How can you ensure your brand is accurately represented by influencers?

Influencers act as an extension of your brand and therefore its critical to identify an influencer fitting with your brand. One could be a good influencer but may not be apt for your brand if their TG/ Followers identify the influencer with brand values different from the ones you are looking to communicate. It's important that your brand values resonante with theirs or atleast they are able to communicate them in the right light, tonality and create the impression you are looking to create.

With content creation becoming omnipresent across brands, a 5-step framework that can allow brands to have yardsticks across influencers for right representation - - Find the Right Match: Seek influencers whose audience, values, & style align naturally with your brand. - Provide Guidelines: Offer clear brand guidelines and campaign goals, but allow space for the influencer's authentic voice. - Communicate & Collaborate: Set expectations upfront and co-create content whenever possible. - Monitor & Adjust: Track campaign results and provide feedback to influencers for ongoing alignment with your brand. - Prioritize Authenticity: Choose influencers who genuinely resonate with your brand's message for the most impactful partnerships.

Instead of providing influencers with predefined briefs, involve them in the co-creation process of content. Collaborate closely with influencers to brainstorm ideas, develop concepts, and craft content that authentically integrates your brand while resonating with their unique style and voice. This approach fosters a sense of ownership and creativity, resulting in more genuine and engaging brand representations.

While selecting on influencers for the brand, it's very important to see the fitment of the influencer with the brand ethos. Apart from just checking on number of followers and engagement, it is important to check the quality & type of content by that influencer, check on engagement and read out comments to judge on the audience and connection with influencer. Look at whether the influencer has got the TG you are targeting, how much trust he has among his followers, what kind of brands he has endorsed earlier etc. Remember once you have decided on the influencer, then brand needs to communicate very clearly on the kind of content, dos and don'ts etc and work closely to ensure right delivery.

Influencers are not magicians. The brand has to ride on their strengths with strong strategic goals to achieve. Rolling milestones should be measured according to clear guidelines and periodic check points. The audience is intelligent enough to recognize whether an influencer is also breathing brand or just delivering pre-set messages. Choosing the right influencer is also crucial.

there has to be clarity of thought at the brand’s end regarding what they want to achieve out of an influencer campaign. it has to be a mix of brand recall and relatability. can’t expect an influencer to carry the dead weight of an unclear thought process.

Not every influencer campaign I worked on turned out to be a success. Here's a starting WHAT NOT TO DO LIST - Don't spoonfeed content /script with overt branding, it will bring down the whole effort - Don't reference any other influencer's work, you picked THIS particular person for what THEY offer. Trying to get them to fit another mould will backfire (and / or cause them to hate you as a client) - Don't use people in your team as a litmus test. Instead, turn to friends / family who consume similar content and gauge how well they respond to the execution

While it's imperative to provide influencers with clear guidelines & expectations to ensure brand alignment, it's equally essential to preserve their unique creative essence. The audience's connection with an influencer is often rooted in the distinctiveness of their content. Therefore, while offering guidance & parameters, it's crucial to foster a collaborative creative process that respects the influencer's signature style. Incorporating the influencer's creative input not only maintains authenticity but also enhances the resonance of the campaign with their audience. This approach ensures that while fulfilling campaign objectives, the content retains the authenticity & relatability that drew followers to influencer in the first place.

Make sure about the audience of the influencer, in order it can be aligned with the insights of your brand. Make a good brand brief for them in order they can understand what can be say and what not about the story of the brand, values and core message. On this what you will make sure about the complete brand integration and the insights applied with influencer effort.

One-size-fits-all guidelines will not work for all influencers. Some will want highly prescriptive guidelines to reduce the cognitive load, effort and time, these campaigns are relatively straightforward but will struggle to come across as authentic. Other influencers, particularly those who may define themselves more as content creators, may prefer the scope to approach the brief more creatively; the risk and reward for this kind of influencer content are far greater. By giving them scope to be creative, it becomes crucial to agree on an approval process that protects the brand but does not stifle their creativity. Therefore, it is important to communicate the importance of brand protection as part of the collaboration from the outset.

A great way to look at brand-influencer partnerships would be to think of it as hanging out with friends. Say you are the last friend to arrive. By then, the other friends are already engaged in a conversation. It's a robust dialogue and has moved through many topics. Would you interrupt them and start a new topic or would you listen and join the conversation? I hope you thought of doing the latter. This is exactly what brands need to do. Understand the ongoing conversation between an influencer & their audience before adding your relevant two cents. This way, the brand will have a greater chance of weaving itself into the narrative instead of being an interruption! For this, you have to respect the influencer & let them take the lead!

You're using an influencer, not producing an advert. You're hijacking their creative vehicle for your commercial benefit, let them get on with it and if you've chosen wisely then you'll be pleased with your results.

Si has elegido a un influencer concreto es porque le conoces y sabes que puedes esperar de él/ella. La esencia de un influencer reside en su capacidad de conectar con su audiencia de manera única y ese es el valor que tu quieres explotar para tu marca. Al respetar y valorar su creatividad, permites que el contenido producido sea genuino y que resuene en sus seguidores. Esta autenticidad es la que fortalece la percepción de la marca y la que va a fomentar una mayor confianza y lealtad entre esos seguidores.

The ideal influencer is one who has a meaningful story to tell and will tell it with or without your brand. In an authentic voice. An true influencer is one who is a storyteller who can weave your brand into his or her story in a meaningful seemingly organic way. That’s essential The wilful suspension of disbelief is the foundational truth about effective influencer marketing. To the reader/viewer the influencers must have a story to tell where your brand is a main character but the influencer always remains the hero.

Being colloquial and not going hard on integration will be key, it's not a pure play performance channel. It's branding and retention too.

The evaluation of the results – or the real measure of success – can be in terms of engagement, leads, conversions, shares and comments... or whatever metric you have identified as your goal from the outset. Gather these insights and see what “worked” and what didn’t. These insights will be very important in future collaborations and influencer selections. And for the sake of trust and maintaining the relationship with the influencer, share with them constructive feedback. This will greatly help if you decide to work with them again in the future.

There are 100s of metrics to measure but not every campaign needs to measure them all. You should have your key 3-5 metrics decided in the planning stage. If the metric is sales, set up a custom coupon code for each influencer and track the revenue they bring in. If the metric is traffic, create a UTM tracker and give them a link to add to their stories/captions. If the metric is brand awareness, track the views and impressions. A sales-focused campaign should focus on revenue, not engagement, and vice versa! There might also be a time lag in seeing results. This depends on your product, the timing of the campaign, and more.

The key is brand-influencer alignment and similarity. A good match should result in better metrics. Qualitative metrics (comments, mentions, reviews) will be quite interesting to monitor. Also, analytics that look at brand-influencer crossovers will also be an important measure. Monitoring and measuring is also important to ensure that an influencer has not gone rogue or changed his/her identity, thereby, losing congruity with the brand. Cannot let the brand equity get diluted.

Uma campanha de influenciadores efetiva é aquela que você da uma meta e acompanha, para medir seu atingimento. Isso especialmente em campanhas mais longas, é importante medir diariamente como vão seus índices e KPIs importantes de campanha, para que apresente um ROI favorável ao planejamento inicial.

Las herramientas de medición son fundamentales al momento de trabajar con influencers. Es la única forma de saber si se ha logrado el objetivo propuesto inicialmente. Pero es importante mencionar que no todas las métricas del marketing digital indican si el resultado fue positivo o negativo dentro de una campaña de influencers. Es por eso que desde el inicio debes establecer cuidadosamente los KPIs que medirán el exito de la campaña.

Ein wesentlicher Punkt der mir hierzu einfällt, ist der Bezug zur Marke in Korrelation zum Influencer, zur Influencerin. Auf verschiedenen Kanälen ist zu beobachten, dass dieser nicht immer authentisch gegeben ist. Ein Influencer ist ein Botschafter, eine Botschafterin, für die Marke. Positive Beispiele machen zum Beispiel Marken von Uhren, da Produkte oftmals passiv dargestellt werden. Negative Beispiele sind oft bei Protein Produkten erkennbar. Hier wird das Produkt offensichtlich und aktiv beworben, meist sogar mit Coupons.

Com os resultados observados durante o acompanhamento dos KPIs, você pode direcionar melhor a sequencia da campanha ou mesmo um próximo conteúdo, ajustado à novos propósitos. Criar um elo com seu influenciador faz com que seu público sinta veracidade, sinta fidelidade à marca ou produto. Sempre que possível envie um novo produto, envie um mimo de sua marca, seja lembrado e mais que isso, mostre lembrança. Isso fortalece não somente uma parceria comercial, isso fortalece a forma com que seu público o vê.

Think of your influencer marketing strategy like a road trip. You've got your map (your data and feedback), but sometimes the road's a bit bumpy or you stumble upon a scenic detour. That's where the fun begins! You tweak your route based on what's working, what's not, and the surprises along the way. It's all about staying flexible and open to new opportunities. Plus, building solid relationships with your influencers is like having awesome travel buddies. You share stories, give each other pointers, and celebrate milestones together. That connection not only makes your brand shine but also keeps the journey exciting for everyone involved. So, buckle up and enjoy the ride as you steer towards your marketing goals!

Influencers are aware that their influence is a fragile thing that can get shattered at any time. To be an influencer you also need to be someone who is seeking public endorsement and you feed off the engagement you get from your audience. Therefore the influencer is also a fairly fragile person and hence susceptible to external pressures. Brands can’t hobnob with fragility unless they have clear rules of engagement. This is where many brands stumble. Watch out for the potholes.

biggest mistake they make is to select the influencers based on their reach & not their niche. I have seen automobile brands getting on board lifestyle influencers to promote their cars only because their reach was in the millions but the end result of their campaign was disastrous.

Trigger to "Influencer" engagement for a "brand" is not a one-way street and therefore ascertaining / ensuring "positive" experience at brand-side can never be a done deal. In today's world of immense uncertainties "time is prime", hence, it is more important for a brand to keep consistent vigil across eco-systems & then timely acknowledge/disown any unsolicited associative expressions from any quarters - i.e., either a known influencer or otherwise.

At the heart of it all is establishing a strong and genuine relationship with the influencer, and maintaining an open channel of communication. After all, marketing isn’t just about selling; it’s about telling your story through voices that believe in your brand as much as you do. And because we, as marketeers, are true brand ambassadors, this is how & where we can make the real brand values shine through.

Uma coisa a considerar na hora de escolher um influenciador é seu alcance e engajamento. Estratégias diferentes de campanha são influenciar nesta escolha. Um influenciador giga tem mais alcance, porém, geralmente tem menor engajamento. Já os influenciadores nano têm pequeno alcance, entretanto costumam ter muito mais engajamento por parte de seus seguidores.