Influencer marketing has become very common these days. There are influencers everywhere, from celebrities to bloggers. They are often paid to promote brands or products they endorse through social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
But despite its popularity, influencer marketing is also fraught with risks. If you want to get started with influencer marketing, you should know what influencer marketing mistakes to avoid.
Here are some of the biggest mistakes that influencers commit when promoting their brand. Avoid them at all costs.
Not Creating Goals for the Campaign That Are Clear
Every one of your business activities are created with a comprehensible purpose in mind. And your influencer marketing campaign shouldn’t be an exemption. You’ve got to define what you want to achieve with it. Otherwise, you’ll end up with unsatisfactory outcomes such as poor engagement rates and low return on investment (ROI) or return on advertising spend (ROAS).
If you miss out on defining clear objectives, you’re just shooting high and hoping for the best, and that’s certainly not an effective strategy to get closer to achieving business goals.
So how do you go about creating clear objectives? Here are some tips to help you out.
Define Your Audience
Before you start thinking about what actions you want to take, you need to define your audience. What type of people are you targeting? Who exactly are you trying to reach? What are their needs? How does your product or service address those needs?
Determine Your Objectives
You need to determine your objectives. Why are you doing this? What do you hope to accomplish? Do you want to increase sales? Increase brand awareness? Get more traffic to your site? Gain more customers? Drive leads? Generate more qualified leads? Or something else entirely?
Once you have defined your objectives, you can move on to determining which influencers will help you achieve them.
Identify Influencers
Influencer marketing is all about finding the right influencers who can help you achieve your objectives. So before you even think about reaching out to any influencers, you first need to identify the ones who would be most likely to help you.
There are many ways to find these influencers. For example, you could use social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., to search for relevant hashtags, keywords, and names. You could also look at industry-specific publications or blogs.
But if you don’t know where to begin looking, here are some ideas to help you out. Just remember that influencer marketing isn’t always easy. It takes time and effort to build relationships with influencers.
Reach Out To Influencers
Now that you’ve identified potential influencers, you should reach out to them. Don’t expect influencers to come knocking on your door. They won’t. They’re busy running their own businesses. So instead, you’ll need to make yourself known to them.
Be Prepared
When you reach out to an influencer, be prepared. Make sure you have everything ready. This includes having a compelling offer, a well-written pitch, and a good follow-up plan.
Do More Research if Needed
Find out exactly who they are in their industry. Figure out what they have been able to accomplish over the past 6 months or more. Identify any special attributes they can bring to your brand. Look for characteristics that make them exceptional candidates for helping to market your brand.
Maybe they have something unique they have created. Or they have a great podcast. Or they have video marketing skills that can really catapult your brand. Whatever they might have, make sure you can negotiate around this and identify exactly what they can do. This can pay great dividends for your marketing campaign.
Collaborations With the Wrong Influencers
The second mistake most brands make when selecting influencers is collaborating with the wrong people.
We know what you’re thinking. “But how could I possibly know?” You’ve seen some amazing campaigns with great influencers; you even had one yourself.
You thought you’d found someone who could help spread the word about your brand among her many millions of followers. And you probably paid a pretty penny for the privilege.
Well, you might want to reevaluate your strategy.
If you’re looking to collaborate with social media celebrities, remember that you’re not just paying for their influence – you’re paying for their time too.
They don’t owe you anything. They are free to promote whatever products they like, whether yours or anyone else’s.
In fact, the best way to use an influencer is to take advantage of his or her following. Make sure you’re promoting something relevant to their audience, and you’ll likely see better results.
Personas of Influencers Were Not Nailed Down
Influencer marketing is a great way to reach your target audience and build brand awareness. However, many brands overlook the importance of developing influencer personas. Without them, your efforts are likely to fall flat.
The best way to develop influencer personas is to start with your buyer personas and examine common pain points that your customers face.
Then, look into what type of influencers your target consumers follow or look up for advice on products.
This helps you identify the influencers that your target consumers trust and those that they turn to for product recommendations.
Finally, find out where your target consumers spend the most amount of time online and determine which social media platforms your target consumers use.
Once you know this information, you’ll be able to begin building influencer personas based on your buyer personas.
Once you have these personas in place, it will be much easier to create content that resonates with your ideal customer.
The Competition Was Not Considered
When it comes to influencer marketing, there are many things to consider. One of the most important questions to ask yourself is whether you know what your competition is doing. If you don’t, you’ll likely make some mistakes along the way. Here are three common ones that we see clients making over and over again.
1. Hiring someone who has worked for your competitor(s).
Influencer marketing is about building relationships and trust—and hiring someone who has worked for one of your competitors could put those efforts at risk. While there’s nothing wrong with working for a competitor, you’d be better off finding someone who hasn’t had a relationship with a competing brand.
2. Ignoring the competition altogether.
While it might seem like a good idea to partner with everyone who seems interested, that approach isn’t always smart. When collaborating with influencers, you want to find people who align well with your brand values and culture. This means avoiding partnering with influencers who have worked for companies that are too similar to yours.
3. Choosing influencers based solely on their popularity.
There’s no doubt that popular influencers are great for reaching lots of eyeballs. But choosing influencers based solely on how much traffic they bring to your site is a mistake. Asking
influencers to promote your brand without considering their expertise or credibility could lead to negative press and lost opportunities.
In short, when it comes to influencer partnerships, choose wisely.
Briefs Are Either Poor or Too Detailed
Influencer marketing is one of the most effective ways to gain exposure for your brand. But how do you make sure that influencers are doing their jobs well? One way to ensure that influencers are providing value to your customers is to write a good brief. A good brief provides influencers with enough information to understand what you want them to promote and why.
It also gives influencers enough information to help you achieve your goals.
If you’re writing a brief, here are four mistakes you shouldn’t make:
1. Don’t assume that influencers are creative creatures. Influencers need direction just like anyone else. If you give them a blank canvas and tell them to go wild, they won’t produce anything worthwhile. Instead, start by giving them a clear idea of what you want them to do. This will save everyone time and energy down the road.
2. Don’t focus on the negatives. When you’re creating a brief, don’t spend time thinking about things that could potentially go wrong. You can always change something later, but you can never undo a negative impression. Focus on what you want influencers to do rather than what you don’t want them to do.
3. Don’t include unnecessary terms and conditions. Terms and conditions are important, but they shouldn’t take over your entire brief. If you provide influencers with too much detail, they’ll feel pressured into following those guidelines. Instead, provide influencers with enough information so that they can successfully promote your products or services. If they can’t, they’ll simply decline the opportunity.
4. Don’t provide too many terms and conditions. As tempting as it may be to add every single term and condition that you’ve ever heard of, you should avoid doing so. Providing too many terms and conditions limits influencers’ creativity. Instead, make sure that you’re including only the ones that are necessary.
You Are Measuring But Not Analyzing
You can’t manage what you haven’t measured! If you’re looking for success in your digital marketing efforts, you must measure everything.
Measuring your campaign’s results isn’t just about knowing how many people clicked on a link. It’s about analyzing the data gathered to see whether your efforts are working. It helps a lot if your KPIs are clear and easy to understand. And it’s even better if you have clearly defined goals and objectives.
But, if you only measure without actually studying the results, you’ll never find out why things aren’t working. You won’t know where to improve. You won’t know what works and what doesn’t.
So, start tracking every aspect of your online presence, and collect meaningful information. Then, take some time to analyze the data. Look at trends, patterns, and correlations. Make comparisons. Submit measurable analysis or statistics. Only then will you truly begin managing what you’ve measured.
You Make The Mistake of Prioritizing Reach Over Content
Influencer marketing is one of the most effective ways to market your brand. But many companies overlook the importance of context when choosing influencers.
Many brands make the mistake of partnering with a creator whose follower count is high, even if they lack the skills necessary to deliver quality content. If you partner with an influencer who doesn’t know how to engage with their followers, you risk creating a toxic relationship where neither party feels valued.
Another common mistake is to partner with an influencer simply because they have a large following. You might think that having a larger audience makes your brand seem bigger and better.
However, this approach ignores the fact that there are plenty of people out there with a similar amount of followers who have no idea how to use those followers to build relationships with their fans.
The best way to find influencers is by looking at their numbers and context. For example, a blogger with 20,000 followers who averages 30 likes per post isn’t necessarily a good choice. On the other hand, a blogger with 5,000 followers who posts once a month and gets 500 comments could actually provide value to your brand.
You Did Not Seed Your Influencers Properly
Influencer marketing is also one of the most effective forms of social media advertising. But it requires some preparation work. If you want to make sure your influencers are talking about your brand positively, you must equip them with a good strategy. Otherwise, there could be negative consequences.
If you don’t give your influencers enough guidance, they might even post something completely unrelated to your brand. They could write about a competitor’s product or promote a competing offer. This situation leads to a lot of wasted effort and lost opportunities. So how can you avoid making mistakes like this? Here are three things you should consider:
1. Choose the correct hashtag
Hashtags are very important because they allow people to find relevant conversations online. When choosing a hashtag, keep in mind what type of content your influencer shares. For example, if she writes about fashion trends, she probably uses #fashion. On the other hand, if she writes about beauty products, she probably uses #beauty.
2. Use the right tone
Your influencer should always use the same language throughout her posts. She shouldn’t mix up her voice and try to sound too professional or casual. Instead, choose a consistent tone that matches your brand’s personality. A good way to test out different tones is by listening to yourself say certain phrases aloud. Then, pick the one that sounds best.
3. Provide your influencer with clear guidelines
You need to tell your influencer exactly what you expect from him/her. Make sure they understand what kind of content you’re looking for before you start working together. It’s also helpful to set specific goals so you can measure whether or not your influencer has achieved them.
Mistakes happen. That’s why it’s important to learn from past experiences and improve on them. The more you prepare, the less likely you’ll make these mistakes again.
You Did Not Leave Room for Creativity
When we talk about influencer marketing, one thing we often forget is how important it is to give our influencers creative freedom. If you keep them locked down tight with specific requirements, you’re limiting their ability to truly connect with their audiences. This isn’t just true for influencers, it’s true for everyone involved in creating content.
If you’ve ever worked with someone who insists on being told exactly what needs to happen before they’ll commit to something, it might sound like fun at first. But eventually, it becomes frustrating because you feel like you’re working against yourself. You want to make sure your influencer knows what you want, but you also want them to be able to express themselves creatively within those parameters.
The best way to achieve both goals is to seed your influencers with information about your brand but let them authentically incorporate your brand elements into their posts. For example, if you sell shoes, you could tell your influencers about the shoe trends you’re seeing right now, but ask them to show off some unique style tips and tricks. Or, if you sell makeup, you could tell your beauty bloggers about the latest products you’re trying out, but ask them to include a few product swatches in their posts.
As long as you’re giving them enough guidance to help them execute your vision, you won’t run the risk of locking them down. And if you really want to see maximum impact from your influencer marketing efforts, you’ll find that allowing them to be creative helps them reach even deeper levels of connection with their followers.
You Have a Single, One-Off Campaign Mentality
Influencer marketing is a great way to connect with potential customers. But many marketers view influencer campaigns as a one-time thing. And while there are certainly benefits to having a single campaign, the reality is that influencer marketing is much more complicated than you might think. Influencer marketing requires planning, strategy, and regularity.
If you don’t approach influencer marketing like a long-term program, you could find yourself wasting money and missing out on opportunities.
The best influencer marketing programs include influencers on a recurring basis, rather than just one time. For example, a crafty company I did some influencer marketing work for had influencers come into the office every three months for crafting sessions.
During those sessions, the influencers got to see products they hadn’t seen before, talk about what they wanted to try next, and learn how to use the latest tools. This type of relationship allows influencers to become part of the brand’s culture, build relationships, and grow their audiences over time.
You Focus Too Much on One Channel, Not Multiple Channels
Influencer marketing is a great way to reach out to people who already trust you and are interested in your brand. But what about those influencers who don’t have a big following? Or even worse, what about those who aren’t active online at all?
That’s where influencer marketing falls short because there are tons of influencers with huge followings who never use their influence to promote products. They’re just too busy posting selfies and videos of themselves doing yoga. You know who else does that? Celebrities. And celebrities are used to getting paid for promoting stuff. So how do you find influencers who are willing to work for free?
You’ve got to look at the bigger picture. If you want to reach a wide audience, you need to make sure that every channel you use reaches everyone. Otherwise, no one is really benefiting from your efforts.
So here’s our advice for influencer marketing: Find influencers who have a good reputation and are known for being trustworthy. Then, once you have their attention, ask them to help spread the word about your product. Offer them incentives such as discounts, swag bags, etc.
In return, they’ll probably mention your brand on their blogs, social media accounts, and YouTube channels. All of this helps build awareness and credibility for your brand. And remember, influencer marketing isn’t just about selling. It’s about building relationships.
You Did Not Research Your Influencer
Influencer marketing is becoming increasingly popular among brands looking to expand their reach into social media circles. However, there are many factors to consider before jumping headfirst into the world of influencer marketing.
The most important thing to remember about influencer marketing is that it requires careful planning. You must conduct thorough research on the type of person that best represents your brand. This includes researching their audience, previous work, and personal life.
Next, you want to make sure that your influencer understands what their role will entail. They shouldn’t just jump in without knowing exactly how their involvement will affect your brand.
If they don’t understand the scope of their responsibilities, it could lead to problems down the road.
Finally, you want to ensure that you choose someone who fits your ideal demographic. For example, if you are targeting younger consumers, it might be wise to select an influencer who already has a large following among millennials. If you are trying to appeal to older audiences, it might be wiser to look for people who already have a strong presence in the industry.
You Chose the Wrong Model for Compensation
Influencer marketing is one of the most effective ways to promote your brand online. But there are many factors to consider when it comes to selecting the best influencers for your campaign. One of the biggest mistakes brands make is paying too much money to influencers. In fact, we’ve seen some campaigns where influencers were paid $10K per post. While this might seem like a lot of money, keep in mind that influencers are often compensated based on impressions and engagements. So if you’re paying 10 times what others are paying, you’ll likely see lower ROI.
In addition to the amount of money you spend, another factor to consider is how you compensate influencers. There are four main types of compensation models:
1. Fixed price – This type of payment structure guarantees that you’ll receive the same amount of work regardless of whether you reach certain goals. For example, an agency might charge a client a fixed fee for each sponsored tweet, no matter how many followers the account has.
2. Variable – A variable price structure allows agencies to adjust fees based on performance. For example, an influencer could earn 5% of a campaign’s total budget if they hit specific
metrics.
3. Flat rate – Some influencers charge flat rates for their services. They don’t charge additional fees for reaching milestones such as follower growth or engagement. However, this method requires the client to set aside funds upfront.
4. Per piece/post – Influencers sometimes charge clients a fee per post or image posted. These fees vary depending on the size and complexity of the project.
The fourth option, per piece, is probably the least common. Instead of charging a flat rate, influencers usually negotiate a per-piece fee. For instance, a fashion blogger might charge $50 for posting a picture on Instagram. The blogger typically receives half of the ad buy’s cost upon approval.
You Were Swayed by Audience Size
Influencer marketing is big business. Brands spend millions of dollars every year trying to find the most influential people online. They want to work with those influencers because they think they’ll reach more people and drive more sales.
But what happens when we look closer at audience size? Do influencers’ audiences really translate into real influence?
In our research, we found that while large audiences can help you build trust and credibility, it doesn’t always mean that influencers are actually influencing others. In fact, many times, their followers aren’t even interested in the products and services being promoted.
If you’re thinking about partnering with an influencer, take a step back and ask yourself why you want to partner with them. You don’t necessarily need to go full-on paid partnership, but rather, consider whether there’s value in building a relationship with someone whose audience shares your values and interests. If there isn’t, maybe you shouldn’t work together.
You Are Overly Restrictive on Content Creation
Influencer marketing is growing rapidly as brands look to connect directly with consumers via social media posts. But there are some things you need to know about how influencers work.
One of the most important things to understand is that influencers aren’t just posting about products; they’re creating content around those products. Brands pay influencers to promote their products because they believe that people trust influencers more than traditional advertising. This is why influencers are often paid to talk about specific products, rather than simply being paid to use a certain hashtag.
But while influencers are expected to promote products, they don’t always do it naturally. Sometimes influencers are asked to write a promotional blog post that talks about a product, and sometimes they’re given a list of topics to discuss. In both situations, influencers are told exactly what they’re supposed to say, and they tend to stick to that script.
This isn’t necessarily a problem, but it does mean that influencers are less likely to mention the benefits of a product unless they’ve been specifically instructed to do so. So if you’re paying an influencer to talk about your product, make sure they’re allowed to speak freely about it – otherwise, you could end up with a bunch of sponsored content that doesn’t really reflect the true benefit of your product.
Influencer Marketing Requires Quite a Bit Of Homework But Can Win Out In the End
Whenever you target influencers, this can win out in the end. But, you still have to do your homework.
Whether it’s more about researching your field, or about finding out more about your target audience. Either way, making sure that you target influencers properly will lead to better conversions and higher conversions as a result.
Otherwise, you’re just shot-gunning it, and not really doing much that’s strategically viable.
When do you plan on working on your next influencer marketing campaign?
