How To Do Influencer Marketing the Right Way #marketochat

This week I had the pleasure of being a guest on the #marketochat Twitter chat on the topic of influencer marketing.  It was great to see people like Glen Gilmore, Brian Fanzo and Ken Burbary attend the chat as well as many other curious and opinionated marketers.

This chat was a preview to my Thought Leadership track presentation on influencer marketing at the upcoming, free Marketo "Marketing Nation Online" conference on September 14th.

Heres's a wrap up of the questions and answers I provided via @leeodden during the chat - all nicely formatted so you can Tweet them yourself if you like.  Or at least, give you a few inspirational things to think about. 

Q1. What is your definition of an influencer?

• A1. An influencer is a connected expert that creates & shares content that affects change & action with their audience. 
• A1. I have to give a h/t to @samfiorella for the contributions he’s made to defining what influence is. Smart guy. 
• A1. It’s funny to have to say this, but being an influencer is more than being famous: fans, friends, followers. 
• A1. True influencers rarely self anoint themselves as influential
• A1. True influence is earned, not claimed. 
• A1. I believe everyone is influential about something. Using that approach to “influencer” helps brands expose many more engagement opportunities. 

Q2. What are the top 3 “do’s” for influencer marketing? 

• A2. To start with influencer marketing, your brand needs to decide what it wants to be influential about. 
• A2. Find relevant influencers long before you need them & give them a compelling reason to want to engage with your brand.
• A2. Communicate goals & expectations with influencers. They’re pros. They want to do well. Give feedback on performance. 
• A2. Here’s a great resource for do’s & don’ts of influencer marketing; 15 Fails & 25 Ways to win http://tprk.us/2c8b22R

Q3. What’s your top tip for a successful influencer marketing campaign?

• A3. Decide exactly why your brand needs to work with influencers. Confirm the “why” so you don’t waste time & money.
• A3. Create value for influencers first, before asking for anything. Understand what they need & give it to them.
• A3. There are many types of influencers, treat IM programs like a recipe - don’t just use one ingredient.
• A3. To fast track an effective influencer marketing program, hire a specialist agency & evaluate platforms to manage programs.

Q4. What is the biggest mistake marketers make in influencer marketing?

• A4.  Self serving requests without doing homework for relevance or empathy for what’s in it for the influencer.
• A4. @ashleyzeckman published a great post on influencer marketing mistakes today: http://tprk.us/2ciKzl3
• A4. This is fun: 50 ways to fail at influencer engagement. Don’t do these things! http://tprk.us/50winfluence

Q5. What are the key benefits of influencer marketing?

• A5. First, influencer marketing is not just another advertising channel. There is organic and paid influencer marketing. 
• A5. Make sure your brand thinks of the benefit to the influencer as much as to the brand. Give to get.
• A5. A big benefit is relationships with influencers that open doors to content, community & conversations. Also commerce!
• A5. Influencer content collaboration adds authenticity and a credible voice to brand messaging.
• A5. Partnering with influencers on content can tap into quality and scale of content, especiallywith multiple influencers. 
• A5. Influencer investment in content collaboration can inspire promotion & reach to all new audiences.  

Q6. How do you measure the ROI of influencer marketing?

• A6. ROI measurements depend on objectives, so metrics for influencer marketing track across awareness, consideration, purchase.
• A6. The performance of influencer content can be measured like any other content: attract, engage, convert http://tprk.us/1oHpcY1
• A6. Of course IM share URLs can be tagged with UTM codes w/ Google URL builder. 
• A6. With influencer marketing platforms you can monitor shares of brand content, share of voice amongst your influences.
• A6. Our client @Traackr enables you to monitor progression of relationship with influencers from unaware to advocate.

Q7. What’s the best marketing advice you’ve ever been given?

• A7.  Empathy is the key to understanding exactly what your customers want so you can give it to them. 
• A7. And pretty much anything from @annhandley @markwschaefer @michalebrenner @jaybaer 

Don't forget, I will be presenting at Marketo's Marketing Nation online conference September 14th on the topic of Influencer Marketing. The presentation is part of the Thought Leadership Series of the conference and is called, "Everything You’ve Heard About Influencer Marketing is Wrong".

THANK YOU for reading! Be sure to find my pithy tips, news and insights on "the Twitter" at @leeodden. If you like the photo above, it came from my Instagram account. Of course, I pay the bills by working at TopRank Marketing and do a little blogging at TopRank's Online Marketing Blog.