we are dealing with a real influencer or not, because it is clear: most of the influencers who also have 20k or more influencers are nothing more than profiles created through groups that organize themselves to make a living from this, receive free products or find some generous brand willing to pay for it. Warning: we are not saying that all those who call themselves influencers or who contact you are trying to scam you; absolutely. What we're saying, especially looking at the side of the brands we work with, is that unfortunately there are a lot of people who are riding the wave of this influencer marketing trend, to get some extra income (through free or money-making products).
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We say “unfortunately” because although these people do nothing wrong from their point of view, it is also true that they make brands (especially the small and medium ones) spend money on something that ultimately does not serve them, and which causes losses that aren't always easy to recover when you don't have investors to back you up. And as if the bots circulating on social media weren't enough (almost 10% of the total being the latest analysis), we now also have these groups of influencers helping each other to "alter" Instagram analyses. If you want to do a test to see if you are in that situation, see if there is a link between the last influencers who have contacted you: looking at the published photos, you will notice that they are commenting on the photos with each other, and that each of them will contact you after seeing a photo posted by one of the group's influencers with one of your products. And of course Instagram, you'll just see that each photo generates comments, likes, and interactions, but ultimately all the comments will be from the same people. Another thing you can do is check who the profiles of the people who comment on an influencer's photos are, and you will probably find that they are all influencers also because they will have thousands of followers.
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That being the case, it seems clear that it's not always a cost-effective strategy and that's probably why a quarter of brands lose money without generating sales with their influencer marketing. Now, even with these hardships, one party manages to generate income that exceeds costs, so surely there are ways to get it right, but being what you see, possibly only those with plenty of time on their hands to carefully evaluate it will be able to benefit every influencer.
So let's see what we can do to be part of the group of those who take advantage of it.
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The first thing we suggest is to analyze the "influencer" profiles manually and personally, precisely because analytical data no longer works as it once did: don't look so much at the number of followers but above all at the number of interactions which are relatively stable but not identical over time (example: if a person has 10k followers, he must have at least 500 likes and 50 comments, otherwise he will hardly have engagement); In this regard, also be sure to read the comments to see if there are also responses from the influencer himself, because in most cases, of these "50" comments, half are from the same influencer; Also, look at what we discussed earlier, which is whether the people commenting are real people or other influencers or bots (to be sure you'll need to enter each commenting profile and make sure they have less than 300 followers and only post occasionally) . when in your own language and which only has some comments in the same language). Surely you begin to understand why my first answer DEPENDS, as not everyone can spend as much time, just to find out if there is an influencer worth partnering with, and even then no one assures you that it is an influencer you can generate sales .
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Once you've found your influencer (who ideally has a similar style to your brand and with content appropriate to your brand) you'll need to make contact (although many normally contact you directly); At that moment, what we advise you is to immediately discard those who ask you for money, because up to 100-150k followers you can get them to collaborate with you simply by giving them free products or services, so the ideal is to collaborate only with them and avoid investing more money.
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Una vez aceptada la colaboración en tus términos, es cuestión de entregar lo establecido e intentar medir la campaña: normalmente a los influencers se les da total libertad porque suelen saber mejor que tú qué es lo que más le gusta a su audiencia, pero nadie se lo prohíbe. Pídeles, en la fase inicial de la negociación, que te dediquen al menos un post y una historia; Casi siempre estarán de acuerdo y, a este nivel, les resulta difícil no publicar el producto más tarde porque quieren evitar problemas futuros. Luego, puedes pedirles que también te indiquen un código de descuento único para crear para ellos y con un descuento superior al que normalmente ofreces para tu primer pedido pero no excesivo (un 15% sería lo ideal). De esta forma podrás comprobar inmediatamente si alguien utiliza este descuento y sabrás con absoluta certeza la rentabilidad de la campaña; Otra forma un poco más complicada es crear un utm único asociado con una URL, para que puedas monitorear cuánto tráfico proviene de la publicación o historia del influencer. La única contraindicación de esta segunda técnica es que no todas las plataformas web te permiten monitorear la utm dentro de tu sitio web, así que infórmate antes de hacerlo. De todos modos, si descubre que puede hacerlo y es una técnica que desea utilizar, le recomendamos "https://ga-dev-tools.web.app/campaign-url-builder/" para compilar el utm, porque es gratis. y en la web puedes encontrar muchas guías.
Claro, si tienes la suerte de encontrar un buen influencer para tu nicho (siempre que te haya generado ventas), sigue colaborando con él indefinidamente para que pueda ayudarte en el futuro: porque, por ejemplo , puede recordarte, una vez que su fama crezca, o por qué puede ayudarte a crear contenido de calidad que luego podrás utilizar en tu sitio web y en tus redes sociales.
De hecho, esta es la segunda razón principal por la que deberías pensar en algunas colaboraciones con influencers: para recopilar contenido de calidad que puedas utilizar en el futuro. Algunas de las mejores campañas de FB Ad que hemos preparado han sido gracias a vídeos de historias elaborados por algunos de nuestros influencers. Y esto es muy importante porque te ahorras mucho tiempo preparando la creatividad y además sabrás que tiene una buena respuesta, porque podrás ver los resultados en el mismo post/story que la persona. Además, el mismo contenido publicado por el influencer, puedes usarlo para tus redes sociales, agregando cualquier comentario, para que parezca que te lo enviaron para agradecerte. Finalmente, puedes utilizar los mejores vídeos/fotos para crear una página en tu sitio web, donde aparezcan todos los influencers más famosos con los que trabajas, generando contenido e involucrando a tus usuarios.
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En cualquier caso, te dejamos un texto estándar que podrías utilizar para solicitar colaboración a alguien que ya se ha puesto en contacto contigo anteriormente (ya que hoy en día es mucho más habitual que se ponga en contacto contigo):
"¿Hola como estan las cosas?
Pude mirar detenidamente tu perfil y la verdad es que me gustó mucho por los valores que transmites a tus seguidores. Así que felicidades por tu contenido.
Nuestros productos están dirigidos a personas como tú, con una vida llena de pasión y disfrute. Me parece genial la idea de colaborar contigo... si quieres podemos enviarte uno de nuestros productos para que nos digas qué te parece, me gustaría la idea de una publicación y una historia publicada en tu perfil con tu estilo seguro que saldría algo muy bonito. ¿Qué opinas?"