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In January 2019, football fans were surprised that Egyptian football star Mohamed Salah closed his accounts on social networks without explanation or clarification, and wrote in his last tweet on Twitter: “2019, the time has come for real communication.” That was only a plan to raise questions. And the intense controversy about the reason for the disappearance of the star, which was carried out by the shipping giant DHL, after which it published a 10-second video that stated that it had reached the location of Mohamed Salah, and that it was the only one able to reach him, and that the reason for closing the accounts of the Egyptian star was linked to the influencer marketing campaign that The company held it with him.
What is influencer marketing and how will you choose the right influencer who will promote your products or brand? Let's find out in this article:
What is influencer marketing?
It is a type of marketing that relies on the use of “influencer” or “the holders of the highest-followed accounts on social media,” to pass the company’s message to a wide audience of followers affected by the influencer’s personality and submissive to his decisions, instead of using traditional marketing tools to reach a group A large audience, and in this strategy, the influencer creates attractive content in which he talks about the product or service, tells his personal experience after using the brand, and evaluates it on the Internet platforms.
The importance of using influencers or marketing through influencers?
Influencer marketing blends two important marketing tools, namely marketing using social media, content marketing, and sometimes word-of-mouth praise marketing. Technological development provides continuous support for influencer activities, whether using live broadcasts, stories, or images. Using video content plays a role in influencers’ activities. An essential role in increasing audience interaction with the product, and raising sales rates, as promotional videos help enhance customer confidence in the brand and attract new customers, and it is expected that the value of marketing services through influencers will increase in the future, and the growth and prosperity of this marketing policy, which opens a big door For collaborations between companies and influencers.
Types of influencers
Influencers can be categorized into three main groups:
Celebrities or public figures - Mega influencers
They have millions of followers around the world, such as art stars and celebrities in various fields, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Mohamed Salah, and art stars, and they are distinguished by reaching a huge audience along with a high level of professionalism with little possibility of falling into the danger of fake followers.
The members of this group are considered an inexhaustible mine for company owners, but the most important disadvantage of marketing through mega influencers is the exorbitant costs, and the international player Cristiano Ronaldo is considered a star in this field, and he has carried out several promotional campaigns, including the “Nike” brand campaign, and he is one of three athletes They just have a lifetime deal with the brand.
Popular influencers on social networks - Macro-influencers
These influencers have a huge audience that may approach a million followers, and they are mostly ordinary people who excel in a specific field such as travel or fashion experiences, or they have a great talent such as photography and drawing, and they were able to achieve great fame on social media platforms, and they can be considered marketing professionals, but relying on them In campaigns, it may not be suitable for startups due to high expenses.
Micro-influencers
Content makers, bloggers, and YouTubers whose audience exceeds ten thousand followers, their most important advantage is the low cost that suits all companies, and despite the lack of numerical followers, these influencers have high rates of audience participation and continuous interaction, which creates a state of mutual trust between the influencer and the followers.
Cooperation with this type of influencer allows companies to target a specific segment of the audience, and thus intensify their marketing efforts and reach consumers or users, but the main drawback here is the low level of visibility of the direct impact on sales or direct results, so you have to pay attention to monitoring and analyzing the results through the use of metrics and measurement methods. Miscellaneous, to determine how well this strategy is achieving your campaign goals.
How do you choose the right influencer?
1. Your campaign goals
Determining the purposes of the advertising campaign is a major key to choosing the right influencer, and among the most popular goals of influencer marketing campaigns are four goals: inviting customers and targeted consumers to try your product or service, raising awareness and reminding them of your company’s brand, increasing followers on social media, or raising sales rates and increasing turnout.
You have to choose the goal clearly, and make sure that the work contract accurately reflects the details of the strategy and method of implementation, for example, if the goal is to announce a new product, is there a summary of the product’s contents, components, and method of use that the influencer must abide by to share it with the audience? Or is the goal of the campaign for the influencer to become an ambassador for the brand, and thus it is considered an ongoing, long-term relationship, then you can write a main contract with the addition of the cost of each additional task provided by the influencer.
2. Reputation
Certainly, the first criterion is his positive reputation, the audience’s response, and their interaction with him, whether in the virtual world or in the real world, and a good reputation is linked to credibility and transparency, so you must make sure that he has real followers, not fake accounts, and you can compare the number of audience, interaction and participation rates on the actual posts to make sure of that.
3. Is the work of an influencer legal?
There are some countries that consider the practice of any activity that generates material profit or free products and services, as a business with legal effects, so did the influencer obtain a license from the competent authorities in accordance with local laws and legal requirements regarding promotion and advertising within each country, in order to save yourself the trouble of judicial problems and lawsuits legal.
In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for example, the Ministry of Information regulates the work of influencers through controls and granting licenses
4. Budget
As we explained in the types of influencers, each category is characterized by costs that vary according to the number of followers and the personality of the influencer, and therefore if you have an open or large budget you can rely on mega or macro influencers, but if you are at the beginning of your project you should focus on micro influencers to save expenses while following the work methodology With many small influencers at the same time, giving you a golden opportunity to reach a renewed and diverse audience.
The importance of choosing the right influencer
Choosing the right influencer, and providing appropriate content , will avoid the failure of your campaign, similar to what happened two years ago in the Pepsi advertising campaign, in which it used the American model Kendall Jenner, who raised a lot of controversy on social media, and was subjected to a violent attack that ended with the withdrawal of the ad.
The advertising content revolves around a group of youth protests in the street, in which people of diverse identities and cultures participate, and then they are confronted by a group of police officers, and then “Kendall” appears to end the protest, and offers a Pepsi product to the officer, so the policeman calms down and the protest ends peacefully.
Activists around the world considered this ad a mockery of the “Black Lives Matter” movement, which protests against police racism against black people in America, and the image of Kendall Jenner with the officer is inspired by the famous image of activist “Lecia Evans” who stood in front of the police in the American protests.
“Pepsi” company apologized and withdrew the ad after only one day after its launch, and the value of its shares on the Wall Street Stock Exchange decreased after the offer.
On the contrary, DHL International Shipping Company was successful in choosing the star, Mohamed Salah, to be the hero of its advertising campaign, which was rated by social media pioneers as one of the most creative advertising campaigns.
What will be the return?
There are several ways to pay for the influencer’s services, including the commission in exchange for selling the product in exchange for the publication on his own accounts, and there are free samples that the influencer uses in exchange for advertising products or the one-share cost system, and here the amount of money is determined based on the number of shares, likes or comments on the publication, It is also possible to pay based on each click that the consumer makes on the links that the influencer places in the posts, and of course the payment method must be included in the contract.
Intellectual rights to the content
Who is the creator of the sponsored content, the advertiser or the influencer? Because this controls the form of the content, so if the influencer is the producer, you will not be able to control the content, the dates of its publication, or the duration of its stay on social networking sites, and you must obtain the permission of the influencer if you want to re-exploit the content, and therefore you must indicate in the agreement that it is necessary The influencer obtains your consent, prior to broadcasting the content, and offers you some flexibility in the use of sponsored content.
What is the expected mental image?
If the influencer is an ambassador for your brand, then you will certainly want him to appear in a certain way to your customers, what are the restrictions or conditions that you impose on him, for example, he is not associated with competing brands, and he does not engage in an activity that does not suit your target audience, and he may have to attend some events and events to promote for the company.
How to terminate the contract
It is always expected that things will go positively, but possibilities must be set for everything. If the influencer does not achieve the desired result, damages your product, or violates the terms of the contract, you must write down the legal position and the means of resolving the dispute by agreement.
Conclusion
Marketing strategies are constantly evolving with the emergence of new mechanisms and different technologies, so you must keep abreast of these developments constantly, and even search for them, to choose the appropriate ones, and the most effective for your product or service, and influencer marketing is one of the latest trends in marketing and the most effective, so be sure to choose the campaign appropriate, appropriate effect.
What are the best influencer marketing examples you have ever seen? Tell us about us in the comments below!
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