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Why Social Media Influencers
Ever see a celebrity posting about their new favorite soda or showing off their bouncing curls with an Instagram picture captioned, “love my hair, thanks to ‘so and so’”? Well, they may love that brand, but chances are they did not just decide to post that on their own. They were most likely paid by the brand to do it. And trust us; the brand is getting a lot of hype from this placement.
With the rising popularity of Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Vine, it is only fitting that companies are using social media outlets to promote their brands. A company, however, cannot promote their brand alone. This is where a social media influencer that uses influencer marketing comes into place. We've provided an overview on how brands can best work wtih social media influencers.
What It Is
Influencer marketing is “the process of designing simple, organic content in the form of picture, short video and text and having targeted influencers, based on audience demographic display this content to their followings”.
Brands are in search for a celebrity, blogger, or photographer, or anyone else that has a large following base that can represent a product or service. Once a brand determines the product that they are selling, the correct social influencer needs to be chosen. Different influencers appeal to different demographics and would not be appropriate to promote just any product. Specialist celebrity and entertainment marketing agencies pair popular Instagrammers and companies that are willing to pay a good amount of money to use these people for brand promotion.
Payment To Influencers
So - how much are companies paying these days? Since the growth of these trending social media sites, prices have gone way up for promotions. If an Instagram user has over 100,000 followers, they can earn $700 to $900 per photo. Sounds like a lot, right? That’s only the minimum. Fashion focused Instagram users can command $8,000 for a sponsored photo. And the going rate for a six-second Vine is anywhere from $5,000 to $30,000 depending on the influencer's reach and audience. But prices don’t stop there, for just one vine made by Jake Paul (a well-known Vine user) a soda brand is rumored to have paid $60,000 for Paul to praise their product in the six second video, while a fast food franchise in the mid-thirties range for the launch of a new product line to be featured in posts.
It is important for each post that is sponsored by a company, to look natural to the viewer. A blogger said “If the sponsored post doesn’t look like something I would actually be interested in or something I would actually post, then I will lose followers. Nobody will be interested in the service or product that I am promoting.”
Actual Influencer Case Studies
During the holidays, Dick’s Sporting Goods partnered with almost a dozen influencers from different social media platforms. The partners posted everything about the brand from their outerwear to their kayaks. The promoters also posted pictures on their own accounts that encouraged fans to buy the products and to follow the brand on Twitter. Viner Robby Ayala posted a video on how to clean your pool using a GoPro that Dick’s carried, which now has over 1.3 million views. These social media efforts generated over 130,000 clicks on the website for Dick’s Sporting Goods, 6.2 million engagements, 27.5 million impressions, and 4,000 new Twitter followers.
Instagrammer Sara Hopkins promotes a North Face jacket for Dick's Sporting Goods. She generated 5,600 likes and comments
Old Navy used social influencers, as well, in their holiday campaign. The brand enlisted 12 vine influencers to do a “give away” on their accounts, very similar to a white elephant gift exchange for the holidays. Every 24 hours a video would be uploaded of a Viner keeping their gift or stealing a gift from another Viner. This campaign generated much buzz for the company and generated 6,600 new Vine followers and 84,000 engagements.
Lord & Taylor provided the same dress (and compensation) to 50 instagram influencers – and the dress promptly sold out. "The program was designed to introduce Design Lab to this customer where she is engaging and consuming content every day," said Lord & Taylor CMO Michael Crotty. "The goal was to make her stop in her feed and ask why all her favorite bloggers are wearing this dress and what is Design Lab? Using Instagram as that vehicle is a logical choice, especially when it comes to fashion." Influencers were selected "based on her aesthetic and reach." Many of the posts generated more than 1,000 Likes each, with several surpassing 5,000 Likes and some reaching rarified levels like 13,000 Likes.
From left, Instagrammers Cara Van Brocklin (@caraloren), Rachel Lynch (@IHateBlonde) and Jessica Ricks (@hapatime). Photos via Instagram
The Future of Marketing
Social influencers are the future of marketing for any company. With the growth of social media outlets in this day in age, the influencer marketing field is incredibly important for those wanting to get their brand known and recognized by a fast growing audience. Brands have the opportunity to directy engage with the over 300 million monthly active users on Instagram, alone, that follow the wide range of social media influencers. These influencer partnerships when leveraged smartly will enable brands to gain the ‘trickle down effect’ of new fan followers as well!
Another reason more brands will be trending towards influencer marketing through various social platforms (other than YouTube) is that Google is striking back and eliminating or reducing the ways a brand can partner wtih content that lives on the YouTube site. Take a look at our article on what you need to know about Google's new strategies to kill non-advertiser branding opportunities.
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Are you interested in learning more on how your brand can work with social media influencers? Download our infographic that provides case studies, rates and strategies for success when creating a social media influencer program.
Topics: Celebrity Partnership, Social Media Strategy, Influencer Marketing 101
Stacy Jones, Hollywood Branded's founder and CEO, has over twenty six years of leadership experience building global entertainment branding campaigns for top Fortune 500 companies and hundreds of brands. Her career started after receiving her BFA in Theater Production & Scenic Design from the University of Arizona. Acknowledged as an expert in the field, she has appeared on CNN and MSNBC; spoken at conferences around the globe from Germany to Beijing; and has been featured in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Hollywood Reporter, Financial Times, The Economist, Brandweek, Advertising Age, Variety, B&C and Mediaweek amongst others. Originally from Texas, you will still hear her ya’ll as she gathers the team for strategy planning sessions. Like all true entrepreneurs, Stacy is an adventurer at her core – having sky dived, hang glided off bi-planes, swam with crocs while rafting the Zambezi in Africa, photographed grizzly bears in Alaska, trekked Mayan ruins in Belize, explored the ocean as an avid scuba diver, and who loves owning an advertising agency where she swims with a different type of Hollywood shark on a daily basis.
