Why Gifting Is Better Than Paying Social Influencers
You Don’t Have To Pay Influencers. Just Give Them Your Products.
Photo printing app Lalalab didn’t expect to generate 4,500 social posts and reach 70 million people in just one year. But that’s what happened when the Paris-based company gifted its product to social influencers.
While influencer marketing can be expensive, many brands don’t realize that they can simply gift their products to influencers instead of paying them to create branded posts. Those influencers can then feel free to create genuine, personalized reviews for their audiences — ultimately driving brand awareness and conversions.
“Thanks to gifting, we can send out products to influencers without having to pay them. They feel completely free to give their opinion, keep their freedom of speech and therefore, their authenticity,” said Marion Orvain, Social Media Manager at Lalalab.
Still, Lalalab isn’t the only brand to understand the value of the gifting influencers. Companies like Anastasia Beverly Hills, Daniel Wellington, and TomTom have generated millions of dollars and social engagements with this strategy.
Here are three reasons why gifting is better than paying social influencers — along with examples and tips for doing it right.
[Reason 1]: It creates more room for authenticity
By gifting influencers, brands can provide more of what consumers crave: authenticity and trust.
When influencers are paid to promote a product, they may feel pressure to provide a sugar-coated or overly produced review. Gifting helps remove this pressure and empower creators to provide an honest and authentic review of your product. And authenticity is incredibly important to consumers: According to Bonfire Marketing, 91% of customers identified authenticity as the most important factor in driving consumer behavior — more than product utility and brand popularity.
This authenticity then inspires audiences to respect and trust these influencers and, in turn, your brand — yes, even if the review isn’t entirely positive. As Olapic and Censuswide found, consumers are 75% more likely to trust content posted by other consumers than content posted by brands.
You can help create more of this consumer-generated content across social media by simply gifting influencers.
[Reason 2]: It’s easier to deploy at scale
Gifting allows brands to execute high-quality influencer campaigns at scale. Instead of working with just 5–10 influencers, which agencies often do, these brands can reach hundreds of influencers at once.
TomTom, for example, gifted 45 social influencers with its new fitness tracker to promote its product launch in the UK, Germany, and France. 47% of them shared earned posts helping the brand gain exposure on a new product launch.
With this reach, brands can tap into a range of niche audiences and increase their chances of campaigns running for longer periods of time. This is especially valuable on platforms like Instagram where organic brand reach is declining and companies are looking for alternative ways to get their products in front of new audiences.
[Reason 3]: It allows you to work with micro-influencers
There is a caveat to gifting, and it’s actually an advantage for brands: This strategy works best with micro/small influencers. On Instagram, these are influencers who have between 5K and 100K followers.
They’re more willing to accept free products over payments, and they likely have even more engaged and loyal audiences than major celebrities with millions of followers. Meaning brands can more easily tap into new communities by working with them.
Just look at the data. According to a study by Fullscreen and Shareablee, 30% of customers bought a product that a digital creator recommended, while only 20% purchased a product promoted by a traditional celebrity. Google revealed that YouTube creators are 4X more effective at driving lift in brand familiarity than traditional celebrities. And eMarketer found that 78% of millenials either had a negative or indifferent view of celebrity endorsements.
Anastasia Beverly Hills, for instance, has always made sure to choose influencers based on high photo and video quality, not just follower count. As a result, they’ve become the most engaging beauty brand on Instagram with the highest number of posts and interactions among US beauty influencers in 2018 (see Octoly Top 25 Beauty Instagram Ranking).
Bottom Line
There’s more than one way to use influencer marketing. While brands have long relied on paying digital creators to post about their brand, if they want to engage niche communities, launch scalable campaigns, and build trust with their customers, gifting may be the better option.
Gifting allows brands to generate content without breaking the bank and work with hundreds of micro-influencers to build far-reaching, always-on campaigns that drive awareness and conversions for months to come. Most importantly, gifting empowers influencers to share authentic reviews and show audiences that brands truly care about their unique voices.
Have you ever tried gifting with influencers? Want to share your experience? Please comment below!
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