Off-site promotion: How much do you know about Instagram influencer marketing?

Why do marketers value Instagram so much?

First, Instagram has more than 1 billion active users every month. According to a December 2018 survey by CivicScience, one-third of active Instagram users in the United States said they had purchased products recommended by Instagram influencers or bloggers.

Secondly , many brands have been trying to conduct influencer marketing campaigns on Instagram. According to the survey data of influencer marketing agency Mediakix, the market size of Instagram influencer marketing exceeded 1 billion US dollars in 2017 and is expected to reach 2 billion by 2019. In January 2019, 89% of American marketers believed that Instagram is the most important social media platform. Therefore, choosing to conduct influencer marketing campaigns on Instagram will bring business opportunities to your company.

Finally , Instagram influencers are extremely creative, adding descriptions and background stories to their work, which is both fashionable and informative. In addition, since the Instagram algorithm mechanism has been controlling the natural traffic of certain brands, it is expected that the demand for Instagram influencers will increase significantly.

So, what makes Instagram influencer marketing so successful?

This is largely because influencers are more authentic than brands. Instagram influencers’ posts are not just one-sided. They praise brands’ products while pointing out their shortcomings. Influencers who share their authentic opinions about brands’ products can win people’s trust. As consumers, we naturally want to know the authenticity of products, and those who make us feel authentic will gain our trust.

Another important reason for brands to work with Instagram influencers is because Instagram influencers are creative. Not only can they come up with posts that fit your brand, but they can also provide new ideas for your advertising campaigns.

Let’s say your company is a travel agency and you want to reach a wider audience through Instagram. In the past, if you sponsored a backpacker or travel enthusiast to record their travels, you might only receive some ordinary photos in return, which would be published later, and the sponsored person would at most make a slideshow to promote your services. But now, Instagram influencers can record their travels in real time. They are full of creativity and can produce wonderful visual effects that make people feel like they are there.

There is no doubt that Instagram influencers can indeed increase brand awareness.

James Holt , a professional dropshipper, notes that many e-commerce entrepreneurs start by running Facebook ads, but his advice is to not waste time and go straight to influencer marketing on Instagram.

His advice is based on his own entrepreneurial experience. His first two independent websites (Shopify) were all Facebook ads, but the results were minimal. Later, he consulted experts and turned to Instagram for influencer marketing. Although it took a long time, he received his first order, and then he couldn't stop!

When you’re ready to start looking for Instagram influencers to work with, you’ll find that there are a variety of ways to work with them. Here are the most popular types of Instagram influencer marketing partnerships.

Instagram Stories is perhaps one of the most valuable features, giving influencers and brands they work with a more human touch, thereby growing brand audiences more organically.

The content posted on Stories is more credible, and the content posted in dynamic form looks more real than the carefully edited photos. In addition, Instagram influencers do not need to carefully select the cover or style of the story.

Another unique feature of Instagram Stories is the swipe up feature.

With this feature, users can swipe up to go to the external site to learn more information, helping merchants to further connect with customers. This feature is very useful for e-commerce brands that want to sell on Instagram.

Although Snapchat was first to launch this feature, the number of people posting Stories on Instagram is now twice that of Snapchat, making Instagram Stories the best channel for influencers to promote their brands.

The most common type of collaboration with Instagram influencers is to pay them or send them free samples and have them post product recommendations on their accounts.

Here’s an example of an ice cream brand working with an Instagram influencer:

From casual brand mentions to in-depth reviews of products and other uses, influencers focus their posts on brands, using their fans’ trust to encourage them to try the brand’s products. Most brands that use this influencer marketing model pay influencers upfront before they post.

If you are just giving them free product, then they have no legal obligation to work for you unless there is a legally binding contract that states the compensation is free product, but if you don’t have a contract and you just want the influencer to post, that’s fine too.

A note about sponsored posts: According to Federal Trade Commission policy, the existence of a partnership between a brand and an influencer should be made known to the public, which can be displayed by using the hashtags #sponsored or #ad.

Brands can invite influencers to live stream using their brand's Instagram account and interact with the current audience in real time. Through Instagram Live, the audience can ask questions and interact through comments. Influencers can not only enjoy the attention from the audience alone, but also share their personal experiences with the audience. They can also use various filters and invite friends and viewers to become the moderator of the live broadcast.

In addition, after the live broadcast ends, brands can also download and save the Instagram live video. Then post it to other social media platforms, or upload the video to Instagram Stories, which can be played for another 24 hours.

While many companies are using Instagram Live for influencer marketing, it still has an authenticity that avoids the “fakeness” of commercial advertising that would otherwise go against the intended effect.

When consumers see an influencer mention a brand’s product during a live broadcast, it feels less like an advertisement and more like sharing a day in the influencer’s life.

Expert tip: To increase views on your Instagram Live, have your influencer promote your live stream on their Instagram profile ahead of time, encouraging viewers to watch the live stream and follow your brand’s Instagram account.

This can be one of the hardest parts of launching influencer marketing, whether it’s on Instagram or any other social platform.

67.6% of marketers said that finding the right influencer is the biggest challenge when launching a marketing campaign. Have you ever encountered such questions: Where should I start? What kind of influencer should I look for? What is the most effective way to search on Instagram?

There are many influencer marketing tools on the market that are specifically designed to build relationships between brands and influencers. These issues you are entangled in are no longer a problem. There are many influencer marketing tools with good reputations on the website www..com, but most of them require payment.

But if you are a beginner, don’t have these tools at the moment, and have a limited budget, what should you do? Here are some free ways to find the right Instagram influencer without the help of tools:

First, you need to decide which type of influencer is right for your type of advertising.

The vast majority of small brands should focus primarily on finding niche influencers, with big-name influencers being secondary.

If you are a cosmetics brand, you would first want to find a big star like Kendall Jenner.

But compared to the unreachable celebrities and influencers, the opinions and product experience sharing of "girls next door" are more credible. This type of people is the best choice for finding niche influencers on Instagram. They are credible and talk about cosmetics in detail, which makes people feel very professional. But they are ordinary people like you and me, not famous singers or actors who are out of reach.

Once you have determined your ideal influencer type, it will be easier to filter out the most suitable Instagram influencers for your brand from your collaboration list. If you haven’t built an Instagram influencer list yet, don’t worry. Here are a few ways to find potential influencers so that you can start creating your own collaboration list.

Searching via Instagram hashtags is a great way to find relevant Instagram influencers.

For example, if you type #foodblogger into the Instagram search bar, you can find related food bloggers because their posts all have the hashtag #foodblogger.

In the search results, you can click on the blogger's personal homepage one by one to check their number of followers and whether they have cooperated with other brands in the same industry, so as to consider whether to include them in your cooperation list. By searching for relevant topic tags on Instagram, you can find a wealth of Internet celebrity resources.

The second method is to search for relevant influencers through Google.

For example, if your business is related to men’s clothing, you can search for the term “men’s Instagram fashion micro-influencers” on Google to find relevant niche bloggers. Here are the search results:

From the search results, we can see that most websites have related articles, which means you can easily get a list of influencers. For example, let’s click on the third search result: Top 20 Menswear Micro-Influencers Every Dapper Guy Should Know – you go to Dealspotr, and enter the website to see a list of niche influencers related to this niche.

If you’re thinking about creating an Instagram influencer campaign of your own, hopefully you can draw inspiration from these 3 examples.

Gillette (a safety razor and personal care brand) partnered with several beauty bloggers to promote its new line of hair removal products for women: Gillette Venus. The campaign was clever, starting with Instagram influencers posting a promotional post with a video link to encourage followers to click on the product video and increase video traffic. The video featured the product in different scenes and close-ups, all with Gillette Venus promotional text. In addition, they also included a catchy hashtag in their posts: #ChooseToSmooth.

The campaign worked with multiple influencers and ultimately achieved an average brand engagement rate of 2.2% among the audience, reaching an audience of 476,000.

If you search #ChooseToSmooth on Instagram, you’ll find that the influencers that Gillette chooses to work with are mostly niche influencers. The credibility and affinity of these influencers are key factors in the success of Gillette’s campaigns.

Glossier has been working with Instagram influencers to run marketing campaigns since its inception.

Its founder Emily Weiss opened a beauty blog called "IntoTheGloss" in 2010, which successfully created a niche influencer community. Glossier's Instagram influencer marketing model is to find niche influencers and let them post Amway posts regularly. In return, the influencers can get product redemption coupons or corresponding commissions.

80% of Glossier's sales and orders come from word of mouth, which shows that female friends who use Instagram don't necessarily have to go through celebrities or well-known Internet celebrities to be recommended products.

Emily revealed in an interview with the business magazine Fast Company that the power of ordinary individuals should not be underestimated. If there are many people supporting your brand, their influence is equivalent to that of 10 Kardashians. Therefore,

Glossier chose to work with some niche Instagram influencers, and the brand has grown rapidly in just a few years. In addition, it also held a selection of the most rapidly improving beauty ambassadors in recent years. As a result, the brand has grown from only 11 niche female influencers at the beginning to more than 500 now.

For the brand Glossier, finding niche influencers and providing them with real reviews and usage experiences before customers purchase the brand has a very good marketing effect.

The winter holidays are a great opportunity for clothing retailers to make money, as many people buy warm gifts for their loved ones during the cold weather. In the fall of 2016, American Rag (a fashion brand under Macy’s) collaborated with niche Instagram influencers to launch a marketing campaign to promote the warmth and comfort of its products.

American Rag’s endorsement influencer mentioned American Rag’s new fall and winter clothing series in her post and shared a picture of herself wearing the brand’s products, which was full of fall and winter atmosphere.

The ad post had an audience engagement rate of 5.7% and received over 30,000 likes. By working with relevant influencers in the fall, the brand was able to reach its target audience in time to encourage them to purchase the brand’s seasonal products.

Karolis Rimkus, a dropshipper who built and developed his brand through Instagram influencer marketing, mentioned in his experience sharing video the precautions for finding influencers on Instagram. Both fame and free products are effective in maintaining influencer partnerships. There are also some other useful suggestions. Please refer to the progress bar video navigation in the figure below to find what you need.

(Video address: https://youtu.be/LR8vKDOhFos)

No matter what business, size or industry your brand is in, Instagram is a platform with huge business opportunities, but it’s not the only channel to expand your off-site promotion activities. You can also learn from it and find influencers to collaborate with on YouTube and Facebook.