Most of us already know how over-hyped paid promotions are, which means paying an influencer to promote your products or services. Do you want to know something underrated that works like magic? It’s influencer gifting. Influencer gifting is a term that refers to gifting your products to promote them through an influencer micro or macro.
Opting for influencer gifting strategies can bring substantial changes to your business growth. Influencers mostly stick to content creation in a specific niche, mostly what pleases the eyes of their audience thus, people rely on their suggestions and reviews in that niche. For example, if a fashion blogger rates the pants you sell 10/10, there is a higher chance people would buy that product from you.
You may ask, why influencer gifting is so important and why do brands need it. Below are a few reasons that might help you to understand influencer gifting a bit better!
- Choosing influencers with the right demographics plays an integral role
- It is more appealing as it involves innovation and creativity
- The high-quality aesthetic pictures the influencers provide you with can also be used for re-posting and enhancing your feed
- Influencer gifting can help you take a step forward if done the right way. The perfect way to kickstart your business!
In the following article, you’ll get to read all about successful collaborations and the right way to run and monitor a campaign as well. Let’s get started!
Identifying the Right Influencers
Taking time to understand if the influencer values align with your brand identity is extremely important as what they’ll create would be an indirect reflection of what your brand aims for and what you offer. For example, if you aim to promote sustainability the influencer should make sure to embody such objectives in the content. There are plenty of strategies that you can opt for to choose the right influencer, a few of them are mentioned below:
1. Conduct a Thorough Influencer Search:
You need to choose an influencer that resonates with your brand’s ideology. For instance, you can’t choose a fitness influencer to review your restaurant. Make sure to conduct a proper go of the influencer values. It can be done by directly contacting them as well or by simply analyzing their feed. This will enhance the sense of authenticity in the content and in what you sell.
2. Review Their Work:
You can also take an overview of the work the influencer has previously done with other brands which will further give you an idea of their brand preferences and the niche they have expertise in. Reviewing their work can also give you campaign ideas and an indication to lead your brand in the right direction.
3. Analyze Their Relationship With Audience:
One aspect you can not afford to forget is analyzing the influencer's relation with his/ her audience. Do they respond to positive comments and any queries? Does the response in their videos show they have high credibility and the content they make is unique? Through the interactions in the comment section, you can conclude whether the connection between the influencer and the audience is good enough for a collaboration or not.
4. Target Audience:
It is important to also make sure that the target audience of the influencer's content aligns with your target audience. Luckily, there are various techniques through which you can access the audience demographics and engagement rate of the influencers, without having to contact them.
5. Analyze Their Feed:
You can also just scroll through different posts in different formats - reels, carousels, posts. This will help you observe their engagement metrics/ interaction rate. Obtaining millions of followers but a low engagement rate is worthless as it represents how the audience does not value their content. If the alignment in these two aspects - brand preference and relation with the audience is strong, it means that you have found the perfect influencer for your brand.
How SocialBook Can Help You?
Searching for the right influencer among thousands of influencers may seem a tedious task. Luckily, we have some awesome influencer marketing platforms and analytical tools, such as SocialBook, here to help! SocialBook offers you two products in this regard - Product Launcher and SaaS platform. SocialBook can help you on your quest for the right influencer in the following ways:
- You can use SocialBook’s Product Launcher to search for influencers for just $28
- The Product Launcher allows businesses to post their influencer needs and demands, along with the recruitment criteria
- The influencers can then apply for these job posts and come in direct contact with the business
- The Product Launcher allows the influencers to connect with the business according to their preference
- The SaaS platform allows businesses to filter the influencers based on specific conditions as requested by the brands
- It will assist you in opting for a comprehensive approach as it will guarantee better campaign results
All these factors collectively contribute to helping you choose the ideal influencer, bearing fruit of all the time you have spent, and your marketing efforts.
Building Authentic Relationships
The key to embarking on a new relationship, be it in your personal life or with your influencers, is authenticity. The fate of your promotional campaign, and ultimately your brand rests in the hands of this very vital relationship. A few aspects that can assist you in building a strong relationship with your influencers are listed below:
1. Be Proactive and Subjective:
Building strong and authentic relationships with influencers requires being proactive so the engagement metrics improve. Instead of randomly approaching hundreds of influencers and sending them all the same message, opt for personalizing. You need to be subjective with the influencers and approach each of them with a touch of personalization. Your outreach should be specific to the ones that align with your brand goals and niche.
2. Be Appreciative:
If you like someone's work, appreciation is something that never goes in vain. You can specifically praise the content you like on their feed, which will give the influencer a clearer idea of the type of content you like.
3. Be Transparent in Communication:
You must have often heard the phrase ‘Communication is the key’. A 2-way dialogue between the brand and influencer is a must. Open communication channels not only enhance transparency but also foster trust. Moreover, to level up your content, always take feedback and suggestions from the influencer and incorporate them into your content. Don’t forget, that they have a strong online presence because of their eye-catching engaging content, so make sure to thoroughly communicate with them.
4. Do Check-Ins:
While the campaign is running, do not forget to check-in. This can help you and the influencer to get regular updates about the campaign's progress and can also have a positive impact on your partnership, leading to long-term contracts. Make sure to check in a positive manner so you don’t come off as pushy.
5. Keep Influencers in Loop:
For a deeper level of engagement and to promote a sense of belonging, you need to make the influencer feel included. Thus, whenever there is an event e.g. a product launch, the influencers you are working with should be the very first people to be present there. This also promotes a collaborative workplace culture as it will create a shared space for the influencers to come and interact with each other.
6. Offer Value:
What you are gifting to the influencer is just for work purposes, however, your brand aims should also include offering value and not just the products for promotion. By this, we mean you can give the influencer a special discount code that can solely be used by them or can offer them your newly launched or limited edition products.
These factors will not just cultivate a long-lasting relationship but will also make them feel valued, and they will always be happy to work with you. You can also feature them in your stories and posts and appreciate their work, to show commitment to the partnership as it will also boost the influencer's visibility.
Executing a Gifting Campaign
Gifting campaigns are as fun as they sound, for both the brands and the influencers. But to make sure your gifting campaign is a banger, there are a few things you need to keep in mind. Simply sending the gift to the desired influencer is not going to do the job right so below are a few tips that might help you in this regard:
1. Packaging and Delivery:
There are a few essential steps to take care of when you look forward to executing a gifting campaign amongst which packaging and delivery are crucial. Would you choose to receive a boring brown box with gifts inside or visually appealing packaging that reflects the brand identity? Thus, don’t hesitate if you need to spend some money on high-quality packaging. If the material can be environment-friendly and can promote sustainability, go for it! Good packaging gives the influencers a perception of how inclined you are towards your brand and will also make it easier for them to make content.
2. Personalize Each Gift:
Personalization is another thing people tend to appreciate a lot. Add a few cute stickers with every package or write a short heartfelt note expressing gratitude and appreciation. This will not just make the influencer feel valued but there are higher chances of an even better review on your products.
3. Track your Shipments:
Talking about the delivery, keep track of your shipments so you can inform the influencer about the delivery date beforehand. The shipping should be done timely so the content creation can be done within the timeframe you have decided.
4. Provide Campaign Guidelines:
If you are on an outlook for organic content from the influencer, provide them with precise and clear guidelines. These guidelines can be for a number of things but a few of them are mentioned below:
- Mention any unique elements you want them to use.
- Don’t take away their creativity by giving them a 50-page document instructing them what to do. It might lead them to create content that does not match their usual style.
- Moreover, engagement is essential to showcase the success of a campaign.
- Let them know about your expectations regarding the reach and how you want them to respond to comments to address queries.
- Don’t hesitate to input valuable suggestions e.g. tell them to try the product out for some time and then give a genuine review. This will further enhance the authenticity of the endorsements.
5. Unify Content:
To unify your content all on one page, the use of fixed hashtags can be done. This will help you keep track of the progress of the campaign and will also make it easier for your audience to easily open all your campaigns and stay updated on the latest news of the brand.
6. Include End Users:
Another tip is to not just limit the created content to the influencer's feed. You should share all the user-generated content on all your channels to not just drive audience and boost growth but also increase your brand's credibility.
Measuring Campaign Success
The job does not end when you have finally launched your campaign. It’s time to track the engagement rate and performance metrics now. This check and balance will help you to monitor your campaign and make sure that it’s heading in the right direction. A few controlling variables that you can implement are listed below:
1. Use Analytical Platforms:
To measure a campaign's success various platforms e.g. SocialBook, is popular in use. Such tools provide you in-depth analysis of how your posts are progressing and the growth of the overall account too. Whether you want to track the number of shares, comments, or overall reach, you can’t miss out on these tools.
Why Use SocialBook:
Another amazing tool to track engagement and assess campaign performance is the SocialBook SaaS Platform. It's an excellent tool for brands looking to enhance their strategies. You can also avail of a special offer i.e. try one channel from our package—such as TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube—for just $199. Don't miss out on this opportunity to heighten your brand's online presence!
As you develop your social media strategy, remember that engagement is more than just a number—it reflects the relationships you build with your audience. Leveraging tools like SocialBook's SaaS platform can streamline the process, allowing you to focus on crafting compelling content that engages and inspires your followers.
Through the insights provided by these analytic tools, you can make decisions for your brand growth and figure out which areas need improvement.
2. Monitoring Strategies:
Furthermore, you can also evaluate what type of Ads and strategies work best for your account growth and to reach your target audience. Don’t just sit and analyze, make sure you take action on what needs improvement as utilizing the insights for future gifting strategies can be a great help.
3. Examine Engagement:
The process is simple but needs a lot of time and effort. The very core step is to examine the influencers with the highest reach and engagement rate. You need an answer to the question ‘WHY?’ What elements do they incorporate that make their engagement rate so high? It includes anything from the hashtags they use to the uniqueness of their content. Incorporate your findings in your next campaign.
4. Review Content Format:
Moreover, you also need to quickly review what format of the content performed best. Is it the short trending reels or carousel posts with soothing music? Whatever the results are, incorporate them into the guidelines you will provide the influencer with for your content. This will be a great help to make content that appeals to your target audience.
5. Conduct Surveys:
You can also conduct short surveys to take feedback from the influencers you are working with as it’ll assist you to refine your marketing strategies and approach. Finally, revisiting and adjusting your campaign goals based on past performance metrics can lead to continuous improvement and will eventually lead to better results.
Conclusion
Influencer gifting means you do not have to pay extra, so why not opt for a pocket-friendly way to grow organically on social media? Although this strategy is not used a lot by big brands, it is always the best possible option for newbies in the business world.
To sum up the blog post, take a look at the insights mentioned below:
- You can leverage the trust and credibility of the chosen influencers, which they have built over time for marketing purposes, and also build some amazing meaningful connections.
- Make sure that their values align with your brand and that their content reaches your target audience.
- In addition, to execute a successful gifting campaign the delivery should be quick and the packaging should leave one stunned.
- Encourage the influencer to create authentic content while following the outline you have provided.
- Lastly, to measure the success of your campaign get your hands on some really helpful performance-assessing tools to gather insights regarding your campaign.
- Successful gifting campaigns can lead to increased visibility of your brand and the influencer thus, leading to boosted growth as well.
We hope this article proved to be helpful! For more information or any queries, log on to socialbook.io.