By Dr. Debashree Roy
The increasing scepticism of consumers towards traditional marketing has made it challenging for companies to entice them. This led to the rise of influencer marketing, a strategy wherein a company chooses and incentivises influencers to engage with their followers on social media to advertise the company’s offering. Today, about 75% of marketers use influencer marketing campaigns to boost word-of-mouth (WOM) on social media about their offerings. Industry surveys, however, indicate that there are marketers out there who spend money without fully understanding the value the campaign has provided.
Businesses must understand how to increase the effectiveness of influencer marketing by strategically choosing influencers, zeroing in on their followers, and curating content. It is crucial to determine the decision criteria that businesses may use to improve the efficacy of their influencer marketing efforts. This is because influencer marketing necessitates a lot of resources and is challenging to deploy and evaluate.
These are the factors that businesses must consider to make the most of their influencer marketing –
Influencer Post Frequency: Firms need to consider the posting behaviours of the influencers in terms of their frequency. An influencer who posts regularly establishes trust with consumers wherein they get to know the influencer intimately and thereby, engage with them. An influencer who posts too often would lead followers to lose interest in their posts, filter them out, or even get frustrated by them. Choosing an influencer with excessive activity could backfire due to information overload, but choosing one with little activity could undermine the influencer’s credibility. Thus, firms must select influencers who optimise the frequency of their posts.
Influencer Post Content: Consumers are aware that influencers are being paid to promote a brand, unlike organic recommendations. They may question the authenticity of influencers’ posts when they see influencers making extremely positive comments about the brands they promote. Such perceptions of influencer manipulation might lead consumers to avoid the brands that they endorse. Thus, firms must provide campaign briefs to the influencers which talk about both the benefits as well as the limitations of the brand. A good post must be positive enough to provide a positive impression while allowing for the impression of discernment with some critical remarks.
Influencer-brand Similarity: While selecting a social media influencer, brands need to ensure that the influencer’s personality fits with the values that the brand upholds. In that instance, consumers would view the brand as having more credibility and would engage with it more frequently. For instance, it would be logical to target an influencer recognized for promoting the sustainability narrative if a brand supports the cause of sustainability.
Emotional Value of Post: Influencers who post humorous content, are likeable by the audience. At the same time, influencer posts that are raw in emotions, such as anxiety or awe, elicit consumer curiosity that generates greater virality of the post. Brands can, thus, target influencers that produce content strong on emotional value that can generate greater customer engagement.
Influencer Follower Size: The size of the influencer’s following is an indicator of their fame, prestige, and image. Consumers attribute stronger opinion leadership and source credibility to an influencer who has a sizable following because they think they are a valid and trustworthy source of information. A huge following gives an influencer access to a sizable audience of potential customers and increases their chances of eliciting consumer engagement. Marketers can, therefore, streamline their advertising budgets towards influencers with a wide audience.
Most importantly, influencers who are authentic and contribute their thoughts and content are more likely to be regarded as informed and trustworthy and followers are more like to engage with them. Consumers enjoy hearing or reading about things that surprise or intrigue them. As a result, influencers who produce more original content should garner more attention than those who don’t. Businesses need to target authentic influencers who can create fresh content in their styles that distinguishes them from others. To increase customer engagement, businesses need to grasp the crucial interaction between influencer reputation, content quality, and influencer-brand fit. Businesses may boost the return on engagement (ROE) of influencer marketing initiatives by implementing some of these influencer marketing strategies.
The author is the assistant professor of marketing at Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai