Content is often the key to your marketing strategy’s success. That doesn’t mean to say that just throwing up any old content will do the job. You need to be able to understand what will have the biggest impact on your demographic. Across the board, we know that video marketing is attractive for just about everybody right now.
On one hand, this helps to give us some direction. Businesses can use video to build their brands in ways consumers enjoy, not to mention that it’s both versatile and accessible to most types of companies. On the other, there are some distinct challenges involved with its planning and execution. Whatever way you swing it, producing regular, quality video content requires a significant investment of time, energy, and capital.
This is where influencers can be useful. We don’t mean you need to engage with the latest viral sensation and get them to plug your product. Leveraging influencers for your video marketing requires more nuance than that to be effective. Let’s explore how you can approach it.
The Right Influencers
Not all influencers are likely to be useful for your video marketing campaign. Indeed, opinions surrounding what actually constitutes an “influencer” have become increasingly muddy over the years. It’s important to remember that simply having thousands of followers on social media does not an effective influencer make, or indeed a good use of your investment. If you spend some time upfront exploring who influencers are and what they do, you have the opportunity to cultivate a more effective relationship.
That’s not to say that potential reach isn’t an important demographic, but as with almost everything else in content marketing, quality trumps quantity. When you’re reviewing potential influencers, consider both their reach and the credibility they hold with their followers in the context of your product area. A recent study found that 62% of people thought it was unethical for influencers to promote products that they didn’t personally use. You have to ensure followers trust their opinion enough to be directly influenced to enter your sales funnel.
You also need to confirm they can create the type of content that meets your goals. Review their previous posts. Have they had experience partnering with other brands on more than simply sales? Study their insights; are they also able to generate engagement on videos aimed at raising brand awareness, or improve followers on social media channels? Are they keeping on top of the current video marketing trends — interactive content, live streams, as well as vlogging? You’re investing in them as any other business asset, and they need to be able to show a return on investment accordingly.
Practical Considerations
Though they’ve been a part of the social media landscape for some time now, influencers can still feel like a new and unusual tool for any business that isn’t a big name brand. As such, there can be some hesitancy in using them, because the practical aspects are not always clear cut.
Here’s a couple of points to focus on:
Pricing
You’re likely going to be paying for individual posts, although a package deal is not unheard of. Still, pricing can be challenging because there is a lot of disparity — it’s often a seller’s market. This means that you have to set firm budgets and be prepared to negotiate. Don’t treat influencer marketing as sponsorship; the days of just trading posts for products are largely behind us. However, it’s always worth bearing in mind that brands and influencers can be mutually beneficial to one another, so consider how you can leverage your services to lower pricing.
Reporting
It’s a mistake to think that the casual nature of social media should be reflected in your influencer relationships. Treat this as either a business to business (B2B) sales transaction. Make your standards clear from the outset, and request full reporting on what has been provided, additional expenses outlaid, as well as the metrics for the posts. If you have agreed to their taking on additional staff to create videos, ensure that they engage in accurate time tracking of their freelancers. This allows you to keep a close eye on your ongoing budgets, ensures full transparency, and makes tax filing easier. These metrics are vital in confirming your return on investment.
Embracing Diversity
The success of any kind of social media marketing is dependent upon your ability to produce quality content with consistency. While it’s important to retain a sense of your brand voice and post regularly, that doesn’t mean to say that all your posts need to be the same. Diversifying your content is one of the primary best practices for keeping your audience engaged. You should therefore approach working with influencers in your video marketing with a focus on providing variety to your audience.
This begins with the influencers themselves. While it can be useful to cultivate relationships, don’t throw your lot in with a single provider. Look to connect with a range of different voices, from various backgrounds. Home in on those that fit your reach and other marketing needs, but also have a distinct voice. Diversity in influencers does not just ensure that you can connect with wider audiences, it is also key to innovation. Different perspectives can provide your videos with creativity that wouldn’t necessarily be explored with a monocultural approach.
Diversity isn’t just important in influencers themselves. There should also be a diversity of types of video, too. There’s no shortage of approaches — live event videos, expert interviews, and educational videos can all be effective. Give your demographic reasons to keep engaging with your brand and looking forward to the content that you produce.
Conclusion
Video marketing can be expensive and time-consuming — but it is effective. You can help alleviate these issues by working with influencers to produce content that is mutually beneficial to both of you. Spend some time to find the right influencers, take a practical approach, and aim for diversity of both creator and content.
About the Author
Adrian Johansen is a writer in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. She loves sharing information with others, learning along the way! You can find more of her writing on twitter and contently.
