Now that influencer marketing tactics have become more of a staple in a brands marketing plan, we see much more methodical strategizes come into play such as long-term partnerships or ‘always-on’ ambassadorship. Why? In the article, we’ll outline the five main reasons long-term influencers partnerships are beneficial to both brands and content creators.

Stronger More Authentic Relationships

The vetting and selection process of finding the ‘right’ influencers for a brand to collaborate with is not quick or straightforward activity – especially for brands taking on influencer marketing in-house without agency support. Developing long-term relationships allows brands to build genuine relationships with their favourite content creators, which in turn allows the influencer(s) to craft more authentic content for their audiences.

More Robust Planning & Timelines

When working with a handful or a thousand influencers, you’re working with a handful or a thousand individual business owners – all of which have their own timelines and schedules. This means that it’s unlikely a brand’s ideal timeline will match everyone they’re looking to collaborate with. Long-term partnerships, a little more planning is needed in the upfront however you have the opportunity to have a clear understanding of when and what an influencer will be posting about for your brand.

For example, you partner with five influencers for a year-long collaboration; each influencer will create two posts per month that align with your brand’s sales and marketing calendars. You can send them all the products in advance and creating a posting schedule with each. Before the year is up, you know that you’ll have curated 120 pieces of unique content for your brand.

Clearly defined contracts

When working with some influencers on a one of basis, there’s a possibility of encountering many possible hiccups along the way. An influencer backs out last minute, a product ships, but you never hear from them again, a post is published but doesn’t mention the product or brand, these are just a few examples that brands encounter. Most long-term influencer partnerships come with contracts that outline the relationship and expectations from both parties. This could include but is not limited to available products, posting schedule, brand assets, key messages, expected payment timeline, metrics and reporting, etc.

Simplified budgeting and invoicing

Each influencer charges differently for the services they provide, and when working with a group of individuals on a one-off basis, many different invoices will come your way at different times. With long-term ambassadorship programs, there’s an opportunity to set up a more simple billing process that benefits both brand and influencer. For example, for a year-long collaboration, a brand and influencer agree on a set quarterly payment of x amount.

Creative freedom for all

Long-term collaborations allow the influencers to understand the brand that they are working with. They’ll have a better understanding of the voice, tone, and style that the brand is looking for. This is better for the brand, so they don’t feel the need to ‘babysit’ the content of their creators. More importantly, influencers will have more time in their court to develop creative ideas that the brand and their audience will love.

The future of a successful retail brand will combine experiential moments and influencers content. Here are 5 predictions that marketers should invest in and look out for in the near future:

In-store photo opportunities

A well-painted mural or as stylish bathroom can go a long way when it comes to retail awareness. Everyone including the top influencers love an excellent photo opportunity to share with their friends and followers. Many stores and restaurants are now jumping on the chance to build awareness by paying more attention to the interior/exterior design of their locations. Even cities across America are jumping on this trend to generate more travel and tourism. A great example of this is the famous Nashville #WhatLiftsYou wings wall mural.

Easy Opt-in Influencer Programs

As influencer marketing becomes more streamlined for brands, companies are looking for opportunities to simplify the partnership process. We saw this years ago with guest blogging in the world of SEO when retailers were trying to climb Google’s ranking ladder. Guest bloggers would be able to easily opt-in to develop content for their website or brand of choice. Guest bloggers could usually apply through a designated landing page by filling out an application.

Brands are taking influencer opt-ins to the next level not only offering an easy application process but by also providing influencers full programs that benefit both influencer and brand. A great example of this is the Amazon Influencer Program. Amazon makes it simple for social media influencers across any network (YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest) to build their own landing page with an Amazon URL to promote and recommend products they love!

Influencer Product Shops

Many influencers have already reached an Ah-Ha moment in their careers. “Wait, if I can promote other brands, why can’t I build an promote my own.” Influencers are taking their hard earned cash and developing their own products to sell. From makeup to clothing, influencers are demanding a piece of the retail and e-commerce world for themselves.

Influencer Made Subscription Boxes  

The subscription box business model is still around and is shifting to accommodate brand business goals. From monthly “personal” shopper boxes to niche curated boxes, the trend of subscription-based deliveries are becoming more tailored which is making them more desirable to consumers. We already see influencers promoting subscription base brands across social media. However, it’s likely influencers will begin curating their own boxes of their favourite products. We will also see retailers partnering with influencers to curate their own boxes based on their favourite branded products.  

Virtual Reality Influencer Marketing/Shopping

Social media users love content created by their favourite influencers, however, liking and commenting on images or videos is becoming a limiting engagement. Live video and interactive content is the next significant trend for influencer marketing. By tapping into virtual reality, brands will be able to partner with influencers to produce a new vertical of content. Influencer’s fans will be able to log in and see what their favourite influencers are seeing. Imagine a designer brand partnering with a group of influencers to wear their clothing over a few days at Paris Fashion Week. The simple notice of tapping to like an influencers photo is going to be overshadowed by social embodiment.  Fans will be able to engage with content by virtually “becoming” their favourite online personality. .

Shop by influencer on Brand Website

Recently, we’ve seen more brands opting to partner with influencers for more long-term periods rather than a one-off campaign basis. Much like how we see celebrity brand endorsements, where the celebrity is the face of the brand. This ideal is breaking its way into the influencer space. As this becomes more popular, we will likely see brands make influencers a more integral part of their online sales funnels. A great example of this would be providing individual influencers with their own branded landing page to populate with their favourite products. This strategy could be beneficial to both parties. Brand’s benefit from the endorsement and influencers could receive a percentage of sales derived from their shop.

(Image source: https://www.kantarmedia.com/global/thinking-and-resources/latest-thinking/micro-influencers-are-just-the-beginning)

Micro-influencers have a more modest number of followers (in the thousands to tens of thousands) who are loyal, hyper-engaged and therefore generate higher engagement rates than traditional influencers with higher numbers of followers.

What’re the benefits of partnering with micro-influencers?

(Image source: https://medium.com/swlh/why-micro-influencer-marketing-is-the-game-in-2018-fdeda0993c36)

Trusted By Consumers:

These individuals are trusted by their followers because their content is highly focused. Their followers have a genuine interest in the content of this micro-influencer development.

Micro-influencers are brand relevant, and likely focus on a few brands, products, or ideologies that their followers believe in as well, which in turn creates and reinforces positive and loyal relationship.

This isn’t the same for celebrity influencers where their audience may have a general interest or idealize their personas, however, can see that the brands they are promoting may not align with their core interests. Do the Kardashian actually love and use the brands they share with their followers or are they promoting them because of the price tag associated with them?

Pro Tip // Creating long-term partnerships with micro-influencers instead of one-off (one time) campaigns can be very lucrative for both brand and influencer. When an influencer’s followers see repeat content about one brand or product it’ll reinforce the influencer’s brand loyalty and provide followers with purchase confidence. For brands, long-term relationships ease the busy work of continual outreach and negotiations while working with an individual of great value that truly understands the brand core goals.

Extended Use of Budget:  

Simply stated, micro-influencers are more affordable. One post from a celebrity or mega influencer could cost a brand well over $500,000.

On average, the cost for a micro-influencer to create a single post is roughly $250. Meaning with a small marketing budget of $25,000, a brand has the potential of partnering with 100 micro-influencers.  

Pro Tip // Be careful, budgets can be spent in a blink of an eye. Just because you’re reaching out to micro-influencers doesn’t mean you in for a “deal”. Each micro-influencer is running their own business and could have a preset price list.

This is why reaching out the right influencers is essential so you don’t blow your time or budget on those that aren’t best suited for the campaign. Make sure to review an influencers previous partnerships, scan their followers (would they like your product), analyze engagement rate, and make sure their brand voice and content is well suited for the type of campaign your planning.

If you select a micro-influencer that already expresses interest in products that align with your brand, they might be willing to provide a discounted rate as it’s equally as beneficial to them and their audience.

Authentic Engagement:

For many marketers, determining the ROI of influencer marketing campaign is one of the biggest challenges. However, those that understand brand awareness and brand engagement are two of the most lucrative returns on influencer investment should see micro-influencer as a gold mine.

Social posts created by micro influencers drive 60% higher engagement than macro influencers and are estimated to be 6.7X more cost-efficient per engagement. Markerly put together two great charts (see below), which indicates that engagement decreases when followership increases.

Pro Tip // When vetting and selecting micro-influencers there are a few simple ways to avoid partnering with those that may have an abundance of fake followers.

• Look at their engagement rate. To calculate an influencer’s engagement rate, total the engagements (likes + comments + video views etc) across all of the influencers posts on a particular profile (e.g. Instagram profile) then divide by the total number of followers and divide that by the number of posts (to get the average engagement per post average).

Average Engagement Rate (%) Per Post = Total Engagement / Follower Counts Number of Posts x 100

• Use impressions to gauge real followers. Ask influencers to share screenshots of their impression and reach metrics. Impression and reach numbers will give you a clear understanding of how many users are actually seeing the shared content. Fake following accounts usually aren’t active account users.

You no longer have to go big or go home.

Whether you should be working with mega influencers or micro influencers comes down to the goal of the campaign and overall budget. Nonetheless, testing out a micro-influencer campaign is highly recommended, especially for those brands that are just starting out in the world of influencer marketing. Even if you only have a budget of $1000, a micro-influencer campaign could get your brand in front of the right people that might take your brand to the next level.  

Brands have a massive opportunity to tap into engaging Gen Xers on YouTube. According to a recent study from Pixability, generation X accounts for 1.5 billion daily video views on YouTube.

In order to have a better understanding of how to reach this demographic effectively, marketers need to know what these viewers are turning to YouTube to watch. Think with Google recently released a bunch of interesting stats on what Gen x users are searching on YouTube! For content creators, marketers and brands, these findings could be an essential insight for future campaigns.

Occasional nostalgia

YouTube is a never-ending time-capsule information. Reminiscing about a concert from the 80s? It’s probably on YouTube. Remember your favourite commercial growing up? It’s probably on YouTube. Want to dance to a hit song from back-in-the-day? It’s probably on YouTube.

75 percent of Gen Xers watch YouTube videos that related to past events or people.

Staying Relevant

Gen Xers don’t want to miss a beat. That’s why 86 percent of Gen Exers watch YouTube videos to stay on top of news and pop culture.

This demographic also wants to stay in the know about what their children are talking about and doing online. They also use YouTube as a means to connect with their children and show them they are relevant and understand what’s going on in their world.

The Do It Yourself Generation

As the generation known for their independence and self-starting nature, it’s not a big shock that 73 percent of Gen Xers watch YouTube videos to learn something new. From brands looking to market to this generation, DIY, how-to, and tutorial type video content could be a golden opportunity.

The top “how-to” content categories that generation X tunes into on YouTube fall under home repair, cooling, technology use, arts and crafts, beauty and personal care. These diverse categories provide brands from various sectors to tap into a unique angle of influencer marketing.

Finding the Right Influencers

Now that you’re armed with some amazing insights on how to engage generation X demographics on YouTube. You might be wondering, how to find the appropriate influencers to partner with?

Using a predictive software like, ivvi, will ease to the process of researching and vetting influencers that are brand and campaign aligned.

For fun, let’s pretend that you’re a home renovation supplier brand that is looking to launch an influencer marketing campaign that will reach the gen x demographic on YouTube.

Our technology sorts through millions of videos to filters content and influencer based on your brand and campaign topic. ivvi does the heavy lifting for you. Once your account is set up, you’ll have direct access to brand-related content and influencers with zero research time needed.

Interested in running a campaign targeting generation x on YouTube? We can help! From insights, influencer vetting, video strategy to campaign consulting. ivvi is your start to finish influencer marketing software. Want to see a live demo? Email us here: taylor@influencerstrategies.com

(image source: https://joethegoatfarmer.com/tag/influencer-marketing/)

(image source: Uberflip)

Don’t get us wrong, content virality is a very competitive space. However, by implementing a few tips and tricks you’re well-crafted content has a good chance of creating the viral impact your hunting for.

The following 5 tips will help your content hit the web’s trending charts:

1. Tell an Authentic Story

The world of social media brought us all the gift of authenticity. It’s opened an easy access the door for consumers to communicate their personal experiences with brands. And in turn, this easy access door makes it more difficult for companies to cut corners or fall short of promised expectations. Selling authenticity is mandatory for brands looking to stand out from competitors and a key ingredient of creating viral content.

Being authentic online starts by digging deep into the core of what your brand stands for. Whether you’re selling shoes, timeshares or puppies, your brand’s story, motives and partnerships are what sets it apart from the competition. Telling your story honestly and openly is the best way to encourage interest and engagement in a viral campaign.

Creating authentic content can also be achieved by partnering with a cause or movement that aligns with your brand. A quick example of this would be a bra company creating content in support of Breast Cancer Awareness.

2. Know the Trends

Timing is everything – especially when it comes to the creation and delivery of content. Virality and timing go together like the ice and the bucket in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.  Seasons, current events and online trends all must be considered in the content planning process. Do you think the ALS Challenge would have pulled in the same amount of participants if they launch the campaign in the dead of winter? Probably not.

It’s even possible to spot trends before they happen. Using software like ivvi will help brands pinpoint content opportunities and upcoming trends before they go viral.

3. Short & Sweet

On that note, let’s keep this section short. Online audiences are exposed to thousands of different pieces of content across numerous platforms daily. And because of this, attention spans have grown short. Content must be quick and powerful to catch a viral impact.

• Get the point across in fewer words or seconds.
• Use a clear call-to-action.
• Create catchy headlines and/or caption copy.
• Encourage social sharing.
• Use awesome creative.

4. Tap into the power of influence

There is no doubt that content can go viral on its own (mostly due to precise timing). But timing isn’t the only way to create virality online. Partnering with influencers is a great way to fuel a campaign’s reach, awareness and push content onto trending charts.

The key to partnering with influencers is selecting the best-suited individuals or outlets to speak to a campaign. These individuals should be relatable to the brand/story being told. And their audience should resonate with the content as well.

The ivvi software helps brands with the influencer research and vetting process to ensure the best partnerships are formed to promote a piece of content or larger scale campaign.

5. Distribution & Participation

Before the content is complete and ready to take the internet by storm, a distribution plan must be in place. This tip ties in with all of the others above.

• Who would be interested in your story? Share it with them.
• Engage with similar trending content and share your story.
• Much like the content created, when sharing keep it short and sweet.
• Share and engage with influencer content as well.

But your distribution plan shouldn’t stop there. In the planning process ask your team, “how can this piece of content tie into other marketing initiatives?” Send it to your clients and customers via email. Share the content on social media. Work it into a public relations plan. The opportunities for distribution are endless. Plan early and deliver hard.

What tips and tricks do you use when creating awesome content?

Using the ivvi platform, we tracked four campaigns from 2017 that are generating a lot of brand engagement.

No two campaigns are alike, from soda pop to makeup, the following four brands have developed unique influencer marketing campaigns that all marketers should check out.

1. Fanta Soda – Meet the Fantanas

Why this Works:

Coca Cola’s Fanta marketing campaigns live by the saying “consistency is key”. The Meet the Fantanas campaign has been a part of the company’s marketing efforts since 2010. Over the years, the campaign has evolved from commercial ads, television segments to a now largely social media presence, including its casted stars.

The soda brand’s fourth launch of the Meet the Fantanas campaign leverages YouTube celebrities, MyLifeAsEve, LaurDIY, Jordan Fisher, and Coco Jones. By casting some of the internet’s biggest influencers in their content, the brand is reaching new larger audiences and attaining more brand engagements which could not be generated with traditional advertising efforts. Each of the influencers shared video and photo content of the brand campaign to their social channels which reached over a million organic engagements combined.

Fanta’s was able to leverage an old campaign and shift its audience by tapping into influencer marketing.

 2. Fashion Nova – If you build it they will come

Why this Campaign Works:

Fashion Nova is a brand that tapped into the power of influencer marketing early on. The company grew its business to 600 employees in three short years, mainly because of its social media presence.

“We work with 3,000 to 5,000 influencers,” said Fashion Nova’s founder and CEO, Richard Saghian. Many of these influencers are recurring brand ambassadors that post frequently about the new products. Many of the influencers receive compensation of new clothing rather than money. The company measures the effectiveness of the influencers by analyzing their reach, engagement and by providing each of them with unique check out discount codes.   

The brand is continuously looking for new influencers to add to its roster, like Patricia Bright in the video above. She created a non-sponsored review video of some of Fashion Nova’s products and within weeks of the video being published she was contacted by the brand and shipped out new clothes to create another video. This shows the brand sees a lot of value in influencer marketing tactics as they are actively involved in finding new influencers to act as brand advocates. 

Other brands should take note of Fashion Nova’s tactics. There are most likely people already talking about your brand online. Find those influencers first. As you know their community is your target audience.

With such great success with influencer marketing, Fashion Nova shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

3. Starbucks Unicorn Frappuccino – Social Media Takeover

Why this Campaign Works:

Say what you will about the Starbucks Unicorn Frappuccino, taste preference aside, one thing can’t be argued – its marketing was executed flawlessly. The limited-time offered frozen drink (April 19 to April 23) captured public attention instantly. Besides organic buzz from in-store marketing, the standard media release, and a few ad campaigns, how did Starbucks take over the internet, increase sales, and heighten brand awareness in less than a week? Not just with any marketing but with Influencer Marketing.

If you head over to YouTube now and search “Starbucks Unicorn Frappuccino” or “Unicorn Frappuccino” over 200,000 videos will pop up for April 19 to April 23 alone. That’s a whole lot of brand related content to be published in just a few days and this is no mistake.

In the weeks, even months prior to their sweet sugary release of the unicorn Frappuccino, Starbucks reached out to an array of YouTube personalities to create and release product related videos during the five-day campaign. The campaign was mentioned by a few of YouTube’s top influencers, including iJustine, Miranda Sings, Aleshia Marie and Joey Graceffa, which garnered the brand over 5 million organic views from those influencers alone.

Starbucks scored millions of dollars in free advertising in a short period of time. Though Starbucks has yet to release formal statements of their marketing budget on this specific campaign, the amount of organic social media content and media coverage alone indicates Starbucks return on investment was well worth it.

 4. Glossier – Everyday people, everyday influence

Why this campaign works:

Glossier, the New York City makeup brand, was created back in 2014 by 29-year-old, Emily Weiss. The company has grown quickly in short time and the founding woman says it has everything to do with word-of-mouth marketing. The brand partners with influencers over celebrities as it wants to partner with “regular” women who truly believe in their products.  The brand uses a referral program allowing digital influencers to offer special discounts and incentives to their loyal communities.

Outside of partnering with social media influencers to market their product, Glossier leverages influencers to make own content on their YouTube channel as well, such as the video above.

The brand combines a popular YouTube content trend, “my morning routine” with influencers to create marketing video content. This allows brand fans to watch “regular” women try out new Glossier products in the comfort of their own homes. 

Weiss says, “What’s very motivating to us is this idea of every single woman being an influencer.” And with a bold statement like that, it seems as though Glossier will be sticking to this influencer marketing tactic.  

Ready to launch an influencer marketing campaign?

We’re here to help you create smart influencer marketing campaigns that are backed by data to maximize your return on investment! Interested in learning how our leading software can help? Contact us for a demo. In the meantime, here is a free influencer insights report to get you motivated: https://influenceforimpact.com/2017-influencer-marketing-insights-report/