Why your Influencer Marketing Campaign Is NOT working

Iboro Gordon
Aug 23, 2017 · 4 min read

First off who is an Influencer?
To get to know “WHO is” lets discuss “WHO isn’t”

a Social Media Influencer isn’t just someone with a million followers.
There’s more to influence on social media than followers

For example Bill Gates is NOT a social Media Influencer
Aliko Dangote is NOT a social media Influencer
While they have so much influence offline it does not necessarily translate into influence on social media, does it affect their follower/fan base? Yes cause you are hoping they talk like they do offline but most often they don’t. They share mostly links of their latest projects which doesn’t carry much weight when it comes to social media.

Although there are a few public figures that pull a whole lot of influence on social media, like Tony Robbins, being an influencer offline does NOT automatically qualify you as an influencer online

HOW TO SPOT AN INFLUENCER on Social Media?
The first quality of a true online influencer is A HIGHLY ENGAGED AUDIENCE, my favorite example for this is DON JAZZY, that Guy TALKS to his audience like buddies. He has a rapport with them and this makes them do absolutely anything he asks, they have a relationship! He is a joy to follow honestly. lol

Not all CELEBRITIES or PUBLIC FIGURES can pull this off. They don’t have to be so popular but they must be able to have a very engaged audience. Think of Tole Makinwa, DJ Khaled, John Obidi, Steve Harris..they TALK to their audience and keep a highly engaged following

Next way to spot an Influencer is CONSISTENCY
An influencer thrives on SOCIAL MEDIA so literally lives there. A great example is Stephanie Obi the online marketing queen, social media is more or less her office so you don’t see her disappearing online. They are consistent so their audience trusts whatever they say has to be legit lest they return tomorrow and they will of course return tomorrow.

Another attribute which is really important is AUTHENTICITY.
No matter how massive and engaging you are when you are fake chances are that people may not listen or believe you totally
please NOTE influencers don’t have to be so FAMOUS!

Now that you can spot an influencer, how do you choose one for your Brand that will make your marketing campaign work?

FIRST….determine what you want from the relationship, a shout out? a mention? a feature? a recommendation? a follow? collaboration? exposure for your brand? this will determine your strategy!

Example, if i want a recommendation i could craft a strategy to get noticed, which brings me to TWITTER and LINKEDIN its just too easy to get noticed here

I’ll share a story of how i connected with a top social media influencer in Twitter.
I made Twitter Lists. Since twitter is very noisy i made a twitter list called “who i should talk to” and i talked to these people like everyday i retweeted their tweets, made genuine replies to their posts and one day this international influencer sent me a real DM, real because there are way too many spam DMs on Twitter. i danced around in my room that day, am like this thing works!!!
We had a long chat on collaborations and from then on we became buddies!
I made tons of relationships on twitter from my “who i should talk to” list and you can do this too!

You can also find influencers on twitter chats, facebook groups, and Instagram too which brings me to the next step…BUILD RELATIONSHIPS. My twitter lists helped me to build a strong relationship with the people i had already sieved out and believed they were the right people to achieve my desired outcome. Sometimes depending on outcomes you must create a win-win situation that will make the influencer to jump in and work with you.

Example, lets say i sell make up, i may have to send a pack of make up from my shop to an influencer in my niche so she can snap a picture of the products mention me and sound excited about it people will then link the products to me. Remember there maybe no excitement without a prior relationship.

Remember this individual must be AUTHENTIC, fake people won’t be appreciative of the favor, individual must be CONSISTENT she may see the DM/gift weeks after and may lose the effect of why you sent it, must have a highly ENGAGED AUDIENCE cause you are gunning for publicity

So what are the steps to igniting influencer marketing
1. Identify an Influencer related to your niche or with an audience in your niche
2. Determine your Outcome
3. Get Noticed Positively
4. Wait to be Noticed i.e if you’re not pitching with an incentive
5. Build a relationship never jump the gun immediately after you are noticed, take the slow lane
6. Approach with your Offer/Help
7. Wait for approval
8. Flaunt your Success. You will always get here if you do it right

Did you ever get your influencer marketing wrong? You grab a FREE Influencer Marketing Workbook here

This post first appeared on deevapreneur.com

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