If your brand has never used influencer marketing before, it’s easy to make simple mistakes that the pros know how to avoid. Before you start your first influencer marketing campaign, check in with this list. Here’s what you don’t want to do.
Mistake #1: Get Distracted by Follower Counts
You might dream about bagging an endorsement deal with someone who has an impressive 200 million followers, but your strategy will be more effective if you stick to a much more modest benchmark.
This is especially helpful advice if you’re trying to target younger consumers. When it comes to their buying decisions, millennials and Zoomers aren’t taken in by macro influencers with millions of followers.
While they might follow someone like Beyoncé or Kylie Jenner, it’s usually for purely entertainment reasons. Zoomers can clock empty endorsements as ads rather than genuine recommendations from these celebrities.
Instead, they get their advice from nano influencers with fewer than 10K followers. These content creators are everyday folks who juggle school, work, and relationships just like any other average Joe.
Their ordinariness is their selling point. They aren’t celebrities trying to launch their own brands. They might not even be experts in the products they’re promoting. However, they are genuine about why they like it, which has massive cachet for younger consumers.
Mistake #2: Forget to Localize
Location, location, location. You’ve heard it before, and you’ll hear it countless times again. But don’t ignore this advice. If you plan on targeting a specific audience, localizing your content is rule #1 for launching your campaign.
After all, what works in one part of the world won’t work in another. Localizing ensures you curate your message in a way that honours the culture’s language, norms, expressions, symbolism, and even colour theory.
While you won’t have as much executive control over your influencer marketing campaign as with a traditional launch, local influencers will naturally make localized content that resonates with people from that area.
That means, if you’re planning to launch a new product in Toronto, you should hire an influencer agency in Toronto to make sure it suits the city. This rule applies even if you’re launching the same product all over Canada or the US. North America is full of local markets that have unique perspectives and values.
Mistake #3: Pretending You Didn’t Hire Influencers
Transparency is non-negotiable when it comes to your influencer marketing campaign. You’ll want to make sure your content creators know to make your partnership explicitly clear from the jump.
Why? For one thing, it’s damage control. Anything you do to hide the fact you’ve hired influencers can leave a dent in your brand’s reputation. If the ruse gets exposed, people may feel you tried to trick them, and they may lose trust in your company.
For another, it may be a legal requirement. In both the US and Canada, official authorities like the FTC and Ad Standards require influencers to make clear endorsement disclosures on all social media. Failing to follow these guidelines could get you into hot water with these organizations.
Bottom Line:
Everyone makes mistakes, but when it comes to influencer marketing blunders, they unfold on people’s Instagram feeds. More people will see when you mess up, and these mistakes can wind up costing you. Keep these tips in mind to help protect your bottom line.
