From simple Advocacy to an accurate Data Based Solution
During the last decade, Influencer Marketing has proved to be far from being a passing fad and the increasing professionalization of this activity is mostly due to the fact that advocacy is poised as the most authentic
way to connect the brand with its customers.
At Samy we strongly believe we are on the edge of a new era in Influencer Marketing, where certain disciplines that had been independent from each other are now about to become correlated. This merge opens the door to an interesting evolution in the nature of Influencer Marketing, turning it into a more complex data-based scalable solution.
Influencer selection based on simple indicators such as awareness or reach, slowly shifts towards sales-driven influencers or conversation-starters or other more complex indicators. In fact, the latest surveys report that 78% of marketers are finding it relatively easy to find appropriate influencers, probably as a result of the multiple Influencer Marketing plug and play solutions available. However, at the same time, in only two years there’s been a dramatic change in what marketers consider the main goals and pin points when activating Influencer Marketing.
In 2019 awareness was the main KPI for 34% of the marketers, above sales generation in third place (31%). Two years later, sales conversion has increased by 36% and is currently the most demanded goal when considering
Influencer Marketing, reaching 42.3% of total respondents. Tapping into new targets appears more and more as a preferred objective for clients as well.
The question therefore becomes whether a “traditional” influencer strategy is enough when the main goal is to increase sales. And the answer might be a little controversial: independent, one-shot strategies might no longer do the trick, and other more complex strategies, with more variables involved, need to be considered.
The latest updates regarding data privacy aim to favour quality instead of quantity, which suggests that new regulation encourages companies to build their marketing strategies on audiences rather than demographics targeting.
Why should we define our marketing strategies by leveraging individuals’ age, gender or location if there’s
an opportunity for segmentation based on interests and content territories? People from different ages, genders, and backgrounds might participate in relevant conversations in terms of brand consideration.
However, transforming raw data into knowledge and actionable insights requires technology and analytic resources, so the role of an agency becomes essential for brands to upgrade their Influencer Marketing strategies.
Measuring ROI and Campaign Results is Now the Greatest Challenge for Those Who Run Influencer Marketing Campaigns
Intelligence, a new member in the house
The application of intelligence to Influencer Marketing campaigns brings the opportunity to:
IDENTIFY NEW CONTENT TERRITORIES
Brands can leverage social listening to explore how social authors interact with one another and identify content
themes. This data also enables marketers to identify topics their target audience is engaging with, some of which may not seem related to the brand’s value proposition and are therefore even more valuable.
IDENTIFY INFLUENTIAL SPOKESPERSON (NOT NECESSARILY INFLUENCERS)
When approaching Influencer Marketing with a purely quantitative reach, you might miss out on niche content generators. At Samy Alliance, we are grateful to have our Samy Intelligence Suite where we have developed our technology suite capable of indexing social networks to obtain The number of brands running Influencer Marketing
Campaigns in-house decreased by 8% in 2021.
Information on both the digital reputation and the positioning of the brand and the user’s behaviour. ConnectR, for example, uses network analytics to visualise interactions between social media authors leading to deeper understanding of how conversations flow online. This enables us to see which authors are delivering influence through shaping the conversation, in order to gain impact.
IDENTIFY PRODUCT AND SERVICE INSIGHTS
New methodologies in social intelligence enable you to leverage social media conversation data and uncover the organic voice of consumers. This data can be fragmented and analyzed to obtain insights related to the product experience, providing brands with an understanding of how products are used and therefore use this information to
amend and improve when necessary.
Thanks to Samy Intelligence Suite, which uses pioneering research methodologies and technology to solve better core business problems, we can truly understand consumers and find a real marketing opportunity to reach, engage, and convert them into customers.
AMPLIFICATION IS THE KEY TO REACHING AUDIENCES AT SCALE
The successful application of intelligence to Influencer Marketing campaigns is spearheaded by data-informed influencer selections and paid media amplification. The reach of these campaigns can be further optimised with paid media boosting, increasing platform and audience relevance with accurate targeting.
Combining intelligence with paid media enables you to reach audiences at scale, giving brands the potential to reach millions of their target market and delivering more authentic and relevant content for improved performance vs traditional paid social media.
Top leading brands are adopting enhanced Influencer Marketing solutions by collaborating with specialised agencies that are able to add social listening and other intelligent advanced analytics to the core service. This upgrade widens the gap between the brands that run intelligence-based-Influencer Marketing campaigns and
those that follow the standard model.
THE IMPORTANCE OF FIRST-PARTY DATA
Today, influencers can authenticate their profiles on many major social networks (Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest) via approved API partners for increased access to data. (TikTok also does this to a certain degree if creators have joined the TikTok Creator Marketplace.)
Brands that engage in Influencer Marketing can now access analytics data directly from the platforms themselves rather than relying on influencer-supplied reporting. This is known as first-party data: influencer data collected directly from the platform (including some metrics that are not on display to their followers) with direct consent
from the influencer.
We can obtain a successful, authentic audience report by combining influencer authentication with profile analysis and historical data on our platform. At Samy Alliance, we’ve created an algorithm, ShineBuzz, that helps our clients find the right influencer for a specific campaign or brand; we can identify the influencer, predict their success, potential repercussions on your brand, and the campaign results.
Authenticated data provides the campaign engagement metrics and audience demographics that modern brands need to fine-tune their outreach and prove ROI. It also ensures a deeper and more accurate
understanding of a creator’s audience before a campaign begins.
Platform authentication and first-party API data are the keys to legitimising the value of Influencer Marketing. Without the first-party API data that reveals reach, impressions, engagement and more, brands can’t be sure of their results.
Want to read the complete State of influencer Marketing Report? You can download here.
