Following the leaders

Influencer marketing has taken the world by storm, and New Zealand is catching up fast. Georgia McGillivray explains how it works; how to engage the right influencer for your brand.

Influencer marketing is the process of brands and influencers collaborating, to spread the word and influence purchase decisions about a product or service. This is achieved by an influencer posting via their large social channels to endorse a product, in exchange for products or payment.

Social media influencers are passionate social content creators who have a ‘significant’ online following and can ultimately assist brands in influencing purchasing decisions. 

Influencer marketing is not a new concept. It dates back to the Palace of Versailles where paintings would feature royals wearing pearls – influencing their peers to purchase pearls too. 

The 1900s saw the rise of TV and billboards, and with that came celebrity-endorsed products – for example, Britney Spears promoting Pepsi, David Beckham working with H&M, thereby influencing viewers that Pepsi or H&M was a cool brand to be aligned with.

The Internet allowed for a whole new wave of celebrities to appear, now known as ‘social influencers’. These are not necessarily people who are famous offline, however they have amassed a large following by becoming thought leaders in their industry – whether that be baking vegan cakes, photographing landscapes or practicing karate. 

Social influencers have a very engaged following, especially within the younger generation. With millennials spending 40 percent less time watching TV every year, and 35 percent more time on social media platforms, brands have seen the opportunity to collaborate with these influencers to stay relevant and join in the conversation with their consumers.

Influencer marketing came to force in Australia between 2011 and 2012. A few years later it finally emerged in New Zealand and is now a serious contender for creative consideration and media spend. Slowly industry expectations and standards have been developed. Brands are now acknowledging the importance
of collaborations with influential and passionate thought
leaders and, equally, influencers are starting to find their
feet as professionals. 

If you are looking at engaging influencers, here are a few things to keep in mind: 

1. New Zealand’s still catching up

Like elsewhere, New Zealand started with highly influential social media users receiving product, with an expectation of social posts in exchange. The product exchange shortly died down for larger influencers as they were receiving copious amounts of irrelevant product that didn’t resonate with their audiences and they couldn’t pay their bills. This encouraged them to step up into a more professional role as an influencer.

In saying this, many of New Zealand’s social media influencers are still yet to determine their value, so they will often quote completely different rates to the next person. 

The influencers who were early into professionalism have been able to capitalise enormously: many charging disproportionate fees compared to the rest of the world.

(One of our goals at The Social Club is to educate and standardise an otherwise relatively inconsistent market. We’ve developed an algorithm within our technology which calculates the worth of an influencer, allowing the market to grow positively and instil a standard price.)

2. Select the right influencers

Many of the top social accounts from New Zealand (in terms of follower size) have followings dominated by overseas markets (particularly the US), so understanding where their followers are based and if that matches your target market
is really important.

The selection and variety of influencers here is also small but growing rapidly. Over the past three years, we’ve seen The Social Club Influencer community grow to over 5,000 engaged social content creators. Given the significantly smaller pool of influencers and higher level of competition for them, we’ve advised brands to focus on more meaningful, longer term relationships.

3. Understand who you are speaking to (Kiwis)

New Zealand consumers are conservative and sceptical. We are anti-advertising (proven by our high adoption rate of ad-blockers). So there has to be an enormous focus on authentic collaborations when engaging in the influencer space. Anything else is likely to damage your brand. 

Word of mouth recommendations to us is the ultimate endorsement for influencer marketing.  When working for a New Zealand brand we would, however, suggest connecting with a local agency to gain inner-circle access and traction. 

4. How much should you spend?

At The Social Club, the average campaign spend has grown 100 percent year on year. 

This mainly comes down to brands moving away from testing budgets and dedicating a strong percentage of their digital marketing spend towards influencers.

With 63 percent of marketers allocating more of their marketing budget to influencer campaigns, it’s likely the percentage of total marketing budget will continually grow as the industry grows to an expected $5-$10 billion market globally by 2020.

The number of campaigns brands run each year has also grown, from two in 2015 to seven in 2017. 

Our recommendation for your first campaign spend is 30 percent of your monthly digital marketing budget. That, of course, can vary depending on your marketing goals. Even if you have a small marketing budget you can get started with influencer marketing from just a few thousand dollars!

A 2017 survey by Bloglovin revealed that 40 percent of campaigns had a spend higher than $10,000, and a large majority of lower budget campaigns were smaller campaigns or sub-campaigns that ran more frequently.

5. Know your strategy

There is a huge opportunity to achieve amazing results with influencer campaigns. And the results are always strongest when there is a clear strategy in place for how the campaign will achieve its goals rather than adding the influencer element on at the last minute. So it’s worth investing the time upfront to work out your strategy, and what you hope to achieve. 

6. Consider working with micro influencers

To put things into perspective, a social influencer’s following can range from 1000 to 100s of millions. Micro-influencers generally covers the 1000 to 10,000 mark, and macro-influencers and celebrities tackle the rest. So micro-influencers have, for want of a better word, a very micro following. But those micro numbers can get macro results for brands, depending on the KPIs of your campaign.

Working with micro influencers is like hitting 20 targets with one shot. Your influencer budget could get you one celebrity influencer, or 20 micro-influencers. Not only are micro-influencers significantly cheaper than macro-influencers, but they reach a niche (generally local) audience that is far more engaged – which often leads to a higher conversion rate and ROI. 

There are two key barriers to working with micro influencers:

1.
It is hard to locate micro influencers who match your brand values and have the right target market for your campaign.

2.
It is very time consuming compared to working with macro influencers. Think 20 times the effort to work with 20 micro influencers, vs one macro influencer.

7. Create a genuine, authentic
and transparent partnership

Brand partnerships always work best when the brand and influencer align in values and genuinely rate each other’s work. This is where the magic happens, as the influencer campaign becomes an authentic collaboration rather than a paid placement. When an influencer really believes in a product/brand, it will fit seamlessly into their feed.

For instance, Loic Quedec is known for his monochromatic themed images. So when he shared a photo wearing Icebreaker’s grey tracksuit (which he loves, and would wear anyway), it was completely genuine and authentic. Equally, Social Club influencer Renee Amber, in a recent collaboration with Ngatarawa Wines, shared a dreamy picture of herself under the grapevines holding a glass of chardonnay. Since Renee’s feed is filled with culture, travel photos and beautiful scenic shots, the advertising content was able to fit seamlessly and generate awesome results.

8. Add value to your audience with quality content

Influencers should be focused on adding value to their audience. Consumers on social media are looking to be inspired, which is one of the reasons why they follow influencers. Seventy-one percent of consumers are more likely to make a purchase based on a social media reference. To activate that 71 percent, a key question is: How will this piece of content add value to and benefit the audience? Whether that’s offering a discount, providing a new insight or wowing them with amazing content. If you create content worthy of reading, sharing and engaging with, users won’t mind if it’s a branded collaboration.

9. Remember, the influencer is the creative

You may have hundreds of amazing creative ideas, but in the end the influencer knows what makes their audience tick. Because of this, it’s important to give the influencer enough creative freedom. Of course, you need to be clear in your brief on the campaign objectives, key messages, inclusions and exclusions. Influencers know what types of content perform best on their feeds and receive the highest engagements, so trust them!

10. Measure your campaign performance

As marketers, we’re storytellers. We weave meaningful narratives to drive engagement and create a mutual understanding with our audience in order to build relationships, forge communities, and create moments. But most storytellers are missing out on one of the most important parts of the opportunity: the data, and the campaign results.

Depending on the goal of your campaign, there are different metrics you should be tracking. For example, if you were launching a new chocolate brand and looking to raise awareness, you should be measuring impressions, reach and engagement. If you’re an online fashion brand looking to increase your sales, clicks and conversions will be the most important metrics.

It’s not just established brands who benefit from influencer marketing. Small and medium-sized, locally-owned brands are using influencer marketing and seeing amazing results too! Whether you are looking to run a full service influencer campaign, gather content or deploy social samplers – there is an influencer campaign to suit the needs of every brand.   

Georgia McGillivray is CEO and co-founder of The Social Club.
Email [email protected]