PR experts from Playbook PR explain how social media influencers can help boost your company’s brand. Read more on influencer PR on the Playbook PR blog.
Social media influencers have dramatically changed how content and PR can reach your target audiences. The influencer marketing industry will account for more than $15 billion by 2022, according to Forbes. Influencers can now join the largest entertainment industry labor union SAG-AFTRA, and the industry has matured during the last five years from the perception of paid spokespeople to becoming creative partners and content creators with brands of all sizes and shapes. So how can social media influencers help your brand?
Reach Your Audiences Where They Reside
Brand audiences see influencers more as friends than celebrities and provide deeper word-of-mouth marketing than traditional advertising. They create a halo effect that translates from one social media platform to another, creating a synergistic effect that helps to boost your brand exponentially. As an extremely effective form of storytelling, influencer PR helps brands unlock their creative potential by being on the right platform and showing the unique angles that are important to their audiences.
Think of Adidas collaborating with Beyoncé on her Ivy Park fashion line, Fortnite hosting a concert series with Travis Scott, or the video game Among Us collaborating with New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitch. It’s not always about celebrities with social media influencers, but more about who has the right engagement and followers to help amplify your brand. To build a social media empire, smart brands know that influencers are a pivotal part of a brand’s DNA rather than just a wish-list item.
Most marketers plan to spend 10% of their budget on influencer PR on Instagram, followed by YouTube, blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Twitch, and Pinterest. Instagram posts and stories are the most effective for influencer marketing, followed by YouTube and Instagram videos, blog and Facebook posts, Facebook videos, tweets, Facebook and YouTube Live, and Twitch live streams. TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, Clubhouse, Instagram Reels, Houseparty, and others are emerging as the next round of social media standouts.
Define Your Influencer PR Goals
Increasing brand awareness is the main goal for influencer marketing and reaching new audiences to generate sales is the target ROI. Improving advocacy for the brand, driving and creating leads, and managing brand reputation should be a part of your top objectives too. By expanding your brand’s voice on social media, you can improve customer satisfaction and more earned media opportunities.
A mix of having the social media influencer post on their own accounts as well as on your brand’s platforms will create an ecosystem that endorses your brand and services or products so that everywhere your audiences turn, they find you in the spotlight. This takes a consistent social media campaign and multiple touchpoints at regular intervals so your brand stays top of mind. As part product placement and part testimonial, an influencer’s connections and followers help a brand have more interactions through comments, likes, and shares.
Find the Right Influencers
Celebrities hold a mystique and tons of followers, but cost a lot of money. Micro-influencers with 1,000 to 50,000 followers are a brand’s best bet as they are experts in their niche areas. They have better engagement with their followers and deeper influence on them than celebrities adored by the masses. Studies have shown that micro-influencers have up to 85% increased engagement with their audiences than influencers with 100,000 to 1 million followers. Micro-influencers’ reviews and recommendations weigh more on purchasing decisions at both local and regional levels.
Build Relationships with Key Influencers
One-off social media influencing is not a wise investment. Long-term partnerships with key influencers help to educate them on your brand and, in turn, builds deeper layers of trust with their audiences. An influencer’s skills, charisma, and unique offerings help to increase your ROI in a more natural way for audiences. It’s critical to set expectations with the influencer through a contract in advance so everyone is on the same page. Expectations should outline the type of content to be produced, timing of posts, talking points, and preferred content and hashtags for your brand.
Take the Guesswork Out
By hiring a public relations agency to find, manage, and leverage influencer PR, your brand can continue to focus on daily operations while the PR company is dedicated to making the influencer campaign a success. From research to vetting influencers, coordinating content, and using analytic tools to adjust campaigns in real-time, a PR firm can help you get results faster and more efficiently.
Contact Us
Playbook PR is here to help brands make sense of the influencer PR landscape and ever-changing social media and marketing environment. Their connections to leading influencers help to build social proof for your brand’s customers and prospects. From creating partnerships to managing content and campaigns, Playbook PR can assist every step of the way with your social media efforts. The agency’s social listening tools, expertise in helping both small businesses and billion-dollar brands, and accomplished team help you to implement more effective social media strategies. Contact Playbook Public Relations at (813) 789-7122 or online to develop and refine your influencer PR strategy to move your company’s goals forward.
