Integrating social media into your PR strategy is a must. But where do you begin? Below are five steps you can follow to help create a successful social influencer marketing program for your clients or brand.
For more information on these steps and social influencer marketing in general, download our free eBook, the “5 Step Guide to Creating a Successful Influencer Marketing Program.”
Here’s a snapshot of our eBook:
Step 1: Set the Right Goals: You Can’t Define Success Without Them
There are two crucial things you need to do as you begin to set your goals. First, define what success means to you and your clients. You need to identify what metrics you will use to measure success. Whether you measure by brand exposure and reach, an increase in engagements and interactions, or an increase in sales – or any combination of these – it’s important to understand what you are aiming to achieve.
Second, identify your audience. Take time to identify what your audience wants to know and what type of content is best suited to relay that information. Put simply: What interests them and how can your brand generate or integrate into such content?
Step 2: Find the Right Influencers (and Followers!)
Unlike creating a target press list, when researching social influencers, you need to vet all social influencers as well as their followers! Finding the right influencers can make or break an influencer marketing program. It is also a huge challenge. Here’s an overview of what you need to do:
- Develop a profile of your perfect influencer.
- Locate influencers by searching the web for blogs that focus on your topic and compiling a list of blogger contacts, as well as searching social media networks like Facebook and Twitter. Or, you can save time by using a third party service that already has compiled lists of vetted bloggers and influencers by topic.
- Vet the influencers’ blogs. Read their posts to make sure tone and content meshes with your goals.
- Vet the influencers’ social media accounts. Make sure the influencer is posting often enough on social media about things that matter to you and your target customers.
- Vet the influencers’ social media followers. For starters, you will want to vet for geographic location, demographics, and tone and quality of comments.
Step 3: Create the Right Content: It Has to Sell Twice
Your social content will have to carry your water twice – once with social influencers and again with their followers – in order to generate the engagements and interactions your brand needs. Here are a few key things to consider:
- Determine What You Are Promoting: first you need to figure out what you are going to try to get your targeted social influencers to promote.
- Do a Content Audit of Your Influencers’ Content: once you’ve identified your demographics, audit the content produced by your social influencer target list to identify what speaks to your target audience.
- Create Your Content: a good starting point is to come up with 3 suggested Tweets and 1-2 Facebook posts per initiative, driving users to your end content.
- Encourage Authentic Posts: encourage social influencers to post in their own voice to make the content more impactful with their followers.
Step 4: Execute, Confirm, Report… Repeat
You have to make yourself available to pitch, remediate and communicate with influencers as your campaign rolls out. Payments to key influencers will need to get processed and tax reporting forms filed. Lastly, you need to track and accurately report on the posts and their usage: reach, clicks, likes, shares and comments. Or find a service that can do all of this for you!
Step 5: Measure Success: What Metrics Matter to You?
As with other forms of marketing, social media metrics and influencer marketing metrics can fit into different buckets. Measure and report on the metrics matter to you and come up with a plan to consistently gather your data and create reports on a regular basis. You will also need to correctly archive your results so that you can compare campaigns historically to see where you have been and where you are going.
Get Started!
If you’re serious about harnessing authentic voices to connect with target customers in valuable ways, developing a social influencer marketing strategy is a must. For further insight, download our free eBook to read more about the five steps outlined above, as well as why social influencer marketing matters and what it can achieve.